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THE 


NINETEENTH 


.4    MONTHLY  REVIEW 


EDITED    BY    JAMES    KNOWLES 


VOL.  VII. 
JANUARY-JUNE    1880 


LONDON 
C.   KEGAN    PAUL    &    CO.,    1    PATERNOSTER    SQUARE 


of  translation  and  of  reproduction  are  reserved) 


CONTENTS    OF    VOL.    VII. 


PAGE 

RUSSIAN  NIHILISM.     By  Fritz  Cunli/e-Owen  .  .  .1 

GEORGE  CANNING  :  HIS  CHARACTER  AND  MOTIVES.     By  the  Eight  Hon. 

Viscount  Stratford  de  Eedcliffe    .  .  .  .  .27 

ATHLETICS  IN  PUBLIC  SCHOOLS.  By  the  Hon.  Edward  Lyttelton  .  43 
PKEDBA  AND  PHEDRE.  By  Lionel  Tennyson  .  .  .58 

PURCHASE  IN  THE  CHURCH.     By  John  Martineau       .  .  .78 

THE  ORIGIN  OF  SPECIES  AND  GENERA.  By  Alfred  E.  Wallace  .  93 
DR.  ABBOTT  AND  QUEEN  ELIZABETH.  By  James  Spcdding  .  .  107 

OLD-FASHIONED  GARDENING.  By  Mrs.  Paul  ....  128 
THE  CRIMINAL  CODE,  1879.  By  the  Hon.  Mr.  Justice  Stephen  .  136 
ATHEISTIC  METHODISM.  By  W.  H.  Mallock  ....  161 
WAR  CORRESPONDENTS  AND  THE  AUTHORITIES.  By  Archibald  Forbes  185 
THE  SITUATION  IN  AFGHANISTAN.  By  Major-General  Sir  Henry  C. 

Eawlinson    .  ...... 

->*  LORD  CHELMSFORD  AND  THE  ZULU  WAR.     By  Archibald  Forles 
THE  PRESENT  CONDITIONS  OF  ART.    By  G.  F.  Watts 
PAGANISM  IN  PARIS.     By  Pere  Hyacinthe 
AN  EYE-WITNESS  OF  JOHN  KEMBLE.     By  Theodore  Martin   . 
FREE  -LAND  AND  PEASANT  PROPRIETORSHIP.    By  Arthur  Arnold 
""RITUALISTS  AND  ANGLICANS.     By  the  Rev.  A.  F.  Northcote    . 
*  OUR  EGYPTIAN  PROTECTORATE.     By  Edward  Dicey    . 
ON  HISTORICAL  PSYCHOLOGY.     By  Henry  Sidgwick   . 
•*•  REASONS  FOR  DOUBT  IN  THE  CHURCH  OF  ROME:  a  Reply.     By  the 

Eight  Eev.  Monsignor  Capel        .....     361?K- 
—  FREE  TRADE,  RAILWAYS,  AND  THE  GROWTH  OF  COMMERCE.     By  the 

Eight  Hon.  W.  E.  Gladstone        .  .  .  .  .367 

ENGLAND  AS  A  NAVAL  POWER.  By  Sir  Eobert  Spencer  Eobinson  .  389 
THE  COMMON-SENSE  OF  HOME  RULE.  By  Justin  McCarthy  .  .  406 

SHAM  ADMIRATION  IN  LITERATURE.     By  James  Payn  .  .    422 

NEWSPAPER  CORRESPONDENTS  IN  THE  FIELD.  By  Viscount  Melguni  434 
THE  NEXT  REFORM  BILL.  By  Henry  Fawcett,  M.P.  .  .  443 

BURNS  AND  BERANGER.     By  Dr.  Charles  Mackay       .  .  .     464 

THE  PROPER  USE  OF  THE  CITY  CHURCHES.  By  C.  Kegan  Paid  .  486 
IRISH  LAND  AGITATION.  By  the  Knight  of  Kerry  .  .  .  493 

GOD  AND  NATURE.  By  the  Eight  Eev.  the  Lord  Bishop  of  Carlisle  .  503 
REASONS  FOR  DOUBT  IN  THE  CHURCH  OF  ROME  :  a  Rejoinder.  By 

the  Eight  Hon.  the  Earl  of  liedesdale      ....     516 


iv  CONTEXTS  OF   VOL.    VII. 

RECENT  SCIENCE  (Supervised  by  Professor  Hu.dvij}  ,            .            .  521 

-   RUSSIA  AND  ENGLAND.     By  the  Right  Hon.  W.  E.  Gladstone              .  538 
THE  DOCILITY  OP  AN  '  IMPERIAL  '  PARLIAMENT.     By  the  Right  Hon. 

Robert  Lowe         .......  557 

THE  COMMON-SENSE  OF  HOME  RULE  :  a  Reply,  by  E.  D.  J.  Wilson ; 

a  Rejoinder,  by  Justin  McCarthy             ....  567 

THE  DEEP  SEA  AND  ITS  CONTENTS.     By  Dr.  W.  B.  Carpenter .            .  593 
AGNOSTICISM  AND  WOMEN.     By  Mrs.  Lathbury          .            .            .  019 
»  ^   A  NONCONFORMIST'S  VIEW  OF  THE  ELECTION.     By  the  Rev.  J.  Guin- 
ness Rogers          .......  028 

DATS  IN  THE  WOODS.     By  the  Rigid  Hon.  the  Earl  ofDuwavcn       .  (538 
BRITISH  INTERESTS  IN  THE  EAST.     By  M.  E.  Grant  Duff      .            .  G58 
THE  PRESENT  CRISIS  AT  GUY'S  HOSPITAL.     By  Margaret  Lonsdale  .  677 
NATIVE  ARMIES  OF  INDIA.     By  Lieutenant-General  Sir  John  Adye     .  685 
RELIGION,  ACHAIAN  AND  SEMITIC.     By  the  R if/Jit  Hon.  W.  E.  Glad- 
stone       .            .            .            .             .             .             .             .  710 

IMPERIALISM  AND  SOCIALISM.     By  Frederic  Seeboltm  .            .            ,  72G 

DE  PROFUNDIS.     By  Alfred  Tennyson,  Poet-Laureate              .            .  737 

MARC-AURELE.     By  Ernest  Renan     .....  742 

ATHEISM  AND  THE  RIGHTS  OF  MAN.     By  W.  H.  Mattock      .            .  756 

MODERN  ENGLISH  LANDSCAPE  PAINTING.    By  Alfred  W.  Hunt          %  778 

PENAL  SERVITUDE.     By  the  Right  Hon.  Lord  Norton             .             .  795 
THE    CEREMONIAL    USE   OF   FLOWERS  :  a    Sequel.     By  Miss  Agnes 

Lambert.             .......  808 

THE  POUND  OF  FLESH.     By  Moncitre  D.  Conway      .            .            .  828 

AGNOSTICISM  AND  WOMEN  :  a  Reply.     By  Miss  J.  H.  Clapperton      .  840 

JOHN  DONNE.     By  William  Minto     .....  845 

THE  PINCH  OF  POVERTY.     By  James  Pay,/    .          '  .            .             .  864 

IRISH  ABSENTEEISM.     By  Henry  L.  Jephson  ....  871 

ON  THE  NURSING  CRISIS  AT  GUY'S  HOSPITAL.     By  Sir  Win.  Gull, 

Dr.  S.  0.  HabersJion,  and  Mr.  A.  G.  Henriques  .             .             .  884 

CONSERVATIVE  VIEW  OF  THE  ELECTIONS.     By  T.  E.  Kebbel           .  905 

ENGLAND  AND  RUSSIA  IN  ASIA.     By  Professor  A.  Vambcry   .             .  917 

ON  THE  METHOD  OF  ZADIG.     By  Professor  Huxley    .            .            .  929 

FIC~K  \ — FAIR  AND  FOUL.     By  John  RusMn             .             .             .  941 

SOME  INDIAN  SUGGESTIONS  FOR  INDIA.    By  Syed  Ameer  All .            .  963 
OUR  NATIONAL  ART   COLLECTIONS  AND   PROVINCIAL  ART  MUSEUMS. 

By  J.  C.  Robinson           ......  979 

FAMILIAR  CONVERSATIONS  ON  MODERN  ENGLAND.    No.  II.     By  Karl 

Hillebrand 995 

A  PROGRAMME  OF  REFORMS  FOR  TURKEY.    By  Edwin  Pears            .  1020 

LANDSCAPE  PAINTING.     By  Sir  Robert  Collier             .            .            .  1040 
-Vv  THE  CONSERVATIVE  PARTY  AND  THE  LATE  ELECTION  :  a  Sequel.     By 

T.  E.  Kebbel 1057 

THE  CRISIS  IN  INDIAN  FINANCE.    By  Samuel  Laing  .            .            .  1065 
THE  INDIAN  BUDGET  ESTIMATES.      By  Lieutenant-General   Richard 

Strachey  ........  1078 

DOCTORS  AND  NURSF.S.   By  Dr.  Octavius  Sim-yes,  Dr.  Seymour  SharJcey, 

and  Miss  Lonsdale  .             .             .             .             .             .  1089 


THE 

NINETEENTH 
CENTURY. 


No.  XXXV.— JANUARY  1880. 


RUSSIAN  NIHILISM. 

RATIONALISM  and  radicalism  exist  to  a  certain  extent  in  every 
country  of  Europe.  But  the  Social  Democrats  of  Germany  and 
Austria  and  the  Communists  of  France  and  Spain  turn  with  horror 
from  Russian  revolutionists,  who  consider  the  programme  of  the  Paris 
Commune  of  1871  condemnably  weak,  and  Felix  Pyat,  Cluseret,  and 
their  companions  as  little  better  than  Conservatives. 

The  Social  Democrats  and  even  the  Communists  of  the  rest  of 
Europe  have  in  view  aims  which,  no  matter  how  fantastic,  are 
always  of  a  sufficiently  denned  nature.  They  look  forward  to  an 
entirely  democratic  form  of  government,  and  hope  for  a  reorgani&k-1 
tion  of  the  social  world,  under  which  all  capital  and  property  would 
be  held  either  by  the  State  or  Commune  for  the  equal  benefit  of 
everybody.  They  are  levellers,  but  they  are  not  destroyers. 

The  revolutionary  party  in  Russia,  on  the  other  hand,  has  no 
definite  aims  of  reorganisation  or  improvement  in  view.  In  its 
sight,  everything  as  it  now  exists  is  rotten,  and  before  anything 
new  and  good  can  be  created,  all  existing  institutions  must  be 
utterly  destroyed.  Religion,  the  State,  the  family,  laws,  property, 
morality — all  are  equally  odious  and  must  be  rooted  out  and 
abolished. 

It  is  because  'nothing'  as  it  exists  at  present  finds  favour  in  their 
eyes  that  they  have  been  called  '  Nihilists.'     They  desire  to  break 
up   the   actual   social   organisation   into   mere  individualism,   with 
VOL.  VII.— No.  35.  B 


2  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY.  January 

entire  independence  for  each  separate  person.  They  maintain  that 
no  one  should  be  bound  by  laws  or  even  moral  obligations  of  any 
kind,  but  that  everybody  should  be  allowed  to  do  exactly  as  he 
pleases.  Their  object  is  anarchy  in  the  very  truest  sense  of  the 
•word.  They  are  only  modest  enough  to  decline  the  attempt  to 
create  a  new  order  of  things  in  the  place  of  what  they  propose  to 
destroy.  That  they  intend  to  leave  for  a  better  and  more  enlightened 
generation. 

Nihilism  cannot  be  better  described  than  by  the  Nihilists  them- 
selves in  their  speeches,  proclamations,  and  writings.  Here  is  a  speech 
made  in  1868,  at  Geneva,  by  the  father  of  Nihilism,  the  arch-con- 
spirator, Michael  Bakunin,  to  whose  history  we  shall  have  occasion 
to  refer  later  on. 

Brethren,  I  come  to  announce  unto  you  a  new  gospel,  which  must  penetrate  to 
the  very  ends  of  the  -world.  This  gospel  admits  of  no  half-measures  and  hesita- 
tions. The  old  world  must  be  destroyed,  and  replaced  by  a  new  one.  The  Lie 
must  he  stamped  out  and  give  way  to  Truth. 

It  is  our  mission  to  destroy  the  Lie ;  and,  to  effect  this,  we  must  begin  at  the 
very  commencement.  Now  the  beginning  of  all  those  lies  which  have  ground 
down  this  poor  world  in  slavery,  is  God.  For  many  hundred  years  monarchs  and 
priests  have  inoculated  the  hearts  and  minds  of  mankind  with  this  notion  of  a  God 
ruling  over  the  world.  They  have  also  invented  for  the  people  the  notion  of 
another  world,  in  which  their  God  is  to  punish  with  eternal  torture  those  who 
have  refused  to  obey  their  degrading  laws  here  on  earth.  This  God  is  nothing  but 
the  personification  of  absolute  tyranny,  and  has  been  invented  with  a  view  of  either 
frightening  or  alluring  nine- tenths  of  the  human  race  into  submission  to  the  re- 
maining tenth.  If  there  were  really  a  God,  surely  he  would  use  that  lightning 
which  he  holds  in  his  hand,  to  destroy  those  thrones,  to  the  steps  of  which  mankind 
is  chained.  He  would  assuredly  use  it  to  overthrow  those  altars,  where  the  truth 
is  hidden  by  clouds  of  lying  incense.  Tear  out  of  your  hearts  the  belief  in  the 
existence  of  God ;  for,  as  long  as  an  atom  of  that  silly  superstition  remains  in  your 
minds,  you  will  never  know  what  freedom  is. 

When  you  have  got  rid  of  the  belief  in  this  priest-begotten  God,  and  when, 
moreover,  you  are  convinced  that  your  existence,  and  that  of  the  surrounding 
world,  is  due  to  the  conglomeration  of  atoms,  in  accordance  with  the  laws  of  gravity 
and  attraction,  then,  and  then  only,  you  will  have  accomplished  the  first  step 
towards  liberty,  and  you  will  experience  less  difficulty  in  ridding  your  minds  of 
that  second  lie  which  tyranny  has  invented. 

The  first  lie  is  God.  The  second  lie  is  Right.  Might  invented  the  fiction  of 
Right  in  order  to  insure  and  strengthen  her  reign ;  that  Right  which  she  herself 
does  not  heed,  and  which  only  serves  as  a  barrier  against  any  attacks  which  may 
be  made  by  the  trembling  and  stupid  masses  of  mankind. 

Might,  my  friends,  forms  the  sole  groundwork  of  society.  Might  makes  and 
unmakes  laws,  and  that  might  should  be  in  the  hands  of  the  majority.  It  should 
be  in  the  possession  of  those  nine-tenths  of  the  human  race  whose  immense  power 
has  been  rendered  subservient  to  the  remaining  tenth  by  means  of  that  lying 
fiction  of  Right  before  which  you  are  accustomed  to  bow  your  heads  and  to  drop 
your  arms.  Once  penetn  ed  with  a  clear  conviction  of  your  own  might,  you  will 
be  able  to  destroy  this  mere  notion  of  Right. 

And  when  you  have  freed  your  minds  from  the  fear  of  a  God,  and  from  that 
childish  respect  for  the  fiction  of  Right,  then  all  the  remaining  chains  which  bind 
you,  and  which  are  called  science,  civilisation,  property,  marriage,  morality,  and 
justice,  will  snap  asunder  like  threads. 


1880.  RUSSIAN  NIHILISM.  3 

Let  your  own  happiness  be  your  only  law.  But  in  order  to  get  this  law  recog- 
nised, and  to  bring  about  the  proper  relations  which  should  exist  between  the 
majority  and  minority  of  mankind,  you  must  destroy  everything  which  exists  in 
the  shape  of  State  or  social  organisation.  So  educate  yourselves  and  your  children 
that,  when  the  great  moment  for  constituting  the  new  world  arrives,  your  eyes 
may  not  be  blinded  and  deceived  by  the  falsehoods  of  the  tyrants  of  throne  and 
altar. 

Our  first  work  must  be  destruction  and  annihilation  of  everything  as  it  now 
exists.  You  must  accustom  yourselves  to  destroy  everything,  the  good  with  the 
bad  ;  for  if  but  an  atom  of  this  old  world  remains,  the  new  will  never  be  created. 

According  to  the  priests'  fables,  in  days  of  old  a  deluge  destroyed  all  mankind, 
but  their  God  specially  saved  Noah  in  order  that  the  seeds  of  tyranny  and  falsehood 
might  be  perpetuated  in  the  new  world.  When  you  once  begin  your  work  of 
destruction,  and  when  the  floods  of  enslaved  masses  of  the  people  rise  and  engulf 
temples  and  palaces,  then  take  heed  that  no  ark  be  allowed  to  rescue  any  atom  of 
this  old  world  which  we  consecrate  to  destruction. 

In  another  of  his  speeches  delivered  at  Berne  in  December  1868 
he  says : — 

Your  beautiful  civilisation,  ye  gentlemen  of  the  West,  which  you  flout  in  the 
faces  of  us  barbarians  of  the  East,  is  based  on  the  compulsory  servitude  of  the 
immense  majority  of  the  human  race,  which  is  condemned  to  a  slavish  and  almost 
bestial  existence,  in  order  that  a  very  small  minority  may  be  able  to  live  in  luxury. 
This  monstrous  inequality  in  the  conditions  of  life  is  due  to  your  West-European 
system.  It  is  incapable  of  improvement,  for  it  is  the  necessary  consequence  of 
your  civilisation,  which  is  grounded  on  the  sharply-defined  separation  existing 
between  mental  and  manual  labour.  This  degrading  state  of  things  cannot  last 
much  longer,  for  the  manual  labourers  are  determined  to  look  after  their  own 
interests  in  future.  They  have  decided  that  in  future  there  shall  be  only  one  great 
class  instead  of  two ;  that  everybody  shall  have  equal  advantages  for  starting  in 
life ;  that  all  shall  enjoy  the  same  privileges  and  support,  the  same  means  of 
education  and  bringing  up  ;  finally,  that  every  one  shall  have  the  same  advantages 
from  his  labour,  not  in  consequence  of  any  law,  but  by  the  mere  nature  of  the 
work  which  will  permit  everybody  to  labour  with  his  brain  as  well  as  with  his 
hands. 

I  detest  Communism  ;  it  is  the  denial  of  freedom,  and  I  do  not  like  to  picture 
to  myself  any  human  being  without  freedom.  I  oppose  it  because  it  concentrates 
and  absorbs  all  the  forces  of  society,  and  because  it  places  all  property  and  capital 
in  the  hands  of  the  Commune  or  of  the  State.  In  demanding  the  abolition  of 
Commune  and  State,  I  also  wish  for  the  annulment  of  the  law  of  inheritance, 
Avhich  is  nothing  but  an  institution  brought  into  life  by  the  State,  and  a  consequence 
of  its  principles.  Give  all  children,  from  their  very  birth,  the  same  means  of 
support  and  education.  Then  grant  to  all  grown-up  people  the  same  social 
standing  and  the  same  means  of  supplying  their  wants  by  their  own  labour  and 
you  will  see  that  the  inequalities,  which  are  now  looked  upon  as  being  quite 
normal,  will  disappear,  for  they  are  merely  the  result  of  the  difference  made  in  the 
conditions  of  development.  You  can  even  improve  nature  by  destroying  the 
present  social  organisation.  For,  when  you  have  succeeded  in  niakin"-  everything 
and  everybody  equal,  when  you  have  equalised  all  the  conditions  of  development 
and  labour,  then  many  crimes,  miseries,  and  evils  will  dis^pear. 

•i 

After  proceeding  to  advocate  the  abolition  of  marriage,  which  he 
condemns  as  a  mere  political  and  religious  institution,  he  concludes 
by  saying : — 

B2 


4  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  January 

It  is  impossible  to  destroy  the  superstition  of  religion  by  means  of  arguments 
or  education.  Religion  is  not  only  an  aberration  of  the  brain,  but  also  a  protest  of 
human  nature  and  human  hearts  against  the  misery  and  narrowness  of  the  reality 
by  which  we  are  surrounded.  As  man  finds  nothing  in  this  world  but  injustice, 
stupidity,  and  misery,  he  allows  his  fantasies  to  beget  a  new  and  a  better  one. 
When,  however,  the  earth  again  receives  her  due,  namely,  happiness  and  fraternity, 
then  religion  will  have  lost  its  raison  d'etre.  We  need  but  a  social  revolution  to 
bring  about  its  disappearance. 

And  again : — 

Conscience  is  a  mere  matter  of  education.  A  Christian  living  in  Europe,  who 
has  murdered  anybody  with  cunning  and  premeditation,  -usually  experiences  a 
certain  kind  of  remorse.  But  a  Red  Indian,  who  is  every  bit  as  much  a  man  of 
flesh  and  blood,  rejoices  when  he  is  able  to  surprise  and  sky  a  defenceless  enemy. 
His  conscience  in  no  wise  suffers  from  the  act,  for  he  has  been  taught  from  earliest 
youth  that  the  more  scalps  he  possesses,  the  better  he  will  be  received  in  the  happy 
hunting-grounds  of  the  great  Manitou. 

The  speech  of  another  Nihilist  is  as  follows  : — 

Nothing,  in  the  present  state  of  social  organisation,  can  be  worth  much,  for  the 
simple  reason  that  our  ancestors  instituted  it.  If  we  are  still  obliged  to  confess  our- 
selves ignorant  of  the  exact  medium  between  good  and  evil,  how  could  our  ancestors, 
less  enlightened  than  we,  know  it  ?  A  German  philosopher  has  said  :  '  Every  law 
is  of  use.  It  rules  the  conduct  of  individuals  who  feel  for  one  another  and  ap- 
preciate their  respective  wants.  Every  religion,  on  the  other  hand,  is  useless ;  for, 
ruling,  as  it  does,  our  relations  with  an  incommensurable  and  indefinite  Being,  it 
can  only  be  the  result  of  a  great  terror,  or  else  of  a  fantastic  imagination.'  Now 
we  Nihilists  say,  No  law,  no  religion ^-Nihil !  The  very  men  who  instituted  these 
laws  ruling  their  fellow-creatures  have  lived  and  died  in  complete  ignorance  of  the 
value  of  their  own  acts,  and  without  knowing  in  the  least  how  they  had  accom- 
plished the  mission  traced  for  them  by  destiny  at  the  moment  of  their  birth.  Even 
taking  it  for  granted  that  our  ancestors  were  competent  to  order  the  acts  of  their 
fellow-creatures,  does  it  necessarily  follow  that  the  requirements  of  their  time  are 
similar  to  those  of  to-day  ?  Evidently  not.  Let  us,  then,  cast  off  this  garment  of 
law,  for  it  has  not  been  made  according  to  our  measure,  and  it  impedes  our  free 
movements.  Hither  with  the  axe,  and  let  us  demolish  everything.  Those  who 
come  after  us  will  know  how  to  rebuild  an  edifice  quite  as  solid  as  that  which  we 
now  feel  trembling  over  our  heads. 

In  another  speech  it  is  asserted  that  the  deeds  of  political  assassins 
and  incendiaries  are  not  the  offspring  of  any  sentiment  of  personal 
hatred  or  vengeance.  They  know  full  well  that  one  emperor  killed 
will  merely  be  succeeded  by  another,  who  in  his  turn  will  again 
nominate  the  chiefs  of  police  and  of  the  Third  Section.  Such 
deeds  are  justified  by  the  necessity  of  rooting  out  from  men's 
minds  the  habitual  respect  for  the  powers  that  be.  The  more  the 
attacks  on  the  Czar  and  his  officials  increase,  the  more  will  the  people 
get  to  understand  the  absurdity  of  the  veneration  with  which  they 
have  been  regarded  for  centuries. 

When  it  becomes  evident  that  a  person  cannot  be  more  severely  punished  for 
the  assassination  of  his  sovereign  than  for  the  murder  of  a  mere  comrade,  then  the 


1880.  RUSSIAN  NIHILISM.  5 

people  will  comprehend  that  it  is  quite  as  just  to  kill  a  man  guilty  of  the  abuse  of 
power,  as  to  execute  a  poor  beggar  who  has  been  tempted  by  hunger  to  commit 
murder.  Society  of  to-day,  gangrened  though  it  be,  has,  to  a  certain  extent,  un- 
derstood this,  for  Damiens-executions  are  things  of  the  past,  and  in  all  legislations 
regicide  is  now  assimilated  to  mere  homicide.  And  how  many  are  the  murders 
and  incendiarisms  now-a-days  which  remain  unpunished  !  Soon  we  shall  see  the 
authors  of  these  so-called  crimes  enjoying  the  greatest  consideration  amongst  us. 
The  old  world  will  have  had  its  time.  On  its  ruins  the  poor  and  oppressed  will 
take  each  other  by  the  hand,  and  the  true  disciples  of  Christ,  that  grand  Nihilist, 
will  smile  when  they  remember  the  parable  of  the  poor  man  in  Abraham's  bosom 
refusing  a  drop  of  water  to  the  rich  man  in  hell,  and  saying,  '  Thou  hast  had  thy 
time,  now  it  is  mine  ! ' 

Then  there  will  arise  a  new  generation,  generous-hearted  and  independent,  and 
all  mankind  will  be  happy ;  until  the  time  when,  like  the  fabulous  phoenix,  the 
spirit  of  evil  will  arise  again  from  the  ashes  of  the  old  world.  The  children  of  our 
children  will  be  forced  to  begin  our  work  anew  ;  but  the  evils  of  the  future  will  be 
of  a  less  monstrous  nature  than  those  which  we  now  deplore,  just  as  these  in  their 
turn  are  less  crying  and  odious  than  those  to  which  our  ancestors  were  subjected. 
And  thus,  from  struggle  to  struggle,  and  after  centuries  of  combat,  mankind  will 
finally  attain  perfection,  and  become  what  is  called  God.  To  arms,  then,  brethren, 
and  follow  me  to  the  conquest  of  the  Godhead. 

In  March  1876  several  Nihilist  proclamations  on  their  way  to 
Russia  were  seized  by  the  Prussian  authorities  at  Konigsberg. 
Paragraph  XVI.  of  one  of  the  documents  in  question  ran  thus : — 

You  should  only  allow  yourselves  to  be  influenced  (in  the  selection  of  your 
victims)  by  the  relative  use  which  the  Eevolution  would  derive  from  the  death  of 
any  particular  person.  In  the  foremost  rank  of  such  cases  stand  those  people  who  are 
most  dangerous  and  injurious  to  our  organisation,  and  whose  sudden  and  violent 
death  would  have  the  effect  of  terrifying  the  Government,  and  shaking  its  power 
by  robbing  it  of  energetic  and  intelligent  servants. 

§  XXIII.  The  only  revolution  which  can  remedy  the  ills  of  the  people  is  that 
which  will  tear  up  every  notion  of  government  by  its  very  roots,  and  which  will 
upset  all  ranks  of  the  Russian  Empire  with  all  their  traditions. 

§  XXIV,  Having  this  object  in  view,  the  Revolutionary  Committee  does  not 
propose  to  subject  the  people  to  any  directing  organisation.  The  future  order  of 
things  will  doubtless  originate  with  the  people  themselves ;  but  we  must  leave 
that  to  future  generations.  Our  mission  is  only  one  of  universal,  relentless,  and 
terror-striking  destruction. 

§  XXVI.  The  object  of  our  organisation  and  of  our  conspiracy  is  to  con- 
centrate all  the  forces  of  this  world  into  an  invincible  and  all-destroying  power. 

Amongst  the  papers  found  on  the  Nihilist  Lieutenant  Dubrowin, 
who  was  hanged  at  St.  Petersburg  in  May  last  for  his  association  with 
the  regicide  Solowjew,  were  two  letters  of  some  importance.  The 
first,  addressed  to  Nihilist  officers  in  the  Russian  army,  contains  the 
following  passage  : — 4  Our  battalions  are  numerically  so  weak,  and 
our  enemies,  on  the  other  hand,  are  so  mighty,  that  we  are  morally 
justified  in  making  use  of  all  attainable  methods  of  proceeding  which 
may  enable  us  to  carry  on  successfully  active  hostilities  wheresoever 
it  may  become  expedient.' 


6  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  January 

The  second  letter,  dated  December  1878,  is  addressed  to  Russian 
revolutionists,  and  is  '  as  follows  : — *  The  object  of  our  letter  is  to 
communicate  to  Russian  revolutionists  certain  experiences  which, 
according  to  our  ideas,  are  necessary  for  the  organisation  of  armed 
resistance  to  the  Bashi-Bazouks  of  the  police,  and  which,  moreover,  are 
indispensable  to  all  those  measures  which  social  revolutionists  must 
adopt  in  order  to  realise  the  ideas  of  the  revolution.  Unfortunately, 
the  Russian  Nihilists  have  not  the  revolutionary  experience  which 
the  Overthrow  party  of  other  more  favoured  countries  possess,'  &c. 

We  have  spoken  of  Bakunin  as  the  founder  of  this  doctrine  of 
Universal  Chaos ;  we  must  not  omit  to  speak  also  of  M.  Tschernys- 
-chewsky,  who  has  done  more  than  any  one  else  to  propagate  it 
in  Russia.  Formerly  editor  of  a  monthly  review  called  the  Sowre- 
mennik,  which  was  suppressed  in  1862  on  account  of  its  radical- 
ism, he  was  sentenced  in  1864  to  sixteen  years'  penal  servitude  in 
Siberia  for  having  propagated  revolutionary  doctrines.  This  he  had 
chiefly  effected  by  means  of  a  novel  which  he  had  written,  entitled 
*  What  is  to  be  done  ? '  and  which,  although  strictly  forbidden  in 
Russia,  has  been  printed  both  at  Berlin  and  in  Switzerland.  This 
book  has  been  described  as  being  not  only  the  Encyclopaedia,  the 
dictionary  of  Nihilism,  but  also  as  a  guide  to  the  practical  application 
of  the  new  doctrine.  In  its  characters  Nihilist  principles  are  personi- 
fied, and  examples  given  as  to  the  means  to  be  employed  for  their 
realisation.  We  are  shown  the  ideal  of  a  future  state  of  society, 
absolutely  free  from  all  law  and  control. 

The  aim  of  the  author,  as  stated  in  the  preface,  is  to  increase 
the  type  of  people  which  he  describes,  and  it  must  be  acknowledged 
that  his  teaching  seems  too  well  calculated  to  effect  his  object 
among  those  prepared  to  receive  it.  Twenty  or  even  sixteen  years 
ago  Nihilism  was  comparatively  rare  in  Russia,  whereas  to-day 
it  has  spread  throughout  the  empire.  Notwithstanding  that  the 
book  is  strictly  forbidden  in  Russia,  we  are  confidently  assured  that 
there  is  hardly  a  student  of  either  sex  at  the  universities  and  colleges, 
who  has  not  read,  and  almost  learnt  by  heart,  this  most  baneful  piece 
of  literature. 

The  first  Nihilist  with  whom  we  have  to  deal  in  the  novel  is  a 
poor  medical  student  of  the  name  of  Alexander  who  '  finds  it  cheaper 
to  get  drunk  than  to  eat  or  dress  himself  decently.'  In  illustration 
of  his  faithfulness  to  Nihilistic  principles  we  are  favoured  with  the 
particulars  of  an  intrigue  with  a  rich  danseuse,  which  lasted  a 
fortnight,  at  the  end  of  which  she  becomes  tired  of  him  and  turns 
him  out  of  the  house. 

We  next  find  him  giving  lessons  to  the  son  of  a  Government  clerk, 
who  manages  to  combine  the  business  of  a  pawnbroker  with  his 
official  functions.  Finding  that  the  pawnbroker  has  a  pretty 
daughter  of  rather  an  independent  character,  named  Vera,  he  first  of 


1880.  RUSSIAN  NIHILISM.  7 

all  converts  her  to  Nihilism  by  means  of  conversations  and  books,  and 
then  persuades  her  to  make  a  runaway  match  with  him  '  in  order  to 
escape  from  the  authority  of  her  parents.'  The  success  of  their  plans 
of  elopement  was  partly  due  to  the  friendly  services  of  a  Madame 
Julie  Letellier,  one  of  the  most  notorious  lionnes  of  St.  Petersburg, 
1  whose  language  was  such  that  it  caused  even  the  greatest  polls- 
sons  of  the  upper  classes  to  blush.'  At  a  breakfast  given  by  this 
lady  to  the  newly  married  couple,  both  the  hostess  and  her  two 
guests  drink  so  much  champagne  that  they  all  become  quite  tipsy. 
Julie,  remembering  that  Vera  was  now  a  married  woman,  judged  that 
it  was  no  longer  necessary  to  be  guarded  in  her  conversation,  and 
ended  by  enthusiastically  describing  orgies  in  the  most  licentious  of 
colours.  i  Suddenly  Julie  arose  from  the  table  and  pinched  Vera,  who 
quickly  rose  in  her  turn  and  pursued  her  friend  all  through  the  rooms, 
jumping  over  chairs  and  tables.'  Having  finally  succeeded  in  catch- 
ing Julie,  a  struggle  ensues,  which  ends  by  the  two  women  falling 
down  together  in  a  drunken  sleep  on  the  sofa,  whilst  Alexander  also 
falls  asleep  in  another  corner  of  the  room. 

A  month  or  two  later  Vera  takes  it  into  her  head  to  earn  her  own 
living ;  accordingly  she  sets  up  a  dressmaking  business  under  the 
immediate  patronage  of  Julie  and  her  friends.  Twenty  young 
needlewomen  belong  to  this  establishment,  which  is  conducted 
according  to  Nihilist  notions.  At  the  end  of  every  month  the  net 
profits  are  equally  divided  amongst  all  the  members,  Vera  merely 
taking  her  share  with  the  rest.  The  young  women  all  live  in  the 
same  house  and  take  their  meals  together  ;  in  this  manner  they  are 
able  to  economise  a  great  deal  by  buying  all  their  provisions  and 
necessaries  at  wholesale  prices.  They  appear  to  have  possessed 
everything  in  common  and  to  have  contented  themselves  with  little, 
for  M.  Tschernyschewsky  expressly  informs  us  that  the  twenty 
young  ladies  only  had  five  umbrellas  amongst  them.  The  financial 
success  of  the  undertaking  is  so  great  that  we  actually  find  the  girls 
at  a  loss  how  to  invest  their  earnings  profitably.  Taking  advantage, 
however,  of  Vera's  experience  in  the  matter,  they  use  their  money  to  set 
up  a  pawnbroker's  business  in  connection  with  the  dressmaking  esta- 
blishment. The  author  does  not  inform  us  whether  the  pawnbroking 
is  also  conducted  according  to  Nihilistic  principles. 

About  a  year  after  their  marriage  a  third  Nihilist  makes  his 
appearance  on  the  scene.  He  is  a  medical  student  named  Kirsanoff. 
We  are  informed  that  he  is  exceedingly  clever,  that  he  had  thoroughly 
mastered  the  French  language  by  reading  through  eight  times  a 
French  version  of  the  New  Testament,  '  a  well-known  book ; '  and 
finally  that  he  had  written  a  treatise  on  physiology  which  'even 
the  great  Claude  Bernard  of  Paris  had  alluded  to  in  terms  of  respect.' 
In  the  same  manner  as  Alexander  is  distinguished  for  perseverance, 
so  is  Kirsanoff  remarkable  for  his  kindness  of  heart,  of  which  the 


8  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  January 

following  instance  is  given  : — Having  fallen  in  love  with  a  grisette 
of  notoriously  drunken  habits,  he  allowed  her  to  come  and  live  with 
him  as  soon  as  she  had  earned  a  sufficient  sum  of  money  by  her 
vile  trade  to  pay  for  a  proper  outfit.  However,  drunkenness  and 
debauchery  bring  on  consumption,  and  she  dies  shortly  after  the 
marriage  of  Alexander  and  Vera. 

Before  proceeding  any  further  the  author  takes  great  pains  to 
assure  us  that  Vera,  Alexander,  and  Kirsanoff  are  persons  of  the  most 
irreproachable  and  elevated  character,  and  that  their  hearts  only  beat 
with  generous  impulses.  To  illustrate  this  he  goes  on  to  cause  Kir- 
sanoff to  fall  in  love  with  Vera,  who,  '  having  now  developed  into  a 
full-grown  woman,'  returns  Kirsanoff's  affection,  and  has  no  hesita- 
tion in  telling  her  husband  all  about  it.  The  latter  is  not  in  the 
least  offended  by  the  news.  Far  from  it !  No,  after  devoting  half 
an  hour  to  considering  the  matter,  he  goes  to  see  his  friend  Kirsanoff, 
informs  him  of  what  Vera  had  told  him,  and  ends  by  inviting  him  to 
come  and  live  with  them,  so  as  to  make  matters  quite  nice  and  com- 
fortable. We  are  not  to  feel  surprised  at  this  proposal,  for  Alexander  is 
one  of  those  people  who  consider  '  that  a  man  of  intellect  should  not 
allow  himself  to  be  subject  to  jealousy.  It  is  a  false,  unnatural,  and 
altogether  abominable  sentiment,  a  mere  phenomenon  of  the  present 
order  of  things,  according  to  which  I  ought  to  allow  nobody  to  wear 
my  linen  or  to  smoke  my  pipe.  It  is  the  unfortunate  result  of  a 
person's  considering  his  helpmate  in  the  light  of  private  ownership.' 
And  again,  apropos  of  the  same  subject,  '  Can  contraband  be  con- 
sidered as  a  good  thing  ?  Isn't  it  much  better  to  do  things  openly 
and  aboveboard  ?  In  trying  to  hide  matters  we  are  forced  to  make 
use  of  falsehoods  and  all  kinds  of  deceptions,  and  then,  and  then  only, 
we  become  bad.' 

However,  Kirsanoff  declines  Alexander's  invitation  on  the  ground 
that,  although  a  menage  a  trois  would  be  quite  in  accordance  with 
Nihilist  notions,  yet  that  people  in  general  were  still  too  old-fashioned 
and  conservative  in  their  prejudices  to  approve  of  such  a  proceeding. 
Vera  also  declines  the  proposed  arrangement.  But  we  must  not  do 
her  the  injustice  of  attributing  her  refusal  to  any  false  feelings  of 
womanly  shame.  She  distinctly  states  that  '  if  a  husband  continues 
to  live  with  his  wife,  there  can  be  no  cause  for  scandal,  no  matter 
what  her  relations  with  any  other  man  may  be.'  She  merely  refuses 
because,  being  under  obligations  to  Alexander  for  having  rendered 
her  independent  of  the  authority  of  her  parents,  his  continued  presence 
would  become  irksome  to  her.  Accordingly  Alexander  disappears, 
and  is  reported  to  have  committed  suicide  by  drowning.  On  the 
following  day,  however,  Vera  and  Kirsanoff  receive  a  letter  from  him, 
informing  them  that  under  cover  of  this  report  he  had  secretly  em- 
barked for  the  United  States.  Kirsanoff,  having  obtained  the  ne- 
cessary papers  certifying  his  friend's  death,  marries  Vera  a  fortnight 


1880.  RUSSIAN  NIHILISM.  9 

later.    They  live  happily,  and  carry  on  a  most  friendly  correspondence 
with  Alexander. 

Some  time  after  her  second  marriage  Vera  discards  dressmaking, 
and  begins  to  study  medicine  under  the  auspices  of  Kirsanoff,  who 
has  now  become  a  professor  of  it.  We  are  told  t-hat  she  showed  a 
special  predilection  for  the  study  of  anatomy,  and  the  author  warmly 
recommends  this  kind  of  occupation  to  his  lady  readers. 

Two  years  later  Alexander  returns  from  the  United  States  and 
settles  down  at  St.  Petersburg  under  the  assumed  name  of  Charles 
Belmont.  He  is  now  a  naturalised  American  subject,  and  the  agent 
of  a  great  New  York  tallow  company.  Making  the  acquaintance  of 
a  friend  of  Vera,  named  Katia,  he  converts  her  to  Nihilism,  and  con- 
fides to  her  his  true  history,  which,  however,  in  no  wise  shocks  her, 
for  she  readily  consents  to  become  his  wife.  A  few  days  before  their 
marriage  they  go  together  to  see  Kirsanoff  and  Vera,  and  the  meeting 
is  described  as  being  of  a  most  affectionate  nature.  Soon  afterwards 
the  soi-disant  Charles  Belmont  takes  his  wife  to  live  in  the  same 
house  with  the  Kirsanoffs,  with  whom  they  continue  on  terms  of  the 
warmest  friendship.  According  to  the  author  they  now  become  the 
centre  of  a  choice  and  intellectual  circle  of  friends.  The  entertain- 
ments which  take  place  at  their  house  are  minutely  described. 

Having  frequently  commended  the  elevated  characters  of  Vera, 
Alexander,  and  Kirsanoff,  M.  Tschernyschewsky  towards  the  end  of 
his  book  becomes  afraid  that  we  should  despair  of  ever  attaining 
a  similar  degree  of  excellence.  Accordingly  he  assures  us  that 
his  three  friends  are  the  most  ordinary  Nihilists  in  the  world,  and 
that  with  very  little  trouble  we  may  become  like  them.  In 
order  to  prove  the  truth  of  his  assertion  he  is  good  enough  to  in- 
troduce us,  before  leaving  him,  to  a  most  superior  kind  of  Nihilist, 
the  quintessence  of  the  new  doctrine  personified,  whose  name  is 
Rakhmetoff. 

Rakhmetoff,  we  are  told,  belongs  to  an  old  Boyard  family,  and 
is  very  wealthy.  At  the  age  of  sixteen  he  is  obliged  to  leave  home 
because  he  has  fallen  in  love  with  a  woman  to  whom  his  father  was 
attached,  so  he  comes  to  St.  Petersburg  to  study  at  the  University. 
He  soon  makes  the  acquaintance  of  some  students,  who  provide  him 
with  Nihilist  literature.  Thanks  partly  to  the  books  and  chiefly  to 
his  friendship  and  intimate  communion  with  M.  Tschernyschewsky 
himself,  Rakhmetoff  rapidly  attains  a  degree  of  Nihilistic  excellence 
which  it  is  useless  for  us  to  strive  to  equal.  He  now  reads  but  very 
few  books,  and  only  deigns  to  associate  with  men  who  are  known  to 
exercise  influence  on  their  fellow-creatures.  After  the  perusal  of 
three  or  four  pages  of  Macaulay's  works  he  throws  them  down  in 
disgust,  calling  them  a  mere  bundle  of  old  rags.  Nor  are  Stuart 
Mill,  Adam  Smith,  and  other  writers  on  political  economy  better 
treated  by  this  extraordinary  youth.  We  are  somewhat  relieved, 


10  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  January 

however,  to  learn  that  Thackeray's  Vanity  Fair  finds  favour  in  his 
sight. 

At  the  age  of  eighteen  he  deems  that  it  is  '  necessary '  that  he 
should  cultivate  his  physical  strength ;  for  what  reason  we  are  not 
informed.  Accordingly  he  declines  all  food  excepting  raw  beef-steaks 
and  apples ;  '  though  he  eats  oranges  when  at  St.  Petersburg  because 
the  lower  classes  of  that  city  also  eat  them.' 

Leaving  the  University  before  he  had  completed  his  studies,  he 
travels  through  the  country  as  a  common  labourer,  working  at  the 
anvil,  at  road-making,  wood-cutting,  and  all  other  work  calculated 
to  develope  the  muscles;  his  favourite  occupation  being  to  tow 
barges  up  the  river.  His  strength  soon  becomes  so  great  that  he  is 
able  to  stop  a  runaway  horse  and  carriage  by  merely  seizing  hold 
of  the  axletree  of  the  latter.  His  amusements  are  of  an  eccentric 
nature.  One  morning  he  is  found  lying  on  a  bed  composed  of 
inch-long  nails  pointed  upwards,  and  covered  with  blood.  In  reply 
to  inquiries  he  only  vouchsafes  to  state  that  it  is  necessary  that 
he  should  know  whether  he  could  support  pain.  A  little  later  he 
leaves  Eussia,  telling  his  friends  that  he  had  done  all  he  can  to 
propagate  the  new  doctrines  there,  and  that  now  it  is  necessary  that 
he  should  make  himself  acquainted  with  the  various  customs  and 
social  organisations  of  other  countries.  After  this  we  hear  no  more 
of  him. 

M.  Tschernyschewsky  concludes  by  regretting  that  there  are  but 
very  few  people  as  high-minded  as  Eakhmetoff,  and  says  that  he  has 
known  but  eight  persons  who  could  be  compared  to  him,  and  that  two 
of  these  were  women. 


II. 

To  Western  Europeans  it  is  almost  utterly  incomprehensible  how 
thousands  of  human  beings  can  entertain  such  notions  as  have  now 
been  quoted ;  and  above  all,  how  they  can  have  been  adopted  to  such 
an  extent  as  to  form  a  menace  to  the  Government. 

In  order  to  understand,  in  any  measure,  their  ready  acceptance 
in  Russia,  we  must  take  the  character  of  the  people  into  considera- 
tion. 

Their  most  prominent  features  are  superficiality  and  sensuality. 
The  Russian  is  the  obedient  servant  of  his  senses,  and  is  entirely 
governed  by  the  impressions  which  his  eyes  and  ears  convey  to  him. 
He  does  everything  on  the  impulse  of  the  moment ;  he  laughs  with 
the  merry,  weeps  with  the  sad,  becomes  as  kindly  and  generous  to 
misfortune  and  misery  when  they  are  brought  before  his  eyes,  as  he 
is  cold  and  indifferent  to  them  at  a  distance.  He  is  honest  with 


1880.  RUSSIAN  NIHILISM.  11 

the  honest,  but  readily  falls  into  the  ways  of  thieves  when  he  finds 
himself  in  their  company.  Credulous  and  full  of  fantasies  which 
rapidly  flame  up  and  are  just  as  quickly  extinguished,  all  the  qualities 
necessary  for  steadfastness  of  purpose  are  entirely  wanting  in  him. 
The  abstract  principles  of  right  and  wrong  but  feebly  influence  his 
actions.  On  the  other  hand  he  is  all  the  more  ready  to  pursue  the 
shadows  of  principles,  and  to  cling  to  any  theories  which  the  wind  of 
the  day  may  have  blown  across  his  path.  The  more  glittering,  the 
more  plausible,  the  more  unsubstantial  they  are,  the  more  likely  are 
they  to  carry  him  away.  Without  philosophical  profundity,  he  never- 
theless possesses  considerable  ingenuity  ;  hence  he  is  too  ready  to  be 
seduced  by  specious  arguments,  and  to  accept  the  logical  conclu- 
sions of  premisses  which  he  has  never  duly  examined. 

Another  fact  must  also  be  remarked.  The  Russians  have  no 
political  history.  Until  quite  recently  they  were  subject  to  an 
autocracy  which  repressed  any  expression  whatever  of  opinion  con- 
cerning the  Government.  All  power  was  concentrated  in  the  hands 
of  the  Czar,  and  administered  by  an  immense  bureaucracy.  The 
public  discussion  of  political  and  administrative  questions  was  for- 
bidden or  jealously  restricted.  Political  education  under  such  a 
condition  of  things  was  impossible.  Political  character  is  the  out- 
come of  political  strife  in  the  forum  and  in  the  press.  It  is  the 
political  life  of  a  nation  which  alone  can  furnish  the  individual  with 
political  character ;  and  there  is  no  such  life  in  Russia.  Until  the 
present  generation  there  was  no  regular  organisation  of  classes  in 
Russia ;  everybody  was  equally  subject  to  the  will  and  pleasure  of 
the  Czar. 

Having  therefore  no  political  experience,  the  Russian  people  were 
ill  prepared  for  the  reforms  which  ushered  in  the  comparatively  liberal 
era  of  the  present  Emperor's  reign.  In  quick  succession  serfdom 
was  abolished,  trial  by  jury  and  the  English  system  of  judicial 
proceedings  introduced,  provincial,  district,  and  municipal  assemblies 
instituted,  and  liberty  of  the  press  granted  in  Moscow  and  St. 
Petersburg. 

In  addition  to  all  these  things  the  construction  of  an  immense 
network  of  railways  opened  up  communication  with  foreign  countries, 
and  admitted  the  influx  of  the  political  ideas  of  Western  Europe. 
The  abolition  of  serfdom  introduced  the  principles  of  liberty  and 
legal  equality  ;  the  new  provincial,  district,  and  municipal  assem- 
blies introduced  those  of  self-government;  whilst  the  liberty  of 
the  press  carried  with  it  the  novel  right  of  protest,  in  the  name  of 
the  nation,  against  the  evils  and  oppressions  of  the  Government. 
The  more  enlightened  classes  suddenly  became  aware  of  the  immense 
power  of  the  people,  which  had  hitherto  lain  dormant.  But  un- 
fortunately, in  consequence  of  political  inexperience,  they  were  un- 
able to  give  it  a  proper  direction. 


12  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  January 

Again,  the  ill-considered  educational  changes  recently  introduced 
by  the  Government  have  had  portentous  effects.  A  Russian  youth, 
more  than  any  other,  requires  to  have  his  studies  regulated  for  him. 
Although  remarkable  for  intelligence  and  quickness  of  percep- 
tion, he  is  unfitted  for  serious  work  by  want  of  perseverance  and 
by  his  proneness  to  exaggeration.  Thus,  for  instance,  a  Russian 
boy,  on  having  the  astronomical  chart  explained  to  him,  will  perhaps 
ask  why  such  and  such  animals  had  been  selected  for  the  definition 
of  the  various  constellations.  Unless  an  energetic  hand  brings  him 
back  to  his  studies,  the  precocious  youth,  who  is  scarcely  able  to 
describe  three  constellations  correctly,  will  surprise  his  parents  and 
teachers  with  a  new  astronomical  chart  of  his  own  making,  entirely 
different  in  its  arrangement  from  that  in  his  atlas.  Instead  of 
repressing  this  conceit,  he  is  praised  for  his  cleverness,  and  the 
teachers  who  venture  to  doubt  his  genius  are  accused  of  being 
crotchety  and  narrow-minded.  Naturally  the  lad  who  imagines  that 
he  has  commenced  by  bettering  the  existing  astronomical  chart  is 
disinclined  to  apply  himself  to  the  dull  routine  of  mathematical 
study ;  conscious  of  his  own  genius,  he  considers  that  intuition  will 
enable  him  to  dispense  with  further  investigation.  And  so  it  is 
with  other  departments  of  study.  At  the  age  of  thirteen  he  will 
have  already  worked  out  a  constitution  for  Russia ;  at  fourteen 
he  will  have  written  an  essay  on  the  physiological  and  anatomical 
failings  of  the  human  body,  whilst  at  fifteen  he  will  have  invented  a 
new  religion.  What  we  should  punish  as  conceit  in  England  is  praised 
as  genius  in  Russia. 

The  knowledge  of  Latin  and  Greek  which  formerly  constituted  a 
sine  qua  non  of  all  university  and  Government-service  examinations, 
had  served  to  a  certain  extent  to  compel  proper  application  on  the 
part  of  the  Russian  youth ;  for  their  study  demands  downright  hard 
work  and  perseverance.  In  1862,  however,  Alexander  the  Second, 
desirous  of  maintaining  the  reputation  of  liberal-mindedness  which 
the  abolition  of  serfdom  had  earned  for  him,  caused  great  reforms  to 
be  made  in  the  Department  of  Public  Instruction.  The  law  limiting 
to  three  hundred  the  number  of  students  at  each  of  the  seven  univer- 
sities was  repealed,  and  the  colleges  and  gymnasiums  thrown  open  to 
all  classes.  The  numbers  at  the  St.  Petersburg  University  rose 
almost  immediately  to  twelve  hundred,  and  at  Moscow  to  fifteen 
hundred. 

M.  Golownine,  known  for  his  liberal  opinions,  succeeded  the 
obnoxious  Admiral  Poutjatine  as  Minister  of  Education,  and  at  once 
relaxed  all  the  severe  regulations  and  discipline  by  which  the  students 
had  previously  been  controlled.  Latin  and  Greek  were  declared  to 
be  no  longer  necessary  for  University  and  Government  examinations; 
and  in  their  stead  the  study  of  realism  and  abstract  science  was 
introduced.  Professorships  of  Natural  History  and  Philosophy,  which 


1880.  RUSSIAN  NIHILISM.  13 

until  then  had  been  badly  taught  by  insufficiently  instructed  priests, 
were  instituted.  In  imitation  of  the  German  universities,  student 
associations  and  clubs,  reading-rooms,  and  even  debating  unions,  were 
not  only  allowed,  but  even  encouraged  by  the  Government.  The 
discussion  of  politics,  until  then  strictly  forbidden,  was  now  openly 
carried  on,  and  the  consequence  was  that  the  students  began  to  devote 
much  more  of  their  time  to  the  events  of  the  day,  and  to  criticism  of 
the  acts  of  the  Government,  than  to  their  studies.  They  gradually 
became  accustomed  to  consider  themselves  as  '  the  coming  race ' 
destined  to  regenerate  Russia,  and  entitled  to  treat  with  contempt 
the  conservative  notions  of  their  parents  and  superiors. 

The  Government,  however,  soon  began  to  open  its  eyes  to  the 
fact  that  all  these  favours  and  privileges  had  been  dispensed  both  too 
suddenly  and  too  lavishly,  and  that  the  young  men  were  making  a 
bad  use  of  the  independence  which  they  had  obtained.  Some  very 
serious  disturbances  in  which  students  were  implicated,  and  Karasoff's 
attempt  on  the  Czar's  life,  brought  matters  to  a  climax ;  and  in 
1866  M.  Golownine  was  obliged  to  resign. 

Count  Tolstoy,  by  whom  he  was  succeeded,  and  who  still  remains 
in  office,  has  the  reputation  of  being  the  best-hated  man  in  Russia. 
We  are  assured  that  he  has  done  more  to  render  the  Government 
unpopular  than  any  official  now  living ;  and  the  following  letter 
which  he  received  last  year  from  the  Central  Committee  of  the 
Nihilists  goes  far  to  prove  the  truth  of  the  assertion.  '  Your  ex- 
cellency has  nothing  to  fear  from  us.  We  fully  acknowledge  the 
value  of  the  services  which  you  have  rendered  and  still  continue  to 
render  to  our  cause.  We  promise  that  your  life  shall  always  be  very 
precious  to  us.' 

His  first  act  on  entering  office  was  to  rule  that  Latin  and  Greek 
should  again  take  an  indispensable  place  in  the  university  and  civil 
service  examinations.  The  effect  of  this  order  can  hardly  be  imagined. 
Most  of  the  students  at  Russian  colleges  and  universities  are  the  sons 
of  small  Government  officials,  of  priests,  and  of  tradespeople  ;  and  it 
may  safely  be  asserted  that  at  least  four  out  of  five  of  them  are  so 
poor  that  they  are  allowed  to  pursue  their  studies  free  of  cost.  Their 
only  prospect  in  life  was,  and  still  is,  to  pass  the  necessary  examina- 
tions, and  then  to  be  admitted  to  the  lower  grades  of  the  Civil 
Service.  For  it  must  be  borne  in  mind,  that  in  Russia  the  Go- 
vernment service  is  the  only  career  which  allows  any  scope  for 
ambition.  In  other  countries,  commerce  and  industries  of  all  kinds 
offer  a  vast  field  of  enterprise  to  young  men.  But  in  Russia,  trade 
and  manufacture  are  but  little  developed,  and  agriculture,  which 
remains  in  the  hands  of  the  liberated  serfs,  constitutes  almost  the  sole 
industry  of  the  country  at  large.  Nor  do  the  learned  professions  offer 
any  great  advantages,  for  the  white  clergy  (as  the  priests  are  called,  to 
distinguish  them  from  the  black  clergy,  or  monks)  are  utterly 


14  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  January 

despised  in  Kussia,  and  in  fact  only  treated  a  little  better  than  the 
common  peasant ;  the  army  is  almost  entirely  reserved  to  the 
nobility,  and  trial  by  jury  and  freedom  of  discussion  in  courts  of 
justice  are  of  too  recent  introduction  and  too  little  appreciated,  to 
afford  much  scope  to  the  advocate  ;  whilst  a  literary  career  is  even 
less  remunerative  in  Kussia  than  elsewhere. 

Despairing  of  being  able  to  pass  the  necessary  examinations  in 
consequence  of  their  ignorance  of  classics,  many  of  the  students 
thought  it  best  to  leave  the  universities  and  colleges  at  once.  With- 
out means  of  existence,  without  position,  and  without  any  prospect  in 
life,  they  became  ready  converts  to  Nihilism,  the  ranks  of  which  were 
constantly  augmented,  not  only  by  students  who  had  failed  to  pass, 
but  also  by  those  who,  having  succeeded,  were  nevertheless  unable  to 
obtain  admittance  to  the  Civil  Service.  For  since  the  number  of 
the  students  at  the  various  universities  had  so  largely  increased,  the 
Grovernment  was  no  longer  able  to  provide  situations  for  all  the 
young  men  who  had  creditably  passed  their  examinations. 

Count  Tolstoy  rendered  himself  further  unpopular  to  the  students 
by  repealing  and  abolishing  many  of  the  privileges  which  had  been 
granted  by  his  predecessor  in  office.  Most  of  the  former  obnoxious 
regulations  were  restored.  Professors  and  students  were  again  forced 
to  wear  uniforms  and  subjected  to  military  discipline,  and  the  hated 
curators  were  reappointed.  These  curators  are  officials  who  represent 
the  Imperial  Grovernment  at  every  university,  and  are  for  the  most 
part  retired  generals  and  colonels.  Students,  professors,  and  even 
the  senate  and  the  rector,  are  all  alike  subject  to  their  orders  and 
frequently  to  their  eccentricities. 

Herzen  tells  us  of  a  Prince  Gralyzin,  who,  when  curator  of  the 
Moscow  University,  issued  an  order  that  whenever  any  one  of 
the  professors  should  be  prevented  by  sickness  from  teaching,  his 
colleagues  should  all  take  it  in  turn  to  lecture  in  his  stead,  no  matter 
what  their  speciality  might  be.  The  result  was,  that  on  one  oc- 
casion a  priest  who  taught  logic  was  called  upon  to  lecture  on 
obstetrics,  whilst  at  another  time  the  celebrated  accoucheur  Richter 
was  obliged  to  hold  forth  on  theology.  Another  pious  old  gentle- 
man, curator  of  the  Kazan  University,  ordered  that  detached  portions 
of  human  bodies,  which  had  been  used  for  the  study  of  anatomy, 
should  be  afterwards  solemnly  interred  with  funeral  rites.  The 
curators  strongly  disapprove  of  all  intimacy  between  the  students 
and  their  professors,  and  attach  much  more  importance  to  the 
political  ideas  of  the  latter  than  to  their  capacities  for  teaching. 
An  excellent  regulation  ordains  that  professors  of  universities  and 
Government  colleges  should  be  called  upon  to  retire  after  twenty- 
five  years'  service  on  a  full-pay  pension.  They  may,  however,  be 
re-elected  for  a  further  term  of  ten  years,  in  which  case  they  draw 
both  their  salary  and  their  pension.  This  regulation  has  always 


1880.  RUSSIAN  NIHILISM.  15 

been  held  out  as  a  great  inducement  to  men  of  talent  and  learn- 
ing ;  and  formerly  the  various  '  chairs '  were  creditably  filled. 
Now,  however,  the  curator  has  the  power  of  vetoing  their  re-election ; 
and  this,  together  with  the  strict  supervision  to  which  they  are  sub- 
jected, has  latterly  caused  a  scarcity  of  competent  professors. 

The  administration  of  the  educational  department  has  been 
accused,  with  some  justice,  of  being  more  anxious  to  propitiate  the 
Government  of  the  time  being,  than  for  the  welfare  of  the  youth 
committed  to  its  charge.  And  this  may  in  a  certain  measure 
account  for  the  otherwise  inexplicable  changes  which  are  of  so  fre- 
quent occurrence. 

On  one  day  privileges  are  withdrawn,  on   the   next  others  are 
granted ;  now  certain  studies  are  specially  favoured,  a  few  months 
subsequently  entirely  different   ones  will  have  the   preponderance. 
This  continual  uncertainty  and  change  has  a  most  discouraging  and 
irritating  effect  on  the  students.     Naturally  disinclined  to  serious 
study,  these  interruptions  both  confirm  and  excuse  their  natural  in- 
disposition to  serious  work,  and  it  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  if  they 
discuss  among  themselves  the  injustice  with  which  they  are  treated. 
Subjected  to  a  system  of  espionage,  there  is  a  risk  that  any  unfavour- 
able expression  of  opinion  concerning  Count  Tolstoy's  administration 
may  reach  his  ears,  in  which  case  it  will  probably  be  looked  upon  as 
treason  ;  and,  indeed,  apart  from  any  evidence  of  disaffection,  students 
are  frequently  expelled  and  even  exiled,  on  the  merest  suspicion  and 
without  any  hearing.     Thus,  for  instance,  a  student  at  the  St.  Peters- 
burg University,  named  Organoff,  was  suddenly  seized  by  night  in 
1876,  and  detained  for  over  two  years  in  a  distant  town  by  the  police, 
merely  because  he  had  had  the  misfortune  to  incur  the  displeasure  of 
his  superiors,  nor  was  he  ever  able  to  obtain  any  hearing,  or   even 
explanation  of  the  severe  treatment   to  which   he   had   been   sub- 
jected. 

The  Government,  on  the  other  hand,  consider  themselves  justified 
in  adopting  very  severe  and  even  harsh  measures  in  dealing  with 
these  institutions,  which  they  regard  as  the  very  hotbed  of  discontent. 
This  has  especially  been  the  case  since  the  trial  of  Netchaieff  and 
Solowjew  brought  to  light  the  fact,  that  at  least  three-quarters  of  the 
Nihilist  party  are  composed  of  graduates,  students,  and  young  men 
and  women  who,  for  one  reason  or  another,  have  been  unable  to 
complete  their  academical  career.  The  history  of  the  ex-student 
Solowjew,  who  attempted  to  assassinate  the  Czar  on  the  2nd  of  April 
last,  is  merely  that  of  most  Nihilists.  He  was  the  son  of  a  poor 
village  apothecary  on  one  of  the  estates  of  the  late  Grand  Duchess 
Helena.  After  spending  several  years  at  the  St.  Petersburg  gymna- 
sium, he  matriculated  at  the  university,  the  Grand  Duchess  very 
kindly  defraying  all  the  expenses  of  his  education  ;  but,  for  some 
reason  or  other,  he  was  obliged  to  leave  without  having  completed 


16  THE  NINETEENTH    CENTURY.  January 

his  studies,  and  consequently  experienced  great  difficulties  and 
delays  in  obtaining  a  situation  as  village  schoolmaster  at  Toropez. 
Whilst  there  he  became  a  convert  to  Nihilism,  and  was  dismissed  in 
1875  for  having  been  in  communication  with  suspected  persons.  In 
imitation  of  M.  Tschernyschewsky's  Kakhmetoff  he  now  devoted  his 
time  to  wandering  about  the  country  disguised  as  a  common  labourer, 
occasionally  working  at  the  anvil  and  propagating  revolutionary 
doctrines  among  the  people.  In  1876  he  married  a  young  woman  of 
the  name  of  Catherine  Tschelichteff  merely  in  order  to  render  her 
independent  of  her  parents'  authority.  They  separated  soon  after 
the  marriage,  and  Solowjew  continued  his  wanderings  under  an  as- 
sumed name  till  1878,  when  he  came  to  St.  Petersburg  and  took  up 
his  abode  there.  He  remained  busily  occupied  in  distributing 
Nihilist  proclamations,  pamphlets,  and  books,  until  April,  when  he 
made  his  attempt  to  assassinate  the  Czar.  It  may  be  added  as 
characteristic  of  this  Nihilist,  who  was  hanged  a  few  weeks  later,  that 
he  spent  the  night  preceding  his  crime  in  a  house  of  ill  fame. 

Before  proceeding  further  we  would  now  draw  the  reader's  attention 
to  the  history  of  Michael  Bakunin,  the  founder  of  the  doctrines  of 
Nihilism,  some  of  whose  speeches  we  have  quoted  in  the  early  part 
of  this  article. 

He  belonged  to  a  rich  Boyard  family,  favourably  known  both  at 
Court  and  in  the  army.  One  of  his  nearest  relations  is  at  the  present 
moment  an  aide-de-camp  General  of  the  Czar,  whilst  another  cousin 
occupied  until  quite  recently  the  post  of  Governor-General  of  Eastern 
Siberia. 

Born  in  1814,  Michael  Bakunin,  in  accordance  with  the  traditions 
of  his  family,  was  destined  for  a  military  career  in  the  Imperial 
Guard.  At  the  age  of  twenty  he  entered  the  School  of  Gunnery  at 
St.  Petersburg,  where,  however,  he  already  began  to  show  signs  of 
discontent  and  insubordination.  The  consequence  was,  that  although 
he  passed  an  excellent  examination,  he  was  refused  admittance  into 
the  Guards,  and  appointed  to  a  line  regiment  quartered  in  some  out- 
of-the-way  part  of  the  country.  In  order  to  fully  appreciate  the 
hardship  which  this  treatment  entailed,  we  must  explain  that  whilst 
the  Guards  are  stationed  at  St.  Petersburg  and  Moscow,  the  officers 
of  line  regiments  have  the  prospect  of  spending  their  whole  lives  in 
some  small  Eussian  village  or  provincial  town.  Thoroughly  dis- 
gusted, Bakunin  now  became  a  complete  misanthrope,  and  neglected 
his  military  duties  to  such  an  extent  that  he  was  obliged  to  leave 
the  army. 

Thus  he  found  himself  at  the  age  of  twenty-two  without  any 
occupation  or  prospect  in  life.  Taking  up  his  abode  in  Moscow,  he 
joined  Alexander  Herzen  and  several  other  well-known  Kussians  in 
forming  a  club  for  the  discussion  and  study  of  Hegel's  social  philo- 
sophy, which  was  then  in  vogue.  He  soon  became  the  acknowledged 


1880.  RUSSIAN  NIHILISM.  17 

chief  of  his  circle,  and  surpassed  all  his  friends  in  enthusiasm  for  this 
new  German  philosophy ;  in  fact  he  began  to  consider  that  it  was  his 
special  mission  to  propagate  its  teaching  in  Russia.  In  1841  he  went 
to  Berlin  in  order  to  pursue  his  philosophical  studies  at  their  very 
source.  Hegel  himself  was  already  dead,  but  his  tenets  still  enjoyed 
the  utmost  consideration. 

Bakunin  lived  here  for  a  time  with  the  celebrated  novelist  Ivan 
Tourgeneff ;  but  he  soon  frightened  all  his  Russian  friends  by  the 
wild  fanaticism  with  which  he  sought  to  adapt  Hegel's  theories  to 
everyday  life.  In  1843  we  find  him  at  Dresden  writing  the  most 
rabid  articles  for  a  Socialistic  review,  under  the  pseudonym  of  Jules 
Elizard.  A  year  later  he  went  to  Paris,  informing  his  friends  that 
there  was  nothing  more  to  learn  in  Germany. 

Paris  was  then  regarded  as  the  spot  whence  the  social  reorgani- 
sation of  the  world  would  originate  ;  and  Proudhon  and  Louis  Blanc 
were  then  at  their  height  of  influence.  The  Russian  Government, 
however,  which  had  begun  to  look  upon  Bakunin  with  suspicion,  now 
thought  fit  to  request  his  return  to  Russia,  and  refused  to  renew  his 
passports.  Disregarding  his  recall,  he  spent  the  next  five  years  of  his 
life  partly  in  France  and  partly  in  Switzerland,  dependent  to  a  certain 
extent  on  the  good-will  and  pleasure  of  the  police,  owing  to  his  being 
without  papers.  In  1847,  however,  he  was  formally  expelled  from 
French  territory  at  the  request  of  the  Emperor  Nicholas,  in  conse- 
quence of  his  having  made  a  speech  at  a  banquet  on  the  anniversary  of 
the  Warsaw  insurrection,  urging  the  overthrow  of  the  Czar's  Govern- 
ment, and  the  establishment  of  a  confederate  republic  in  its  place. 
Tracked  everywhere  and  constantly  watched  by  the  police  agents  of 
the  Russian  Government,  which  had  offered  a  reward  of  10,000  roubles 
for  his  capture,  he  was  forced  to  wander  about  from  one  place  to 
another,  until  the  Revolution  of  1848  rendered  his  return  to  Paris 
possible.  But  he  was  greatly  disappointed  when  the  Provisional 
Government  turned  a  deaf  ear  to  his  tempting  proposals  that  France 
should  take  the  lead  in  revolutionising  all  Europe ;  and  he  soon  re- 
ceived significant  hints  which  caused  him  to  leave  France  again 
towards  the  end  of  the  year. 

Proceeding  to  Prague  he  made  an  abortive  attempt  to  incite  the 
youth  of  that  city  to  revolt  against  the  Government.  Pursued  by 
the  Austrian  police,  he  escaped  to  Dresden,  where  he  arrived  just  in 
time  to  take  a  very  prominent  part  in  the  serious  disturbances  of 
1849.  The  insurgents  were  in  possession  of  the  city,  and  only 
surrendered  after  a  three  days'  siege  to  the  Prussian  and  Saxon 
regular  troops.  Bakunin,  whose  proposal  to  set  fire  to  the  city 
when  its  defence  was  no  longer  possible,  had  exasperated  even  the 
insurgents  against  him,  was  captured  on  the  10th  of  May  1849,  at  a 
short  distance  from  Chemnitz.  After  a  year's  imprisonment  he  was 
condemned  to  death  by  the  Saxon  court-martial.  However,  before 
VOL.  VII.— No.  35.  C 


18  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  January 

the  sentence  could  be  carried  into  effect,  the  Austrian  Government 
demanded,  and  obtained,  his  extradition.  Sentenced  to  death  a 
second  time  by  the  Austrian  judges  for  his  doings  at  Prague,  he  again 
escaped  the  penalty,  in  consequence  of  a  request  made  by  the  Emperor 
Nicholas  that  he  should  be  transferred  to  the  Russian  Government  for 
punishment.  From  1851  to  1856  he  remained  a  close  prisoner  in 
the  dungeons  of  the  St.  Peter  and  St.  Paul  fortress  at  St.  Petersburg. 

Owing  to  powerful  intercession  made  in  his  behalf,  Alexander,  on 
the  occasion  of  his  coronation,  commuted  his  punishment  to  banish- 
ment for  life  to  the  eastern  part  of  Siberia.  Being  nearly  related  to 
Count  Mouravieff,  the  Governor-General  of  the  province,  he  was 
treated  with  comparative  leniency,  and  even  allowed  a  certain  amount 
of  liberty  on  parole.  In  1861,  he  managed  to  escape  in  an  American 
trading  schooner  to  Yokohama,  whence  he  travelled  through  the 
United  States  to  England.  Here  he  was  received  with  open  arms  by 
his  former  friends,  Alexander  Herzen,  Ogareff,  and  the  little  Russian 
colony  of  political  refugees  established  in  London. 

Herzen  was  at  that  time  engaged  in  editing  a  Russian  newspaper 
called  the  Kolokol  (the  Bell)  directed  against  the  despotism  of  the 
Government.  The  illegitimate  son  of  a  Prince  Jakowleff  and  pos- 
sessing a  large  fortune,  he  was  at  all  times  much  more  moderate  in 
his  political  views  than  Bakunin,  whose  twelve  years  of  prison  had 
only  had  the  effect  of  developing  more  thoroughly  his  doctrine  of 
universal  chaos.  Herzen,  although  what  we  should  call  an  ultra- 
radical,  was  never  at  any  time  of  his  life  an  adherent  to  Nihilism. 
Notwithstanding  the  fact  that  his  paper  was  strictly  forbidden  in 
Russia,  it  was  extensively  read  and  appreciated  throughout  the 
Empire  until  the  time  of  Bakunin's  arrival  in  London.  The  co- 
operation of  the  latter  in  the  editorship  had  a  most  injurious  effect 
upon  it.  The  comparatively  moderate  views  which  it  had  until 
then  professed  were  discarded,  and  Nihilism  and  universal  anarchy 
preached  in  every  number.  In  consequence  it  speedily  lost  the 
consideration  and  influence  which  it  had  enjoyed.  After  taking 
a  prominent  part  in  the  organisation  of  the  Polish  insurrection 
of  1863,  Herzen  and  Bakunin  transferred  their  quarters  to  Geneva, 
where  the  Kolokol  shortly  afterwards  died  a  natural  death.  Soon 
after  their  arrival  in  Switzerland,  Bakunin  separated  from  his 
friend  Herzen  (who  died  in  1870,  leaving  behind  him  several  works 
of  much  interest,  which  are  being  published  by  his  son),  and  lost  no 
time  in  actively  interesting  himself  in  the  various  European  revolu- 
tionary organisations.  In  1867  we  find  him  not  only  a  prominent 
member  of  the  '  Internationale,'  but  also  on  the  permanent  committee 
of  the  '  League  of  Universal  -Peace '  in  Switzerland.  The  attempts 
which  he  made  to  convert  these  two  organisations  to  his  views  met 
with  but  little  success,  and  in  1868  he  was  formally  expelled  from 
both  associations.  Thereupon  he  founded  the  'Alliance  Internationale 


1880.  RUSSIAN  NIHILISM.  19 

de  la  Revolution  europeenne '  in  connection  with  the  Nihilist  party  in 
Kussia,  of  which  he  now  became  the  acknowledged  chief.  A  year 
later  we  find  him  in  personal  communication  with  the  notorious 
Netchaieff,  whom  he  ended  by  sending  back  to  Kussia  accredited  as 
the  emissary  of  the  chief  committee  of  the  Nihilists. 

In  1870,  after  the  fall  of  the  empire  in  France,  he  published  a 
pamphlet  entitled  L'Empire  Knouto-Germanique  et  la  revolution 
sotiale,  in  which  he  summons  the  proletarian  classes  of  all  Europe  to 
assist  France  in  bringing  about  a  social  revolution,  and  to  free  her 
from  the  Government  which  German  bayonets  had  imposed  on  her. 
It  also  advocates  the  dismissal  of  all  officials,  the  imprisonment  of  all 
landed  proprietors,  capitalists,  and  priests,  the  distribution  of  govern- 
ment and  private  property,  and  concludes  by  recommending  that  all 
Bonapartists  should  be  transported  for  life.  After  the  publication  of 
this  piece  of  literature,  he  betook  himself  to  Lyons,  hearing  that  the 
Commune  had  been  proclaimed  in  that  city.  He  arrived  there  on  the 
morning  of  the  20th  of  September,  and  after  having  been  most  warmly 
received  by  Cluseret,  Richard  and  other  Communists,  assisted  at  the 
storming  of  the  Hotel  de  Ville  by  the  insurgents. 

Twenty-four  hours  later  the  National  Guards  had  recaptured  the 
Hotel  de  Ville  and  dispersed  the  provisional  Government  established 
there.  Bakunin. himself  was  conducted  to  the  railway  station  and 
seated  in  a  train  which  brought  him  back  direct  to  Geneva.  The 
remaining  years  of  his  life  were  spent  between  Berne,  Zurich,  and 
Geneva,  and  actively  employed  in  directing  the  revolutionary  work 
in  Russia.  He  died  a  few  months  ago  at  Geneva,  and  has  been 
succeeded,  as  leader  of  the  Nihilist  party,  by  a  M.  Drogomonow,  who 
resides  in  the  same  city. 

Netchaieff,  whom  we  have  referred  to  in  connection  with  Bakunin, 
was  a  declasse  student  of  the  St.  Petersburg  University.  In  1869  he 
came  to  Geneva,  saw  Bakunin,  and  obtained  from  him  a  card  bearing 
the  following  mystic  words  : — '  Alliance  revolutionnaire  europeenne ; 
le  Comite  General,  12  mai,  1869.'  Armed  with  this  document,  he 
returned  to  St.  Petersburg  and  spent  the  next  four  years  in  compara- 
tive ease,  living  at  the  expense  of  others.  Russians  still  retain  much 
of  the  Asiatic  weakness  for  conspiracies,  and  Netchaieff  had  only  to 
show  the  card  in  order  to  be  received  with  the  utmost  enthusiasm  by 
students  and  the  discontented  youth  of  both  sexes,  who  regarded  him 
almost  in  the  light  of  a  supernatural  being,  and  were  ready  to  obey 
his  slightest  behest. 

He  greatly  impressed  them  by  frequently  talking  about  his 
'  secret  chief,'  and  succeeded  in  swindling  many  people  out  of  large 
sums  of  money,  which  he  demanded  in  the  name  of  the  revolutionary 
committee.  Whenever  there  was  the  slightest  hesitation  about 
complying  with  any  of  his  demands,  he  dropped  hints  about  the 
deadly  vengeance  of  the  committee.  In  1873  a  young  man  of  the 

0  2 


20  TEE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY.  January 

name  of  Ivanoff,  having  declined  to  submit  any  longer  to  his  extortions, 
and  threatened  to  betray  him  to  the  police,  Netchai'eff  stabbed  him 
in  the  back,  wounding  him  mortally.  Although  he  managed  to 
escape  to  Zurich,  the  Swiss  Government  made  no  difficulty  about 
surrendering  him  to  the  Kussian  authorities  as  a  common  murderer, 
and  in  1874  he  was  tried  with  closed  doors  at  Moscow.  In  con- 
sideration of  the  important  revelations  which  he  was  good  enough  to 
make,  his  sentence  was  commuted  to  penal  servitude  for  life  in  the 
mines  of  Siberia. 

According  to  a  preconcerted  arrangement  the  183  persons  im- 
plicated by  his  confessions  were  all  seized  on  the  same  day,  the  20th 
of  May,  1875.  They  consisted  chiefly  of  the  sons  and  daughters 
of  priests,  tradespeople,  Jews,  and  small  officials,  and  were  accused 
of  having  sought  to  propagate  Nihilism  amongst  the  lower  classes 
of  the  people.  Some  very  curious  facts  came  to  light  during 
the  trial.  One  of  the  accused,  a  girl  named  Idalia  Polheim, 
acknowledged  that  she  had  received  orders  from  the  central  com- 
mittee to  become  the  paramour  of  a  wealthy  old  landed  proprietor, 
and  then  to  poison  and  rob  him  of  his  riches  in  favour  of  the  cause. 
On  another  occasion  the  same  girl  had  been  instructed  by  the 
committee  to  become  the  mistress  of  a  certain  Larinoff,  who  had 
threatened  to  desert  the  revolutionary  party.  A.  student  of  the 
name  of  Ituschin  also  confessed  that  a  boy  at  Moscow  had  been 
persuaded  to  murder  and  rob  his  own  father,  and  to  hand  over  the 
plunder  to  the  committee.  Some  astonishment  has  been  expressed 
at  the  large  number  of  young  girls  implicated  in  all  these  Nihilist 
conspiracies,  who  seek  to  emulate  the  conduct  of  M.  Tschernyschew- 
sky's  Vera.  We  would,  however,  remark  that  in  Kussia,  as  elsewhere, 
women  are  apt  to  rush  to  extremes  in  politics  as  well  as  in  religion ; 
with  them  the  heart  is  stronger  than  the  head. 

It  is  greatly  to  be  regretted  that  this  monster  trial,  which  lasted 
over  eighteen  months,  should  have  taken  place  with  open  doors,  for 
the  conduct  of  the  judges  who  presided  was  so  weak,  and  even 
unseemly,  that  the  dignity  of  the  court  must  have  suffered  in  the 
eyes  of  the  auditors. 

The  most  extraordinary  scenes  were  of  daily  occurrence.  The 
accused  were  not  only  allowed  to  address  the  court,  but  even  to 
preach  the  most  rampant  Nihilism  from  the  prisoners'  dock.  The 
lawyers  for  the  defence  not  only  seized  every  opportunity  to  vituper- 
ate the  Government,  and  to  hold  up  the  accused  as  martyrs  to 
its  despotism,  but  also  to  excite  the  popular  feeling  against  the 
gendarmerie  and  police,  who  after  all  had  only  obeyed  orders  in 
arresting  the  prisoners.  On  one  occasion  some  of  the  counsel  were 
even  allowed  to  go  so  far  as  to  insist  on  the  withdrawal  of  an  officer 
of  the  gendarmerie  from  the  court,  on  the  ground  that  the  sight  *  of 
his  hated  uniform  excited  the  public.'  The  proceedings  were  not 


1880.  RUSSIAN  NIHILISM.  21 

terminated  until  the  month  of  December  1877,  when  ninety-nine  of 
the  accused  were  sentenced  to  penal  servitude  in  Siberia,  thirty-six 
subjected  to  police  supervision  for  a  certain  number  of  years,  and  the 
remainder  acquitted. 

This  great  trial  was  scarcely  over,  when  the  Government  was 
dismayed  by  the  attempted  assassination  of  General  Trepoff,  the 
chief  of  that  Third  Section  of  the  Imperial  Chancellerie  which  has  the 
control  of  the  Gendarmerie  of  the  Empire.     On  the  5th  of  Febuary 
1878  he  was  shot  down  in  the  streets  of  St.  Petersburg  by  a  young 
woman,  formerly  a  medical  student,  and  named  Vera  Sassoulitch. 
In  consequence  of  her  acquaintance  with  Netchai'eff  she  had  been 
subjected  to  a  constant  supervision  by  the  police,  and  goaded  almost 
to  desperation  by  their  persecutions.     The  '  Committee '  had,  there- 
fore, but  little  difficulty  in  persuading  her  to   avenge  a  flogging 
which  Bogobjuloff,  a  Nihilist,  had  been  subjected  to  for  some  infrac- 
tion of  prison  discipline.     It  should  be  added  that  Bogobjuloff  was  a 
perfect  stranger  to' her,  and  that  she  had  never  even  seen  him.     The 
Government  was  advised  not  to  treat  her  as  a  political  offender,  but 
rather  as  an  ordinary  criminal,  and  to  have  her  case  decided  by  a  jury. 
Her  trial,  which  took  place  at  St.  Petersburg,  caused  an  immense 
sensation   throughout    Eussia.     Here   again   the    presiding    judges 
behaved  in  a  most  unaccountable  manner,  and  allowed  the  proceed- 
ings to  be  carried  on  as  if  General  Trepoff  were  the  accused  and  Vera 
Sassoulitch  the  injured  party.     The  consequence  was  that  the  jury 
brought  in  a  verdict  acquitting  the  prisoner  of  a  crime  to  which  she 
herself  had  pleaded  guilty,  and  the  judges  directed  that  she  should 
be  set  at  liberty.     The  verdict  was  received  with  the  most  frantic  ap- 
plause, not  only  by  the  persons  present  in  the  court,  but  also  by  a  large 
crowd  of  students  and  others  who  filled  the  street.     One  young  student 
present  appears  to  have  completely  lost  his  head  on  receiving  the 
news.     Drawing   a   revolver   from  his  pocket,  he  suddenly   fired  a 
first  shot  at  a  policeman,  with  a   second  he  seriously  wounded  a  poor 
woman  who  was  standing  next  to  him,  whilst  with  a  third  he  blew  his 
own  brains  out.     Vera  Sassoulitch  managed  to  escape  from  the  super- 
vision of  the  police  officials  of  the  Third  Section,  and  is  at  the  present 
moment  living  near  Geneva. 

The  baneful  effects  of  her  trial  soon  became  perceptible — political 
assassinations  grew  to  be  quite  the  fashion.  On  the  17th  of  August 
•of  the  same  year  General  Menzentsoff,  who  had  succeeded  General 
Trepoff  as  chief  of  the  Third  Section,  was  shot  in  the  streets  of  St. 
Petersburg  by  a  young  man  who  managed  to  effect  his  escape. 
Baron  Heyking,  commanding  the  gendarmerie  at  Kieff,  and  Prince 
Krapotkin,  the  Governor  of  Charkoff,  were  also  murdered  in  the  course 
of  the  summer.  General  Drenteln,  who  had  undertaken  the  direction 
of  the  Third  Section  after  the  assassination  of  General  Menzentsoff, 
was  shot  in  the  early  part  of  the  present  year,  and  matters  have  cul- 


22  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  January 

minated  in  the  recent  attempt  to  murder  the  Czar  with  which  the 
world  is  even  now  ringing.  Of  late,  however,  the  Nihilists  appear  to 
have  changed  their  tactics  to  some  extent,  and  to  have  adopted  the 
famous  prescription  of  Hippocrates,  according  to  which,  when  medi- 
cines and  the  knife  are  powerless  to  heal,  fire  should  be  tried 
('  Quod  medicamina  et  ferrum  non  sanant,  ignis  sanat').  Arson 
has  become  the  order  of  the  day,  and  conflagrations  have  increased  to 
an  enormous  extent.  During  the  month  of  last  June  alone  3,500  fires 
broke  out  in  St.  Petersburg,  Orenburg,  Koslow,  Irkutsk,  and  Uralsk, 
destroying  property  to  the  amount  of  12,000,000  roubles  ;  only  900 
of  these  fires  could  be  properly  accounted  for,  the  remaining  2,600 
being  attributed  to  Nihilistic  incendiaries.  There  is  no  doubt  but 
that  the  committee  has  considerable  funds  at  its  disposal.  Agencies 
are  maintained  at  Berlin,  Paris,  and  London,  where  travelling 
Nihilists  are  fraternally  received  and  provided  with  money  and  the 
necessaries  of  life.  However,  when  their  resources  are  too  heavily 
taxed,  they  have  no  hesitation  about  levying  blackmail.  Thus,  for 
instance,  during  the  past  summer,  two  wealthy  St.  Petersburg 
.  merchants  received  anonymous  letters  from  the  committee  requesting 
sums  of  20,000  and  30,000  roubles  respectively,  and  threatening 
them  with  a  violent  death  in  case  of  refusal.  The  merchants  in 
question  lost  no  time  in  complying  with  the  demands  made  upon 
their  purses,  and  when  blamed  for  not  having  sought  the  protection 
of  the  Grovernment,  replied  with  some  justice,  '  If  the  chief  of  the 
police  is  unable  to  protect  his  own  person  from  attacks,  how  can  we 
possibly  expect  efficient  protection  ?  ' 

The  attempt  on  the  Emperor's  life  in  April  last  caused  such  con- 
sternation that  the  Grovernment  thought  it  necessary  to  proclaim 
martial  law  in  the  greater  part  of  European  Russia.  Six  military 
Governor-Grenerals  have  been  appointed  with  the  fullest  powers  to 
suspend,  when  they  think  it  expedient,  any  of  the  ordinary  police  and 
judicial  proceedings.  Nihilists  are  now  tried  by  courts-martial,  which 
are  conducted  in  a  more  dignified  and  expeditious  manner  than  the 
civil  tribunals. 

Whilst  referring  to  the  latter,  we  would  avail  ourselves  of  the 
opportunity  to  offer  a  word  of  explanation  concerning  the  astonish- 
ing conduct  of  the  judges,  to  which  we  have  referred  above.  When 
trial  by  jury  and  the  West-European  mode  of  judicial  proceed- 
ings were  first  adopted  in  Eussia  in  the  year  1865,  great  fear  was 
expressed  as  to  the  difficulty  which  there  would  be  in  obtaining 
judges  sufficiently  independent  of  any  influence  on  the  part  of  the 
Grovernment  and  the  aristocracy  to  administer  justice  equitably. 
The  new  judges,  who  were  not  chosen  from  the  highest  social  grades, 
accordingly  imagined  that  it  was  their  duty  to  give  both  to  the 
Grovernment  and  to  the  aristocracy  every  proof  of  their  independence, 
and,  in  fact,  rather  overdid  the  matter.  Whenever  the  lower  classes 


1880.  RUSSIAN  NIHILISM.  23 

came  into  conflict  with  either  the  aristocracy  or  the  Government,  the 
judges  invariably  decided  in  favour  of  the  former,  no  matter  how  un- 
justly. Little  by  little  they  grew  accustomed  to  look  upon  themselves 
as  the  representatives  of  the  people,  and  as  their  protectors  against 
the  oppressions  of  the  Government.  It  is,  indeed,  difficult  to  under- 
stand how  the  Eussian  Government  can  ever  have  hoped  that  men  of 
real  talent  and  conscience  would  consent  to  take  any  part  in  so 
half-hearted  a  concern  as  the  new  judicial  system  in  Russia.  On  the 
one  hand  we  have  the  open  Courts  of  Justice  with  their  juries  and 
freedom  of  discussion,  whilst  on  the  other  we  find  the  notorious  Third 
Section  of  the  Imperial  Chancellerie  with  its  army  of  gendarmes,  and 
with  its  power  without  trial  to  imprison,  and  to  punish  with  penal 
servitude  or  exile  to  Siberia,  at  its  pleasure.  The  newly-instituted 
judicial  system  is  comparatively  useless,  since  even  when  the  judge 
and  jury  acquit  an  offender,  he  is  liable  to  be  immediately  seized  and 
punished  by  the  Section  for  state  reasons. 

With  the  exception  of  the  emancipation  of  the  serfs,  almost  all  of 
the  well-intentioned  reforms  of  Alexander  the  Second  have  been 
nullified  by  the  action  of  this  Third  Section,  the  chief  of  which  has 
often  been  nicknamed  the  *  Vice-Emperor.'  For  instance,  the 
municipal  district  and  provincial  assemblies  are  powerless  to  adopt 
any  measure  until  they  have  obtained  not  only  the  approval  of  the 
Minister  of  the  Interior  and  of  the  Governor  of  the  province,  but 
also  the  consent  of  the  commandant  of  the  gendarmerie  of  the  place 
who  represents  the  Third  Section.  It  is  deeply  to  be  regretted  that 
when  the  Czar  determined  to  institute  these  municipal  district  and 
provincial  assemblies,  he  did  not  go  one  step  farther  and  institute  a 
national  assembly ;  a  House  of  Representatives  chosen  by  the  nation 
is  the  only  possible  remedy  in  the  present  state  of  things.  By  his 
somewhat  too  hasty  reforms  in  the  early  part  of  his  reign,  the 
Emperor  gave  his  people  a  taste  of  liberty,  and  allowed  them  to 
acquire  a  taste  for  self-government,  until  then  unknown  in  Russia. 
They  now  demand  that  this  concession  should  be  more  fully  developed. 
There  are  at  the  present  moment  many  loyal  and  devoted  subjects  of 
the  Czar,  who  would  be  horrified  at  the  bare  idea  of  becoming 
Nihilists  themselves,  and  who  yet  regard  the  proceedings  of  these 
destructives  with  a  certain  degree  of  complacency,  hoping  that  it  will 
force  the  Government  to  concede  that  which  even  the  Mikado  of 
Japan  has  granted  to  his  people — namely,  a  Constitution.  A  parliament 
controlling  the  national  expenditure,  protecting  individual  liberty, 
and  demanding  of  the  Third  Section  an  account  of  its  actions,  would 
not  only  have  the  effect  of  restoring  the  financial  credit  of  Russia,  but 
would,  by  admitting  the  people  to  a  share  of  the  sovereignty,  rally 
to  the  side  of  the  Government — many  excellent  and  liberal-minded 
men  who  are  increasingly  dissatisfied  with  the  present  state  of 
affairs. 


24  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  January 

Nihilism  deprived  of  the  larger  portion  of  its  raison  d'etre — 
namely,  stifled  discontent — would  quickly  lose  the  most  capable 
of  its  adherents,  and  would  probably  prove  as  fleeting  and  unstable  as 
are  most  of  the  impulses  and  ideas  of  the  Kussian  mind. 

FRITZ    CUNLIFFE-OWEN. 


POSTSCRIPT. 

It  may  be  of  some  interest  to  subjoin  a  literal  translation  from 
the  principal  article  in  the  last  number  of  a  Nihilist  paper  (Narodnia 
Volya,  the  Will  of  the  People],  which  is  published  in  Eussian  at  St. 
Petersburg  by  means  of  secret  presses. 

ON  WHICH   SIDE  IS   HORAUTY  ? 

The  Russian  Press  is  bent  almost  double  by  the  Imperial  Government.  Not- 
withstanding its  disagreeable  position,  it  does  its  utmost  to  curry  favour  of  its 
oppressors.  Whenever  thefts,  murders,  or  incendiarisms  take  place  in  Russia,  the 
Press  invariably  attributes  them  to  the  Nihilists.  There  is  an  old  proverb  which 
says :  '  Slander,  slander  :  some  result  will  always  be  obtained.'  Judging  from  the 
tone  of  the  Press,  some  result  has  been  obtained.  According  to  its  statements,  the 
Nihilists  are  little  better  than  wild  beasts.  We  do  not  venture  to  assert  that 
there  are  no  bad  men  in  our  ranks  ;  but  are  yours  entirely  free  from  them  ?  The 
number  of  bad  persons  amongst  the  Nihilists  is  so  very  small  that  we  need  hardly 
enumerate  them. 

Since  1862,  over  17,000  persons  have  been  exiled  to  Siberia  for  political 
offences. 

You  accuse  us  of  adopting  means  of  action  which  are  unjustifiable  in  every 
way.  But  what  can  we  do  ?  We  are  reduced  to  silence.  We  only  adopt  ques- 
tionable means  of  action  very  rarely,  and  then  only  in  self-defence  ;  whereas  you 
use  them  daily. 

The  money  obtained  from  private  individuals  by  means  of  theft  and  blackmail, 
has  not  been  levied  by  order  of  the  '  Committee,'  but  by  certain  unscrupulous 
Nihilists  acting  on  their  own  behalf.  However,  we  are  all  the  more  ready  to 
admit  that  such  things  have  been  done,  when  we  remember  that  only  five  such 
cases  are  known  to  have  taken  place. 

Do  you  accuse  us  of  being  murderers,  because  of  our  attempts  to  take  the  life 
of  His  Most  Sacred  Majesty  ?  Why,  we  would  most  gladly  accomplish  his  des- 
truction, and  he  has  only  escaped  until  now  in  consequence  of  the  many  cowards  in 
our  ranks !  It  has  been  stated  that  Solowjew's  attempt  in  April  last  has  disturbed 
the  rest  and  peace  of  mind  of  many  harmless  and  respectable  citizens.  Some  of  the 
Liberal  papers  even  go  so  far  as  to  say  that  it  will  have  the  effect  of  producing  a 
reaction  in  favour  of  the  Government.  Why,  what  idle  and  stupid  talk !  These 
good  newspaper  proprietors,  who  love  their  ease  and  their  books,  must  have  been 
asleep  not  to  have  perceived  that  the  reaction  began  sixteen  years  ago,  not  in 
favour  of  the  Government,  but  against  it. 

We  are  quite  persuaded  that  if  Solowjew's  attempt  had  succeeded,  everybody 
would  talk  in  a  very  different  manner ;  even  the  slaves  and  asses  who  surround 
the  throne  would  have  rejoiced. 

It  is  very  clear  that  Russia  can't  remain  in  her  present  state  much  longer.  The 
people  become  daily  more  impoverished,  and  are  sinking  into  a  very  abyss  of 
proletarism,  whence  they  will  never  be  able  to  rise  again.  The  avaricious  and 
hard-hearted  '  bourgeoisie  '  daily  increases  in  numbers,  and  begins  to  raise  its  cruel 


1880.  RUSSIAN  NIHILISM.  25 

head.  The  standard  of  public  morality  in  Russia  has  already  sunk  so  low  that  we 
tremble  for  the  future  of  our  country.  Bribery  is  common  throughout  the  Govern- 
ment service,  and  has  even  found  its  way  into  the  Senate.  The  National  Treasury 
is  robbed,  and  national  property  is  distributed  right  and  left  to  the  unworthy 
favourites  of  the  Government.  Embezzlement  is  the  order  of  the  day,  both  in  the 
Government  banks  and  in  the  army  commissariat  department,  and  the  poor 
soldiers  are  robbed  in  the  most  shameful  manner.  We  would  remind  our  readers 
of  the  case  of  Mother  Mitrofania,  formerly  a  lady  of  honour  of  the  Empress,  and 
latterly  the  superior  of  a  convent,  who  was  convicted  of  wholesale  forgeiy  in  1877 
(she  was  exiled  to  Siberia,  and  now  lives  in  a  pretty  villa  on  the  western  frontier 
of  Siberia).  Also  of  that  of  Ovsianikow,  who  was  convicted  of  embezzling  over 
2,000,000  roubles  of  Government  money  in  1876,  and  who  now  lives  in  ease  and 
luxury  near  Irkutsk.  Of  Tuchenzow,  a  chamberlain  of  the  Czar,  who  was  con- 
victed of  robbing  the  Credit  Foncier  of  Moscow  of  over  1,000,000  roubles,  and 
who,  when  exiled  to  the  Ural  Mountains,  travelled  thither  with  his  mistress  in 
a  carriage  and  four,  &c. 

And  how  many  others  are  there  who  have  not  figured  in  the  prisoners'  dock  ? 
Such  as ,  who  has  made  a  fortune  of  over  1,000,000  roubles  in  the  construc- 
tion of  fortifications ;  as ,  who,  during  the  three  years  of  his  directorship  of 

,  at  a  salary  of  30,000  roubles,  managed  to  amass  a  fortune  of  3,000,000 

roubles  ;  as  Prince  ,  who  stole  600,000  roubles  of  public  money  ;  Count  , 

who  has  spent  millions  in  debauchery ;  ,  who  uses  the  State  Bank  as  a  kind 

of  private  gambling  establishment  for  himself  and  friends. 

It  is  well  known  the  Ministry  of  Marine  is  constantly  robbed  in  the  most 

shameless  manner  by  .  Unfortunately  thieves  such  as  these  will  never  figure  in 

the  prisoners'  dock.  Once  a  Count  Bokinsky,  Minister  of  Roads  and  Public  Works, 
ventured  to  report  to  the  Czar  a  peculiarly  shameless  theft.  The  answer,  however, 
was  not  encouraging.  '  How  dare  you,  varlet,  mix  yourself  in  the  affairs  of  the 
Imperial  family  ? '  Thereupon  Alexander  dismissed  him  from  his  post  of  minister, 
and  kept  him  under  arrest  for  several  months.  This  happened  but  three  years  ago. 

It  is  very  difficult  to  do  the  Imperial  family  more  harm  than  they  do  them- 
selves. 

If  we  were  to  relate  all,  it  would  disgust  and^tire  our  readers.  We  repeat,  that 
such  a  state  of  things  cannot  exist  much  longer.  The  immorality  of  the  Imperial 
family  is  gradually  demoralising  Russian  society,  and  is  gangrening  it  throughout. 
The  political  persecutions  and  espionage  of  the  haute  police  renders  the  life  of 
respectable  people  insupportable.  Sons  denounce  their  fathers,  wives  their  hus- 
bands, mothers  their  children.  The  ubiquity  of  the  espionage  frightens  even  the 
very  gendarmes  themselves ;  every  denunciation  is  rewarded  by  the  police ;  it  has 
become  a  means  of  vengeance  and  an  important  factor  in  private  quarrels. 

What  is  the  use  of  complaining  that  people  are  hanged  for  the  mere  expression 
of  political  opinions  differing  from  those  of  the  Government  ?  What  is  the  use  of 
crying  out  for  help  in  the  streets,  when  we  are  attacked  and  ill-treated  by  the 
police  ?  Nobody  stirs,  nobody  protests.  The  citizens  seem  incapable  of  acting  in 
self-defence.  No  :  it  is  very  wrong  to  call  Solowjew's  attempt  on  the  Czar's  life 
immoral ;  on  the  contrary,  it  was  an  act  of  the  highest  courage  and  abnegation  ! 
And,  as  for  you  moralists,  why  be  so  frightened  at  the  sight  of  the  blood  of  a  few 
miserable  gendarmes  and  mouchards  ? 

Do  not  forget  that  besides  being  our  cowardly  enemies,  who  will  never  venture 
to  a  hand-to-hand  fight  with  us,  they  are  also  the  enemies  of  the  people.  Do  you 
wish  to  use  kindness  and  gentle  persuasion  with  such  brutes,  and  are  you  waiting 
for  a  change  of  government  ?  They  assume  disguises,  they  make  themselves 
acquainted  with  your  private  life,  they  obtain  your  friendship,  and  then  they 
denounce  you.  These  kind  of  people  have  nothing  human  about  them,  and  are  a 


26  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY.  January 

standing  disgrace  to  society.  You  either  remain  silent,  or  you  even  applaud,  when 
these  savages  hang  our  friends  who  are  an  honour  to  Russia ;  who  love  liberty 
and  who  devote  their  lives  to  the  propagation  of  humanitarian  and  fraternal  ideas. 
You  blame  us  and  get  frightened  when  we  happen  to  kill  one  of  these  rascals. 
Why,  then,  do  you  remain  silent  when  we  are  kept  for  years  in  prison  without 
trial,  separated  from  our  parents,  our  wives,  and  our  children,  whom  we  have  to 
abandon  to  their  fate,  and  often  without  means  of  subsistence  ?  We  are  goaded  to 
madness,  and  entombed  alive  in  the  mines  of  Siberia,  and  yet  you  all  cry  out  when 
you  see  Menzenstoff '  fall  dead  in  the  streets. 

In  answer  to  your  inquiries  as  to  who  gave  us  the  right  to  sit  in  judgment  on 
you,  we  can  only  ask  in  our  turn,  who  appointed  you  our  judges.  If  you  refer  us 
to  Russian  history,  and  to  the  annals  of  your  monarchy,  we  would  beg  to  remind 
you  that  the  history,  such  as  it  is,  is  written  by  you  and  taught  by  you,  and  is 
consequently  false  as  far  as  we  are  concerned. 

Do  not  be  surprised  at  these  political  assassinations — but  rather  be  astonished 
that  they  are  not  more  frequent.  Unfortunately  for  our  cause,  the  majority  of 
Nihilists  are  too  humanitarian,  and  hence  are  incapable  of  carrying  out  many 
necessary  measures.  Perhaps  in  time  they  will  acquire  the  '  aptitude '  necessary  in 
critical  moments  ;  perhaps  it  will  be  your  conduct  which  will  effect  this  change  in 
them.  Then  in  that  case  the  responsibility  of  terrorism  and  assassination  will  rest 
with  you,  and  not  with  us. 


1  Menzenstoff,  Chief  of  the  Section,  successor  of  Trepoff,  was  murdered  last  year 
in  St.  Petersburg ;  the  assassin  has  never  been  discovered. 


1880.  27 


GEORGE   CANNING:  HIS   CHARACTER 
AND  MOTIVES. 

THE  character  of  any  remarkable  statesman,  whether  living  or  dead, 
is  nearly,  if  not  quite,  as  much  an  object  of  national  concern  as  the 
policy  or  the  effect  of  his  more  prominent  measures.  A  knowledge 
of  circumstances  apart  from  those  which  come  within  view  of  the 
public,  and  are  calculated  to  influence  the  conduct  or  to  exhibit  the 
disposition  of  a  Wolsey,  a  Burghley,  or  a  Walpole,  may  assist  con- 
temporaries or  historians  in  forming  a  correct  judgment  of  the 
motives  which  suggested  their  measures,  and  perhaps  contributed  to 
the  glory  or  dishonour  of  their  country.  Disclosures  of  the  nature  in 
question  have  also  the  national  advantage  of  operating  as  monitors 
on  later  candidates  for  the  favour  of  a  sovereign  or  the  confidence  of 
a  people.  The  generous  institutions  of  our  country  have  opened  the 
paths  of  honourable  ambition  to  candidates  of  every  class,  and  the 
whole  community  has  a  deep  interest  in  learning  from  examples  by 
what  means,  whether  natural  or  acquired,  success  may  be  achieved 
in  its  civil  service  by  individuals  who,  like  the  first  Lord  Chatham, 
have  risen  from  the  ranks,  and  kept  their  country's  welfare  constantly 
in  view.  Considerations  of  this  kind  have  led  me  to  entertain  a  hope 
of  rendering  some  little  service  to  many  of  my  countrymen  by 
bringing  to  their  notice  particulars  bearing  on  the  character  and 
views  of  a  well-known  minister  of  the  present  century  with  whom  it 
was  my  good  fortune  to  be  personally  connected,  and  to  enjoy  an 
affectionate  intercourse  at  all  times  more  or  less  intimate,  and  not 
unfrequently  official.  As  a  first-class  statesman  and  orator,  distin- 
guished in  one  department,  at  least,  of  literature  for  brilliant  and 
effective  ability,  the  name  of  George  Canning  still  holds  its  place  in 
the  estimation  of  his  own  and  the  remembrance  of  foreign  nations. 
Nevertheless  it  has  long  appeared  to  me  that  very  imperfect  justice 
has  been  done  to  his  character  and  manner  of  acting  under  the 
occasional  excitement  of  ambition  and  rivalry.  It  would  afford  me 
the  liveliest  gratification  to  fill  up  this  incomplete  portraiture  of  so 
illustrious  a  public  servant,  and  an  earnest  wish  to  succeed  in  making 
the  attempt  inspires  me  with  courage  to  risk  a  disappointment.  My 


28  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY.  January 

impression  of  his  merit  in  its  fullest  extent  is  grounded  on  many 
considerations. 

The  circumstances  which  attended  his  entrance  upon  the  great 
platform  of  life  were  untoward  in  the  extreme.  The  principles  on 
which  he  purposed  to  act  increased  the  difficulties  of  his  later 
position.  His  path  was  beset  with  temptations  which  have  often 
misled  the  boyish  possessor  of  uncommon  capabilities.  In  manhood 
he  had  to  contend  with  rival  colleagues  and  able  adversaries.  Not- 
withstanding these  successive  obstacles,  he  rose  to  the  summit  of 
ministerial  authority,  and  dying  was  honoured  by  a  general  feeling 
of  sorrow  for  his  premature  decease. 

The  infancy  or  early  childhood  of  the  future  Prime  Minister  of 
England  presents  a  sad  contrast  to  this  and  other  more  formal 
marks  of  posthumous  respect.  His  father  had  ceased  to  live  ;  his 
mother  had  no  resources  beyond  the  hope  attaching  to  youthful 
accomplishments  and  the  precarious  kindness  of  her  late  husband's 
friends.  Unfortunately  their  marriage  had  been  so  inconsiderate 
that  every  chance  of  aid  from  the  natural  quarter  was  peremptorily 
and  permanently  cut  off.  The  child's  uncle,  my  own  father,  had 
shared  with  his  elder  brother  the  exclusion  from  every  part  of  the 
family  fortune,  but  wholly  without  any  just  or  reasonable  cause.  He 
had  consequently  turned  his  back  upon  the  Green  Island,  and  settled 
in  the  British  capital  as  principal  member  of  a  merchant's  establish- 
ment. There  the  orphan  nephew — for  orphan  he  might  fitly  be  called 
eve'n  in  his  mother's  lifetime — found  a  home,  and  that  care  of  his 
education  which  a  parent  would  otherwise  have  supplied. 

It  was'not  long  before  he  drew  attention  to  his  great  intellectual 
gifts.  At  the  early  age  of  four  or  five  he  surprised  his  relations 
by  his  manner  of  justifying  himself  when  reproved  on  some  trivial 
occasion.  Even  then  the  rudiments  of  that  argumentative  power, 
which  in  after  years  he  displayed  in  public  with  so  much  effect,  were 
suggestively  apparent.  Another  of  his  natural  gifts  was  a  strong 
turn  for  poetical  composition.  He  had  not  completed  his  ninth 
year  when  he  wrote  a  poem  remarkable  for  its  promise  of  future 
excellence.  Its  subject  was  Greece,  its  character  a  contrast  between 
the  periods  of  Greek  glory  and  Greek  abasement.  One  day  after 
dinner  it  was  read  aloud  in  the  boy's  presence,  and  also  in  that  of  his 
uncle  and  aunt,  who  abstained  from  praising,  but,  when  left  alone, 
agreed  in  wondering  at  its  precocity.  It  was  printed  a  few  years 
later  as  part  of  a  number  of  the  Microcosm,  a  work  of  four  or  five 
boys  at  Eton  towards  the  end  of  the  last  century.  It  was  doubtless 
not  published  without  amendments  ;  but  Canning,  who  was  one  of 
the  juvenile  authors,  told  me  long  afterwards  that  he  had  been 
surprised  by  the  very  limited  alteration  required. 

I  make  no  apology  for  quoting  a  few  of  the  verses  here,  as  they 
help  to  explain  the  turn  of  Canning's  mind  towards  the  success  and 


1880.  GEORGE  CANNING.  29 

fame  of  a  public  career  to  be  obtained  by  soundness  of  principle, 
vigour  of  exertion,  and  the  spirit  of  independence. 

Six  opening  lines  explain  the  tenor  of  the  whole  composition  :- 

Unrival'd  Greece,  thou  ever  honor'd  name, 
Thou  nurse  of  heroes  dear  to  deathless  fame, 
Tho'  now  to  worth,  to  honor  all  unknown, 
Thy  lustre  faded,  and  the  glories  flown, 
Yet  still  shall  memory,  with  reverted  eye, 
Trace  thy  past  worth,  and  view  thee  with  a  sigh. 

The  following   detached  passages   may  serve  to  figure  out  the 

remainder : — 

Confess  what  Persians  slain 
Were  strew'd  on  Marathon's  ensanguin'd  plain. 

What  millions  hold  Leonidas  withstood, 
And  seal'd  the  Grecian  freedom  with  his  blood. 
Witness  Thermopylae  !  how  fierce  he  trod, 
How  spoke  a  hero,  and  how  moved  a  god  ! 

Let  Leuctra  say,  let  Mantinea  tell, 
How  great  Epaminondas  fought  and  fell. 
Who  knows  not,  sees  not  with  admiring  eye, 
How  Plato  thought,  how  Socrates  could  die  ? 

Here  Homer's  lip  was  touch'd  with  sacred  fire, 
And  wanton  Sappho  tuned  her  amorous  lyre. 
Here  bold  Tyrtseus  roused  th'  enervate  throng, 
Awaked  to  glory  by  th'  inspiring  song. 
Here  Pindar  soar'd  a  nobler,  loftier  way, 
And  brave  Alcseus  scom'd  a  tyrant's  sway. 

This  was  thy  state  ;  but  oh  !  how  changed  thy  fame, 
And  all  thy  glories  fading  into  shame. 

I  make  these  quotations  not  so  much  for  their'merit'asjDroofs  of 
a  natural  turn  for  poetical  composition,  as  for  the  indications  they 
afford  of  the  source  whence  our  young  author  derived  the  first  ele- 
ments of  that  character  which  he  displayed  in  after  life.  There  are 
passages  in  another  poem,  written  by  him  when  studying  the  law,  in- 
tended for  his  future  profession,  which  confirm  almost  to  certainty  the 
impression  I  entertain  on  this  point.  It  would  seem  that  he  was  in- 
vited by  some  college  authority  to  write  the  verses  which,  according  to 
custom  at  Oxford,  were  recited  publicly  to  welcome  a  newly  elected 
Chancellor  of  the  University.  In  July  1793,  the  Duke  of  Portland 
was  addressed  in  that  character.  The  complimentary 'poem  turned  in 
substance  on  the  resemblance  as  to  spirit  and  effect  between  the 
solemnities  at  Oxford  and  the  celebrated  games  of  Greece.  A 
stranger  is  told  to  recognise  in  both  an  identity  of  purpose. 

Think'st  thou  did  Greece  those  solemn  rites'display 
To  gild  the  leisure  of  some  festive  day  ?  % 
Did  they  but  sweep  in  idle  splendour  by  ? 
Meant  they  no  more  than  met  the  vulgar  eye  ? 


30  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  January 

Oh !  poor  conception  !  then  did  Greece  impart 
Her  noblest  lessons  to  the  expanding  heart ; 
Courage  and  dauntless  toil ;  the  thirst  of  fame, 
Unquenchable ;  the  blush  of  generous  shame  ; 
Their  country's  loyal  love,  and  friendship's  holy  flame. 
Oxford  no  less.  .  .  . 

Few,  I  conceive,  and  little  to  be  envied,  are  they  who  can  read 
a  fair  account  of  Canning's  life,  and  fail  on  reflection  to  perceive  in 
all  its  prominent  features  a  distinct  expression  of  those  ennobling 
qualities  inculcated  by  Greece.  Who  without  a  blush  could  question 
his  courage,  his  energy,  his  thirst  of  fame,  his  loyal  patriotism,  and 
deep  sense  of  all  that  constitutes  a  sincere  friendship  ? 

I  cannot  leave  this  part  of  my  subject  without  reminding  the 
reader  of  other  pieces  of  verse,  comical  as  well  as  serious,  which  owe 
their  existence  to  Mr.  Canning's  pen.  A  list  of  them  it  is  not  in  my 
power  to  give,  but  I  may  perhaps  record  a  few  not  generally  known 
as  his.  Of  the  serious  kind  in  a  separate  form  the  most  substantial 
is  one  entitled  '  Nelson  and  Trafalgar.'  It  exhibits  in  strong  con- 
trast the  characters  of  Napoleon  Bonaparte  and  Horatio  Nelson,  show- 
ing, at  the  same  time,  the  qualities  and'objects  which  on  the  one  hand 
its  author  most  condemned,  and  on  the  other  most  admired.  In  these 
respects  it  links  on  with  the  sentiments  displayed  in  his  earlier  poems, 
and  even  repeats  almost  to  the  letter  that  passage  in  the  Oxford 
address  which  I  have  particularly  noted.  My  knowledge  of  the 
serious  compositions  is  limited  to  four,  namely,  'The  Pilot  who 
weathered  the  Storm,'  the  series  of  British  kings  in  Latin  verse, 
some  lines  on  marriage  when  his  own  was  in  prospect,  and  an 
epitaph  on  his  eldest  son,  whose  life,  to  use  the  father's  expression, 
was  '  a  long  disease,'  and  his  death  in  early  manhood  what,  in 
Shakespeare's  language,  was  '  a  consummation  devoutly  to  be 
wished.'  Mr.  Canning's  contributions  to  the  Anti-Jacobin  appear 
to  have  been  almost  entirely  ludicrous  and  satirical.  The  long  and 
very  impressive  poem  which  closes  that  celebrated  periodical  has,  I 
believe,  been  always  attributed  to  him.  What  may  be  now  stated 
with  certainty  is  that  some  of  the  passages  are  so  strikingly  charac- 
teristic of  his  style  and  habit  of  thought  as  to  leave  no  room  for  any 
other  claim  to  their  authorship.  The  following  lines,  for  instance, 
may  be  confidently  adduced  in  support  of  this  remark : — 

Candour — who  loves  in  see-saw  strain  to  tell 

Of  acting  foolishly,  but  meaning  -well, 

Too  nice  to  praise  by  wholesale,  or  to  blame, 

Convinced  that  all  men's  motives  are  the  same, 

And  finds  with  keen  discriminating  sight 

Black  not  so  black,  nor  white  so  very  white. 

Give  me  th'  .avow'd,  th'  erect,  the  manly  foe, 

Bold  I  can  meet,  perhaps  may  turn  his  blow ; 

But  of  all  plagues,  good  Heav'n  !  thy  wrath  can  send, 

Save,  save,  oh  !  save  me  from  the  candid  friend. 


1880.  GEORGE  CANNING.  31 

The  fugitive  pieces  of  a  lighter  kind  may  be  reserved  for  cursory 
notice  in  some  later  page. 

Mention  has  already  been  made  of  our  orator's  power  of  argu- 
ment as  cropping  out  rudimentally  in  his  childish  days.  In  my 
possession  there  is  a  letter]  -which  exhibits  not]  only  a  far-  stronger 
proof  of  his  early  talent  in  that  respect,  but  a  clear  exposition  of 
the  principles  on  which  he  was  prepared  to  reason,  whether  in  his 
private  search  or  public  assertion  of  truth.  I  can  hardly  be  wrong 
in  placing  word  for  word  on  record  here  a  complete  extract  of  so 
precious  a  testimonial. 

Crewe  Hall,  October  15th,  1792. 

.  .  .  Argument  upon  any  topic  I  am  so  far  from  being  anxious  to  avoid,  or  apt 
to  hold  cheap,  that  I  desire  nothing  better  than  a  fair  and  candid  discussion  of  any- 
thing that  I  may  at  any  time  think,  or  say,  or  do.  But  I  did  mean  to  say — and  I  do 
mean  to  say — that  the  sort  of  argument  which  never  did,  or  will,  or  in  my  opinion 
ought  to  make  an  impression  upon  my  mind,  is  that  which  is  derived,  not  from  reason 
or  inquiry  into  the  truth  or  falsehood,  the  propriety  or  impropriety  of  the  subject, 
but  from  example  only — as  when  one  hears,  '  Such  a  one  thought  so,'  '  Such  a  one 
said  so,' '  Such  a  one  acted  so ' — brought  as  a  sufficient  ground  for  oneself  being  so 
to  think,  say,  and  do,  without  any  investigation  of  the  principles  on  which  such 
habit  of  thought,  word,  or  action,  was  established  and  to  be  justified  ;  and  that  too 
with  regard  to  subjects  not  of  skill  and  private  professional  dexterity  (for  on  this 
sort  of  subjects  the  word  or  opinion  of  a  practitioner  may  be,  to  a  man  who  has 
not  the  same  opportunities  of  knowledge,  a  sufficient  direction),  but  upon  broad 
general  topics,  which  every  man  has  equal  opportunities  of  examining,  and  which 
every  thinking  man,  according  to  my  notions,  is  not  only  justified,  but  absolutely 
bound  for  his  own  honour  and  conscience,  to  examine  for  himself. 

Tell  me  that  a  farmer  thinks  so  and  so  about  seed ;  that  a  painter  says  this  or 
that  is  the  best  method  of  mixing  his  colours  ;  that  a  physician  holds  such  or  such 
medicine  to  be  the  specific  for  a  particular  complaint.  And  as  I  neither  can  nor 
need  have,  or  pretend  to  have,  any  power  of  judging  from  my  own  knowledge  of 
agriculture,  painting,  or  medicine,  I  am  willing  (provided  nothing  has  come  within 
my  own  experience  to  contradict  them)  to  adopt  implicitly  the  opinion  of  the 
farmer,  the  painter,  or  the  physician. 

But  tell  me  that  such  a  one  (be  the  person  who  he  may,  be  he  one  for  whose 
abilities  and  penetration  I  have  the  highest  respect,  for  whose  person  and  character 
I  have  the  warmest  affection) — tell  me  that  any  person  thinks  so  or  so  about  morals, 
or  about  politics,  or  any  other  subject,  if  there  be  any  other  equally  open  to  the 
consideration  of  all  men,  and  for  which  no  technical  skill  or  particular  habit  is 
necessary,  and  where,  therefore,  I  have  the  same  opportunity,  the  same  power,  and 
consequently  the  same  right,  of  forming  niy  opinion,  as  that  person  had  to  form 
his  opinion  in  such  a  case,  though  I  should  certainly  hear  the  opinion  with  a 
deference,  and  examine  it  with  an  attention,  proportionate  to  the  consideration  in 
which  I  held  the  person  from  whom  it  came ;  yet,  if,  after  such  examination,  I 
should  find  that  my  opinion  did  not  coincide  with  his,  I  should  no  more  think  of 
conforming  to  that  which  I  did  not  approve,  because  of  the  authority  by  which  it 
was  supported,  than  I  should  think  of  calling  black  white,  or  white  black,  in  con- 
tradiction to  my  senses,  and  in  compliance  to  the  fancy  of  another. 

The  sum,  therefore,  of  what  I  expressed,  or  intended  to  express,  in  my  last 
letter,  and  of  what  I  have  more  than  once  before  endeavoured  to  convey  to  you  at 
different  times,  is  simply  this :  That  so  long  as  God  continues  to  me  the  power  of 
comparing,  selecting,  and  judging  between  facts  and  opinions,  it  shall  be  my  earnest 
endeavour  to  do  so  with  as  little  prejudice  and  partiality  as  possible ;  and  that, 


32  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY.  January 

whatever  faults  and  errors  I  may  commit,  I  will  at  least  have  the  satisfaction  of 
charging  them  upon  my  own  responsibility  ;  and  will  not  have  it  said  to  me — not 
justly  said  to  me  at  least — '  This  you  did  on  such  a  one's  opinion ;  thus  you  were 
the  tool  of  that  man ; '  '  Here  you  were  the  echo  of  t'other  ; '  '  Now  your  mind  is 
warped  by  Mr.  TomMns ; '  '  Sir  John  Simpkins  gave  you  that  notion  of  things.' 
Such,  I  say/ shall  be  my  earnest  endeavour.  But  in  this,  what  is  there  of  arrogance 
or  self-sufficiency  ?  Do  I  say  I  will  never  ask  advice  ?  never  hear  reproach  ?  never 
collect  information  ?  God  forbid  ;  on  every  point  I  shall  be  ready  and  willing  to 
profit  by  them  all.  But,  that  I  may  profit  by  them  in  good  truth,  it  is  necessary 
that  they  should  never  be  received  implicitly  and  from  authority  only,  but  heard, 
weighed,  discussed,  and  finally  adopted  or  rejected,  with  attention  and  respect, 
and  a  determination  to  get  as  near  conviction  as  possible — with  a  resolution,  in  short, 
to  act  to  the  best  of  one's  own  judgment,  and  with  (what  in  a  mind  of  common 
candour  necessarily  accompanies  such  feelings)  a  large,  free,  and  unequivocal  tolera- 
tion of  other  people's  opinions  and  actions,  so  long  as  they  are  not  set  up  as  an 
unerring  rule  whereby  to  measure  and  estimate  mine. 

A  man  who  in  early  manhood  had  fixed  with  due  deliberation 
his  rule  of  decision  in  doubtful  cases  of  a  practical  kind,  is  surely  en- 
titled to  a  first  impression  in  favour  of  his  having  been  actuated  by 
honourable  motives  in  every  act  of  life  exposed  to  public  criticism. 
Well  might  the  boys  at  Eton,  when  Canning  was  one  of  them,  solicit 
and  defer  to  his  opinion  with  reference  to  some  point  on  which  their 
own  impressions  were  vague  or  contradictory.  For  the  correctness  of 
this  rather  curious  circumstance,  I  can  appeal  to  a  respected  school- 
fellow of  his,  who  brought  it  to  my  knowledge.  It  may  be  added 
that  before  and  after  he  had  taken  part  in  state  affairs  he  was 
habitually  consulted  by  his  nearest  relations  as  one  on  whose  judg- 
ment full  reliance  could  be  safely  placed.  Pitt  must  have  set  no 
small  value  on  his  opinion,  for  I  have  seen  a  financial  sketch  com- 
municated to  him  by  that  high-minded  minister,  with  a  request  to 
know  what  he  thought  of  going  to  war  in  such  a  state  of  the  country's 
resources.  I  have  his  own  authority  for  stating  what  may  be  fairly 
taken  as  having  in  some  degree  a  similar  bearing.  When  Lord 
Cornwallis  wrote  from  Dublin  that  Catholic  emancipation  could  not 
be  carried  with  the  Act  of  Union,  he  advised  Mr.  Pitt  to  abstain  from 
pressing  the  latter  measure  to  its  final  accomplishment.  The  Union,  as 
we  all  know/was  nevertheless  carried  through  by  itself,  but  followed  at 
no  great  distance  of  time  by  the  Act  of  Emancipation  hoisted  into  an 
imperial  law  under  the  banner  of  a  party  previously  opposed  to  it, 
and,  stranger  still  perhaps,  unattended  as  yet  by  its  promised  and 
expected  consequences,  contentment  and  internal  tranquillity. 

I  have  seen  it  stated  in  some  memoir  that  Mr.  Canning's  first 
acquaintance  with  the  minister  of  his  choice  was  an  invitation  from 
Mr.  Pitt.  According  to  my  recollection  of  what  he  told  me  himself, 
he  sought,  uninvited  and  without  any  previous  introduction,  an  inter- 
view with  the  man  whose  ability,  character,  and  policy  he  most  ap- 
proved under  the  critical  circumstances  in  which  the  country  was  then 
placed.  A  line  in  the  Pursuits  of  Literature,  an  anonymous  poem 


1880.  GEORGE  CANNING.  33 

of  much  note  at  the  time,  goes  far  to  confirm   this  version    of  the 
incident : — 

Or  seize  on  Pitt  like  Canning,  by  surprise, 

In  either  case  the  political  connection  had  its  origin  in  the  same 
motives,  and  led  to  results  of  mutual  confidence  and  mutual  satisfac- 
tion, terminating  only  in  the  death  of  him  to  whom  the  words  of 
Virgil  may  be  justly  applied  : — 

Utcunque  ferent  ea  facta  minores, 
Yiucet  amor  patrise  laudumque  immensa  cupido. 

The  youthful  survivor  had  been  reproached  with  passing  over  from 
the  Whig  to  the  Tory  party  in  order  to  open  his  way  into  Parliament 
and  office.  His  own  unsupported  position  and  early  acquaintances 
may  have  given  birth  to  the  suspicion,  but  there  is  enough  in  extant 
correspondence  to  show  the  real  grounds  of  his  preference,  the  total 
absence  of  anything  which  ought  to  have  fettered  his  choice,  and  the 
independent  spirit  with  which  he  gave  it  a  substantial  effect. 

Quotations  more  or  less  according  with  these  assertions  may  be 
fitly  preceded  by  a  statement  of  two  circumstances  which  are  not 
without  interest  as  bearing  on  this  matter. 

First,  there  is  reason  to  believe  that  Canning  was  aware  of  the 
Duke  of  Portland's  intention  to  secure  his  entrance  into  Parliament 
when  Mr.  Pitt  obtained  in  his  favour  the  nomination  to  Newport. 
He  is  known  to  have  said  that  he  foresaw  the  Duke's  transition  to  the 
side  of  Government,  and  was  not  prepared  to  move  in  the  train  of 
any  one. 

Secondly,  the  late  General  Fox  showed  me  a  letter  written  by  his 
father,  Lord  Holland,  in  reply  to  a  female  relation  who  had  called 
upon  him  to  renounce  all  intercourse  with  Canning  on  account  of  his 
supposed  tergiversation,  and  vindicating  him  in  terms  highly  credi- 
table to  his  calumniated  friend. 

The  quotations  thus  prefaced  follow  in  the  order  of  their  dates. 
The  first  are  copied  from  a  letter  addressed  from  the  Temple  to  a 
friend  who  was  travelling  in  Russia.  The  parts  omitted  with  a  view 
to  brevity  differ  in  no  respect  from  the  sense  of  those  now  brought 
into  the  light. 

Paper  Buildings,  December  4th,  1792. 

The  state  of  the  country  at  present  is  perhaps  the  most  alarming-  that  it  is  possible 
to  conceive.  The  rapid  progress  of  the  French  arms,  and  the  wide  diffusion  of 
French  principles,  has  given  to  a  Republican  party  here  such  strength  and  spirit  that 
there  is,  in  my  opinion,  nothing  mischievous  and  desperate  which  may  not  be  appre- 
hended from  them.  This  party  is  not,  I  believe,  at  this  moment  very  numerous, 
but  by  its  activity  it  is  very  likely  to  become  so.  Their  principles  are  disseminated 
with  an  industry  and  success  that  is  every  day  increasing.  .  .  .  The  plan  proposed 
by  these  gentry  is  no  other  than  an  exact  imitation  of  all  that  has  been  done  in 
France.  ...  I  have  lately  met  with  persons,  and  persons  of  education  too,  wh>> 
have  talked  of  the  landing  cf  an  armed  force  of  Frenchmen  in  Scotland  ar.cl 

VOL.  VII.— No.  35.  D 


34  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  January 

Ireland  as  an  event  not  only  probable,  but  very  reasonably  to  be  expected  and 
desired. 

In  Scotland  the  people  are  rife  for  insurrection.  In  Ireland  the  Catholics 
pursue  their  claims  as  yet  with  moderation  and  temper  ;  but  if  something  be  not 
done  for  them  in  the  ensuing  session  of  Parliament  the  consequence  \vill  be  either 
war  or  massacre.  Administration  indeed,  as  I  am  told,  and  most  sincerely  hope, 
are  well  disposed  to  grant  to  them  all  that  they  claim ;  and  their  claims,  God 
knows,  are  not  exorbitant.  They  ask  only  that  in  trials  of  Papists,  civil  or  criminal, 
the  jury  shall  be,  as  is  the  law  where  foreigners  are  concerned,  half  of  their  own 
persuasion;  and  that  they  may  be  admitted,  under  the  same  qualifications  as 
Protestants,  to  vote  for  county  members.  The  Protestants  of  Ireland,  however, 
consider  these  demands  as  the  most  unreasonable  that  they  ever  heard  of  in  their 
lives. 

Friday  Evening,  December  14th. 

There  was  a  most  violent  debate  in  the  House  of  Commons  last  night  on  the 
Address.  Mr.  F.  Fox  declared  himself  in  a  manner  that  cannot  be  thought 
equivocal  any  longer  for  the  reforms.  Windham  and  Burke  spoke  und  voted  with 
Government  most  decidedly ;  but  what  puzzles  me  is  that  I  am  told  the  Duke  of 
Portland's  family  friends  voted  with  F. 

In  the  following  summer  he  became  for  the  first  time  a  member 
of  Parliament.  This  beginning  of  his  political  career  is  recorded  in 
a  letter  addressed  to  my  mother  from  Oxford  : — 

Christ  Church,  July  5th,  1793. 

I  can  hardly  squeeze  a  moment  out  of  any  day  in  this  week  for  any  other 
purpose  than  that  of  going  about  to  see  and  talk  to  a  thousand  different  people, 
who  are  here  from  a  thousand  different  places. 

I  write  to  you,  therefore,  rather  to  show  you  the  outside  of  this  letter  than 
to  give  you  any  satisfactory  explanation  of  it  in  the  inside.  That  I  must 
defer  till  the  present  bustle  is  over.  I  shall  only  say  for  the  present  that  I  have 
the  honour  to  represent  in  Parliament  the  respectable  borough  of  Newtoion,  in  the 
Isle  of  Wight,  and  that  I  have  come  in  without  one  farthiny  of  expense,  or  one 
farthings  worth  of  obligation  to  any  person  in  the  world  but  one.  That  one  you 
will  easily  guess ;  and  if  you  guess  it  to  be  Mr.  Pitt,  you  will  be  near  the 
truth. 

It  was  not  till  the  spring  of  1796  that  he  entered  into  the  service 
of  Government  as  Under-Secretary  of  State,  with  Lord  Grenville  for 
his  chief.  By  gradual  success  in  speaking  he  repaid  the  confidence 
which  his  early  reputation  had  founded ;  and  he  proved  by  his  re- 
signation of  office,  when  Pitt  on  retiring  advised  him  to  hold  on, 
that  he  had  accepted  it,  if  not  only,  yet  principally,  as  offering  both 
means  and  occasions  of  promoting  the  public  interests.  His  treat- 
ment of  Mr.  Addington  has  been  ascribed  to  malice  and  the  in- 
dulgence of  other  personal  feelings.  But  surely  it  is  more  reasonable 
to  view  it  as  a  natural  consequence  of  his  political  consistency.  He 
was  convinced  that  the  country  required  a  strong  government  to  keep 
it  afloat  under  the  pressure  of  accumulated  dangers,  that  Mr.  Pitt 
was  of  all  contemporary  statesmen  the  one  most  capable  of  steering 
aright,  and  that  his  appointed  successor  was  not  only  incompetent  to 
the  high  task,  but  wholly  unconscious  of  his  incapacity.  Wit  and 


1880.  GEORGE  CANNING.  35 

ridicule  were  the  obvious  instruments  of  a  remedial  kind,  and  Can- 
ning, a  master  of  both,  employed  them  in  perfect  good  humour  to 
shorten  the  rule  of  a  weak  administration  unequal  to  the  necessities 
of  the  time.  He  entered  into  no  systematic  opposition  to  Mr.  Ad- 
dington  in  his  parliamentary  votes ;  he  addressed  himself  courteously 
to  the  objectionable  minister  from  his  place  in  the  House  of  Commons, 
and  his  shafts  of  ridicule,  however  successful,  left  no  angry  or  unkind 
feeling  in  the  bosom  of  their  butt ;  for  several  years  later,  when  Lord 
Sidmouth  was  Minister  for  the  Home  Department,  he  came  out  of  his 
room  on  learning  that  Canning,  member  for  Liverpool,  was  in  his 
office,  and  shook  hands  with  his  former  adversary  with  every  appear- 
ance of  good-nature  and  cordiality. 

On  the  close  of  the  Duke  of  Portland's  administration  in  October 
1809,  Mr.  Perceval  succeeded  to  the  vacant  post  of  Premier.  In  the 
private  communications  which  had  taken  place  just  before  between 
him  and  Mr.  Canning,  the  latter  thought  he  had  reason  to  complain 
of  the  use,  injurious  to  him,  which  had  been  made  of  the  correspon- 
dence ;  and  he  made  up  his  mind  in  consequence  to  take  no  part  in 
the  new  government,  but  to  support  or  oppose  its  measures,  according 
to  his  judgment,  as  an  independent  member  of  the  House.  All  this 
appears  with  full  explanations  in  a  letter  of  his  marked  private,  of 
which  I  possess  an  authentic  copy. 

Wit,  eloquence,  and  literary  talent  formed  the  capital  of  George 
Canning's  political  column.  Its  base  was  character.  What  consti- 
tutes the  force  of  character?  What  but  command  or  influence, 
giving  to  one  the  power  of  many  ?  How  is  this  power  to  be  obtained 
where  fortune  has  withheld  her  favours,  if  not  by  the  exercise  of 
qualities  engaging  the  admiration,  the  confidence,  the  sympathy  of 
others  on  a  scale  proportioned  to  the  interests  at  stake  or  the  arena 
of  competition?  Distinguished  to  a  high  degree  by  the  qualities 
here  described,  he  had  a  fair  claim  to  the  chief  direction  of  affairs ; 
but  Perceval  enjoyed  the  advantage  of  having  been  the  ministerial 
leader  of  the  Commons,  and  the  duel  with  Castlereagh  had  not  been 
viewed  in  its  true  colour  by  some  influential  minds.  A  detailed 
justification  of  Mr.  Canning's  conduct  was  circulated  immediately 
after  the  meeting,  to  which  I  now  allude  as  furnishing  an  instance 
of  his  strong  sense  of  public  duty  and  his  constant  readiness  to  act 
upon  its  impulse  at  every  risk — vitam  impendere  vero.  Although  his 
colleague's  challenge  was  a  tissue,  as  he  declared  in  reply,  of  mis- 
representations, he  accepted  it  at  once,  and  on  Wimbledon  Common 
exposed  himself  to  the  peril  of  a  repeated  exchange  of  shots  rather 
than  be  the  first  to  take  shelter  under  the  friendly  interference  of  the 
seconds. 

Canning,  in  fact,  had  courage  equal  to  any  occasion.  Though  by 
no  means  quarrelsome,  and  having  the  habits  of  a  civilian  devoted 
to  peaceful  pursuits,  he  brooked  no  taunting  reflection  on  his  motives 

D  2 


36  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  January 

of  action,  or  slighting  allusion  to  his  mother's  history.  On  one  re- 
markable occasion  he  carried  resolution  to  its  extreme.  His  life  was 
seriously  threatened  by  some  anonymous  assailant  through  the  medium 
of  a  public  journal.  He  sent  a  message  to  the  menacing  and 
murderous  party  through  the  editor  of  the  newspaper,  offering  to 
meet  him  as  adverse  parties  are  wont  to  meet,  and  pledging  his 
honour  that  he  would  go  to  the  place  of  meeting  alone,  and  without 
the  knowledge  of  any  other  person  whatever. 

More  on  this  part  of  the  subject  can  hardly  be  required. 

The  incident  of  all  others  in  his  political  career  which  gave  a 
handle  to  detraction  and  obloquy  was  the  embassy  to  Lisbon.  A 
friend,  perhaps  a  candid  one,  might  question  the  prudence  of  the 
step  in  that  light ;  but  his  long,  minutely  detailed,  and  wonderfully 
able  speech,  when  brought  face  to  face  with  his  parliamentary  censors 
in  May  1817,  reflected  so  clearly  the  principles  of  his  conduct,  as 
previously  exhibited  in  writing  and  action,  that  his  defensive  state- 
ments, satisfactory  as  they  were  in  themselves,  derived  as  much 
confirmation  from  their  consistency  with  the  antecedents  as  from  the 
very  large  majority  which  cleared  him  of  all  culpability,  and  scattered 
to  the  winds  a  futile,  if  not  a  malignant,  attack.  Sir  Thomas 
Acland,  the  just,  intelligent,  and  independent  member  for  Devon- 
shire, bore  witness  in  a  few  decisive  words  to  the  impression 
made  upon  the  House  by  Mr.  Canning's  defence.  His  closing  words 
were  these  :  '  After  a  speech  which  had  thrilled  through  every  heart 
in  the  House,  he  would  have  been  proud  to  have  been  so  accused  in 
order  to  have  so  defended  himself.' 

Reproaches  were  also  thrown  out  against  Mr.  Canning  for  joining 
the  Government  in  1814,  and  remaining  in  office  when  the  famous  and, 
in  seme  respects,  obnoxious  Six  Acts  were  carried  through  Parlia- 
ment by  ministerial  influence.  Why,  it  may  be  asked,  was  he  to  be 
shut  out  from  a  Government  from  whose  general  policy  he  did  not 
dissent,  which  opened  its  arms  to  receive  him,  and  whose  chief,  Lord 
Liverpool,  was  his  life-long  friend  ?  With  respect  to  the  Six  Acts,  it 
should  be  remembered  that  the  nation,  throughout  a  large  extent  of 
its  three  original  kingdoms,  was  breaking  into  violent  disorder  caused 
by  a  general  distress,  verging  in  some  parts  on  famine,  for  which  the 
ministers  were  not  answerable,  and  heightened  to  the  point  of  ex- 
asperation by  revolutionary  agitators— in  short,  that  the  restrictive 
measures  voted  by  Parliament,  but  unpopular  in  so  far  as  they  put 
a  curb  on  the  abuse  of  public  assemblies  and  freedom  of  press,  be- 
longed to  the  sad  period  of  tumultuary  processions,  inflammatory 
harangues,  and  finally  of  the  Cato  Street  conspiracy.  It  is  but  fair 
likewise  to  bear  in  mind  that  he  retired  from  office  not  long  after- 
wards rather  than  take  part  in  the  prosecution  of  Queen  Caroline. 
To  all  appearance  that  act  was  the  close  of  his  official  aspirations  in 
England.  The  East  India  directors  made  choice  of  him  for  the 


1880.  GEORGE  CANNING.  37 

government  of  their  possessions  in  Hindostan,  and  he  was  on  the 
point  of  embarking  for  his  remote  destination,  when  the  death  of 
Lord  Castlereagh  restored  him  to  Downing  Street,  and,  to  use  his 
own  expression,  attached  him  to  the  labouring  oars  for  life.  Those 
who  were  urgent  for  his  return  to  the  Foreign  Office  were  at  first 
unwilling  to  concede  to  him  the  lead,  as  it  is  termed,  of  the  House 
of  Commons.  '  Both  or  neither '  was  the  position  he  assumed,  and 
his  high-minded  resolution  prevailed,  at  the  time,  perhaps,  to  his 
regret. 

His  second  administration  of  foreign  affairs,  which  lasted  five 
years,  had  for  its  basis  the  maintenance  of  peace  on  principles  of  lib- 
eral order,  political  freedom,  and  international  respect.  The  country 
in  general,  it  might  perhaps  be  said  without  exception,  went  with 
him.  Some  few  may  possibly  have  fancied  that  the  liberality  was  a 
new  light  supplied  by  personal  convenience  or  ambitious  compliance 
with  popular  opinion.  Appeal  may  surely  be  made  to  preceding 
statements  in  proof  of  its  consistency  with  those  impressions  of  his 
outset  which  led  him  to  entertain  a  horror  of  the  slave  trade,  to 
desire  a  more  equitable  state  of  law  in  Ireland,  and  even  to  sympa- 
thise with  the  first  movements  of  revolution  in  France.  But  discri- 
mination was  a  powerful  quality  of  his  comprehensive  mind,  and  he, 
no  doubt,  perceived  that  circumstances  which  at  one  time,  by  threat- 
ening England  and  all  Europe  with  evils  of  the  worst  kind,  forbade 
the  loosening  of  any  established  authorities  or  diplomatic  relations, 
left  room,  by  their  cessation  at  a  later  period,  for  a  practical  recurrence 
to  the  generous  inspirations  of  his  youth. 

Alike  in  both  his  appointments  to  the  Foreign  Office  was  the  energy 
he  displayed,  in  the  former  by  his  suggestion  and  urgent  support  of 
the  expedition  to  Copenhagen,  in  the  latter  by  the  effectual  rapidity 
with  which  he  saved  the  independence  of  Portugal.  Even  in  his 
study  of  the  law,  while  passing  from  Christ  Church  to  St.  Stephen's, 
he  showed  the  same  earnestness  of  action  by  exchanging  his  chamber 
in  the  Temple  for  a  lodging  at  Oxford,  where  a  greater  command  of 
books  made  up  for  a  narrower  field  of  amusements. 

His  reputation  for  wit  and  agreeable  conversation  made  him  a 
welcome  guest  both  in  town  and  country ;  but  pleasantry  now  and  then 
employed  with  a  depreciating  effect,  and  sarcasm  used  for  the  ex- 
posure of  artifice  or  absurdity,  raised  here  and  there  a  notion  that  he 
was  ill-natured  and  malicious.  Never  was  a  greater  mistake.  He  was 
constitutionally  good-humoured  and  kind ;  on  principle,  as  I  believe, 
he  never  yielded  to  a  malicious  feeling.  The  general  character  of  his 
wit  was  light  and  playful ;  a  contrast,  a  likeness  between  opposites, 
an  illustration,  a  word  used  in  a  new  sense,  a  ludicrous  image,  and 
other  elements  of  fun  were  its  usual  forms.  Punning  was  the  only 
exception.  Often  as  I  have  been  in  his  company,  I  never  heard  him 
make  a  pun.  His  language  in  private  was  simple,  amusing  at  the 


38  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY.  January 

time,  but  rarely  so  moulded  as  to  claim  a  place  in  th&  addenda  of 
Joe  Miller.  He  was  fully  conscious  of  his  power,  and  also  knew  its 
limits,  for  he  told  me  on  one  occasion  that  he  had  never  tried  to 
raise  a  laugh  at  the  expense  of  poverty  or  bodily  defects.  \ 

Nil  habet  infelix  paupertas  durius  in  se  » 

Quam  quod  ridicules  homines  facit.1 

One  remarkable  incident  in  the  House  of  Commons  seemed  to  con- 
tradict this  rule.  It  has  not  passed  into  oblivion,  and  the  name  of 
Ogden  will  suffice  to  recall  it  to  the  reader's  recollection.  A  reference 
to  Hansard's  Debates  will  also  explain  for  what  legitimate  reasons  the 
seeming  exception  involved  no  breach  of  the  rule,  but,  on  the  contrary, 
was  emphatically  required  for  the  establishment  of  truth  and  the 
vindication  of  justice. 

The  case  of  poor  Ogden  was  simple  enough.  He  became .  an 
object  of  interest  to  Sir  Francis  Burdett  and  other  politicians  of  the 
same  class,  to  whom,  through  mistake  or  misrepresentation,  he  ap- 
peared in  the  light  of  a  political  victim,  and  by  whom  he  was  cer- 
tainly made  an  instrument  of  attack  upon  the  Government.  Can- 
ning acquired  an  exact  knowledge  of  the  facts,  which  proved  to  be  the 
very  reverse  of  those  stated  in  support  of  the  assault,  and  manfully 
produced  them  in  the  House  of  Commons,  increasing  not  a  little  the 
effect  of  their  truth  by  the  strong  flashes  of  wit  which  he  threw  upon 
the  adverse  and  wholly  misshaped  statement. 

His  early  impressions  of  Grecian  virtue  did  not  fail  him  in  the 
article  of  friendship.  He  was  a  steady,  serviceable,  and  affectionate 
friend  with  respect  to  his  early  intimates  and  parliamentary  sup- 
porters— affectionate,  but  varying  in  degree ;  serviceable,  but  according 
to  what,  the  occasion  afforded  or  duty  permitted.  In  my  possession 
there  is  authentic  proof  of  his  having  provided  for  the  fair  pretensions 
of  every  individual  in  the  limited  number  of  his  political  party  at  the 
same  time  that  he  consented  to  join  the  administration  in  1814. 

Somewhere  about  the  year  1792,  a  young  student  of  law  occupied 
an  apartment  in  the  Temple.  One  morning  a  poor  unacknowledged 
relation  applied  to  him  for  relief.  The  student,  having  no  money  at 
command,  gave  him  a  portion  of  his  clothes  instead,  and  indemnified 
his  servant  for  the  loss  of  an  eventual  perquisite  by  the  gift  of  his 
watch.  The  student  was  George  Canning. 

Several  years  later,  a  retired  statesman,  under  the  pressure  of  want 
and  sickness,  applied  to  a  statesman  in  place  for  pecuniary  aid.  His 
bond  for  200£.  accompanied  the  request.  A  cheque  to  that  amount 
was  sent  in  reply,  and  the  bond  was  thrown  into  the  fire.  George 
Canning  was  the  statesman  in  place. 

Of  that  student  and  statesman,  the  gifted  in  mind  alone,  no  one 
has  ever  learnt  the  name  without  hearing  of  his  wit  as  well  as  of  his 
eloquence  and  ministerial  celebrity.  His  talent  of  that  kind  has  been 

1  Juvenal,  Sat.  iii.  152. 


1880.  GEORGE  CANNING.  39 

slily,  perhaps  even  openly,  stigmatised  as  not  only  sarcastic,  but 
11-natured  into  the  bargain.  Sarcastic  it  was,  ay,  and  cutting  to 
the  bone,  when  artifice  important  enough  to  require  exposure  and 
rebuke  warranted  a  sally  of  indignation  ;  but  ill-natured,  in  the  sense 
I  attach  to  ill-nature,  it  never  was.  I  have  seen  many  of  his  early 
letters,  in  some  of  which  are  names  of  persons  familiar  to  the  world 
at  large,  but  all  of  an  easy,  light-hearted,  good-natured  character,  the 
rare  exceptions  being  sufficiently  explained  to  justify  the  distinction. 
I  had  occasion  once  to  consult  him  as  to  the  manner  in  which  I  should 
treat  a  diplomatic  colleague,  of  whose  secret  conduct,  unwarrantable 
n  form,  and  injurious  to  my  diplomatic  proceedings,  I  had  acciden- 
tally acquired  a  knowledge.  His  answer  was :  c  Snub  him,  and  leave 
him  off?  I  will  not  name  the  man,  although  his  roguery  was  dis- 
covered by  his  own  Government,  who  treated  him  as  a  culprit,  and 
employed  him,  nevertheless,  privately,  for  he  was  clever  enough  to 
have  a  value  independent  of  character.  I  once  took  the  liberty  of 
hinting  to  Mr.  Canning  that  his  manner  of  carrying  on  his  political 
differences  with  the  Duke  of  Wellington  was  rather  below  what  the 
Duke  might  fairly  think  due  to  his  great  military  services  and 
almost  unrivalled  elevation.  '  He  must  take  neighbour's  fare,'  was 
all  I  got  in  reply.  On  another  occasion  I  ventured  to  express  some 
little  surprise  that  he  should  have  gone  so  far  in  the  heat  of  party 
strife  as  to  stop  Mr.  Brougham's  provoking  invective  by  exclaiming, 
'  That,  sir,  is  false'  His  justification  consisted  in  the  assertion  that 
the  words,  however  unqualified, '  had  done  a  great  deal  of  good.'  The 
mention  of  these  rather  trivial  anecdotes  may  be  excused  on  account 
of  their  significance  as  indications  of  his  manner  of  expressing  him- 
self when  explanation  was  to  be  avoided. 

This  point  of  view  may  be  further  illustrated  by  sundry  familiar 
anecdotes  or  fugitive  compositions,  which,  however,  can  only  be  stated 
at  the  risk  of  repeating  what  is  already  known  to  the  social  or  literary 
world. 

At  the  head  of  a  dwarf  selection  may  fitly  be  placed  a  schoolboy's 
epigram,  written,  as  it  would  seem,  with  a  feeling  which  in  due 
season  was  to  expand  into  patriotism  : — 

When  weigh'd  with  us  you  kick  the  beam, 

Say  wags  of  Eton  jealous ; 
If  true,  the  reason's  clear,  we  deem — 

You  are  such  heavy  fellows ! 

Eton  at  a  later  period  was  also  the  scene  of  what  follows.  Several 
boys  met  together  for  the  recital  of  a  poem  composed  by  one  of  them. 
Among  the  verses  was  a  line  which  ran  thus,  if  long  tradition  be 

correct : — 

By  the  Hue  lustre  of  her  languid  eye. 

Objection  was  made  to  the  italicised  epithet,  and  various  amend- 


40  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  January 

ments  were  suggested.  Two  or  three  of  them  were  near  the  mark, 
but  not  so  near  as  to  be  quite  satisfactory.  Silence  ensued  ;  every  one 
was  lost  in  search  of  the  precious  but  latent  word — a  word  conveying 
the  idea  of  ease  in  position  and  breadth  of  range  in  rotation. 
Suddenly  a  voice  was  heard  :  '  What  say  you  to  sivivel  ? '  Gravity  at 
once  collapsed,  and  away  into  vacancy  on  a  roar  of  laughter  went 
poem  and  poet  and  all. 

The  next  illustration  may  be  given  in  Canning's  own  words.  In 
September  1790,  he  writes  from  Crewe  Hall: — • 

Crewe  Hall,  September  4th,  17!)0. 

Mrs.  Crewe,  you  must  know,  has  a  dog  called  '  Quan.'  A  day  or  two  ago,  at 
dinner,  Mr.  Crewe  said  that  poor  'Quan'  had  been  very  ill  in  the  morning,  and 
'  If  he  dies,'  said  he  to  Mrs.  C'rewe, '  will  you  let  him  be  buried  in  your  dairy  ? ' 
Now  a  dairy  is  rather  too  delicate  a  place  to  bury  a  dog  in,  and  so  Mrs.  C.  fought 
it  off  for  some  time ;  but  at  last,  '  Well,'  said  she,  turning  to  me,  '  Quan  shall  be 
buried  there  if  you  will  give  him  an  epitaph.'  '  That  I  will/  said  I, '  and  with  all  my 
heart : 

Poor  "  Quan  "  lies  buried  in  the  dairy, 

And  is  not  that  a  sad  Quandary  ? ' 

Many  years  afterwards  he  had  to  entertain  the  King  and 
Queen  of  the  Sandwich  Islands  when  they  visited  England  during 
his  tenure  of  the  Foreign  Office.  He  named  Mr.  Byng,  so  well 
known  as  the  poodle,  to  act  as  master  of  the  ceremonies  to  their 
Majesties.  One  morning  arrangements  were  to  be  made  for  an 
excursion.  A  council  was  held,  and  every  place  in  the  carriage  was 
supplied  with  an  occupant,  when  some  one  exclaimed,  *  You  can't 
leave  Byng  behind ;  how  is  he  to  go  ? '  '  Underneath,  of  course,' 
said  the  Minister.  A  laugh  ensued,  but  the  poodle  was  seated 
with  due  respect. 

There  is  reason  to  presume  that  practical  joking  was  a  good  deal 
in  fashion  about  a  century  ago.  The  amusement  was  one  which  had 
its  inconveniences,  but  they  belong  to  the  time  of  action,  and  the 
remembrance  may  be  entertained  without  a  spark  of  regret.  Two 
instances  in  which  Mr.  Canning  had  a  share  still  hold  a  place  in  my 
recollection.  A  party  of  young  people  were  brought  together  at  a 
country  house  in  Derbyshire,  when  it  happened  one  day  that  the 
conversation  turned  upon  the  manner  in  which  trials  were  conducted, 
and  a  lady  who  was  present  expressed  her  ignorance  of  the  forms 
and  her  wish  to  see  them  in  practice.  '  Nothing  more  easy,'  said 
one  of  the  company.  '  I  think  we  are  numerous  enough  to  get  up  a 
trial  without  waiting  till  the  Courts  are  in  session.'  No  sooner  said 
than  done.  In  a  very  few  days  the  judge  was  on  his  bench,  the 
lawyers,  the  witnesses,  the  parties  concerned,  all  in  their  respective 
places.  A  respectable  number  of  spectators  made  the  representation 
complete.  The  pleadings,  the  examinations,  the  summing-up,  were 
all  carried  through,  and  the  judge,  having  received  the  verdict  of  a 
supposed  jury,  was  on  the  point  of  giving  sentence,  when  the  leading 


1880.  GEORGE  CANNING.  41 

counsel  (Canning,  no  doubt)  stepped  forward,  and  requested  in 
earnest  tones  that  an  important  witness,  just  arrived,  might  be 
heard.  Consent  was  given  with  becoming  gravity,  and  the  new 
witness,  a  young  female  of  colour,  was  ushered  in.  Imagine  his 
lordship's  horror  when  he  perceived  that  the  engaging  personation  was 
his  own  wig-stand  dressed  up  for  the  occasion,  and  disclosing  in  full 
blaze  the  secret,  so  carefully  kept,  of  his  premature  baldness.  The 
judge  was  no  less  a  person  than  the  late  Right  Honourable  John 
Hookham  Frere. 

Unqualified  amusement,  the  rose  without  its  thorn,  must  have 
closed  upon  the  fish- dinner  speech  ascribed  to  Mr.  Canning,  and 
proved,  one  might  say,  by  internal  evidence  to  have  been  his  : — 

Rising,  gentlemen,  to  thank  you  for  your  kindness  in  drinking  my  health,  I 
hope  you  will  permit  me  to  take  a  hint  from  the  occasion  which  has  brought  us 
together.  This,  gentlemen,  is  a  fish  dinner.  Fish  drink  much,  and  say  little. 
While  you  follow  their  example  in  the  first  respect,  allow  me  to  follow  it  in  the 
second.  I  drink  most  cordially  to  the  health  of  every  one  here. 

To  my  understanding  it  appears  that  no  unusual  stretch  of  in- 
dulgence is  required  to  find  no  shade  of  ill-nature  or  unkindness  in 
these  representative  instances  of  our  statesman's  wit,  but  on  the 
contrary  a  general  tone  of  lively  good-humour  bordering  on  fun,  and 
only  in  some  cases  disparaging,  as  wit,  the  offspring  of  conscious 
quickness,  must  ever  be  when  taking  a  personal  form. 

What  little  remains  to  be  noted  wears  a  more  serious  and,  in  its 
close,  a  more  sad  and  deplorable  aspect.  Mr.  Canning,  as  I  have  said, 
was  lost  to  England  when  the  sudden  decease  of  Lord  Castlereagh 
brought  him  back  from  the  port  of  his  embarkation  for  India  to  fill  the 
vacant  places  of  Secretary  for  Foreign  Affairs  and  leader  in  the  House 
of  Commons.  There  is  no  reason  to  doubt  that  his  administration  of 
Indian  affairs  would  have  redounded  to  his  credit  and  increased  his 
fame,  but  well  was  it  for  himself  and  for  his  country  that  Providence 
ordered  it  otherwise.  The  addition  of  five  years  and  several  months 
to  his  political  as  well  as  to  his  natural  life  was  nobly,  successfully, 
and  gloriously  devoted  to  the  establishment  of  the  best  principles, 
and  their  corresponding  enactments. 

To  our  foreign  relations  he  gave  a  tone  which  had  the  effect  of 
maintaining  our  national  dignity  without  compromising  the  country's 
peace,  although  he  had  often  to  deal  with  powers  either  hostile  to 
our  constitutional  system  or  jealous  of  our  commercial  prosperity. 
He  laid  the  foundation  of  Greek  independence,  he  limited  the  action 
of  despotic  influence  abroad,  he  recognised  the  revolted  provinces  of 
Spanish  America  as  independent  States,  he  defended  Portugal  when 
threatened  by  neighbouring  powers  with  a  vigour  and  efficiency  seldom 
matched,  he  opened  negotiations  for  the  settlement  of  every  outstand- 
ing difference  with  the  United  States. 

Liberal  as  he  thus  appears  to  have  been,  his  opinions  had  root  in 


42  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  January 

a  love  of  popularity ;  their  consistency  resulted  from  conviction.  He 
opposed  Parliamentary  reform  at  home  as  steadily  as  he  promoted 
the  cause  of  freedom  abroad.  Eight  or  wrong,  in  that  respect  he 
held  the  same  doctrines  alike  when  Pitt  was  his  chief  and  when 
Lansdowne  was  his  colleague. 

It  may  be  said  with  truth  that  when  he  was  finally  called  to  the 
helm,  he  owed  that  well-earned  elevation  to  the  united  confidence  of  his 
sovereign  and  the  people.  Nor  is  it  less  true  that  his  premature  death 
a  few  months  later  was  not  only  a  cause  of  deep  sorrow  throughout 
his  own  country,  but  was  felt  as  a  loss  by  every  nation  capable  of 
appreciating  high  qualities  of  mind,  sound  principles  of  conduct,  and 
resolution  to  confront  every  kind  of  difficulty  for  the  honour  and 
welfare  of  his  native  land. . 

STKATFOKD  DE  EEDCLIFFE. 


1880 


ATHLETICS  IN  PUBLIC  SCHOOLS. 


AN  Englishman  who  travels  from  time  to  time  on  the  Continent,  and 
on  his  way  converses  with  some  of  the  Frenchmen  or  Germans  he 
meets,  not  unfrequently  elicits  some  opinion  from  them  on  the 
institutions  or  peculiarities  of  his  own  country ;  for  he  has  a  feeling 
that  such  opinions  are  perhaps  free  from  'the  prejudices  he  is  familiar 
with  at  home,  and  that  consequently  the  views  they  express  may  be 
original,  even  if  erroneous.  He  is  accordingly  prepared  for  something 
a  little  new,  and  there  are  a  few  subjects  in  which  I  think  his 
expectation  will  not  be  disappointed.  One  of  these  is  the  education 
of  the  boys  of  our  higher  classes.  Let  us  suppose  that  he  is  talking 
with  an  intelligent  Frenchman,  a  man  fully  acquainted  with  his  own 
country,  who  has  also  picked  up  what  he  can  about  England  He 
will  find  him  highly  appreciative  of  our  public-school  system,  which 
appreciation  the  Englishman  takes  as  a  matter  of  course,  having 
probably  been  educated  at  one  himself,  and  having  great  faith  in  the 
training  he  has  undergone  ;  but  the  reason  the  foreigner  gives  rather 
surprises  him.  It  is  not  the  intellectual  training  our  lads  enjoy 
which  has  excited  his  admiration ;  on  that  score  he  thinks  his  own 
lycees  in  Paris  are  in  no  way  inferior.  Still  less  is  it  the  almost 
unbounded  liberty  allowed  to  English  boys ;  that  he  regards  as  a 
national  idiosyncrasy  which,  if  tolerably  harmless  in  England,  it 
would  be  madness  to  encourage  in  France ;  but  he  selects  for  his 
unqualified  approval  a  feature  of  our  educational  system  which  has 
no  counterpart  in  the  establishments  of  his  own  country,  that  is  to  say, 
the  culte  of  athletics.  The  Englishman  is  surprised  because  he  is 
hardly  yet  prepared  to  say  that  athleticism  is  quite  the  most 
admirable  feature  in  our  schools,  and  he  does  not  see  why,  if  the 
thing  is  so  much  admired,  it  is  not  adopted  in  France.  Now  leaving 
the  latter  question  aside,  we  have  to  consider  firstly,  whether 
athleticism  is  so  highly  spoken  of  with  good  reason ;  secondly,  if 
there  are  grounds  for  thinking  that  elements  of  danger  are  contained 
therein ;  thirdly,  if  this  is  the  case,  wh  at  measures  should  be  taken 
to  meet  this  danger  most  effectually. 

1.  What  then  are  the  main  reasons  why  athletics  are  encouraged 
among  boys  at  school  ?  or  rather  let  us  say,  What  ought  to  be  the 


44  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  January 

reasons  why  they  are  encouraged  ?  for  it  often  happens  that  a  system 
is  valuable  on  certain  grounds,  but  is  lauded  and  supported  on  others ; 
which  perhaps  we  shall  find  to  be  the  case  in  this  instance.  Firstly 
then,  they  are  encouraged,  and  rightly  so  I  think,  on  the  grounds  of 
health.  Eecent  years  have  witnessed  among  all  classes  of  society  a 
growing  attention  to  the  health  of  the  body,  and  the  hygienic  value 
of  games  for  boys  has  never  yet  been  seriously  impugned.  Few 
things  are  more  consoling  to  our  national  vanity  than  the  contrast 
presented  by  the  spectacle  of  English  boys  engaged  in  one  of  our 
outdoor  games,  and  that  of  a  troop  of  sallow  knock-kneed  French 
youths  filing  in  groups  of  three  along  the  high-road,  for  this  is  their 
corresponding  and  solitary  recreation.  An  English  boy  has  probably 
tried  the  same  thing  at  a  private  school,  and  hates  the  memory  of  it 
now  that  he  is  14  and  can  play  football  regularly;  but  a  young 
Frenchman  of  17  has  never  known  anything  more  attractive.  He 
hears  occasional  rumours  of  a  country  where  boys  practise  '  le  box ' 
and  other  strange  pastimes,  and  wonders  if  they  are  happy ;  while  his 
young  energy  is  never  stirred  by  the  delight  of  bodily  feats  successfully 
performed,  or  stimulated  to  prowess  by  eager  companions.  His  youth 
passes  wearily,  and  he  looks  back  on  it  afterwards  as  the  time  of  his 
life  most  productive  of  dismal  recollections,  a  time  of  close  restraint 
and  unrelieved  labour.  We  observe  this  contrast  and  believe  in 
athletics  as  preservative  of  one  immeasurably  precious  possession,  the 
possession  of  health,  and  so  leading  to  another  yet  more  precious,  for 
boys  and  men  alike,  the  possession  of  happiness.  Again,  there  is 
another  most  useful  side  to  athletics  not  so  commonly  talked  of ;  I 
mean  their  discipline.  A  boy  is  disciplined  by  them  in  two  ways  :  by 
being  forced  to  put  the  welfare  of  the  common  cause  before  selfish 
interests,  to  obey  implicitly  the  word  of  command,  and  act  in  concert 
with  the  heterogeneous  elements  of  the  company  he  belongs  to ;  and 
secondly,  should  it  so  turn  out,  he  is  disciplined  by  being  raised  to  a 
post  of  command,  where  he  feels  the  gravity  of  responsible  office  and 
the  difficulty  of  making  prompt  decisions  and  securing  a  willing 
obedience,  (rood  moral  results  of  this  sort  may  be  expected  from 
games  wherever  they  have  developed  spontaneously,  and  where  all, 
even  to  the  youngest,  eagerly  engaging,  choose  their  commanders, 
pugnceque  dent  simulacra  sub  armis. 

These  are  some  of  the  satisfactory  aspects  of  athleticism.  More 
might  be  enumerated,  but  it  would  be  superfluous,  as  Englishmen 
evidently  are  alive  to  all  the  merits  of  this  national  characteristic, 
and  we  may  remark  that  this  has  been  especially  noticeable  during 
the  last  quarter  of  a  century  or  so.  It  is  not  easy  to  produce 
authentic  information  bearing  on  the  importance  attached  to  athletics 
before  the  lifetime  of  the  present  generation,  but  there  are  two  facts 
showing  clearly  enough  which  way  the  stream  runs,  that  are  worth 
mentioning.  Any  one  who  played  in  the  Oxford  and  Cambridge  or 


1880.  ATHLETICS  IN  PUBLIC  SCHOOLS.  45 

Eton  and  Harrow  cricket  matches  thirty  years  ago  can  testify  that 
there  were  scarcely  enough  spectators  to  form  a  continuous  line  round 
Lord's  cricket-ground.  In  the  latter  match  it  was  not  found  neces- 
sary to  use  ropes  till  1864,  while  now  such  is  the  importance  of  the 
annual  pageant  that  it  affects  the  duration  of  the  London  season. 
At  about  the  same  date  a  few  keen  partisans  gathered  together  to  see 
the  Universities  contend  in  rowing.  Little  was  said  about  it,  scarcely 
anything  written.  Nowadays  the  crowd  assembled  to  see  the  practice 
of  the  crews  equals  the  number  of  those  who  used  to  watch  the  actual 
race ;  moreover,  the  minutest  facts  connected  with  the  play  of  each 
oarsman's  muscles  are  anxiously  picked  up  on  the  spot,  form  a  para- 
graph in  the  daily  papers,  and  are  telegraphed  to  the  Antipodes. 
Deducting  from  all  this  the  influence  of  fashion  and  the  mere 
gregarious  tendencies  of  society,  it  is  quite  clear  that  there  has  been 
a  dead  set  of  public  feeling  towards  increasing  the  importance  of  all 
athletics.  In  short,  the  tide  has  borne  all  before  it,  and  scarcely  a 
warning  voice  has  been  heard  hinting  at  the  possibility  of  going  too 
far ;  and  consequently  very  many  boys,  soon  after  they  enter  the 
schools  (some  of  them  before),  are  impressed  with  the  notion  that 
athletics  are  to  be  pursued  as  the  one  important  thing — in  conjunc- 
tion with  reading  perhaps,  si  non,  quocunque  modo — but  pursued 
with  every  nerve  they  must  be. 

Such  then,  briefly,  is  the  system,  its  merits,  and  the  light  in 
which  it  is  regarded.  I  come  now  to  consider  the  elements  of  danger 
contained  therein. 

2.  At  first  sight  anyone  would  say  that  its  chief  danger  in  the 
present  day  lies  in  the  superfluity  of  time  devoted  to  various  outdoor 
pursuits  at  school.  This  is  Avrong.  I  do  not  deny,  of  course,  tha.t  too 
much  time  may  be,  and  not  unfrequently  is,  absorbed  daily  by  games ; 
but  that  is  not  the  chief  danger ;  authorities  could  easily  suppress  an 
extra  hour  or  two  if  they  saw  fit.  But  it  is  not  generally  realised 
that  the  effects  of  games  last  far  beyond  the  close  of  play  hours. 
Leaving  out  of  sight  all  physical  considerations,  over-fatigue,  &c., 
which  are,  nevertheless,  very  important,  let  us  look  merely  at  the 
effects  on  the  mind.  Suppose  the  case  of  a  lad  in  a  school  where 
athletics  are  much  thought  of,  who  is  perhaps  just  emerging  from 
obscurity  because  it  is  found  that  he  can  row  or  bowl  well.  He  finds 
himself  with  an  unlimited  prospect  of  fame  before  him  ;  if  he  makes 
a  great  struggle,  some  important  step  in  his  '  young  ambition's  ladder ' 
will  be  reached ;  he  will  be  elevated  into  a  social  atmosphere  now 
tenanted  by  the  high  ones  of  the  earth,  who  look  down  on  him  scorn- 
fully, but,  in  the  event  of  his  success,  would  soon  be  walking  arm-in- 
arm with  him.  A  fascination,  unimaginable  by  the  outside  world, 
urges  him  onward,  and  with  a  sense  of  his  increasing  importance 
comes  an  increasing  appreciation  of  the  method  by  which  he  has 
risen  ;  so  that,  even  with  his  books  before  him,  his  mind  is  wandering- 


46  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY.  January 

among  the  scenes  of  his  ephemeral  triumphs  and  reverses,  while  he 
ruminates  on  his  last  big  innings  or  the  prospects  of  distinction  in  a 
coming  football  match.  Prizes,  places  in  the  school,  are  but  little  things, 
and  are  treated  as  of  little  worth.     This  statement  of  the  case  is  not  a 
whit  exaggerated  as  far  as  the  majority  of  athletes  are  concerned.     It 
needs  a  very  exceptional  boy  indeed,  after  having  been  engaged  in  an 
absorbing  pursuit,  to  unshackle  straightway  his  energies  and  thoughts 
simply  at  the  call  of  duty,  probably  uninviting,  irksome  duty.     But  the 
athletes  are  not  the  only  ones  affected.     Wherever  athletics  are  very 
popular,  around  the  coterie  of  successful  gamesters  is  formed  a  large 
horde  of  hangers-on,  boys  who  admire  muscle  without  possessing  it, 
and  who,  formed  by  nature  for  a  very  different  line,  adopt  the  habits 
and  opinions  of  the  superior  class,  till,  perhaps  without  participating, 
their  interest  too  is  absorbed  by  the  prevailing  rage,  and  the  tone  of 
the  whole  community  is    affected.      Under  these    conditions  work, 
honest  spontaneous  effort  in  other  lines  but  amusement,  is  impossible. 
In  this  way  intellectual  interests  are  gravely  imperilled  by  any 
advanced  growth  of  athleticism.     But  it  may  be  said  that  there  are 
some  things   even  more  important  than  intellectual  interests,  and 
provided  that   the  action  of  athleticism  on  these  is   undoubtedly 
beneficial,  we  can  put  up  with  a  considerable  loss  of  book-learning 
in  view  of  greater  advantages.     This  leads  me  to  consider  briefly  the 
complex  question  of  the  effects  of  athletics  upon  vice  and  immorality 
at  schools.     We  are  familiar  with  a  widely-held  opinion  that  healthy 
games  are,  per  se,  a  check  upon  vicious  tendencies,  but  we  do  not 
account  for  the  fact  that  among  schoolboys  the  mere  students  are,  as  a 
body,  more  virtuous  than  the  mere  athletes  ;  for  that  this  is  a  fact  I 
cannot  doubt,  though  it  is  a  little  difficult  to  point  to  the  reason. 
Probably  any  great  amount  of  idleness  and  absolute  supremacy  of  re- 
creation over  study  would  act  injuriously  in  this  direction  ;  for  though 
athleticism  may  easily  so  engross  the  attention  as  to  stunt  the  higher 
life  of  a  school,  it  does  not  appear  that  it  is  sufficiently  powerful  to  act 
as  a  barrier  to  the  lower  tendencies  ;  idleness,  however  caused,  must 
be  deleterious  in  this   respect.     On  the  other  hand  it  is  tolerably 
clear  that  at  the  Universities  there  is  not  a  higher  standard  among 
mere  students  than  among  mere  athletes,  so  that  we  must  be  careful 
not  to  attribute  any  evil  effects  directly  to  games  ;  indeed,  almost 
all  agree  in  thinking  that  a  student  at  the  University,  and  certainly  a 
hard-working  boy  at  school,  is  the  better  for  participation  in  them. 
Meanwhile,  an  energetic  athlete  without  an  idea  of  any  other  pursuit 
whatever,  is  better  off  and  less  likely  to  turn  out  vicious  than  a  wholly 
idle  University  man,  or  schoolboy ;  and  the  appreciation  of  this  fact 
seems  to  have  led  people  into  investing  athletics  with  a  power  of 
stemming  vice  ;  the  truth  being  that  they  are  in  a  limited  degree 
obstructive  of  it,  but  only  in  a  limited  degree,  and  it  is  quite  erroneous 
to  suppose  that  in  any  educational  institution  a  predominance  of 


1880.  ATHLETICS  IN  PUBLIC .  SCHOOLS.  47 

athleticism  necessarily  brings  with  it  a  high  standard  of  morals  :  there 
are  so  many  undoubted  advantages  connected  with  a  sensible  pursuit 
of  athletics,  that  we  can  well  afford  to  be  cautious  in  attributing 
to  them  hypothetical  virtues.  So  I  think  we  may  quit  this  portion 
of  the  subject  by  saying  that  the  beneficial  properties  of  athleticism 
are  not  confined  to  a  far  advanced  or  excessive  development  of  it, 
but  are  better  brought  into  play  by  a  system  carefully  controlled  with 
reference  to  the  intellectual  claims  of  school  life,  and  that  in  any  case 
those  properties  are  beneficial  to  the  tone  of  a  school  in  a  very  limited 
degree.  Accordingly,  if  the  intellectual  life  is  ever  clearly  endangered, 
this  aspect  of  athletics  should  not  be  brought  forward  as  a  counter- 
balancing argument  of  any  weight.  Let  us  now  see  how  an  ad- 
vanced growth  of  athleticism  acts  in  reference  to  another  important 
matter. 

As  is  well  known,  in  the  majority  of  public  schools  a  considerable 
part  of  the  disciplinary  government  is  relegated  to  a  section  of  boys 
who  have  reached  a  certain  position  in  school  order,  that  is  to  say,  to 
those  who  are  as  a  body  the  intellectual  primates  of  the  place.  They 
are  invested  with  great  power  by  the  authorities,  and  are  supposed 
to  represent  the  conscientious  portion  of  the  community,  to  suppress 
the  unruly  and  guard  the  weak  from  oppression.  They  are  called 
monitors.  Now  side  by  side  with  these  another  class  grows  up  equally 
compact  and  generally  about  as  numerous,  but  not  invested  with 
power  or  recognised  by  the  authorities.  These  are  the  foremost 
athletes,  and  to  them  is  paid  spontaneously  and  without  stint  the 
allegiance  of  the  main  body  of  the  school.  Occasionally,  of  course, 
the  two  intermingle,  and  one  boy  unites  in  himself  the  two  sources 
of  influence  ;  but,  speaking  generally,  a  difficulty  is  always  threatened 
by  the  co-existence  of  two  powers ;  the  one  recognised  as  supreme 
by  the  constitution,  the  other  chosen  as  the  object  of  respect  and 
affection  by  the  subject  classes  of  boys.  The  constitution  is  framed 
in  antagonism  to  public  feeling,  and  consequently  the  forces  that 
work  for  good,  the  monitors,  work  under  a  difficulty.  The  power- 
ful athletic  influence  assumes  in  any  given  case  probably  an  in- 
different, perhaps  a  hostile,  attitude  towards  them,  and  if  they  are 
not  actually  thwarted  by  it  they  can  scarcely  ever  calculate  on  its  co- 
operation ;  and  thus  a  great  power  in  the  school  so  far  from  being 
utilised  for  good,  is  liable  to  constitute  itself  an  enemy  to  discipline. 
Meantime,  in  a  few  schools,  the  monitorial  system  does  not  exist. 
In  these,  of  course,  the  athletes  find  a  freer  scope  for  the  exercise  of 
their  great  influence  :  they  are  the  one  section  of  the  school  to  whose 
hands  a  controlling  and  guiding  power  is  liberally  entrusted.  Their 
means  of  influence  for  good  or  evil  are  in  some  cases  simply  illimitable. 
As  is  -sometimes  remarked,  no  public  functionary,  no  clergyman, 
no  military  commander,  certainly  no  Prime  Minister,  assumes  his 
powers  entrusted  with  such  absolute  and  unquestioning  confidence. 


48  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  January 

as  does  a  prominent  public  school-boy.  His  opinions  are  not  disputed, 
no  Opposition  benches  are  ranged  against  him  ;  but  his  lightest  utter- 
ance carries  law  with  it,  and  in  questions  of  right  and  wrong  his 
behaviour  goes  far  to  shape  the  yet  pliant  dispositions  of  those  around 
him,  the  future  ruling  class  of  the  country.  The  question  then 
arises  whether  an  enlightened  superior  authority  would  naturally 
select  athletes  to  be  the  holders  of  this  power :  and  to  judge  from 
the  definite  constitution  of  a  monitorial  school,  and  the  tendency 
of  such  few  measures  as  deal  with  the  matter  in  other  schools,  it  is 
clear  that  we  must  answer  this  question  in  the  negative.  In  other 
words  the  exaltation  of  athletics  and  athletes  creates  complications  in 
school  government. 

These,  then,  are  the  dangerous  aspects  of  athleticism.     It  is  liable, 
if  allowed  full  play,  to  damage  seriously  the  intellectual  interests  of 
a  school  without  raising  appreciably  the  moral  tone,  and  also  to  be- 
come a  hindrance  to  school  government.     It  is  quite  obvious,  then, 
that  great  care  should  be  taken  to  control  this  development  of  school 
life.    It  should  be  looked  upon  as  ever  tending  to  form  an  excrescence, 
and  may  be  compared  to  the  pet  lion  ^Eschylus  speaks  of,  which  when 
kept  in  check  is  a  constant  source  of  pleasure,  but  which,  having 
grown  in  stature  and  escaped  from  control,  works  mischief  far  and 
wide.     Is  it  the  case  then  that  athletics  have  become  dangerous  ?  if 
so,  in  what  quarter  is  the  danger  chiefly  to  be  found  ?    Now,  in  answer 
to  these  questions,  it  would  not  be  difficult  to  institute  a  comparison 
between  different  schools,  showing  the  amount  of  hours  per  diem 
devoted  in  each  to  athletics ;  but  this  would  be  useless,  for,  as  I  have 
indicated,  the  grave  fact  is  not  the  amount  of  time  spent  in  particular 
games,  but  the  consumption  and  absorption  of  energy  consequent 
upon  the  excessive  admiration  paid  to  those  games.     We  know  too 
that  the  halo  which  surrounds  athletics  is  not  at  all  the  same  in 
different   schools,   and   so   the   effects   of  athleticism  must  vary   a 
great   deal.     It  would   be   absurd   to   suppose  that  all   our   public 
schools   suffer  from   the   same    complaint ;    but    it   is  certain    that 
in  some  of  them  athleticism  has  advanced  far  enough  to  be  con- 
sidered an  evil,  and  that,  if  its  indirect  effects  are  carefully  taken 
into  account,  the  number  of  schools  so  affected  will  be  found  tolerably 
extensive.     To  particularise  further  would  be  useless  for  my  purpose, 
because  I  now  have  to  consider  the  ways  of  meeting  this  evil,  and  as 
the  circumstances  of  different  schools  vary  so  much,  it  is  impossible 
to  take  them  singly.     The  subject  must  be  treated  generally,  and 
what  follows  must   be  taken,  of  course,  as  applying  only  to  schools 
where  athleticism  lias  become  dangerous,  for  the  reasons  I  have  already 
given. 

3.  The  evils  of  excessive  athletics  should  be  dealt  with,  I  believe, 
by  measures  of  a  twofold  character,  direct  and  indirect,  the  first  directly 
diminishing  the  importance  attached  to  them,  the  second  augmenting 


1880.  ATHLETICS  IN  PUBLIC  SCHOOLS.  49 

the  interest  in  higher  subjects,  that  is  to  say  in  subjects  of  more 
practical  value,  more  refining,  more  edifying. 

We  may,  then,  first  ask  the  question :  What  is  the  secret  of  the 
importance  attached  by  schoolboys  to  athletics  ?  and  omitting  such 
recondite  causes  as  Teutonic  nationality,  climate,  &c.,  let  us  see  if 
there  are  no  less  complex,  more  preventible  causes  at  work  with 
which  it  is  our  object  to  deal.  I  am  assuming  that,  on  the  whole, 
masters  are  alive  to  the  nature  of  the  problem  :  that  though  they 
may  freely  partake  in  games  with  the  boys,  yet  that  they  are  ever 
trying  to  stem  the  current  of  their  feelings  where  they  think  that  the 
stream  runs  too  fast,  by  pointing  out  how  ephemeral  and  secondary 
the  claims  of  athletics  are  in  comparison  with  other  things.  But  yet 
it  is  certain  that  in  many  cases  they  find  the  opposing  force  too  strong 
for  them,  and  that  they  cannot  diminish  it  because  the  motive  power 
lies  beyond  their  sphere  of  action.  That  motive  power  is  the  con- 
sensus of  fashionable  public  opinion  which  acts  externally  on  the 
feelings  of  the  school  and  produces  such  results.  Now  we  may  well 
suppose  that  their  attempts  to  modify  public  opinion  may  fail,  but 
there  remains  another  course  open  to  them,  that  is,  to  leave  public 
opinion  alone,  but  take  away  as  far  as  possible  the  means  of  its  acting 
upon  schools,  and  withdraw  the  boys  from  its  influence.  The  force 
may  continue  to  exist,  but  it  need  not  be  allowed  to  tell  upon  so  sus- 
ceptible a  community.  For  instance,  the  authorities  of  any  school 
where  the  devotion  to  athletics  is  undeniably  excessive,  may  very  likely 
find  that  there  are  certain  recurring  occasions  on  which  this  remark- 
able feature  of  public  opinion  is  presented  in  a  most  imposing  and 
dazzling  form  to  the  boys.  In  such  a  way  even  the  youngest  comes  to 
perceive  that  contests  which  from  their  character  should  excite  a  con- 
fined and  local  interest  solely,  are  made  the  occasion  for  a  striking 
manifestation  of  wide-spread  public  enthusiasm,  and  gradually  he 
draws  the  inference  that  there  is  something  intrinsically  noble  and 
worthy  of  homage  in  a  sport  which  can  so  stir  a  multitude.  Within 
the  school  walls  he  finds  (so  we  assume)  a  body  of  men  who  are 
continually  telling  him  that  there  are  higher  interests  in  life,  and 
that  to  these  his  attention  should  be  given,  but 

Quid  faciunt  pauci  contra  tot  millia  fortes  ? 

He  looks  upon  them  as  a  class  bound  to  preach  such  doctrines  in  the 
position  they  hold,  and  that  it  is  only  to  be  expected  they  should  do 
so  ;  but  as  for  really  thinking  that  they  are  right  when,  as  it  appears 
to  him,  the  whole  of  England  is  the  other  way,  that  he  cannot  bring 
himself  to  do.  He  does  not  reflect  that  it  is  the  few  who  have  a  really 
intimate  acquaintance  with  the  subject  who  say  such  things,  while 
outside  it  is  perhaps  only  one  of  the  unaccountable  and  erratic  im- 
pulses of  modern  fashion  which  for  a  time  carry  all  before  them  in 
the  contrary  direction.  He  weighs  no  '  pros  and  cons,'  but  starts 
VOL.  VII.— No.  35.  E 


50  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  January 

meantime  on  his  school  career  heavily  weighted  with  a  load  of 
athleticism,  and  cannot  consider  anything  except  with  reference  to 
this  all-pervading  influence,  this  rightful  re\os  of  a  hoy's  existence. 
I  am  convinced  that  this  is  no  exaggerated  statement  of  the  case, 
and  I  can  see  no  rational  corollary  to  it  but  this : — that  steps  should 
be  taken  to  suppress  or  greatly  change  the  character  of,  or  opportunity 
for,  such  ebullitions  of  public  feeling,  seeing  that  the  feeling  itself  is 
certainly  irrational,  and  perhaps  evanescent,  but  that,  while  it  exists 
and  is  allowed  such  free  and  direct  action  upon  any  school,  its  effects 
are  baneful.  Of  course  the  difficulties,  and  also  the  necessities  of 
carrying  out  any  drastic  remedy  of  this  kind,  vary  with  different 
schools,  and  I  only  indicate  in  outline  the  nature  of  the  reform  to 
which  a  consideration  of  the  subject  seems  so  imperatively  to  lead. 

Any  alteration  of  this  sort,  if  carried  out,  would  act  directly  in 
reducing  the  prestige  of  athletics.  We  now  have  to  consider  some 
indirect  methods,  designed  to  raise  the  importance  of  more  serious 
matters.  But,  before  considering  them,  we  may  remark  that  they 
should  operate  pari  passu,  and  in  the  same  proportion  as  the  over- 
grown influence  of  athleticism  declines.  Supposing  that  in  any 
school  the  mass  of  boys  suddenly  realised  that  they  had  lavished  their 
affection  more  or  less  on  baubles,  and  ceased  to  devote  themselves 
as  they  did  before  to  games;  there  would  obviously  be  created  a 
vacuum  in  the  daily  outcome  of  energy ;  many  a  mind,  before  fully 
occupied,  would  find  less  to  think  about,  and  would  have  abundant 
leisure  time,  where  formerly  there  was  little  or  none.  Now  we  can 
all  conjecture,  since  the  days  of  Dr.  Watts,  what  would  be  the  result 
of  a  sudden  increase  of  leisure  among  boys.  The  more  '  idle  hands ' 
there  are,  the  more  mischief  they  do,  and  every  one  who  has  con- 
sidered the  question  knows  that  herein  lies  a  great  practical  difficulty. 
Athleticism  is  able  to  cope  with  many  indolent  bad  boys,  who  are 
stirred  up  to  indulge  in  an  occupation  at  once  healthy  and  absorbing, 
and  are  so  kept  from  the  multifarious  evils  which  flourish  among  the 
wholly  idle.  Diminish  the  power  of  athleticism,  and  vice  is,  so  to  speak, 
unfettered  and  turned  loose.  Such  is  the  difficulty  as  it  exists  at  present. 
But  this  difficulty  rests  upon  a  certain  low  and  hopeless  view  of  English 
boys,  which  is  adopted  by  those  who  suppose  that  an  abnormal  growth 
of  athleticism  is  necessary  in  order  to  check  their  strivings  towards 
wickedness ;  who  say  that  it  is  unwise  to  remove  this  predominating 
influence,  which  so  often  lies  like  a  pall  upon  the  higher  life  of  the 
school,  for  fear  that  evil  so  released  will  be  sufficient  to  outweigh  the 
good.  And  yet  the  view  is  not  wholly  false.  There  is  truth  in  it, 
enough  truth  to  make  us  insist  again  on  this  caution:  that  when  it  is 
held  necessary  that  boys'  minds  should  be  diverted  from  athletics, 
care  should  be  taken  to  supply  their. place,  so  that  the  house  winch 
is  thus  swept  and  garnished  may  be  filled  at  once  with  a  really  fitting- 
occupant,  the  desire  for  such  knowledge,  a  wish  for  such  self-improve- 


1880.  ATHLETICS  IN  PUBLIC  SCHOOLS.  51 

ment,  as  is  potent  to  preserve  the  inner  life  vigorous  and  pure,  and 
train  it  for  useful  doings  in  the  world.  Such  a  suggestion,  however, 
would  be  unpractical  without  some  consideration  of  the  means  neces- 
sary to  this  end.  In  what  direction  are  we  to  look  for  those  means  ? 
What  are  the  grounds  for  hoping  that  they  can  be  found  ? 

Of  late  years  a  very  important  change  has  been  noticeable  in  the 
education  of  our  higher  classes.  Certain  conditions  have  given  birth 
to  a  now  widely  accepted  theory  of  education,  which  in  all  probability 
will  effect  still  more  marked  alterations  than  it  has  hitherto.  The  con- 
ditions are  these.  Owing  to  the  increase  of  population  on  the  one  hand, 
and  the  advance  of  learning  on  the  other,  we  are  brought  face  toface,not 
only  with  an  increasing  number  of  subjects  to  be  learned,  but  also  with 
an  increasing  necessity  of  learning  them.  Many  members  of  the  class 
from  which,  thirty  years  ago,  the  ornamental  men  of  leisure  were  re- 
cruited, now  find  that  existence  has  assumed  to  them  a  more  sombre 
hue ;  paths  formerly  open  to  them  are  open  no  longer,  and  through 
knowledge  alone  an  access  to  ease  and  affluence  is  to  be  obtained.  Ac- 
cordingly, the  avenues  to  knowledge  have  been  made  smooth,  and  every- 
thing invites  the  unwilling  to  learn.  The  results  of  many  years' 
unintermittent  labour  are  presented  in  a  compressed  form-  in  every 
description  of  handbook  and  pocket-primer,  for  it  is  only  permitted  to 
a  comparatively  few  to  remain  ignorant  and  be  content  therewith.  The 
field  of  knowledge  has  thus  been  greatly  extended  and  opened  out,  and  a 
great  diversity  of  subjects  have  been  grappled  with  in  one  way  or  an- 
other ;  and  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  much  of  this  great  movement  pro- 
duces a  paltry  caricature  of  learning,  new  interests  have  been  excited 
and  minds  stimulated  which  would  have  lain  stagnant  before.  The 
managers  of  the  various  seats  of  education  have  roused  themselves  to 
supply  the  needs  of  the  time  and  extend  their  resources ;  and  they 
now  present  to  the  public  a  programme  far  broader  and  more  in- 
viting than  that  of  a  quarter  of  a  century  ago.  In  this  way  various 
special  lines  of  education  have  been  more  widely  adopted,  and  their 
adoption  has  influenced  the  purely  general  education,  with  this  result : 
men  now  perceive  that  boys'  minds  are  almost  infinitely  various,  and 
that  knowledge  of  various  sorts  must  be  presented  to  them  in  various 
ways — anything  to  awaken  interest  and  encourage  voluntary  in- 
tellectual effort.  Now  it  is  from  the  development  of  this  theory 
that  I  think  we  may  expect  results  having  an  important  bearing  on 
the  matter  in  hand.  The  introduction  of  subjects  likely  to  attract 
boys'  interest,  and  the  general  idea  of  teaching  them  by  exciting  that 
interest,  tend  to  upset  the  notion  that  dull  work  is  valuable  per  sc, 
quite  independently  of  the  subjects  worked  at.  It  must  be 
admitted  that  this  notion  has  been  allowed  every  chance.  Men  have 
aimed  at  educing  solid  effort  by  a  curriculum  of  study  which  could 
only  be  attractive  to  a  select  few.  Let  us  hope  that  the  idea  has 
really  had  its  day,  for  besides  being,  as  many  now  think,  compara- 

E2 


52  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  January 

lively  useless  in  itself,  its  effect  on  an  overgrown  athleticism  is 
positively  pernicious.  So  long  as  the  graver  occupations  of  a 
boy's  life  are  slavish  and  detested,  he  will  throw  himself  heart 
and  soul  into  any  kind  of  amusement,  and  set  himself  to  find  his 
only  happiness  therein,  while  all  knowledge,  all  that  is  either  use- 
ful for  practical  life,  or  merely  refining  in  itself,  he  will  vaguely 
think  must  be  in  a  way  dismal ;  his  view  of  it  will  be  coloured  by  the 
memory  of  the  toilsome  and  sterile  hours  he  has  spent  with  his  books. 
And  even  if  he  is  forced  to  learn  something,  such  knowledge  as  he 
gains  will  be  unproductive  ;  he  has  no  affection  for  it  and  does  not 
care  to  impart  it.  It  is  remarkable  how  many  men  seem  half  ashamed 
even  of  such  useful  knowledge  as  they  do  possess.  If  boys'  minds  are 
to  be  elevated  from  athletics  to  anything  higher,  it  will  not  be  by 
such  methods  as  these. 

So  let  us  suppose  it  to  be  admitted  that  a  system  of  voluntary 
learning  is  desirable  :  how  is  it  to  be  obtained?  In  answer  to  this  it 
cannot  be  expected  that  any  complete  formulated  scheme  should  be 
presented  which  would  be  certain  to  produce  the  effect  desired.  The 
working  out  of  the  general  idea  depends  principally  on  individual  in- 
fluence for  its  success,  and  numberless  obstacles  have  to  be  overcome  ; 
all  that  can  be  done  is,  that  every  one  interested  in  education  should 
consider  and  see  if  this  idea  of  teaching  is  not  the  freest  and  most 
enlightened,  in  the  hope  of  inducing  unanimous  effort  in  the  same 
direction,  and  so  increasing  the  amount  of  that  individual  influence. 

There  are,  however,  a  few  subsidiary  points  worth  noticing.  The 
numerous  subjects  which  men  of  science,  with  Sir  John  Lubbock  at 
their  head,  have  succeeded  in  getting  taught  in  public  schools,  have 
in  most  cases  produced,  or  been  incorporated  with,  the  '  modern  sides,' 
that  is  to  say,  certain  curricula  designed  for  those  who  wish  to  learn 
(besides  science)  modern  languages,  and  certain  forms  of  mathematics, 
&c.,  required  for  the  army  or  diplomacy.  But  the  movement  has 
not  stopped  here.  A  further  and  most  satisfactory  result  is  notice- 
able in  the  recent  establishment  of  workshops  under  proper  control, 
where  boys  can  gain  some  idea  of  the  value  of  manual  labour,  and  the 
respect  due  to  careful  handicraft.  Museums  too  are  encouraged, 
since  they  help  in  extending  the  front,  so  to  speak,  of  the  intellectual 
interest  presented  to  the  boys,  and  so  increase  the  chance  of  alluring 
a  greater  number  to  pursue  knowledge  for  its  own  sake.  For  those 
who  know  the  natures  of  average  boys,  know  that  the  process  of  leading 
them  to  learn  is  in  reality  a  process  of  allurement.  Thousands  of 
boys  have  a  strong  instinctive  antipathy  to  intellectual  effort ;  their 
point  of  view  with  regard  to  it  has  to  be  modified ;  and  if  the 
attempt  is  made  abruptly  it  will  be  ineffective ;  they  suspect  some 
sinister  design,  not  knowing  yet  that  what  they  are  being  led  to  is 
beautiful  for  its  own  sake,  and  capable  of  making  them  useful 
members  of  society.  And  to  further  this  innocent  deception,  such 


1880.  ATHLETICS  IN  PUBLIC  SCHOOLS  53 

things  as  debating  societies  are  valuable.  They  may  induce  an  in- 
tellectual activity  in  quarters  where  there  is  often  a  marked  tendency 
to  stagnation,  and  stimulus  may  be  given  to  thought,  arrangement  of 
ideas,  and  the  hearing  and  imparting  of  facts,  without  aid  of  lexicons 
or  fear  of  the  ferule.  But  they  are  not  often  made  to  serve  this  pur- 
pose without  considerable  efforts  being  made  towards  sustaining 
them  after  they  have  once  started.  Transitory  conditions  may  start 
them,  and  then  generally  a  crisis  supervenes  demanding  great  care. 
Supposing,  however,  that  this  has  been  survived  in  safety,  the  society  is 
liable  to  change  its  character.  The  debating  element  in  its  constitution 
is  seen  to  lose  prominence,  and  a  club  is  formed  of  boys  elected  for 
their  popularity,  an  aggregation  of  the  influence  of  the  school.  There 
is  of  course  a  natural  tendency  to  this,  and  the  result  is  not  unsatis- 
factory. Such  a  club  embraces  a  class  of  boys  whom  a  purely 
literary  or  debating  society  would  probably  exclude.  They  join  it 
without  the  least  intention  of  learning  anything  ;  but  its  usages 
should  compel  them  by  means  of  debates  to  take  a  livelier  interest  in 
rational  subjects  and  enlarge  their  mental  horizon.  But  there  will 
very  likely  be  room  then  for  a  purely  literary  society  of  a  less  com- 
pound nature,  to  co-exist  side  by  side  with  this  club,  and  provide 
solely  for  the  more  studious  portion  of  the  community.  For  it  can 
hardly  be  expected  in  any  school  that  a  club  with  members  elected 
for  popularity,  should  coincide  with  another  consisting  of  the  scholars 
and  the  foremost  devotees  of  learning. 

Many  schools  also  publish  periodicals,  written  and  supported  by 
the  boys  themselves,  and  these  periodicals  are  of  two  characters  : 
those  devoted  wholly  to  the  record  of  athletics,  and  those  which, 
besides  being  athletic  journals,  contain  original  compositions, 
both  poetry  and  prose.  They  serve  a  useful  purpose,  as  well  as  the 
societies,  by  fostering  a  mental  activity  among  the  class  hardest  to 
reach.  Many  a  young  athlete  must  have  first  been  induced  to  exert 
his  immature  powers,  by  writing  (say)  some  reflections  on  certain 
aspects  of  football.  The  theme,  doubtless,  is  somewhat  humble,  but 
he  has  to  do  his  best,  as  his  readers  know  the  details  of  the 
question  thoroughly,  and  will  express  their  opinion  as  plainly  as  any 
weekly  review.  Perhaps  he  learns  for  the  first  time  that  having  ideas 
is  not  the  same  thing  as  expressing  them.  But  to  promote  the  exist- 
ence of  journals  which  deal  entirely  with  the  school  games  is 
dangerous.  A  very  definite  impression  is  made  on  the  younger  boys 
if  they  are  led  to  think  there  is  only  one  subject  on  which  their  supe- 
riors think  it  worth  while  to  express  their  ideas.  An  indefinite 
prestige  is  added  to  any  subject,  and  still  more  to  any  name,  by  being 
immortalised  in  a  few  lines  of  letter-press,  and  it  seems  advisable 
that  this  glamour  should  not  be  thrown  around  one  set  of  interests 
solely.  The  periodical  should  have  a  double  character,  and  ought 
then  to  act  in  the  same  way  as  the  two  kinds  of  debating  society 


54  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  January 

existing  together ;  the  serious  portion  of  the  journal  would  be  the  field 
for  the  literary  efforts  of  the  studious  and  the  scholarlike,  as  the  lite- 
rary society  would  be  for  their  speeches  ;  while  the  athletic  records 
can  teach  athletes  to  write,  just  as  the  debates  of  the  fashionable 
club  would  help  them  to  speak. 

Now  it  may  be  said  that  these  suggestions  are  unsatisfactory  be- 
cause they  deal  so  much  with  the  athletes,  and  tend  to  neglect  the 
clever  and  industrious  portion  of  the  school.  Unsatisfactory  they 
may  be,  but  not,  I  think,  for  that  reason.  The  efforts  of  many 
educational  reformers  have  been  directed  too  exclusively  to  the 
improving  of  those  who  least  need  improvement ;  that  is,  to  render- 
ing the  intellectual  boys  more  intellectual,  and  the  brilliant  more 
brilliant  still.  It  is  a  fascinating  work,  and  rapid  indeed  is  the 
progress  made  by  a  teacher  among  such  learners.  But  any  com- 
munity suffers  if  chasms  are  allowed  to  form  between  the  sections  of 
its  society,  and  numberless  difficulties  will  be  lessened  if  hearty  efforts 
are  rather  made  towards  the  improvement  of  the  common  run  of  lads, 
the  bulk  of  the  school.  At  present  the  opinion  of  the  common  run  is 
apt  to  check  individual  development  in  different  lines.  It  exacts  ex- 
cellence in  one  only,  and  to  that  alone  pays  its  tribute  of  respect ;  and 
this  general  narrow-mindedness  is  a  source  of  trouble,  as  will  be 
seen  plainly  if  we  consider  again  the  difficulties  attendant  on 
the  government  of  boys  by  boys,  the  monitorial  system.  This  system, 
as  at  present  constructed,  cannot  be  considered  an  ideal.  The  ideal  to 
be  aimed  at  is  that  certain  boys,  in  virtue  of  certain  excellences,  should 
be  chosen  by  the  authorities  to  control  the  mass — those  and  those  only 
whom  the  mass,  if  left  to  itself,  would  naturally  choose.  The  same  ex- 
cellences which  raise  a  boy  in  the  eyes  of  the  masters  set  over  him, 
should  at  once  commend  themselves  to  the  vulgus  he  is  appointed  to 
govern.  At  present  there  is  no  security  that  this  result  is  arrived  at, 
even  in  a  fair  number  of  cases.  The  boys'  idea  of  what  is  admirable 
is  often  sadly  at  variance  with  the  type  set  before  them,  and  when- 
ever that  idea  is  formed  solely  from  admiration  of  athleticism,  there 
is  a  liability  to  social  anarchy. 

The  boyish  type  of  excellence  should  be  modified  :  the  young 
heroes  of  the  time,  the  athletes,  should  be  fitted  for  government  ac- 
cording to  school  requirements,  and  then  all  would  go  well.  No 
doubt  these  seem  rather  airy  suggestions  for  resolving  so  grave  a 
complication  ;  but  the  practical  outcome  from  them  is  this  :  If  one 
class  in  a  school  is  to  be  selected  from  the  rest  as  especially  demand- 
ing the  care  and  attention  of  the  masters,  we  should  select  not  neces- 
sarily the  most  promising  boys,  the  clever  and  the  quick,  but  the 
class  held  in  highest  honour  by  the  generality,  that  is  to  say  in  most 
cases,  the  athletes,  no  matter  if,  so  far  from  being  promising,  they  are 
lethargic  and  slow. 

Such  in  main  outline  is  the  great  athletic  question  as  it  has  un- 


1880.  ATHLETICS  IN  PUBLIC  SCHOOLS.  55 

folded  itself  to  the  masters  of  most  of  our  public  schools.  I  say  most, 
because  it  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  excessive  athleticism  is  not 
a  universal  evil.  In  some  schools,  principally  the  newer  ones,  the 
masters  feel  and  lament  the  absence  of  an  athletic  spirit.  They  feel 
that  they  must  foster  one,  and  their  task,  though  far  less  complex 
than  the  one  we  are  considering,  deserves  our  hearty  sympathy.  But 
that  should  not  prevent  the  evil  consequent  on  an  excess  of  this 
good  thing,  this  athletic  spirit,  from  being  clearly  seen.  It  appears 
that  the  gist  of  the  evil  resolves  itself  into  this : — Granted  an  over- 
grown development  of  games,  the  boys'  minds  are  so  engrossed  that 
they  cannot  be  diverted  to  any  branches  of  work,  literary  or  practical, 
which  would  benefit  them  and  their  surroundings  far  more.  Now  it 
is  often  the  case  that  when  anything  is  going  wrong,  the  promoters 
of  that  wrong,  the  very  agents  by  whom  it  is  kept  up  and  continued, 
are  the  only  ones  who  really  know  the  extent  of  the  damage  done, 
and  in  this  case  I  believe  that  very  few  know  the  power  of  athletics 
over  a  boy's  thoughts  and  wishes  save  the  athletes.  The  fascination 
of  making  progress  in  a  game  is  unspeakable ;  the  uninitiated,  if  I 
may  use  the  term,  cannot  fully  realise  it.  But  athletes  know  its 
power,  many  of  them  from  rueful  experience ;  they  know  too  that 
its  infection  is  very  potent,  and,  if  unchecked,  works  among  others 
than  the  athletes,  setting  loose  among  them  a  spirit  of  amusement,  and 
estranging  them  from  the  love  of  work.  And  because  this  insight 
into  the  heart  of  the  matter  is  confined  to  them,  a  laissez-aller 
attitude  is  so  commonly  adopted  by  the  people  most  immediately 
concerned — the  parents  of  the  boys.  It  is  not  at  all  right  that  they 
should  not  heed  this  question,  seeing  that  while  most  material 
issues  are  involved  in  its  solution,  that  solution  depends  principally 
upon  them.  Let  us  see  how  this  is  so.  Such  practical  suggestions 
as  can  be  made  in  this  matter,  are  concerned  with  certain  arrange- 
ments in  school  management  which  may  have  a  useful  effect  upon 
the  boys  during  term  time.  But  what  is  to  be  said  about  the  life 
at  home  ?  It  is  a  farce  to  talk  of  debating  societies  and  the  like 
being  really  available  to  combat  this  or  indeed  any  other  difficulty,  so 
long  as  boys  are  sent  to  school,  primed  since  the  nursery  with  the  one 
idea  that  amusement  is  to  be  sought  at  school,  and  that  a  boy,  if  he  is 
worth  anything,  will  find  it  and  make  the  most  of  it.  The  efforts  of 
the  professional  teachers  depend  to  a  great  and  generally  unappre- 
ciated extent  on  the  co-operation  of  the  parents.  Meantime  the  mis- 
chief is  frequently  done  before  the  school  training  begins.  It  is  not 
very  uncommon  to  find  parents  who  have  sent  their  son  to  a  fashionable 
school,  previously  urging  him  to  keep  out  of  debt  and  make  '  suitable ' 
acquaintances,  but  at  the  same  time  warning  the  poor  child  against 
getting  too  fond  of  books.  Others  no  doubt  are  more  cautious  ;  but  the 
traces  of  a  genuine  stimulus  from  home  towards  useful  work  are  lamen- 
tably rare,  and  more  rarely  still  are  habits  of  reading  encouraged  away 


56  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  January 

from  school.  Not,  however,  that  we  need  always  postulate  reading ; 
we  may  perhaps  confess  to  a  strong  bias  in  its  favour ;  we  may  recollect 
that  discerning  men,  when  the  great  literary  pre-eminence  of  Germany 
is  talked  of  in  their  presence,  have  been  wont  to  point  with  pride  to 
the  broad  diffusion  of  pure  literary  interest  through  the  upper  strata 
of  our  society,  quite  independent  of  any  profession  or  hope  of  emolu- 
ment, and  challenge  one  to  find  the  like  in  foreign  lands ;  and  we 
may  judge  from  such  indications  as  I  have  spoken  of,  and  doubt  if 
this  superiority  is  as  noticeable  as  ever.  Again,  we  may  feel  besides 
this,  that  to  bring  up  a  boy  in  ignorance  or  contempt  of  reading  is, 
from  many  points  of  view,  a  deplorable  error.  Non-reading  parents, 
we  may  think,  do  not  know  what  it  is  they  are  keeping  from  their 
son ;  how  they  are  depriving  him  of  a  great  safeguard  against 
temptation  in  his  youth,  and  a  lasting  resource  against  weariness  in 
his  maturer  age.  They  cannot  know  what  it  is  for  harassed  minds  to 
be  able  to  turn  to  literature  and  find  there  a  refreshment  that  never 
fails  in  the  midst  of  petty  worries  or  heavy  affliction,  and  not 
knowing  this  they  tell  him  that  he  can  do  without  reading,  as  if  it 
were  a  thing  of  little  worth.  All  this  we  may  feel,  but  it  is  only  a 
matter  of  opinion ;  our  point  of  view  just  now  may  be  thought 
peculiar ;  anyhow,  we  readily  admit  numberless  other  methods  of 
awakening  in  a  boy  a  genuine  interest  in  one  at  least  of  the  multi- 
tudinous forms  of  intellectual  life  which  expand  daily  around  him. 
There  is  no  excuse  for  sending  a  boy  to  school  with  a  disposition 
framed  for  frivolity,  with  idle  instincts,  to  be  freshly  infused  by  every 
holiday  time ;  whenever  it  so  happens,  something  has  gone  wrong 
which  need  not  have  done  so,  and  yet  so  it  happens  in  thousands  of 
cases  every  year.  Parents  do  not  do  this  designedly.  It  is  not  easy 
to  realise  at  once  that  a  boy  requires  incessant  support  if  he  is  to 
overcome  his  natural  antipathy  to  learning  anything,  and  certainly 
they  have  very  little  idea  what  are  the  dangers  attendant  on  an  idle 
school  career.  Anyhow  the  result  is  an  influx  into  so  many  schools 
of  boys  bred  up  to  a  spirit  of  inertia,  and  encouraged  from  home  to 
nourish  it. 

From  this  unwise  preparatory  training  the  unruly  growth  of 
athleticism  has  sprung,  the  effects  of  which  most  of  our  older 
schools  are  now  feeling.  To  the  credit  of  our  lads  be  it  said,  that 
the  numbers  who  have  been  nurtured  at  home  to  idleness  have 
chosen  athletics,  and  have  built  up  the  great  fabric  we  see  before  us. 
It  has  been  reared  contemporaneously  with  many  great  developments, 
and  has  reached  its  full  stature  in  these  times  when  men  scrutinise, 
re-adjust,  and  improve  everything  around  them  and  in  them — from 
the  principles  of  religion  to  those  of  dentistry  and  drainage ;  and  it 
can  hardly  be  expected  that  this  less  pretentious  movement  will  long 
escape  investigation.  In  that  case,  what  attitude  will  people  assume 
towards  it  ? 


1880.  ATHLETICS  IN  PUBLIC  SCHOOLS.  57 

They  will  look  back  first  on  what  athleticism  has  done  for  us.  They 
will  realise  that  it  has  played  an  important  part  in  the  growth  of  a 
great  national  peculiarity,  the  training  of  the  boys  of  our  higher 
classes.  It  is  a  peculiarity  which  amidst  such  questionings  of  all 
our  institutions,  whether  peculiar  or  otherwise,  Englishmen  still  con- 
template with  pride.  From  time  to  time  they  realise  that  this 
training  is  shackled  by  many  an  antiquated  abuse,  and  sadly  marred 
by  countless  stupidities  which  attend  its  operation.  But  they  attribute 
to  it  the  growth  of  a  certain  buoyant  energy  which  foreigners  admire 
with  an  envious  admiration,  and  which  we  believe  still  helps  to 
raise  us  from  the  ruck  of  peoples.  Since,  then,  our  training  is 
thought  to  be  the  cause  of  something  we  prize,  the  more  we  investi- 
gate the  matter,  the  clearer  we  shall  see  that  one  of  the  principal 
ingredients  of  that  training,  the  athletic  spirit,  exists  as  a  beneficial 
force,  a  characteristic  of  which  we  are  the  fortunate  inheritors.  Its 
dignity  may  be  yet  more  recognised,  but  the  recognition  of  it  will 
be  more  solid  and  discriminating  than  at  present,  and  if  we  arrive 
at  a  juster  sense  of  what  its  use  has  been,  we  may  avoid  the  un- 
pardonable folly  of  suffering  it  to  be  abused. 

EDWARD  LITTELTON. 


58  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  January 


PH^DRA   AND  PHEDRE. 

'  Of  the  servile  expressing  antiquity  in  an  unlike  and  an  unfit  subject,  it  is  well 
said  :  "Quod  tempore  antiquum  videtur,  id  incongruitate  est  maxime  novum."  ' 

BA.CON,  Advancement  of  Learning. 

HAPPY  was  that  portion  of  Sarah  Bernhardt's  audience  in  London  last 
summer  whom  Nature  had  laden  with  a  sufficient  weight  of  years  to 
remember  the  great  Rachel.  Salvini,  Ellen  Terry,  and  a  hundred 
others  were  brought  into  requisition  by  rival  and  less  fortunate 
critics,  but  in  vain ;  their  remarks  were  unheeded,  they  were  mere 
babes  in  theatrical  knowledge,  and  those  who  had  seen  the  great 
Eachel  sat,  as  it  were,  on  a  glorified  pinnacle  of  experience,  where  it  was 
impossible  to  approach  them.  Unfortunately  acting  is  not,  or  rather 
people's  opinions  about  acting  are  not,  to  be  gauged  by  ordinary  tests, 
such  as  evidences  of  application  or  natural  qualification  ;  nor,  in  the 
generality  of  cases,  is  any  neutral  ground  furnished  where  adversaries 
can  meet  in  fair  field  of  argument.  One  man's  dictum  is  as  good  as 
another's,  and  an  actor's  greatness,  being  in  fact  equivalent  to  his 
success,  is  put  to  the  vote  and  decided  by  the  majority.  Neither  is 
there  any  strong  connecting  link  between  actors  of  the  present  and 
the  former  generation,  for  the  power  of  retailing  impressions  is  rare, 
and  acting  is  not  amenable  to  description. 

Much  of  modern  criticism  is  little  more  than  an  attempt  to 
number  '  alpha  '  '  beta '  without  the  setting  forth  of  any  particular  why 
or  wherefore,  and  this  is  more  especially  the  case  with  regard  to  the 
theatre,  where  the  why  and  wherefore  are  difficult  of  application.  Now 
this  system  of  subordination  does  not,  I  confess,  recommend  itself  to 
me,  especially  as  many  of  us  are  not  careful  to  insure  absolute  simi- 
larity of  conditions  before  making  comparison.  I  cannot  understand 
why  your  gratitude  to  your  host  of  to-day  should  be  at  the  expense  of 
last  night's  entertainer.  Are  we  all  stomach  and  no  heart  ?  '  Let  us 
eat  and  drink,  for  to-morrow  we  die,'  it  seems  to  me,  should  be  the  art- 
critic's  motto  in  theatrical  matters,  where  his  enjoyment  is  entirely 
dependent  on  ephemeral  conditions ;  but  if  he  is  spared  for  the  day 
after,  and  the  day  after  that,  let  him  tax  his  memory  with  the  recol- 
lection of  his  enjoyments. 


1880.  PHAEDRA   AND  PHEDEE.  59 

The  critic  may  compare  without  finding  it  necessary  to  record 
his  verdict  as  to  the  relative  greatness  of  the  subjects  of  his  com- 
parison. 

With  respect  to  the  stage,  however,  as  few  critics  have  sufficient 
special  knowledge  to  treat  of  representation  in  regard  to  technical 
ability,  the  best  test  of  which  is  the  momentary  effect  on  the  audience 
or  on  a  series  of  audiences,  he  must  either  confine  his  criticism  to  a 
retailing  of  subjective  impressions,  or  look  to  exceptional  opportunities 
in  order  to  make  any  just  comparison  between  rival  actors.  Such  an 
opportunity  is  afforded  by  different  interpretations  of  one  role — not,  I 
mean,  as  regards  minutiae,  where  one  rendering  must  be  contrasted 
directly  with  the  other,  but  with  respect  to  the  broad  conception  of 
the  character  as  the  author  drew  it,  where  the  critic  is  not  hampered 
by  ignorance  of  dramatic  technique,  but  can  form  an  independent 
judgment  for  himself. 

A  comparison  of  the  two  renderings  of  that  role,  Phedre,  which  is 
to  the  French  theatre  what  Hamlet  is  to  the  English,  cannot,  I  think, 
fail  to  excite  interest,  even  if  the  task  be  indifferently  done.  The 
interval  which  has  elapsed  between  the  death  of  Kachel  and  the 
advent  of  Madame  Bernhardt,  of  course  enhances  the  difficulties  of 
the  undertaking.  We  are  conservative  in  our  appreciations,  and 
what  we  have  admired  in  our  youth  is  hallowed  to  us  by  association, 
so  that  we  are  perhaps  prone  to  be  perfunctory  in  our  judgment  of 
the  rising  star  of  our  maturer  years.  Let  me  ask  my  reader,  then, 
to  put  aside  all  recollection  of  Eachel  as  he  has  seen  her,  if  indeed 
he  has  had  that  good  fortune,  and  consider  without  prejudice  the 
evidence  which  I  shall  here  adduce,  for  which,  where  space  permits, 
I  shall  cite  chapter  and  verse. 

My  purpose  is  not,  as  I  have  said,  to  form  any  comparative  esti- 
mate of  the  greatness  of  the  two  actresses.  No  !  let  the  admirers  of 
Kachel  believe  in  her ;  let  Sarah  Bernhardt's  disciples  still  continue 
to  sit  at  her  feet.  This  is  no  concern  of  mine.  All  I  wish  is  to  con- 
sider which  has  been  most  faithful  to  the  original  conception  of  the 
author. 

I  may  be  pardoned,  I  think,  for  reverting  to  the  Greek  original, 
and  to  the  circumstances  attendant  on  its  production,  when  I  cite  the 
following  passages  as  proving  the  existence  of  manifest  errors  of  fact 
in  those  books  to  which  people  anxious  to  be  informed  on  the  subject 
would  naturally  have  recourse.  Alfred  de  Musset  speaks  of  Eacine 
as  a  poet  who  c  spent  two  and  a  half  years  in  translating  almost  verse 
by  verse  the  Phcedra  of  Euripides,'  while  Mr.  Hallam  calls  Kacine's 
play  '  a  more  splendid  work  of  genius  than  the  Greek,'  and  says  that 
'  in  both  tragedies  the  character  of  Phaedra  herself  throws  into  shade 
all  the  others.' 

It  is  evident  from  the  prompt  action  and  extended  character  of 
dramatic  criticism  that  dramatists  are  of  all  authors  most  influenced 


60  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  January 

by  the  prevailing  sentiment  of  their  day.  In  any  truly  dramatic  age 
the  drama  has  given  expression  to  the  national  ideas. 

Greek  drama  sprang  from  the  worship  of  Bacchus,  in  all  proba- 
bility the  indigenous  religion  of  the  country,  and,  as  it  gathered 
development,  absorbed  the  creeds  of  the  other  component  tribes,  till 
the  very  form  of  tragedy,  as  it  existed  in  the  days  of  ^Eschylus,  had  a 
deep  religious  and  ethnical  signification. 

Given  a  passion  and  an  obstacle,  we  have  the  modern  drama,  says 
Alfred  de  Musset ;  and  so  with  the  Attic  tragedy.  The  prevailing 
principle  of  the  Greek  religion  was  harmony:  an  act  wrought  in 
violation  of  the  universal  harmony  was  invariably  followed  by  natural 
retribution  ;  and  as  the  gods  were  deified  natural  laws,  they  became 
the  instruments  of  revenge.  The  mythical  repertory  of  the  Greeks, 
bound  up  with  every  religious  and  patriotic  sentiment,  was  taken 
to  illustrate  this  broad  principle.  Hence  the  ^Eschylean  drama  drew 
not  so  much  upon  the  sympathy  of  the  spectators  as  upon  their  re- 
ligious feelings.  It  excited  not  compassion,  but  awe. 

The  scenic  conditions  contributed  to  the  intensification  of  this 
effect.  Tragedy  was,  we  know,  the  offspring  of  chorus  and  rhapsody ; 
but,  as  the  dramatic  element  was  developed,  the  office  of  the  chorus 
decreased  in  importance  till  it  became  nothing  more  than  a  mediator 
between  author  and  audience — '  an  idealised,'  or  rather  typical, 
'  spectator.'  It  was  necessary  also  to  the  religious  character  of  the 
drama  to  merge  the  individuality  of  the  actor.  This  was  effected 
partly  by  the  mask,  which  insured  a  suitable  cast  of  countenance, 
though  of  course  not  subject  to  variation  of  expression  ;  partly  by  the 
cothurnus,  which  equalised  the  stature  of  the  actors ;  and  partly  by 
padding  the  chest,  which  increased  their  bulk.  Mechanical  contriv- 
ances were,  for  a  like  purpose,  inserted  in  the  mask,  in  order  to 
increase  the  power  of  the  voice  ;  so  that  the  effect  of  these  appliances 
was,  while  doing  away  with  the  natural  inequalities  of  the  actors,  to 
raise  their  natural  powers  to  a  level  more  than  human.  This  mag- 
nification was  necessitated  by  the  vast  size  of  the  theatre,  which  was 
built  to  contain  the  whole  male  population  of  Athens  ;  for,  if  we 
accept  the  calculation  of  Professor  Donaldson,  the  furthest  spectator 
must  have  been  at  least  a  hundred  yards  from  the  stage. 

Thus  tragic  representation  was  divorced  from  the  circumstances 
of  every-day  life,  which  would  have  been  by  no  means  consonant  with 
the  mythical  and  antique  character  of  the  ^Eschylean  drama.  It  was 
also  no  doubt  partly  in  accordance  with  this  feeling,  and  partly  because 
the  contrivances  above  detailed  rendered  rapid  movement  impossible, 
that  all  action  was  eliminated  from  the  stage  ;  all  delineation  of  mental 
conflict  became  impossible,  and  the  dialogue  was  therefore  retrospec- 
tive. The  archaic  effect  was  also  heightened  by  the  employment  of 
antique  phraseology.  The  representation  of  Greek  tragedy  has  been 
likened  to  a  group  of  figures  in  a  frieze,  presented  in  profile  and  in  a 


1880.  PHAEDRA   AND  PEED  RE.  61 

state  of  semi-quiescence.  De  Quincey  calls  Attic  tragedy  'a  breathing 
from  the  world  of  sculpture,'  and  says  with  regard  to  the  development 
of  the  tragic  interest :  '  The  story  of  the  tragedy  was  pretty  nearly 
involved  and  told  by  the  implication  in  the  tableaux  vivants  which 
presided  through  the  several  acts,'  expressions  of  actual  emotion 
being  probably  limited  to  such  actions  as  veiling  the  face,  lying  on 
the  ground,  or  conveyed  by  variations  of  the  voice,  though  these 
must  have  been  limited  in  number  if  we  believe  that  the  dialogue 
was  delivered  in  monotone.  Such  was  the  ^Eschylean  drama. 

^Eschylus  was  the  father  of  tragedy ;  Euripides  was  the  last  of  his 
worthy  Greek  descendants.  The  palmy  period  of  the  Attic  drama 
was  scarcely  more  than  a  century  ;  but  short  as  was  the  interval  which 
elapsed  between  the  death  of  ^Eschylus  and  the  first  public  appearance 
of  Euripides,  a  great  revolution  had  taken  place  in  the  world  of  thought. 
A  school  of  philosophers  had  arisen  with  Anaxagoras  at  its  head,  who 
promulgated  the  theory  of  an  ideal  principle  in  connection  with 
matter.  It  was  scarcely  more  than  a  surmise,  but  its  very  inadequacy 
caused  the  disintegration  of  the  harmony  of  Greek  thought,  and 
paved  the  way  for  the  self-sufficiency  of  the  Sophists.  Thus  Euripides 
wrote  in  a  transitional  age,  and  his  writings  reflect  the  changing  colours 
of  the  time.  He  has  suffered  much  injustice  at  the  hands  of  Aris- 
tophanes and  the  Germans ;  but  the  recent  publications  of  English 
scholars  have  gone  far  to  restore  to  him  his  just  place  in  the  first 
rank  of  authors.  He  has  not  been  appreciated  because  he  has  not 
been  understood.  He  was  the  first  who  made  his  characters  play  a 
sustained  dramatic  part,  and  this  innovation  has  not  been  recognised. 

To  quote  Mr.  Browning's  lines  about  him  : 

Euripides, 

Well,  I  acknowledge  !     Every  word  is  false 
Looked  close  at ;  but  stand  distant  and  stare  through, 
All's  absolute  indubitable  truth, 
Behind  lies — truth  which  only  lies  declare. 

It  is  no  place  here  to  speculate  as  to  his  character ;  though,  from 
the  internal  evidence  of  his  works,  we  may  be  inclined  to  adopt  Mr. 
Mahaffy's  view  that  he  was  a  man  of  a  great  and  reflective  mind, 
living  apart  from  the  political  world,  and  untouched  by  its  corruption ; 
conservative  in  his  views,  but  not  blinded  to  the  social  evils  of  his 
day  ;  halting  halfway  between  religion  and  scepticism  ;  dissatisfied 
Avith  the  crude  mythology  of  his  forefathers,  yet  inclined  to  believe 
that  it  contained  the  germs  of  deep  spiritual  truth.  We  cannot 
wonder  either  if  we  detect  here  and  there  a  vein  of  cynicism.  He 
had  seen  Athens  at  the  height  of  her  glory ;  he  had  watched  her 
gradual  descent  as  her  foundations  were  sapped  by  the  venality  of  her 
administration.  He  had  seen  his  teacher  from  whom  he  had  im- 
bibed his  philosophic  creed,  who  had  taught  him  where  to  look  for 
truth  in  humanity,  sentenced  to  banishment ;  he  had  seen  Pheidias, 


62  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  January 

the  greatest  artist  of  that  age  of  art,  haled  to  prison  and  an  early 
death.  4  The  mournful  stories  of  great  men  rather  prevail  '  is  the  con- 
cluding sentence  of  the  Hippolytus.  But  together  with  this  speculative 
attitude  towards  the  old  religion  of  Athens,  Euripides  appears  to 
have  had  an  earnest  and  practical  desire  to  further  social  reform.  If 
we  compare  the  subject  matter  of  his  plays  with  the  prevailing 
defects  of  Athenian  civilisation,  we  shall  find  a  more  than  casual 
similarity.  He  has  been  stigmatised  as  a  misogynist,  and  there 
seems  some  ground  to  suppose  that  he  had  no  very  favourable  opinion 
of  female  character  as  it  existed  in  his  day.  Still  he  associated  with 
Aspasia,  and  must  have  known  many  highly  cultured  members  of  the 
Hetaira  class,  whose  freedom  from  the  restraints  to  which  respectable 
women  were  subjected  left  them  open  to  the  influences  of  the  time. 
Nearly  all  his  great  characters  are  of  women.  He  seems  to  have 
laboured  for  their  emancipation  from  the  stringent  laws  which  made 
them  mere  slaves  of  the  harem,  while  their  husbands  were  at  liberty 
to  gratify  every  chance  appetite.  |He  had  doubtless  additional 
motives,  both  in  the  fact  that  this  was  comparatively  untrodden 
ground,  and  in  the  knowledge  that  the  solemn  tragedy  of  ^Eschylus 
and  Sophocles  had  already  begun  to  pall.  Euripides  drew  the  charac- 
ter of  women  in  all  their  relations  capable  of  dramatic  treatment  :  he 
drew  them  '  as  they  were  ;  '  he  drew  them  '  as  they  ought  to  have  been  ;  ' 
he  drew  them  as  mothers,  wives,  and  daughters  ;  he  drew  them  also 
as  victims  —  victims  of  defective  social  organisation,  victims  of  divine 
wrath.  We  have  no  means  of  knowing  what  he  really  thought  and 
felt  about  them,  but  doubtless  it  was  some  such  moderate  view  as  this  : 


TO.  yap  yvvaiK.a>v    vcr^fpr)  irpos  apo-evas, 
KO.V  rais  KaKaicriv  dyaOal  nep.iyp.evai 
/j.icrovfj.fff  .l 

The  scenic  conditions  bequeathed  to  Euripides  were  not  highly 
favourable  to  the  representation  of  feminine  passions.  The  stately 
movement  and  the  cumbrous  costume  of  the  old  tragedy  consorted 
but  ill  with  the  rapid  alternations  of  woman's  emotion.  In  like 
manner  the  absence  of  all  action  from  the  scene  furnished  no  field 
for  the  display  of  these  emotions.  Accordingly  Euripides  was  forced 
into  innovations  ;  he  endeavoured  to  compensate  for  the  stationary 
character  of  the  scene  while  in  representation,  by  interweaving  and 
contrasting  scene  with  scene.  The  three  great  tragedians  were  all 
moral  teachers,  but  we  may  make  this  distinction  between  them. 
^Eschylus  endeavoured  to  educe  moral  consistency  from  the  popular 
mythology  ;  Sophocles  dealt  with  morality  as  necessary,  but  sub- 
ordinate to  art  ;  Euripides  treated  special  questions  of  morality 

1  '  Difficult  is  the  relation  of  woman  to  man  ; 
The  good  and  ill  are  confused  together, 
And  we  are  hated." 


1880.  PHAEDRA   AND   PHEDRE.  63 

intimately  connected  with  his  audience.  Thus  we  express  the 
superficial  difference  between  these  poets  rather  crudely  when  we 
say  ^Eschylus  wrote  to  please  the  gods,  Sophocles  to  please  him- 
self, Euripides  to  please  the  people.  An  Athenian  audience  /was, 
we  know,  possessed  of  extraordinary  critical  acumen,  but,  like  all 
audiences,  it  was  liable  to  errors  of  judgment.  It  was  necessary  for 
Euripides,  however,  in  his  capacity  of  reformer,  to  flatter  its  pre- 
dilections. Hence  the  sophistical  tournaments  and  other  blemishes 
by  which  his  plays  are  disfigured.  He  flattered  them,  however,  in 
another  and  more  laudable  fashion — by  narrative  passages  contain- 
ing some  of  his  most  vigorous  poetry,?  by  contrast  of  costume  and 
external  circumstance,  by  a  display  of  metrical  skill.  These  charac- 
teristics are  to  be  perceived  in  the  play  of  Hippolytus^  of  which  I  will 
now  give  the  plot. 

The  prologue  spoken  by  Venus  l  consists  of  a  recital  of  the  insults 
offered  her  by  Hippolytus,  son  of  Theseus,  who  lives  in  chaste  and 
mystical  communion  with  Diana.  The  plan  of  her  revenge  follows, 
involving  also  the  death  and  disgrace  of  Phaedra.  In  the  first  scene 
Hippolytus  enters  from  the  chase,  does  acts  of  worship  to  Diana,  but,  de- 
spite the  warnings  of  his  attendants,  neglects  the  shrine  of  Venus.  He 
quits  the  scene,  and  Phaedra,  already  enfeebled  by  disease  and  voluntary 
starvation,  is  brought  on.  Her  nurse  extorts  from  her  the  secret  of 
her  love  for  her  stepson  Hippolytus,  and  her  consequent  resolve  to 
die ;  then,  under  pretence  of  procuring  a  remedy  for  her  mistress's 
disease,  she  quits  the  scene  in  order  to  divulge  to  Hippolytus  the  real 
state  of  affairs,  and  thereby  save  the  life  of  Phaedra.  The  noise  of 
Hippolytus  abusing  the  nurse  discloses  to  Phaedra  this  act  of  treachery. 
Hippolytus  enters,  curses  the  race  of  women,  and  departs.  Phaedra 
then,  imprecating  vengeance  on  her  nurse,  goes  to  her  death. 
Theseus  returns  from  a  visit  to  the  oracle  to  find  his  wife  hanging  a 
corpse  with  a  letter  clutched  in  her  fingers.  This  he  reads,  and  dis- 
covers therein  that  Hippolytus  is  accused  of  having  betrayed  his 
father's  trust,  and  accomplished  by  force  the  object  of  an  unlawful 
passion  ;  he  prays  to  Neptune  for  vengeance  ;  and  Hippolytus  appears 
to  defend  himself,  but,  being  bound  by  an  oath  to  the  nurse  not  to 
reveal  the  secret,  cannot  convince  his  father.  Shortly  after  his  exit 
a  messenger  enters  with  the  narrative  of  the  execution  by  Neptune 
of  the  vengeance  of  Theseus ;  and  Hippolytus  is  brought  on,  a  pal- 
pitating mass  of  wounds  and  dislocation.  Diana  comes  from  heaven 
to  clear  his  character,  ascribes  the  catastrophe  to  Venus,  threatens  in 
a  mysterious  way  to  take  vengeance  on  her  by  killing  Adonis,  excuses 
herself  for  not  having  interfered,  as,  in  addition  to  being  afraid  of 
the  Lord  of  Heaven,  it  is  not  etiquette  for  one  god  to  thwart  the 
desires  of  another,  but  promises  Hippolytus  compensation  in  the  shape 

^  I  have   employed   Latin   norner.clature   throughout   for  conveniences   of  com- 
parison. 


64  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  January 

of  worship  and  remembrance  on  earth.     Hippolytus  then  pardons  his 
father,  and  the  play  ends. 

The  motto  of  the  tragedy  is  : 


aio'iv,  S>  Trot,  Sai/zdfo)!'  )(pjj<r6ai  xpeaiv, 

•which  may  be  translated  : 

We  must  conform  to  the  prerogatives  of  the  gods, 

i.e.  we  must  not  neglect  to  worship  a  deity  because  her  ways  are  not 
our  ways.  Euripides  made  tragedy  descend  from  the  mystic  heights 
of  fable  where  it  had  reigned  before.  The  misfortunes  of  Hippolytus 
and  Phsedra  are  caused  by  the  petty  jealousy  of  Venus,  the 
meanest  character  in  Euripides'  plays  ;  and  we  find  her  sacrificing  an 
in  nocentwoman  for  a  personal  grudge  which  she  has  against  some  one 
else.  It  is  possible,  however,  that  the  requirements  of  poetic  justice 
were  satisfied  in  other  plays  of  the  tetralogy  with  which  each  poet 
contended  for  the  tragic  prize.  It  seems  too  as  if  Euripides  meant 
in  some  of  his  tragedies  to  teach  a  lesson  by  arousing  anger  in  the 
minds  of  his  audience  against  a  religion  and  a  state  of  society  which 
allowed  such  consummations  as  these  to  be  literally  in  consonance  with 
the  received  ideas  as  to  piety  and  morality.  I  shall  presently  have 
occasion  to  say  more  about  the  character  of  PhaBdra,  and  will  now 
pass  on  to  a  consideration  of  the  theatre  of  Louis  the  Fourteenth  and 
Eacine's  play  of  Phedre. 

It  is  characteristic  of  the  history  of  France  that  the  changes, 
political  and  religious,  which  it  has  undergone,  have  been  supported 
only  by  insignificant  minorities.  It  has  been  agitated  for  a  brief 
space  by  startling  revolutions,  soon  to  relapse  into  quiescence  under  a 
strong  hand.  The  revival  of  classic  literature  which  followed  the 
fall  of  Constantinople,  while,  in  other  countries,  it  sank  deep  enough 
to  create  the  desire  and  the  means  of  religious  reform,  took  no  deep 
root  in  France,  but  served  only  to  beautify  and  render  attractive  the 
existing  tenets  and  institutions  of  the  Jesuits.  In  the  times  of  which 
I  write,  the  simple  faith  of  Loyola  and  Xavier  was  no  more  ;  religion 
had  been  subordinated  to  a  lust  for  political  power  ;  and  the  closely 
knit  body  of  the  Jesuits  ruled,  to  the  exclusion  of  the  lay  nobility. 
Cardinal  Eichelieu  had  divorced  the  interests  of  the  land  proprietors 
from  their  estates,  and  they,  splendid  satellites  forsooth,  danced 
attendance  upon  minister  and  monarch.  So,  when  the  internal 
dissensions  of  the  Fronde  were  agitating  Paris,  and  the  more  sensible 
portion  of  the  nobility  had  begun  to  see  that  they  were  sacrific- 
ing their  real  interests  for  a  few  gaudy  ornaments  and  decorations, 
no  real  fusion  betwixt  the  discontented  nobles  and  the  oppressed 
people  could  be  created,  and  a  little  seasonable  suppleness  on  the  part 
of  Mazarin  gained  the  victory.  These  circumstances,  however,  con- 
tributed to  produce  perhaps  the  most  splendid  circle  of  courtiers  that 


1880.  PHAEDRA   AND  PHEDRE.  65 

Europe  has  ever  seen.  Lord  vied  with  lord  in  magnificence,  and 
-a  man  was  happy  if  the  splendour  of  his  fete  was  the  current  topic  of 
a  few  passing  days.  It  was  not  surprising,  therefore,  that  patronage 
of  the  theatre  should  be  in  vogue,  and  that  dramatic  representation 
should  play  a  part  in  the  general  pageant  of  the  times. 

At  Athens  every  citizen  had  an  interest  in  political  theories,  the 
practicability  and  popularity  of  which  meant  life  or  death  to  his  state. 
But  at  Paris  the  political  existence  of  the  citizen  was  no  more.  Both 
Euripides  and  Racine  wrote  in  a  time  of  war.  In  the  former  case, 
the  war  was  one  which  imperilled  the  supremacy  of  Athens,  and  the 
city  had  a  voice  in  the  condemnation  or  otherwise  of  the  generals. 
In  the  latter  case,  the  wars  of  France  were  for  the  most  part  carried  on 
beyond  her  borders,  and  were  the  fruit  of  Louis  the  Fourteenth's  ambi- 
tious designs,  in  which  the  people  had  no  further  interest  than  having 
to  make  up  the  deficiencies  in  the  royal  treasury.  The  court  and  the 
people  lived  as  it  were  in  separate  kingdoms ;  the  one  was  occupied 
with  petty  intrigues,  dreams  of  universal  conquest,  and  the  champion- 
ship of  Roman  Catholicism ;  the  other  dragged  on  uneventful  lives 
in  servile  penury.  It  has  been  said  that  the  resources  of  France  were 
developed  during  this  reign  by  distant  expeditions  and  colonisation ; 
but  these  were  the  result  chiefly  of  personal  or  Jesuitical  enterprise, 
and  did  not  affect  the  masses.  The  empire  of  Louis  the  Fourteenth 
might  be  compared  with  his  summer  palace  at  Versailles.  It  was  no 
natural  growth,  it  was  a  splendid  excrescence.  Like  that  costly  para- 
dise, it  was  built  with  the  life-blood  of  the  people  :  gold,  won  by  the 
sweat  of  their  brows,  was  torn  from  them  and  bartered  for  foreign 
wares.  It  was  not  French  in  character,  and  France  had  no  sympathy 
with  it.  As  Louis  tore  up  the  bills  of  the  expenditure  on  Versailles,  so 
he  refused  to  consider  the  consequences  of  his  unceasing  warfare.  He 
saw  at  last  it  was  a  mistake,  but  not  till  his  palace  had  been  stripped 
of  its  ornaments,  and  his  country  of  its  wealth  and  its  defenders. 

Of  this  vainglorious  folly  of  Versailles  classic  tragedy  may  be  said 
to  have  become  a  part.  Owing  its  origin  chiefly  to  Richelieu,  and  in 
its  early  days  supported  by  his  munificence,  the  theatre,  when  Louis 
stepped  into  the  place  of  general  patron,  fell  under  his  dominion. 
The  most  constant  of  actors  himself  in  the  realities  of  life,  he  was 
attracted  by  the  mimic  triumphs  of  the  stage.  The  mighty  monarch 
who  wonld  take  his  tent  for  a  few  weeks  into  the  plains  of  Flanders, 
and  call  the  expedition  a  campaign — who  would  make  a  journey  to  a 
tottering  city,  in  order  that  he  might  get  the  credit  of  having  forced 
it  to  capitulate — who  was  head  of  spiritual  France,  king  of  secular 
France,  and  arbiter  of  Europe — did  not  disdain  to  point  the  dramatic 
criticism  of  his  court.  As  the  literature  of  Greece  was  chained  to  the 
triumphal  car  of  Rome,  so  in  later  times  it  played  lacquey  to  the 
majesty  of  the  French  king.  His  approval  was  sufficient  to  insure  the 
success  of  Racine's  comedy,  which  had  previously  been  hissed.  A 
VOL.  VII.— No.  35.  F 


66  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  January 

few  rhymes  of  flattery  to  him  on  his  marriage  were  worth  a  yearly 
pension  to  Racine  of  600£. ;  and  that  worthy  tragedian  himself  was 
never  more  happy  than  while  reading  his  royal  master  to  sleep.  Racine 
had,  however,  no  lasting  hold  upon  his  audience ;  a  court  cabal 
banished  Phedre  from  the  stage  for  a  year  in  favour  of  the  composi- 
tion of  a  wretched  dramatic  hack.  He  retired  for  fifteen  years  from 
theatrical  life,  disgusted  with  the  prejudice  of  his  compatriots,  and 
when  at  length  he  returned  he  could  only  gain  a  hearing  in  the  par- 
ticular clique  to  which  Madame  do  Maintenon  belonged.  Every 
circumstance  under  which  he  wrote  was  calculated  to  cramp  the  free 
exercise  of  imaginative  intellect.  The  Academy,  who  haggled  over 
particular  expressions  like  fishwives  at  market,  and  wrote  long  treat- 
ises upon  the  immorality  of  the  conjunction  '  car,'  called  upon  him  to 
obey  a  set  of  arbitrary  rules,  founded  upon  a  misconception  of  a  pas- 
sage in  Aristotle,  which  have  ever  since  formed  the  creed  of  French 
tragedians  until  M.  Victor  Htigo  had  the  courage  to  trample  it 
under  foot.  For  the  most  part  he  drew  his  subjects  from  a  material 
which  awakened  but  little  interest  even  in  the  minds  of  the  educated 
courtiers  who  frequented  the  theatre.  'Quod  tempore  antiquum 
videtur,  id  incongruitate  est  maxime  novum.'  The  subject  was  Greek, 
and  the  form  was  quasi-Greek ;  but  for  the  Greek  thought,  for  the 
Greek  theatre,  for  Greece  itself,  were  substituted  France  and  the 
court  intrigues  of  an  idle  and  self-seeking  nobility.  Racine  felt  that 
it  was  not  a  reproduction,  but  rather  a  rehabilitation,  of  the  Greek, 
that  was  required.  He  had  already  had  a  warning  as  to  the  too  literal 
rendering  of  classic  matter  into  French  in  the  ill-success  of  his 
Britannicus  ;  and  Racine  was  peculiarly  sensitive  to  the  failure  with 
which  the  irony  of  fate  so  often  embittered  his  triumphs.  He  brought 
his  peculiar  gifts  to  bear  upon  the  subject  in  hand.  'Personne,'  says 
St.  Simon  of  him  in  his  private  character, '  n'avait  plus  de  fonds  d'esprit, 
ni  plus  agreablement  tourne :  rien  du  poete  dans  son  commerce,  et 
tout  de  1'honnete  homine.'  This  may  in  part  be  applied  to  him  as  an 
author.  His  perseverance,  his  common  sense,  his  gifts  of  pleasing  and 
facile  expression,  rising  from  time  to  time  to  genuine  power,  and 
lastly  his  unaffected  and  religious  conscientiousness,  rendered  him 
especially  fitted  for  the  task  of  adaptation,  or  rather  re-creation. 
While  preserving  as  far  as  possible  the  outward  characteristics  of 
Greek  tragedy,  he  endowed  his  composition  with  that  simplicity 
which  makes  a  true  work  of  art  always  modern.  Despite  the  wonder- 
ful skill  of  his  verse,  he  employed  a  very  limited  vocabulary.  We  are 
reminded  by  Boileau's  words — '  II  n'y  a  en  eifet  dans  les  vers  de  M. 
Racine  aucun  terme  qui  ne  soit  commun  et  fort  usite ' — of  the  question 
put  by  Sir  Roger  de  Coverley  while  witnessing  an  adaptation  from 
one  of  Racine's  plays.  *  Should  your  people  in  tragedy  always  talk 
to  be  understood  ?  Why,  there  is  not  a  single  sentence  in  this  play 
that  I  do  not  know  the  meaning  of.'  But  the  concessions  which 


1880.  PHJEDRA   AND  PHEDRE.  67 

Kacine  made  to  the  requirements  of  modern  civilisation  will  best  be 
seen  from  the  plot  of  the  play  itself. 

With  reference  to  the  controversy  between  Schlegel  and  La  Harpe 
as  to  the  comparative  merits  of  the  Greek  and  French  plays,  we  may 
say  that  the  former  is  wrong  in  treating  Eacine's  play  as  inferior 
to  the  Greek  in  proportion  as  it  varies  from  it,  and  in  failing  to  per- 
ceive the  different  aim  of  the  French  author  ;  while  La  Harpe  is  of 
course  absurd  in  such  statements  as  '  On  dirait  que  toutes  les  fois  que 
Kacine  se  sert  de  ce  qu'un  autre  a  fait,  c'est  pour  montrer  comment 
il  fallait  faire;'  and  'Kacine  a  partout  substitue  les  plus  grandes 
beautes  aux  plus  grands  defauts.'  Again,  the  question  whether  Phedre 
is  a  legitimate  character  as  Racine  drew  her — that  is,  to  attract 
sympathy — is  hardly  relevant :  it  seems  scarcely  necessary  to  repeat 
such  a  platitude  as  that  to  excuse  a  crime  and  to  excuse  the  person 
who  commits  it  are  leniencies  of  very  different  degrees  of  morality. 
Racine  had  the  disadvantage  of  an  inferior  language,  an  unrepresen- 
tative audience,  and  a  material  which  was  in  no  way  an  historical 
element  of  the  society  of  his  day.  The  first  two  evils  he  was  obliged 
to  stomach  as  best  he  might,  but  the  last  he  endeavoured  to  remedy 
with  considerable  ingenuity.  He  seems  to  have  made  an  estimate  in 
his  own  mind  of  the  conception,  and  the  amount  of  knowledge, 
which  his  audience  had  of  ancient  Greece,  and  to  have  coloured  his 
subject  accordingly.  Nothing,  for  example,  is  more  skilful  than  his 
preservation  of  the  determining  influences  of  the  Greek  gods  without 
a  display  of  such  anachronistic  feeling  as  to  amount  to  apparent 
incongruity.  He  appears  to  have  conveyed  the  idea  of  a  presiding 
deity  chiefly  by  passages  of  reference  and  description — some  of 
which  are  among  the  finest  in  his  play — which  have  no  direct 
connection  with  the  action  of  the  play,  or  concern  a  personage  who 
has  finally  quitted  the  scene.  The  stage  Thesee,  however,  hardly 
realises  one's  conception  of  the  hero  of  the  mythical  exploits  with 
which  he  credits  himself  on  his  first  entry.  A  man  must  be  very 
great  to  blow  his  own  trumpet,  but  I  suppose  Thesee  is  not 
Theseus. 

The  impossibility  of  representing  divine  agency  on  the  stage 
rendered  necessary  several  important  modifications  of  the  story,  as 
will  be  seen  from  the  following  plot.  The  scene  is  laid  at  Trezene, 
whither  Phedre  had  originally  banished  Hippolyte,  and  where  she  her- 
self has  now  been  brought  by  the  desire  of  Thesee. 

In  the  first  act  we  are  made  acquainted  with  Hippolyte's  love  for 
Aricie  (sole  survivor  of  a  house,  the  bitterest  of  his  father's  political 
enemies),  the  condition  of  Phedre,  and  her  resolve  to  die.  Phedre 
then  confesses  to  her  nurse  CEnone  her  unlawful  love  for  Hippolyte, 
and  a  messenger  announces  the  death  of  Thesee  and  the  consequent 
anarchy  at  Athens.  Thereupon  CEnone  exhorts  Phedre  to  live,  in 
order  that  her  children  may  benefit  by  her  political  influence,  and 

F2 


68  THE   NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  January 

suggests  that  her  love  is  now  only  '  an  ordinary  passion.1     To  these 
arguments  Ph6dre  yields. 

Act  II. — After  a  love  scene  between  Aricie  and  Hippolyte,  Phedre 
seeks  her  stepson's  presence  and  declares  her  passion  ;  he  receives  it 
in  silence.  Then  with  remorseful  frenzy  she  throws  herself  upon  him, 
and  adjures  him  to  kill  her.  An  announcement  of  the  election  of 
the  son  of  Thesee  and  Phedre  to  the  Athenian  crown  concludes  this 
act. 

Act  III. — Phedre  commissions  CEnone  to  bribe  Hippolyte  to 
love  with  the  offer  of  the  Athenian  crown,  but  the  nurse  speedily 
returns  with  the  news  that  Thesee  lives  and  has  arrived  at  Trezene, 
and  accordingly  persuades  Phedre  to  allow  her  to  slander  Hippolyte 
to  his  father.  Thesee  returns,  and  Phedre  rouses  his  suspicions  by  an 
enigmatical  speech ;  but  Hippolyte,  not  choosing  to  defile  his  lips 
with  the  odious  secret,  refuses  an  explanation,  and,  incredulous  of 
Phedre's  evil  intentions,  resolves  to  gain  his  father's  sanction  to  his 
marriage  with  Aricie. 

Act  IV. — OEnone  has  already  accused  Hippolyte  to  his  father  of 
a  passion  for  Phedre  and  of  a  '  projet  audacieux '  '  pour  parvenir  au 
but  de  ses  noires  amours,'  adducing  as  proof  his  sword. 

A  scene  follows  between  father  and  son,  in  which  Hippolyte  is  met 
with  the  accusation  of  his  alleged  crime,  but  he  protests  his  innocence 
and  confesses  his  love  for  Aricie.  But  neither  this  nor  his  vague 
hints  of  Phedre's  infidelity  gain  the  credence  of  Thesee,  who  calls  on 
Neptune  for  vengeance,  and  banishes  Hippolyte  from  his  native  land. 
Remorse  now  prompts  Phedre  to  confess  her  guilt,  but  her  jealousy, 
aroused  by  the  disclosure  of  Hippolyte's  love,  checks  the  good  impulse. 
CEnone  endeavours  to  palliate  her  mistress's  sin  with  blasphemous 
remarks  about  the  domestic  life  of  Olympus,  but  the  latter  turns 
upon  her,  and  accuses  her  of  having  been  the  author  of  all  her  woes. 
QEnone  quits  her  presence  to  seek  self-destruction. 

Act  V. — Hippolyte  persuades  Aricie  to  fly  with  him,  and  she, 
though  still  respecting  her  lover's  secret,  further  unsettles  the  mind  of 
Thesee.  The  narrative  of  Hippolyte's  death  now  follows,  and  Phedre, 
after  drinking  the  poisoned  cup,  confesses  her  guilt  and  dies. 

Eacine  knew  that  the  virgin  Hippolytus  would  not  gain  much 
sympathy  from  the  gallant  Frenchman;  he  knew  also  that  any 
attempt  to  connect  the  gods  with  the  direct  action  of  the  play  would 
verge  on  absurdity ;  he  was  therefore  constrained  to  the  invention  of 
Aricie,  whose  moderate  and  lawful  love  would  contrast  with  the 
violent  and  illegal  passion  of  Phedre.  Hippolyte,  too,  deprived  of  the 
chaste  fellowship  of  Diana,  would  have  hardly  conformed  to  the  poet's 
ideas  of  dramatic  symmetry.  Thus  we  may  note  the  following  inno- 
vations as  introduced  by  the  French  author. 

1.  The  substitution  of  Phedre  for  Hippolyte  as  the  principal 
character.  The  change  is  indicated  by  the  title  of  the  tragedy. 


1880.  PHAEDRA   AND  PHEDRE.  69 

2.  The  amplification  of  the  political  background. 

3.  The  invention  of  Aricie  and  her  love  for  Hippolyte. 

4.  The  personal  declaration  by  Phedre  to  Hippolyte  of  her  love 
for  him.     This  is  borrowed  from  the  Latin  tragedy  Hippolytus  of 
Seneca. 

5.  The  various  incidents  which  contribute  to  the  justification  of 
the  character  of  Phedre,  to  be  noted  hereafter. 

6.  The  postponement  of  Phedre's  suicide. 

7.  The  display  of  jealousy  on  the  part  of  Phedre  on  learning  of 
the  love  of  Hippolyte  for   Aricie  which  forms  the  motive  of  the 
fourth  act. 

8.  The  confession  by  Phedre  of  her  crimes,  taken  from  Seneca. 

9.  The  omission  of  the  revolting  display  of  the  bodies  of  Phedre 
and  Hippolyte,  justified  in  the  Greek  play  by  the  size  of  the  theatre, 
and  the  necessity,  in  the  absence  of  action,  of  the  production  of 
striking  effects. 

Let  us  return  for  a  moment,  before  we  analyse  the  character  of 
PhMre,  to  the  Greek  Phaedra. 

We  may  be  justified,  as  I  have  before  remarked,  without  disre- 
spect to  the  Greek  author,  in  failing  to  perceive  the  dramatic  justice 
of  the  Hippolytus.  We  may  feel  that  the  punishment  of  Hippolytus 
is  out  of  proportion  to  his  crime  ;  that  Phsedra,  who  is  represented 
both  by  Venus  and  the  chorus  as  an  illustrious  woman,  has  done 
nothing  to  merit  her  awful  fate.  Euripides  felt  this  too,  and  put 
the  traditional  presiding  influence  of  the  deity  into  a  somewhat  bold 
and  abrupt  form  in  order  to  justify  her.  But  Phsedra  is  a  secondary 
character,  whose  office  is  to  furnish  justification  for  the  diatribes  of 
Hippolytus  against  womankind  in  general.  If  it  is  true  of  the 
principal  characters  in  Greek  drama  that  they  are  drawn  with  little 
light  and  shade,  it  is  doubly  true  of  the  secondary  characters.  For 
example,  compare  Medea  and  Phoedra,  handed  down  to  us  as  having 
roused  the  indignation  of  the  Athenians  on  account  of  their  un- 
qiialified  wickedness,  and  we  shall  find  that  justificatory  passages  are 
few  in  the  Hippolytus  compared  with  the  other  tragedy.  Although 
the  poet  introduced  some  touches  of  pathos  in  the  character  of 
Phaedra,  such  as  her  love  for  her  husband  and  her  children,  they 
will  be  found  on  examination  to  be  qualified  with  more  selfish  expres- 
sions of  feeling  with  regard  to  her  own  good  name.  She  appears  also 
to  have  inherited  something  of  the  brute,  from  the  frequent  allusions 
to  the  amours  of  her  mother  Pasiphae.  The  aim  of  Euripides 
appears  to  have  been  to  represent  Phsedra  as  an  object  of  horror ; 
he  has  invested  her  with  none  of  the  characteristics  which  are  wont 
to  awaken  sympathy.  No  doubt  he  was  aware  that,  in  order  to 
keep  the  interest  fixed  on  Hippolytus,  Phaedra's  character  must  be 
made  persistently  unsympathetic.  The  scenic  conditions,  too,  as  I 
have  before  explained,  did  not  allow  of  the  delicate  shading  of  cha- 


70  TEE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  January 

racier  which  a  modern  poet  would  have  adopted  in  such  a  case. 
Phaedra  is  never  nattered  with  a  gleam  of  hope  ;  she  comes  on  the 
stage  prepared  to  die ;  and  her  every  action  shows  that,  unless  she 
can  conquer  her  passion,  her  death  is  inevitable.  Her  promptness  of 
action  shows  that  her  mind  is  made  up.  The  crime  which  she  really 
commits  is  the  betrayal  of  her  secret.  The  intention  of  Euripides 
was,  as  I  have  said,  to  present  her  as  an  object  of  horror ;  she  is 
almost  at  the  point  of  death  when  she  is  brought  on  the  stage  ; 
disease  and  famine  have  wasted  her  face;  the  chorus  frequently  call 
attention  to  her  horrible  appearance ;  she  raves  under  the  influence 
of  Venus ;  she  recounts  how  her  ancestors  have  been  the  victims  of 
that  goddess  ;  she  describes  how  she  has  wrestled  with  her  rising 
passion,  but  she  now  recognises  it  as  inevitable  ;  she  feels  it  gaining 
the  mastery  over  her  ;  she  must  silence  it  by  death ;  she  betrays  her 
secret ;  she  is  advised  to  yield  and  live,  but  such  mean  counsel  she 
rejects  with  scorn ;  her  nurse  plays  traitor ;  and  Phaedra  turns  on  her, 
blasting  her  with  a  terrific  curse,  and,  having  uttered  mingled  senti- 
ments about  her  husband,  her  children,  and  herself,  leaves  the  stage 
to  die.  She  is  discovered,  when  the  folding  doors  are  opened,  with  a 
letter  in  her  hand,  that  falsely  accuses  Hippolytus.  She  perjures 
herself  with  her  latest  breath.  Such  a  crime  as  this  is  peculiarly 
repugnant  to  modern  sentiment.  La  Harpe  expresses  his  horror 
at  the  deed  very  forcibly  when  he  says :  '  Ainsi  la  mort,  qui  est 
pour  tous  les  hommes  le  moment  de  repentir,  a  ete  pour  Phedre  le 
moment  d'un  dernier  crime.'  The  deed,  however,  must  not  be  judged 
altogether  from  a  modern  standpoint.  It  was  not  a  crime  to  practise 
deceit  in  Attic  times  :  to  break  one's  oath  was  sacrilege,  but  a  Grreek 
was  bound  by  the  words,  not  by  the  spirit,  of  his  promise.  Hippolytus 
keeps  his  oath,  but  because  it  is  so  worded  that  he  cannot  escape. 
To  deceive  your  enemy  and  keep  your  oath  was,  for  a  Greek,  the 
triumph  of  diplomacy  and  patriotism.  But  the  last  act  of  Phaedra, 
regard  it  how  you  will,  bears  testimony  to  her  unalterable  strength  of 
purpose. 

Such  is  Phaedra :  her  will  and  her  passions  are  strong,  but  her 
body  is  weak,  and  that  is  the  slave  of  heaven.  Where  she  chiefly 
exhibits  strength  is  in  her  power  of  repression.  She  relaxed  once,  and 
the  momentary  weakness  was  fraught  with  woe  to  her  and  to  her  good 
name.  Euripides  intensifies  the  horror  of  her  personality  by  an 
insistence  on  the  loathsome  features  of  her  illness.  He  intensifies 
this  effect  by  the  contrast  which  he  has  so  pointedly  made  between 
her  first  entry  and  that  of  Hippolytus,  coming  as  he  does  girt  with 
his  hunting  apparel  and  bearing  fresh  flowers  from  the  dewy  woods, 
his  face  all  ruddy  with  the  glow  of  healthful  chastity.  Euripides 
deprives  Phaedra  of  all  sympathetic  qualities  by  giving  her  no  gleam 
of  hope  that  the  object  of  her  passion  will  be  realised,  nor  does  she 
herself  desire  it.  The  expression. of  her  love  itself  is  without  tender- 


1880.  PHAEDRA   AND  PHEDRE.  71 

ness,  for  in  treating  of  the  love  of  man  and  woman  the  Greeks  laid 
less  stress  upon  its  intellectual  than  upon  its  animal  features. 

I  have  said  that  Phedre  is  the  French  Hamlet.  What  I  meant 
was  that  both  these  characters  furnish  the  quick  transitions  from 
emotion  to  emotion  which  make  a  good  acting  character  (Voltaire 
called  Phedre  the  best\  and  that  these  transitions  proceed  from  a 
reluctance  to  perform  a  certain  action  enjoined  them.  There,  how- 
ever, the  resemblance  ends :  with  Hamlet,  this  reluctance  proceeds 
from  an  intellectual  and  emotional  activity  which  presents  to  him  in 
detail  the  consequences  of  that  action  ;  with  Phedre  it  is  caused 
partly  from  a  want  of  courage  to  take  the  necessary  step,  partly  from 
the  hope  that  something  will  occur  to  change  the  face  of  events. 
Phedre  is  a  good  acting  part ;  the  Greek  Phaedra  would  have  by  no 
means  fulfilled  the  dramatic  conditions  of  the  modern  stage,  or  even 
of  the  ancient  as  the  \Medea  did.  I  have  pointed  out  how  the  Greeks 
endeavoured  to  secure  a  monotone  in  acting,  consonant  with  the 
religious  feeling,  antagonistic  to  the  predominance  of  the  individual 
actor,  and  caused  by  the  machinery  employed  to  magnify  the  person 
and  voice  of  the  performer  so  as  to  accord  with  the  vastness  of  the 
theatre.  On  the  French  stage,  however,  there  were  no  such  condi- 
tions ;  the  actor  was  predominant  and  responsible  for  the  success  of 
the  play,  nor  was  there  any  chorus  to  break  the  contact  between 
author  and  audience.  There  was  no  religious  feeling  to  create  indul- 
gence in  the  mind  of  the  spectator,  and  tide  over  the  unattractive 
passages  of  necessary  '  business.'  The  actor,  or  the  author  in  proxy, 
stood  face  to  face  with  the  audience.  He  must  be  provided  with 
varied  scenes  and  varied  emotions  to  enable  him  to  display  his 
different  powers :  '  the  breathing  from  the  world  of  sculpture '  was 
impossible  now.  There  must  be  no  cessation  in  the  action  ;  the 
whole  drama  must  be  replete  with  modern  sentiment ;  the  broad  con- 
trasts of  the  Greek  must  be  modified  to  the  subtler  refinements  of 
modern  art.  Compassion  must  take  the  place  of  horror,  and  love 
must  be  written  in  accents  of  tenderness.  Such  a  revolution  did 
Racine  work  in  the  character  of  Phedre,  whom  he  now  made  the 
central  personage  of  the  piece. 

The  status  of  woman  had  altered  since  the  Attic  age.  Roman 
Catholicism  and  the  songs  of  the  troubadours  had  inculcated  a  reve- 
rence for  her  ;  and  these  were  the  last  of  those  chivalrous  days  in 
which  her  love  had  urged  the  flower  of  knighthood  to  do  battle  for 
her  sake.  The  heroism  of  the  weaker  sex  during  the  stirring  times 
of  the  Fronde,  the  power  they  exercised  in  the  conduct  of  political 
intrigue,  the  influence  of  the  king's  mistresses,  the  courteous  bearing 
of  the  monarch  himself  towards  them,  and,  perhaps  more  than  all,  the 
misfortunes  and  death  of  the  exiled  queen  of  Charles  the  First,  who  had 
taken  the  rival  tragedians,  Racine  and  Corneille,  under  her  wing,  and 
inspired  them  to  write  in  her  honour,  rendered  Louis  the  Fourteenth's 


72  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY.  January 

contemporaries  peculiarly  sensible  to  the  worth  of  woman.  So,  if  the 
Phaedra  of  Euripides  had  stirred  the  resentment  even  of  the  slavish 
wives  of  Athens,  Kacine  must  make  considerable  changes  in  that  cha- 
racter before  it  conformed  to  the  enlightened  ideas  of  his  time.  He 
modernised  and  he  humanised  her  ;  she  is  no  longer,  as  Mr. 
Swinburne  calls  her  in  his  fine  lines, 

Half  a  woman  made  with  half  a  god. 

'  Ce  sont  les  entrailles  d'une  maratre,  qui  s'emeuvent  a  1'aspect  d'ua 
beau  jeune  homme.' 

It  will  be  seen  that  Eacine  sacrifices  a  great  deal  in  order  to 
excuse  the  crimes  of  Phsedra  and  render  her  sympathetic.  He  dis- 
plays her  as  a  wife  outraged  by  the  infidelity  of  her  husband ;  he 
makes  her  credit  the  news  of  his  death,  which  is  announced  by  a 
messenger  in  a  circumstantial  manner,  so  that  she  believes  that  no- 
obstacle  exists  between  her  and  the  object  of  her  passion,  except  the  bar 
of  relationship,  which  Eacine  takes  care  that  CEnone  should  explain  is 
only  objectionable  on  the  ground  of  sentimental  scruples.  With  a 
like  object  the  repulsive  details  of  her  personal  appearance  are  not 
insisted  on,  and  her  madness  is  modified.  The  amours,  too,  of  her 
mother  are  all  but  ignored. 

The  political  background  is  painted  more  clearly  in  order  that 
her  love  for  her  son  may  serve  the  distinct  purpose  of  placing  him  on 
the  throne.  The  hint  of  her  maternal  affection  is  taken  from  the 
Greek  play,  and  made  the  keynote  of  her  character.  Her  excuse  for 
speaking  to  Hippolyte  is  that  she  wishes  to  intercede  with  him  for 
her  son. 

Souvenez-vous  d'un  fils  qui  n'espere  qu'en  vous 

are  the  words  with  which  CEnone  restores  her  failing  courage.  She 
begins  the  interview  with  pleading  for  her  child.  But  the  likeness 
of  Hippolyte  to  his  father  strikes  her,  and  the  tide  of  uncontrollable 
love  sweeps  over  her  soul.  In  vain  she  tries  to  persuade  herself  that 
it  is  this  likeness  to  Thesee  which  is  the  cause  of  her  tenderness.  The 
dam  is  burst,  the  waters  are  out,  and  the  dreadful  truth  leaps  forth  r 

La  veuve  de  The'stSe  ose  aimer  Hippolyte. 

This  personal  declaration  by  Phedre  of  her  passion,  contrasting  as 
it  does  with  the  reserve  of  Phsedra,  has  been  censured.  It  however 
accords  with  the  impetuous  character  of  Phedre,  and  cannot  be  con- 
sidered as  vulgarising  her.  It  is  the  scene  on  which  hinges  the  whole 
play,  and  one  of  the  most  dramatic  ever  written.  Phedre  almost 
justifies  herself  by  offering  her  breast  to  the  sword,  and  Hippolyte  for 
the  first  time  displays  his  true  character  by  casting  that  sword  from 
him  as  a  thing  defiled. 

Eacine  has  managed  very  skilfully  to  relegate  the  action  of  the 
play  to  this  particular  scene.  To  the  audience  the  true  characters  of 


1880.  PHAEDRA   AND  PHEDRE.  73 

the  dramatis  personce  are  disclosed,  but  to  Phaedra  the  silence  of 
Hippolyte  is  ambiguous.  He  is  savage,  she  says,  like  his  mother, 
the  Amazon,  and  cannot  love.  (Enone,  too,  despairs  and  counsels 
flight,  but  Phedre  cannot  fly.  At  the  very  word  she  rouses  herself  to 
further  effort. 

Et  1'espoir,  malgre"  moi,  s'est  glisse*  dans  mon  cceur, 
Toi-meme  rappellant  ma  force_de'faillante, 
Et  mon  ame  de"ja  sur  mes  levres  errante. 

She  hopes.     Hippolyte  does  not  know  how  to  love,  she  says. 

CEnone,  il  peut  quitter  cet  orgueil  qui  te  blesse. 

That  '  te '  is  a  fine  dramatic  touch,  and  indicates  an  important 
feature  of  Phedre's  character,  viz.,  to  shirk  responsibility.  She  for- 
gets her  former  excuse  for  her  interview  with  Hippolyte,  the  good  of 
her  son.  She  cannot  rule ;  her  energy  is  absorbed  by  her  fatal  passion. 
She  bids  CEnone  bribe  Hippolyte  with  the  crown  of  Athens.  But 
she  excuses  the  change  of  feeling  : 

II  instruira  mon  fils  dans  1'art  de  commander, 
Peut-etre  il  voudra  bien  lui  tenir  lieu  de  pere. 

CEnone  has  hardly  left  when  she  returns  with  the  news  that  Thesee 
is  alive  and  in  the  country.  Phedre  is  overwhelmed ;  she  fears  the 
wrath  of  Thesee,  but  excuses  her  fear  with  the  remark  that  she  is  not 
a  hardened  sinner,  and  cannot  rest  with  a  guilty  conscience.  Death 
is  inevitable. 

Mourons !  de  tant  d'horreurs  qu'un  tre*pas  me  delivre  ! 
Est-ce  un  malheur  si  grand  que  de  cesser  de  vivre  ? 
La  mort  aux  malheureux  ne  cause  point  d'effroi. 

The  prolixity  of  the  announcement  betrays  her  infirmity  of  resolution. 
She  laments  the  hard  lot  of  her  children,  and  a  few  words  from 
CEnone  suffice  to  draw  from  her  the  exclamation  that,  as  regards 
Hippolyte, 

Je  le  vois  comme  un  monstre  effroyable  a  mes  yeux. 

A  sudden  revulsion  of  feeling,  but  in  accord  with  her  character. 
CEnone  suggests  that  she  should  slander  Hippolyte,  but  from  this  her 
better  nature  revolts. 

Moi !  que  j'ose  opprimer  et  noircir  1'innocence  ! 

Her  maternal  feelings  are  again  worked  upon  by  CEnone,  and  her 
morality  is  quenched  by  the  appearance  of  her  husband ;  though 
even  then  she  cannot  bring  herself  to  pronounce  the  wicked  words. 
She  throws  out  a  dark  hint,  and  quits  the  scene.  But  scarcely  has 
CEnone  poisoned  the  father's  mind  against  the  son,  and  Thesee  prayed 
to  Neptune  for  Hippolyte's  destruction,  when  remorse  drives  Phedre 
upon  the  stage  to  confess  her  crime.  There,  however,  she  learns  that 
the  heart  of  Hippolyte  has  been  conquered  by  another  than  herself; 
and  again  her  good  resolves  are  swept  away. 

Hippolyte  est  sensible  et  ne  sent  rien  pour  moi, 


74  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  January 

she  exclaims — •'  moi ! ' — jealously.  She  pictures  to  herself  the  innocent 
love,  rival  of  her  guilty  passion,  which  now  bursts  upon  her  in  all  its 
native  hideousness.  It  is  now  that  she  first  really  reconciles  her  mind 
with  the  idea  of  death.  She  has  no  more  hope  now.  The  meeting 
with  Minos  on  that  awful  throne  of  justice  is  presaged  by  her  in  grand 
realistic  lines.  One  feels  it  will  be  a  meeting  between  a  father 
and  a  daughter.  There  is  still,  however,  a  feeling  of  irritation  in  her 
mind,  which  a  blasphemous  speech  from  OEnone  calls  into  words. 
She  turns  upon  her  old  nurse.  Her  fidelity  is  forgotten ;  but  the  in- 
discriminate nature  of  her  friendship  is  remembered.  It  is  QEnone 
who  is  the  cause  of  her  evils.  The  Phedre  of  Eacine  has  no  indepen- 
dence of  character.  This  act  of  justice  done,  and  Hippolyte  dead, 
Phedre,  with  the  poison  of  Medea  sapping  her  life,  confesses  her 
crimes  and  dies  ;  and  Thesee,  sinking  his  political  feud  in  regret 
for  his  son,  adopts  her  to  whom  Hippolyte  has  pledged  his  love. 

Phedre  is  a  weak,  emotional  woman,  full  of  excuses  for  the  com- 
mission of  crimes  which  she  has  no  strength  to  forego.  Sympathy  is 
awakened  for  her,  because  infirmity  of  will  renders  possible,  and  so 
furnishes  an  excuse  for,  a  passion  seeming  unlawful  only  in  name.  From 
time  to  time  she  is  buoyed  up  with  the  hope  of  realising  her  object, 
but  no  sooner  are  these  hopes  raised  than  they  are  dashed  again  to 
the  ground.  For  a  while  she  resists  the  disclosure  of  her  secret,  but 
when  a  chink  is  once  made  in  the  barrier  of  her  conscience,  her 
whole  morality  oozes  through,  and  she  is  tossed  hither  and  thither  by 
currents  of  emotion,  while  the  broad  flood  bears  her  on  to  destruction. 

The  whole  part  is  one  in  which  realistic  representation  of  physical 
horror  and  moral  depravity  should  play  a  lesser  part  than  that  quality 
which  Alfred  de  Musset  describes  as  *  ce  qui  vient  du  cceur '  et '  va 
au  coeur ' — pathos,  sympathy,  human  nature,  or  whatever  you  care  to 
call  it.  The  interest  of  the  audience  is  centred  in  the  woman,  not  in 
the  crime.  The  sense  of  her  struggle  is  made  possible  by  the  secret 
recognition  of  the  freedom  of  the  agent,  and  her  want  of  steady 
purpose  becomes  a  natural  accompaniment.  Her  fall  may  be  likened 
to  the  fall  of  a  man  from  a  lofty  tower  :  she  clutches  first  at  one  pro- 
jection and  then  at  another.  When  she  reaches  the  ground  she  is 
dead ;  but  her  features  retain  their  human  mould,  when  the  body  of 
Phsedra  is  a  shapeless  mass  like  one  who  has  been  hurled  from  heaven. 
The  subject  is  repugnant  to  our  feelings  ;  but  Racine  wrote  at  a  time 
when  Greece  was  a  synonym  for  propriety,  moral  and  artistic. 

Bachel  appears  to  me  to  have  represented  Phedre  rather  as 
Euripides  drew  her,  i.e.  as  an  incarnation  of  evil  from  above,  with 
attendant  details  of  ghastly  disease  and  disfiguring  famine. 

I  had  hoped,  when  I  began  to  write  this  paper,  that  I  should  have 
been  able  to  prove  my  point  by  citations  from  the  contemporary 
criticism  of  Eachel's  day  respecting  the  particular  intention  and 
relative  importance  given  by  her  to  different  passages ;  but  I  have 


1880.  PHAEDRA   AND  PHEDRE.  75 

been  foiled  in  my  endeavour  by  the  impossibility  of  discovering 
sufficient  literal  criticism  either  in  French  or  in  English.  In  this  I 
have  been  thwarted,  but  I  have  collected,  I  think,  a  sufficient  number 
of  passages  to  exemplify  the  general  feeling  exhibited  by  the  press 
towards  Rachel,  and  thus  make  good  my  assertion.  It  would  be 
useless  for  me  to  conceal  the  fact  that  I  have  here  and  there  come 
across  passages  which  seem  to  ;be  in  opposition  to  my  view — passages 
penned  by  critics  who  appear  to  have  found  in  Rachel's  Phedre  those 
qualities  which  I  do  not  suppose  really  existed  there ;  but  I  would 
add  that  in  many  articles  where  I  have  been  struck  with  the  coin- 
cidence of  the  critic's  views  with  my  own,  I  have  had  the  satisfaction 
of  learning  that  the  author  was  one  who  was  entitled  to  credence. 
Oral  evidence  also  supports  me. 

For  a  general  idea  of  the  main  features  of  Rachel's  acting,  I  must 
refer  my  readers  to  the  famous  chapter  headed  '  Vashti '  in  Charlotte 
Bronte's  Villette.  Rachel  was  undoubtedly  a  remarkable  phe- 
nomenon. By  her  own  unaided  genius  she  brought  back  the  French 
tragic  muse  to  Paris  after  an  absence  of,  I  think,  ten  years.  She 
drew  greater  crowds  to  hear  her  than  even  Talma  had  done.  But 
her  power  was  not  sufficiently  varied  to  keep  them  at  her  feet ;  she 
tried  play  after  play  and  failed  in  .them.  She  never  really  gained 
the  sympathy  of  her  audience  ;  for  that  which  a  Frenchman  prizes  so 
highly,  the  expression  of  pathos,  was,  except  with  peculiar  qualifi- 
cation, foreign  to  her  dramatic  nature.  The  criticisms  which  are 
known  to  most  of  us,  and  very  delightful  they  are,  are  Alfred  de 
Musset's.  He  finds  pathos  in  her  acting ;  but  it  must  be  remem- 
bered that  he  wrote  from  a  personal  knowledge  of  Rachel,  and  at  a 
time  when  her  youth,  her  poverty,  and  her  simplicity  of  living  cast 
a  sort  of  pathetic  charm  about  her.  He  wrote  at  a  time  when  Rachel 
was  tender  over  the  reputation  of  her  fellow-actresses,  and  when  she 
was  disgusted  with  the  vulgarity  of  Corneille  for  writing  such  a  line  as 

On  peut  changer  d'amant,  mais  non  changer  d'epoux. 

But  it  was  not  till  many  years  after  this  that  she  played  Phedre. 
The  truer  view  will  be  found  in  the  following  extracts  from  criticisms 
on  Rachel's  rendering  of  that  character. 

A  thenceum : 

It  would  be  impossible  to  speak  of  Rachel  as  a  careless  or  meagre  actress,  but  it 
is  as  impossible  to  deny  that  she  is  monotonous.  Nature  has  bound  her  round  with 
bars  of  adamant  through  which  her  genius  either  cannot  or  will  not  break.  The 
softer  affections  and  tenderer  emotions,  which  give  even  a  redeeming  grace  to  Lady 
Macbeth  and  Shylock,  seem  to  be  as  far  beyond  Rachel's  grasp  as  ever.  She  awes 
more  than  moves  us :  her  power  corrodes,  but  does  not  subdue.  Few  spells  as 
strong  as  hers  leave  us  with  as  little  wish  for  their  repetition. 

Four  years  previously  the  same  paper  said : 

With  every  intention  to  display  the  intensity  of  her  passion  for  Hippolyte,  she 
has  neither  sufficient  tenderness  nor  fascination  in  her  control.  She  moves  a  fiend, 


7&  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  January 

not  a  gorgeous  queen — destroyed,  not  intoxicated,  by  her  fatal  desires.  With  all 
her  grace,  dignity,  and  intensity,  we  felt  she  was  hardly  on  her  own  ground  till  she 
turns  on  CEnone  with  '  Malheureuse,'  &c.  It  is  impossible  for  art  to  go  further 
than  this. 

The  Times  marks  the  realistic  manner  in  which  Eachel  depicted 
the  physical  condition  of  Phedre  in  the  first  act :  '  The  state  of 
suffering,  the  weakness  of  the  limbs,  and  the  utter  hopelessness  of 
heart  are  exquisitely  rendered  by  Eachel,  who  gives  to  every  syllable 
a  mournful  expression.'  The  paper  also  adds  a  similar  criticism  of 
the  portrayal  of  the  decline  of  physical  power  at  the  end  of  the  play. 

I  will  also  add,  at  the  risk  of  wearying  rny  readers,  quotations 
from  three  authors  who  are  pre-eminently  qualified  to  form  a  judg- 
ment in  the  matter — Macready,  Madame  de  B ,  Rachel's  bio- 
grapher, and  Mr.  George  Lewes. 

Macready 's  Diaries,  1847  : 

It  was  a  very  striking  performance,  all  intensity,  all  in  a  spirit  of  vehemence 
and  fury,  that  made  one  feel  a  want  of  keeping.  I  could  have  fancied  a  more  self- 
contained  performance,  more  passionate  fondness — not  frenzy — in  her  love,  and 
more  pathos.  I  could  imagine  a  performance  exciting  more  pity  for  the  character 
than  she  inspired,  and  equal  effect  in  the  scenes  of  rage  and  despair. 

Speaking  of  the  first  representation  by  Rachel  of  Phedre,  Madame 

de  B says,  in  allusion  to  Rachel's  immediate  predecessor  in  the 

character : 

Mademoiselle  Duchesncis  was,  certes,  very  inferior  in  some  points  to  her  young 
successor,  but  she  possessed  qualities  most  indispensable  to  tragedy,  of  which 
Eachel  was  entirely  destitute  she  had  from  nature  the  faculty  of  expressing  ten- 
derness in  its  most  moving  form,  depth  of  feeling  in  its  most  sympathetic,  heart- 
stirring,  passionate  moods.  Phedre,  the  role  of  her  debut,  had  remained  her  favour- 
ite one  throughout  her  long  career,  and  she  had  never  acted  it  without  drawing 
tears  from  every  spectator  (?). 

Again   of  Phedre  in  1854,  when  some  people  considered  that 

Rachel   was   at   her   best,   Madame  de  B gives  the  following 

description : 

She  concentrated  the  tragedy  on  herself.  She  embodied  the  event,  began  and 
developed  it,  foreshadowed  the  end.  She  incarnated  the  character,  the  action. 
When  she  appeared  as  Phedre,  bending  under  the  weight  of  the  diadem  that  burned 
that  brow  like  a  fiery  circle,  shrinking  from  the  veils  that  enrobed  her,  she  was  the 
type  of  suffering,  the  living  image  of  Destiny's  victim :  her  curse  and  her  crime 
are  present  throughout  the  play. 

I  cannot  imagine  a  more  truthful  description  of  Euripides'  Phaedra 
than  this. 

Mr.  Greorge  Lewes  ends  my  list : 

Rachel's  range,  like  Kean's  (he  says  in  Actors  and  Acting')  was  very  limited, 
but  her  expression  was  perfect  within  that  range.  Scorn,  triumph,  rage,  lust,  and 
merciless  malignity,  she  could  represent  in  symbols  of  irresistible  power  ;  but  she 
had  little  tenderness,  no  womanly  caressing  softness,  no  gaiety,  no  heartiness.  She 
was  so  graceful  and  so  powerful  that  her  air  of  dignity  was  incomparable  ;  but 
somehow  you  always  felt  in  her  presence  an  indefinable  suggestion  of  latent 
wickedness. 


1880.  PHAEDRA   AND  PHEDRE.  77 

The  portion  of  Mr.  Lewes'  paper  which  refers  to  Phedre  was 
copied  from  an  earlier  paper  of  his,  written  in  1850,  from  which  I 
shall  quote  in  preference  as  being  slightly  more  explicit : 

Nothing  finer  could  be  seen  than  this  picture  of  the  unutterable  mournfulness 
and  yielding  despair  of  a  soul  torn  -with  an  incestuous  passion,  conscious  of  its 
guilt,  struggling  with  its  guilt,  yet  so  filled,  moved,  possessed  by  it,  that  the  verse, 
'  C'est  Ve"nus  tout  entiere  a  sa  proie  attached,'  was  realised.  Her  appearance  as  she 
entered,  wasting  away  with  the  fire  that  consumed  her,  standing  on  the  verge  of 
the  grave,  her  face  pallid,  her  eyes  hot,  her  hands  and  arms  emaciated,  filled  us 
with  a  ghastly  horror.  ...  In  the  second  act  (the  declaration)  Rachel  was  tran- 
scendent. There  was  a  subtle  indication  of  the  diseased  passion,  of  its  fiery  but 
unhealthy,  irresistible  and  yet  odious  character,  in  the  febrile  energy  with  which 
she  portrayed  it.  It  was  terrible  in  its  vehemence  and  abandonment,  eloquent  in 
its  horror,  fierce  and  rapid  as  if  the  thoughts  were  crowding  upon  her  brain  in 
tumult,  and  varied  with  such  amazing  compass  of  tones  that  when  she  left  the 
scene  our  nerves  were  quivering  with  an  excitement  almost  insupportable. 

This  ends  my  list  of  quotations,  which  I  think  will  prove  my 
point  as  far  as  any  point  can  be  proved  by  quoting  the  opinions  of 
others,  that  the  Phedre  of  Rachel  was  strong  in  those  parts  alone 
which  tear  resemblance  to  the  Greek.  But  I  have  shown  what 
relation  they  have  to  the  whole  play. 

It  is  not  my  purpose  to  enter  into  detailed  criticism  of  Madame 
Sarah  Bernhardt's  rendering  of  the  character,  since  most  of  those 
who  are  interested  in  such  matters  must  have  seen  it  again  and  again. 
M.  Sarcey  gives  it  as  the  opinion  of  those  of  his  acquaintance  who 
have  seen  both  actresses  that  in  the  first  three  acts  Rachel  is  sur- 
passed. It  is  in  these  acts  that  the  qualities  of  Madame  Bernhardt 
supply  the  deficiencies  of  Rachel ;  and  it  is  in  the  last  two  acts  that 
the  characteristics  of  the  Greek  Phaedra  are  predominant,  notwith- 
standing the  fact  that  they  possess  nothing  of  the  Greek  original  in 
them,  and  that  the  other  acts  contain  whole  passages  adapted. 
Phedre  has  returned  again  to  Mile.  Duchesnois ;  and  to  my  mind 
that  is  the  truest  reading  of  Racine's  Phedre. 

LIONEL  TENNYSON. 


78  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  January 


PURCHASE  IN  THE   CHURCH. 

SIR  JOHN  ELIOT,  the  purest  patriot  of  a  generation  not  wanting  in 
patriots,  when  he  desired  to  be  made  a  colonel  and  a  deputy-lieutenant 
of  his  county,  tried  to  smooth  the  way  by  sending  201.  to  401.  in 
money  to  be  distributed  amongst  the  subordinates  of  the  Lord 
Chamberlain's  office.  No  thought  that  he  was  doing  anything  wrong 
seems  to  have  crossed  his  mind.  A  century  later,  the  members  of 
Parliament  who,  when  they  dined  with  their  political  chief,  expected 
to  find  a  bank-note  in  each  napkin,  though  hardened  to  it,  were  more 
conscious  of  their  dishonour.  In  our  own  time  it  may  be  hoped  that 
the  grosser  form  of  bribery,  the  payment  of  a  sum  of  money  for 
advancement  to  a  public  office,  has  become  impossible.  And  as  with 
public  men,  so  it  is  with  that  large  class  of  unpaid  trustees  on  whom 
so  much  in  English  life  depends,  and  to  whom  the  protection  of  so 
many  interests,  and  the  care  of  so  much  property,  public  and  private, 
are  committed.  Malversation  is  almost  unheard  of. 

Almost,  but,  alas!  not  quite.  With  one  class  of  trustees  alone, 
by  a  strange  and  inexplicable  anomaly,  the  very  reverse  of  improve- 
ment has  been  going  on,  and  the  public  conscience  has  been  growing, 
not  more  sensitive,  but  more  and  more  callous.  Patrons  of  Church 
preferment  alone  have  been  gradually  permitted  by  the  law,  by  public 
opinion,  and  by  the  acquiescence  of  the  clergy,  to  convert  what  was 
in  its  essence  (if  not  in  form)  simply  a  trust,  into  a  means  of  raising 
money  for  themselves.  The  trustee  of  a  charity  or  of  a  marriage 
settlement,  or  the  guardian  of  a  minor,  would  be  disgraced  for  life  if 
he  were  detected  in  taking  money  to  influence  him  in  the  exercise  of 
his  trust.  Patrons  of  Church  livings  daily  advertise  the  next  pre- 
sentations to  them  in  the  newspapers,  with  only  just  sufficient  sense 
of  shame  to  make  them  conceal  their  names.  A  system  has  grown 
up,  partly  legal  and  partly  illegal,  by  which,  in  plain  language, 
patrons  are  enabled  to  plunder  the  clergy  for  their  own  benefit. 

In  tracing  this  fatal  change,  it  is  not  necessary  to  stop  to  define 
the  word  Simony,  or  to  consider  whether  an  Act  of  Parliament  can 
or  cannot  alter  the  meaning  of  the  word,  and  make  the  act  usually 
expressed  by  it  morally  right  or  wrong.  Simony  in  any  sense,  such  a 
state  of  things  as  is  legal  now,  would  not  have  been  tolerated  for  a 


1880.  PURCHASE  IN  THE  CHURCH.  79 

moment  in  the  Church,  with  all  its  faults,  of  Queen  Elizabeth's  time. 
The  story  of  Tetzel  and  his  indulgences  was  then  too  recent  for  that, 
the  notion  of  any  spiritual  privilege  or  office  being  saleable  for  filthy 
lucre  too  abhorrent  to  the  very  idea  of  Protestantism.  There  had  been 
no  concealment,  no  euphemism,  no  mistake  about  Tetzel's  purchase- 
system.  It  had  been  thrust  insolently,  defiantly,  upon  the  world. 

So  bald  das  Geld  im  Kasten  Idingt, 
So  bald  die  Seel'  'gen  Himmel  springt, 

had  been  written  in  plain  German  on  his  money-boxes.  It  was  the 
crowning  iniquity,  the  spark  which  had  set  Europe  in  a  flame  ;  and 
Protestant  England,  once  free,  was  not  likely,  for  some  time  to  come 
at  least,  to  tolerate  the  cloven  hoof  in  any  shape. 

And  so  in  1547,  albeit  a  time  when  a  good  deal  of  Church 
property  was  changing  hands  not  always  in  creditable  fashion  to 
those  concerned,  it  was  enacted  by  the  Injunctions  that : 

To  avoid  the  detestable  sin  of  simony,  because  buying  and  selling  of  benefices  is 
execrable  before  God,  therefore  all  such  persons  as  buy  any  benefices,  or  come  to 
them  by  fraud  and  deceit,  shall  be  deprived  thereof  and  made  incapable  at  any  time 
after  to  receive  any  spiritual  preferment,  and  such  as  sell  them,  or  by  any  colour 
bestow  them  for  their  own  gain  and  profit,  shall  lose  their  right  and  title  to  the 


This  was  confirmed  verbatim  by  Elizabeth  in  1559. 
By  Canon  40  of  1603  : 

To  avoid  the  detestable  sin  of  simony,  because  buying  and  selling  of  spiritual 
and  ecclesiastical  functions,  offices,  promotions,  dignities,  and  livings  is  execrable 
before  God,  therefore  .  .  . 

any  one  entering  upon  any  spiritual  cure  was  to  take  the  follow- 
ing oath : 

I,  N.  N.,  do  swear  that  I  have  made  no  simoniacal  payment,  contract,  or  promise, 
directly  or  indirectly  by  myself,  or  by  any  other  to  my  knowledge  or  with  my 
consent,  to  any  person  or  persons  whatsoever,  for  or  concerning  the  procuring  and 
obtaining  of  this  ecclesiastical  dignity,  place,  preferment,  office,  or  living  .  .  . 

an  oath  exacted  up  to  our  own  time,  and,  with  a  slight  modification 
(to  be  noticed  later),  exacted  still. 

It  would  seem  that  by  the  early  part  of  the  next  century  evasions 
of  the  law  had  begun  to  be  practised,  for  in  the  last  year  of  Queen 
Anne  a  statute  was  passed  to  prevent  persons  in  orders  from  buying 
next  presentations,  directly  or  indirectly,  any  such  contract  being 
declared  to  be  simoniacal.  This  act  did  not  declare  the  bona  fide 
purchase  by  laymen  of  next  presentations  to  be  illegal ;  but  that  the 
legality  of  such  sales  was  doubtful,  or  at  least  that  they  were  not 
often  practised,  may  be  inferred  from  the  fact  that  until  early  in  the 
present  century  it  was  generally  considered  that  a  sale  of  a  next 

1  Phillimore's  Ecclesiastical  Lam,  p.  1107. 


80  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  January 

presentation  was  simoniacal  if  the  incumbent  was  in  a  dying  state. 
This  opinion  was  at  length  negatived  by  the  judgment  in  the  case  of  Fox 
v.  the  Bishop  of  Chester,  in  which  Chief  Justice  Best  decided  that  no 
such  distinction  could  be  made.  His  decision,  however,  was  given 
against  his  inclination,  and  in  laying  down  the  law  on  the  point  he 
indicated  his  own  dissatisfaction  with  it.  '  It  may  be  wise,'  he  said, 
'  to  carry  the  restraint  on  the  sale  of  this  species  of  property  still 
further,  and  to  say  the  next  avoidance  shall  in  no  case  be  sold.  Un- 
doubtedly much  simony  is  indirectly  committed  by  the  sale  of  next 
presentations.' 2 

About  twenty  years  ago  an  act  originated  by  Lord  "Westbury  was 
passed  for  the  purpose  of  enabling  the  smaller  livings  in  the  gift  of 
the  Chancellor  to  be  sold  in  order  to  increase  the  remainder  with  the 
proceeds.  However  desirable  the  object  to  be  immediately  attained 
may  have  been,  the  passing  of  such  an  act  in  disregard  of  the  canon 
law  and  of  the  more  scrupulous  instincts  of  the  public  conscience, 
helped  to  throw  a  legal  sanction  over  the  unrestrained  traffic  in 
advowsons,  and  added  to  the  difficulties  in  the  way  of  regulating  it. 

One  obstacle  remained,  which  ought  to  have  been  a  serious 
one,  in  the  oath  (already  quoted)  required  to  be  taken  by  the  presentee 
at  institution  to  an  incumbency.  But  this  oath,  it  was  found,  let  in  the 
many,  while  it  kept  out  only  the  few  who  were  specially  scrupulous. 
For  though  required  to  abjure  simony,  the  presentee,  it  may  be 
supposed,  would  excuse  himself  for  a  certain  laxity  of  interpretation 
by  saying  that  he  had  no  means  of  knowing  what  was  meant  by  it — 
simony  according  to  English  law  being  one  thing  (and  that  not  a 
well-defined  or  settled  matter),  and  simony  according  to  canon  law 
being  quite  another  thing,  and  having  a  much  wider  meaning.  And 
so  in  practice  he  usually  put  his  conscience  in  his  solicitor's  hands, 
and  acted  on  his  opinion  without  troubling  his  head  about  Canon  40. 
To  meet  this  objection  the  oath  was  a  few  years  ago  altered  to  '  I 
declare  that  I  have  not  made  any  payment,  &c.,  which  to  the  best  of 
my  knowledge  and  belief  is  simoniacal,'  which  is  scarcely  an  im- 
provement on  the  old  one,  as  it  almost  presupposes,  and  certainly 
does  not  condemn,  a  convenient  ignorance  on  the  part  of  the  deponent 
of  what  he  is  swearing  about. 

Thus  step  by  step  it  has  come  to  pass  that  presentations  and 
advowsons,  the  spiritual  charge  of  parishes,  to  sell  which  in  Queen 
Elizabeth's  time  was  '  execrable  before  God,'  are  now  bought  and  sold 
as  readily  as  sacks  of  corn  in  the  market,  or  shares  on  the  Exchange. 
If  we  have  no  Tetzel  haranguing  in  our  streets,  we  have  '  clerical 
agents '  advertising  in  every  newspaper.  Tetzel's  wares  were  pardons 
in  another  world,  the  best  places  there  in  exchange  for  the  longest 
purses — a  mere  delusion  and  imposture.  The  '  clerical  agent's '  wares 

2  Phillimore's  Eccleticutical  Law,  p.  1114. 


1880.  PURCHASE  IN  THE  CHURCH.  81 

are  the '  cures '  of  thousands  and  ten  thousands  of  souls — not  a  delusion 
at  all,  but  a  very  important  kind  of  chattel,  if  indeed  it  is  a  fact  that 
the  English  Church  has  any  mission  at  all  in  England.     Our  law,  at 
any  rate,   still  holds  that   it   has,  for  it   bids  the  t  clergy  pray  on 
Sundays  in  the  Ember  weeks  that  '  the  bishops  may  lay  hands  sud- 
denly on  no  man,  but  faithfully  and  wisely  make  choice  of  lit  persons 
to  serve  in  the  sacred  ministry '  of  the  Church  ;  yet  with  an  astonishing 
and  audacious  and  scandalous  inconsistency,  by  way  of  commentary 
thereon,  by  way  of  indicating  how  the  '  fit  persons '  are  to  be  chosen, 
it  permits  the  charge  and  cure  of  souls,  in  prospect  and  contemplation 
of  which  ordination  is  conferred,  to  be  put  up  on  Monday  to  auction 
to  the  highest  bidder,  and  enjoins  the  bishop,  under  penalties,  to 
institute  the  presentee  thus  selected  !     Innocent  people  who  suppose 
that  it  does  not  much  matter,  because,  if  a  man  is  once  ordained  by  a 
bishop,  he  must  be,  or  ought  to  be,  fit  for  any  preferment,  little  know 
what  the  average  mental  and  moral  calibre  of  candidates  for  ordina- 
tion is.     It  is  absurd  to  suppose  that  a  bishop  does  or  can  make 
any  real  selection  out  of  a  crowd  of  men  of  whose  antecedents  he  can 
know  as  little  as  he  does  of  their  motives  and  intentions  in  taking 
orders.     The  real  responsibility  for  the  character  and  efficiency  of  the 
clergy  rests  in  practice  far  more  with  the  patrons  than  it  can  possibly 
do  with  the  bishops,  except  so  far  as  the  latter  are  also  patrons. 
While  purchase  is  allowed  we  might  at  least  be  spared  the  mockery 
of  using  the  prayer  for  the  Ember  weeks. 

A  modern  clerical  agent  does  not  write  couplets  like  Tetzel's,  but 
when  he  has  '  highly  desirable  preferment '  to  dispose  of,  he  is  just  as 
plain-spoken  in  puffing  its  various  recommendations,  the  advanced 
age  (it  may  be)  of  the  present  incumbent,  suggesting  a  charitable 
hope  that  he  may  soon  be  removed  to  a  better  world,  the  salubrity 
and  beauty  of  the  neighbourhood,  the  excellence  of  its  society, — for 
it  is  to  those  spiritual  pastors  who  hope  to  purchase  a  step  in  the 
social  ladder  that  such  opportunities  appear  to  be  most  attractive ; — 
lastly,  perhaps,  the  small  number  of  inhabitants  and  consequently 
sinecure  nature  of  the  '  investment.' 

Advertisements  of  preferment  for  sale  are  to  be  seen  in  the  news- 
papers almost  every  day.  But  wishing  to  know  something  more 
about  the  mysteries  of  the  traffic,  and  observing  an  advertisement  in 
the  Times  of  a  '  Church  Preferment  Register,  containing  full  and 
confidential  particulars  of  advowsons,  presentations,  chapels,  &c.,  for 
sale,  in  almost  every  county  and  diocese,  by  private  treaty,  sent  on 
receipt  of  four  stamps,'  I  wrote  for  the  publication.  The  proprietor 
replied  requiring  to  have  *  the  name  of  the  clergyman  for  whom  a 
living  is  intended '  before  sending  his  Register.  To  this  no  answer 
was  sent,  but  nearly  three  months  afterwards  he  changed  his  mind 
and  sent  a  copy.  To  do  him  justice,  the  author  and  proprietor  of 
this  production  seems  not  a  little  ashamed  of  his  trade.  It  begins  with 
VOL.  VII.— No.  35.  G 


82  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  January 

two  pages  of  notices  to  vendors  and  purchasers,  one  of  which  tells  us 
that — 

The  important  and  very  often  intricate  nature  of  these  negotiations  require 
that  they  should  be  .placed  in  the  hands  of  a  responsible  and  experienced  third  party. 
.  .  .  The  essential  features  in  the  Sale  of  Church  Property  is  undoubtedly  privacy, 
and  this  is  entirely  frustrated  if  the  matter  is  indiscriminately  published  about. 

Then  follow  about  150  advertisements  of  the  usual  kind.  It  is 
enough  to  give  one  of  them  as  a  specimen : — 

DEVONSHIRE. — Advowson  of  a  Rectory  situate  in  a  southern  part  of  the  county, 
within  four  miles  of  a  railway  station.  Diocese  Exeter.  Population  of  the  parish 
about  500.  Net  income  derived  from  tithe  rent  charge  and  glebe  amounts  to 
about  530Z.  a  year.  There  is  an  excellent  residence  containing  three  sitting-rooms, 
seven  bed-rooms,  and  two  dressing-rooms,  with  convenient  domestic  and  out-offices. 
There  are  also  beautiful  grounds  and  good  kitchen-gardens.  Excellent  water. 
The  present  rector  has  spent  some  2,000?.  upon  the  property  during  the  last  few 
years.  Situation  most  lovely  and  healthy.  Immediate  legal  possession,  the  rector 
having  the  offer  of  other  preferments.  Price  only  6,300/.,  subject  to  references, 

One  thing  in  the  '  Register '  deserves  special  remark.  In  most  of 
the  advertisements  the  age  of  the  present  incumbent  is  mentioned  as 
an  element  in  the  value  of  the  preferment,  but  in  the  above,  and  in 
nearly  fifty  other  instances,  i.e..,  in  nearly  one-third  of  the  whole,  '  im- 
mediate legal  possession '  is  offered.  Now,  lax  as  the  law  is,  the  sale 
of  the  next  presentation  is  absolutely  illegal  if  the  benefice  is  vacant. 
Therefore  almost  the  only  case  in  which  immediate  legal  possession  can 
be  given  upon  a  sale  is  that  in  which  the  incumbent  has  been  offered, 
but  has  not  yet  formally  accepted,  other  preferment.  Such  a  period 
is  necessarily  of  short  duration,  and  it  is  needless  to  say  that  the 
forty-odd  advertisers  who  offer  '  immediate  legal  possession '  cannot 
thus  be  accounted  for.  It  is  therefore  difficult  to  resist  the  conclu- 
sion that  the  majority  of  them  are  deliberately  contemplating  a  dis- 
graceful, if  not  actually  illegal,  proceeding — a  proceeding  differing 
probably  in  different  cases,  but  most  often,  it  cannot  be  doubted, 
involving  collusion  between  patron  and  incumbent  by  which  the 
latter  shares  in  the  profits  of  the  sale,  that  is  to  say,  takes  a  bribe  of 
so  much  hard  cash  to  resign  his  incumbency  at  such  time  as  may  be 
convenient  to  the  patron  and  the  purchaser. 

And,  as  if  this  were  not  bad  enough,  the  proprietor  of  the  Church 
Preferment  Register 

begs  to  remind  intending  purchasers  that  he  has  always  many  desirable  and  (in 
some  cases)  cheap  livings  passing  through  his  hands  privately,  and  which  do  not 
appear  in  this  register.  .  .  . 

What  sort  of  transactions  are  carried  out  under  this  head  must  be 
left  to  the  imagination  of  the  reader.  The  evidence  given  before 
the  Committee  of  the  House  of  Lords  on  Church  Patronage  will  throw 
some  light  upon  it. 


1880.  PURCHASE  IN  THE  CHURCH.  38 

This  evidence  makes  it  abundantly  clear  that  there  are  scarcely 
any  legal  means  of  putting  a  stop  to  even  the  most  scandalously 
simoniacal  transactions.  In  one  case,3  the  bishop,  having  reason 
to  think  that  there  was  an  irregularity,  put  questions  to  the 
clergyman,  and  refused  him  institution.  The  only  legal  ground 
upon  which  the  bishop  was  advised  that  he  could  rest  his  refusal  was 
that  the  presentee  had  not  got  the  signature  of  the  bishop  whose 
diocese  he  was  leaving,  to  his  testimonial.  But  even  this  was  held 
to  be  unnecessary,  and  the  case  was  decided  against  the  bishop. 
'  Practically,'  asserts  Mr.  J.  B.  Lee  (legal  adviser  to  several  of  the 
bishops),  '  it  comes  to  this  :  by  the  law  as  it  now  stands,  the  bishop 
of  the  diocese  into  which  the  presentee  comes  has  no  right  to  require 
beforehand  sufficient  evidence  from  the  bishop  of  the  diocese  as  to 
the  man's  good  character  or  conversation.' 4 

The  only  means  open  to  a  bishop  of  preventing  a  transfer  of  a 
benefice  for  corrupt  purposes  is  the  power  he  possesses  of  refusing  to 
accept  a  resignation.  But  by  accepting  other  preferment  an  incum- 
bent ipso  facto  vacates  his  benefice,  and  so  in  this  case  the  bishop  has 
no  power  whatever.  Consequently  the  clerical  agents  keep  a  stock  in 
trade .  of  advowsons,  generally  of  small  intrinsic  value,  which  *  float 
about  in  the  market,'  and  are  purchasable  by  any  incumbent  who 
may  wish  to  resign  his  living,  either  to  cover  a  nefarious  pecuniary 
transaction,  or  because  he  is  for  some  reason  under  a  cloud.  Of  this 
stock  in  trade  by  far  the  most  convenient  and  available  portion  for 
this  purpose  consists  of  benefices  called  donatives,  which  have  this 
peculiar  anomaly  attaching  to  them,  that  they  are  absolutely  free  from 
all  episcopal  control,  so  much  so  that  a  presentee  obtains  full  posses- 
sion by  the  mere  act  of  the  patron,  to  whom  he  may  also  resign  it  at 
a  moment's  notice  without  any  episcopal  intervention  whatever.  Few 
though  they  are,  these  donatives  can  be  made  to  cover  any  number  of 
transactions,  as  there  is  nothing  to  prevent  their  being  accepted  and 
resigned  as  often  as  maybe  found  requisite.  One  of  them,  it  appears  (its 
name  is  not  mentioned  in  the  evidence),  situated  in  the  diocese  of 
Bath  and  Wells,  is  owned  by  a  firm  of  clerical  agents  and  made  to  do 
duty  like  the  stewardship  of  the  Chiltern  Hundreds,  and  by  its  means  a 
holder  of  a  benefice  can  wriggle  out  of  his  responsibilities,  without  being 
subjected  to  inconvenient  questions,  at  any  time  that  may  suit  him.5 

The  next  presentation  to  a  living  is  of  course  not  readily  saleable 
if  the  incumbent  is  young  and  there  is  no  prospect  of  a  vacancy 
occurring  for  some  time.  If  a  vacancy  occurs  unexpectedly  without 
the  next  presentation  having  been  sold,  the  opportunity  for  doing  so 
is  past  for  this  turn,  as  it  is  illegal  to  sell  it  when  the  benefice  is 

8  Marshall  v.  Bishop  of  Exeter. 

*  Minutes  of  Evidence  before  the  House  of  Lords  Committee  on  Church  Patron- 
age, p.  33. 

*  For  instances,  which  there  is  not  space  to  quote,  see  Minutes,  pp.  76,  77. 

G  2 


84  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  January 

actually  vacant.  In  this  case  it  is  to  the  pecuniary  interest  of  an  un- 
scrupulous patron  to  put  in  the  worst  life,  the  most  aged  and  infirm 
man  he  can  find,  so  as  to  enable  him  to  sell  with  better  prospect  of 
early  possession.  There  are  actually  no  legal  means  of  rejecting  a 
presentee,  even  though  he  may  be  absolutely  incapable,  from  age  or 
infirmity,  of  performing  the  duties  of  his  office.  In  one  case  the  new 
incumbent  thus  appointed, 

when  taken  there  for  induction  &c.,  had  to  be  supported  up  the  aisle  by  twa 
persons;  jelly  and  wine,  or  wine  and  water,  had  to  be  given  him  at  the  reading- 
desk.  In  the  morning  he  was  not  able  to  get  through  the  reading  the  Thirty-nine 
Articles ;  he  was  removed  to  the  inn  in  a  nearly  fainting  state.  In  the  afternoon, 
however,  he  did,  being  brought  down  to  the  church,  finish  the  reading  the  said 
Articles.  Another  clergyman  from  a  neighbouring  parish  had  been  sent  for,  to  be 
ready,  if  wanted,  to  finish  the  service.  So  fatigued  was  the  poor  man  with  the 
effort,  that  he  was  detained  in  the  neighbourhood  under  circumstances  causing 
great  apprehension  for  his  safety.  He  never  resided.  Within  these  few  weeks  the 
living  has  become  vacant  again.  ...  It  was  said — I  have  never  heard  it  denied 
— that  this  poor  paralytic  man,  who  was  on  his  arrival  at  his  benefice  supported 
upstairs,  was  unable  to  leave  his  chair  without  help,  and  died  before  the  legal 
transaction  of  the  sale  was  completed.6 

This  traffic  in  'livings,'  which  in  Queen  Elizabeth's  time  was 
justly  accounted  '  execrable  before  Grod,'  becomes  constantly — so  the 
witnesses  agree  7 — more  scandalous,  more  unrestrained,  more  a  matter 
of  course.  No  doubt  a  clerical  agent,  like  a  house-agent,  may  add  a 
little  to  his  list  and  exaggerate  the  number  of  his  clients,  in  order 
to  magnify  his  own  importance ;  but,  making  liberal  allowance 
for  this,  what  must  be  the  extent  of  the  traffic  when  the  Eegister 
of  a  single  clerical  agent,  such  as  we  have  quoted,  contains  the 
particulars  of  no  less  than  150  livings  ;  another,  referred  to  in  the 
Minutes,  182.8 

Yet  the  laity  look  on  with  indifference,  or  with  a  contempt,  un- 
expressed it  may  be,  but  not  the  less  deep  and  wide-spread,  for  the 
high  pretensions  of  a  hierarchy  which  can  submit  in  silence  to  a  law 
and  custom  which  tolerates  practices  so  degrading.  The  clergy,  too 
many  of  them,  ready  enough  to  strain  at  a  gnat  in  a  Public  Worship 
Act,  a  Burial  Bill,  an  Education  Act — at  anything  affecting  the 
dignity,  real  or  fancied,  of  their  office — can  swallow  without  a  word  of 
protest  a  law  and  custom  which  permit  increasing  numbers  of  their 
order  to  put  their  consciences  as  regards  the  simony  oath  into  the 
keeping  of  their  father-confessors  the  clerical  agents,  and  to  enter 
into  the  charge  of  their  parishes  and  set  about  '  saving  souls '  with 
something  very  like  a  lie  in  their  right  hands. 

The  Bishop  of  Exeter  says,  in  his  evidence,  in  answer  to  the 
question,  *  What  are  the  evils  which  you  think  exist  in  connection 
with  such  sales  ? ' — 

6  Minutes,  p.  106.  7  Ibid.,  pp.  32,  55,  &c.  "  Ibid.,  p.  1 10. 


1880.  PURCHASE  IN  THE  CHURCH.  85 

I  think  the  worst  evil  of  all  is  the  shock  to  the  religious  feeling  of  a  great 
number  of  people.  ...  I  think  the  evil  is  so  great  that  it  cuts,  as  it  were,  at  the 
very  reason  for  the  existence  of  a  church  at  all,  because  a  church  only  exists  to 
help  people  to  be  Christians,  and  to  be  better  Christians ;  and  this,  I  think,  is  a 
positive  hindrance  in  their  way.  I  have  constantly  found  in  conversation  with 
them,  that  they  look  upon  it  as  a  personal  humiliation  when  the  advowson  of  the 
parish  in  which  they  live  is  sold,  and  I  have  no  doubt  at  all  that  in  that  class  a 
considerable  number  of  quiet  religious  people  become  Nonconformists,  simply  from 
their  hatred  of  what  seems  to  them  so  exceedingly  wrong  in  principle.  That,  I 
think,  is  the  worst  evil.  But  then  I  think,  in  the  second  place,  there  is  a  very 
great  evil  in  the  demoralisation  of  the  clergy.  In  respect  to  this  matter  I  find 
constantly  that  the  artificial  character  of  the  law  of  simony  has  the  effect  of  making 
clergymen  insensible  to  the  evils  of  sirnoniacal  transactions  altogether.9 

Wholly  unsupported  from  without,  the  Bishop  of  Peterborough, 
in  conjunction  with  several  other  bishops,  late  in  the  Session  of  1875, 
brought  in  a  bill  embodying  the  recommendations  of  the  Church 
Patronage  Committee.  These  recommendations  were  clearly  in  the 
right  direction,  though  they  went  a  very  little  way — less  far,  we 
believe  and  hope,  than  the  majority  of  the  committee  intended.  For 
most  unfortunately,  through  the  absence  of  three  of  the  bishops  from 
the  committee  on  the  day  the  report  was  considered,  the  chairman's 
motion  '  that  it  appears  to  the  committee  that  it  is  desirable,  if 
practicable,  to  prohibit  or  restrict  the  sale  of  next  presentations  apart 
from  advowsons  '  was  lost  by  a  majority  of  one.  When  the  bill  was 
introduced  into  the  House  of  Lords,  a  clause  was  moved  to  be  in- 
serted in  accordance  with  this  proposal,  making  the  sale  of  next 
presentations  illegal  after  ten  years  from  that  time.  This,  it  is 
deeply  to  be  regretted,  was  lost.  The  bill  remained  much  the  same 
as  when  first  introduced,  passed  the  House  of  Lords,  and  fell  through 
for  want  of  time  in  the  House  of  Commons.  Since  then  nothing  has 
been  heard  of  it.  In  the  hope  that  at  no  distant  date  a  fresh  Bill, 
containing  a  clause  making  next  presentations  unsaleable,  may  be  in- 
troduced and  pushed  with  more  energy,  I  give  a  summary  of  its 
provisions. 

It  abolished  the  anomalies  of  donatives,  putting  them  on  the  same 
footing  as  other  benefices. 

It  empowered  the  bishop  to  refuse  to  institute  a  presentee  who  is 
more  than  seventy-five  years  of  age,  who  is  physically  incapable  of 
performing  his  duties,  or  who  does  not  produce  a  sufficient  testi- 
monial from  three  beneficed  clergymen  of  his  former  good  life  and 
behaviour. 

It  made  compulsory  the  registration  of  all  grants  of  advowsons 
and  presentations,  the  register  being  open  to  public  inspection. 

Payment  of  interest  on  the  purchase-money  of  advowsons  until  a 
vacancy  was  made  illegal. 

Power  was  given  to  a  patron,  by  depositing  a  deed  to  that  effect, 

9  Minutes,  p.  61. 


86       •  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  January 

to  extinguish  the  saleability  of  next  presentations  to  the  benefice  for 
all  future  time. 

The  bill  of  course  raised  an  outcry  of  opposition  from  those  whose 
gains  were  likely  to  be  affected  by  it.  A  meeting  of  patrons  of 
livings,  for  organising  a  defence  against  what  the  circular  convening 
it  called  the  s  spoliation  clauses '  of  the  bill,  was  held  in  Langham 
Place  in  June  1875.  It  was  attended,  according  to  the  report  in 
the  Times,  by  sundry  patrons  and  clergymen ;  and  the  feeling  ex- 
pressed and  unanimously  assented  to  was,  that  the  Church  was  an 
institution  concerned  with  certain  valuable  property,  of  which  they, 
the  speakers,  were  holders ;  that  this  bill  would  be  likely  to  lower 
the  price  and  saleability  of  stock,  and  was  therefore  to  be  absolutely 
condemned.  This  certainly  is  a  plain  and  simple  view  of  the  ques- 
tion. One  speaker  alone,  a  clergyman,  while  entirely  endorsing  this 
view,  appeared  to  be  dimly  conscious  that  any  moral  considerations- 
could  by  ignorant  outsiders  be  urged  in  opposition  to  it. 

The  speaker  spoke  in  strong  terms  of  indignation,  in  which  the  audience  mani- 
festly concurred,  of  the  clause  in  the  bill  which  rendered  '  resignation  bonds ' 
illegal.  .  .  .  Lay  as  well  as  Church  property  was  subject  to  similar  arrangements, 
and  great  estates  were  the  property  of  mere  babes.  Save  by  purchase  there  seemed 
to  be  a  very  poor  chance  of  a  young  clergyman  obtaining  a  benefice.  If  it  were 
true  that  patronage  itself — for  they  were  not  there  to  defend  the  abuses  of  the- 
system — was  morally  and  religiously  wrong,  by  all  means  let  them,  be  deprived  of 
it  at  once.  But  surely  in  that  case  they  were  entitled  to  fair  compensation.  It 
was  not  the  wont  of  Parliament  to  be  virtuous  at  other  people's  expense.  When 
slavery  was  abolished  throughout  the  British  dominions,  the  planters  were  indemni- 
fied at  the  cost  of  20,000,OOOZ.  But,  according  to  this  obnoxious  bill,  patronage,  it 
seemed,  was  not  to  be  abolished,  but  simply  to  be  transferred  to  the  bishops.10 

*  Not  there  to  defend  the  abuses  of  the  system'!  What,  then, 
are  the  abuses  of  the  system,  if  not  those  against  which  the  bill 
(only  too  feebly)  was  aimed  ?  But  the  speaker's  comparison  of  the 
abolition  of  simony  to  the  abolition  of  slavery  is  not  an  inapt  one  in 
some  respects,  though,  as  has  been  shown,  patrons  would  not  have 
anything  like  as  valid  a  claim  to  compensation  as  the  slave-owners 
had,  if  ever  it  were  proposed  (which  no  one  has)  to  abolish  lay 
patronage  altogether  and  at  once. 

To  say  that  the  bill  sought  to  transfer  patronage  to  the  bishops  is 
the  old  device  of  trailing  a  herring  across  the  scent.  The  bill  did 
no  such  thing.  It  did  not  propose  to  put  a  single  restraint  on  the 
pure  and  legitimate  exercise  of  private  patronage.  Lay  patronage,, 
with  proper  securities  for  its  being  purely  exercised,  is  perhaps,  on 
the  whole,  the  most  desirable  of  all  ways  of  filling  benefices.  The 
Bishop  of  Exeter  says  : 

I  think  the  Church  gains  in  many  ways  from  the  existence  of  private  patrons. 
I  think  it  gain  s  very  greatly  in  the  variety  of  the  modes  by  which  incumbents 
obtain  their  preferments.  I  think  it  gains  very  greatly  in  the  interest  which  it 

10  Times  report,  July  1875. 


1830.  PURCHASE  IN  THE  CHURCH.  87 

thus  attaches  to  the  Church.  All  those  private  patrons  are  in  reality  officers  of 
the  Church,  entrusted  with  a  very  responsible  office  ;  if  they  could  only  be  made 
sensible  of  the  importance  of  their  office,  it  would  be  of  the  greatest  value  to  the 
Church,  that  there  should  be  this  large  body  of  persons  who  are  so  deeply  interested 
in  the  prosperity  of  the  Church,  and  I  think  that  there  are  a  great  many  of  them  at 
this  moment  who  are  very  sensible  of  their  duty  in  this  matter,  and  who  discharge 
their  duty  in  the  very  best  possible  way.  Then  I  think  that  the  tie  which  exists 
between  the  patron  and  the  parish  is  very  often  an  exceedingly  valuable  tie,  and 
the  family  connection,  which  often  is  the  result  of  it,  between  the  patron  and  the 
incumbent,  is  very  often  exceedingly  useful  to  the  parish  itself.  I  should  say, 
looking  over  my  diocese,  that,  on  the  whole,  it  would  be  a  very  serious  loss  to  the- 
diocese,  if  the  great  bulk  of  private  patronage  were  finally  and  altogether  transferred; 
to  public  hands.11 

The  arguments,  or  rather  the  absence  of  argument,  of  the  Langham 
Place  meeting  require  no  further  comment.  But  some  expressions 
fell  from  one  or  two  members  of  the  Patronage  Committee,  less 
coarsely  worded,  but  scarcely  less  opposed  to  all  just  feeling  on  the 
matter,  which  call  for  remark. 

'  Would  you  see  no  detriment  to  the  Church,'  it  was  asked  by  one 
of  the  committee,  '  from  the  loss  of  that  communication  which  now 
exists  between  those  who  have  mercantile  or  personal  property 
and  the  Church,  which  would  be  created  by  this  cessation  of  all 
money  transactions  connected  with  appointments  to  livings  ? ' 12  The 
Church  in  peril  for  want  of  men  trained  early  to  a  due  appreciation 
of  loaves  and  fishes !  A  Church  not  holding  accursed  all  trafficking 
in  the  disposal'  of  its  offices,  but  seeking  strength  by  striking  its 
roots  into  the  muddy  waters  of  wealth  and  ease,  if  not  into  the- 
deeper  slough  of  corruption  and  equivocation — a  sort  of  joint-stock 
company,  depending  for  its  influence  on  the  mercantile  credit  of  its 
shareholders  !  Truly  this  is  a  remarkable  ideal  of  a  Church  ! 

Still  more  extraordinary  is  the  suggestion  offered,  or  at  least 
hinted  at,  before  the  Committee,13  that,  in  order  the  more  easily  to 
get  rid  of  immoral  or  otherwise  objectionable  incumbents,  it  may 
perhaps  be  desirable  that  they  should  have  the  power  of  selling  their 
office.  Unquestionably  to  those  immediately  concerned  it  may  be 
very  desirable,  as  it  is  sometimes  very  desirable  to  bribe  a  thief  or  a 
poacher  to  remove  to  the  next  parish.  But  for  the  State  to  put  a 
premium  on  vice  is  not  generally  supposed  to  be  a  means  of  en- 
couraging virtue. 

Rightly  or  wrongly,  purchase  has  been  abolished  in  the  army. 
That  an  officer  should  buy  his  promotion,  more  or  less  irrespectively 
of  his  merit,  over  the  heads  of  those  who  could  not  buy,  was  denounced 
as  a  scandal,  as  unjust.  Have  we  abolished  purchase  in  the  army  to 
maintain  and  justify  it  in  a  form  a  hundredfold  more  objectionable  in 
the  Church  ?  There  was  much  to  be  said  in  its  favour  as  it  existed 
in  the  army,  not  one  word  of  which  could  be  said  for  such  a  system 
in  the  Church.  We  did  not  on  Sunday  pray  that  the  Commander-in- 

11  Minutes,  p.  6?.  >J  Ibid.  p.  24.  I3  Ibid.  p.  74. 


88  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  January 

Chief  might  bestow  commissions  '  suddenly  on  no  man,  but  faithfully 
and  wisely  make  choice  of  tit  persons  to  serve '  as  officers  in  Her 
Majesty's  army,  and  then  on  Monday  put  up  a  commission  in  a 
regiment  to  public  auction.  An  officer  might  possibly  be  a  better 
soldier  for  being  rich,  better  mounted,  better  provided,  in  time  of 
stress,  perhaps  (as  during  the  Crimean  winter),  better  able  to  procure 
comforts  for  his  men.  But  a  wealthy  clergyman  too  often  gives  an 
impression  of  having  missed  his  vocation.  He  can  take  duty  or  not  as 
he  likes ;  he  can  choose  a  pleasant  part  of  the  country,  and  amongst 
a  sparse  and  ductile  population.  And  what  is  he  to  do  with  his 
wealth  ?  Why  should  he  not  travel  for  the  enlargement  of  his  mind, 
keep  a  hospitable  home  for  his  friends,  horses  for  them  to  ride,  game 
for  them  to  shoot,  a  good  cook,  and  a  good  cellar  ?  And  so  perhaps  he 
has  a  curate,  though  there  is  only  work  enough  for  one  clergyman — 
why  should  he  not  ? — and  no  doubt  pays  him  liberally,  and  therefore 
need  not  scruple  to  leave  most  of  tlie  work  to  him.  And  if  it  be  asked 
what  is  the  harm  of  such  a  clergyman,  the  answer  is,  what  is  the  good 
of  him  ?  He  is  not  doing  what  he  promised  at  his  ordination  to  do  : 
why  did  he  not  remain  a  layman  ?  Would  it  not  have  been  a  more 
reasonable  and  creditable  and  satisfactory  arrangement  for  all  parties 
if  the  curate  who  does  the  work  had  also  had  the  office  and  authority 
and  stipend  of  incumbent  ? 

It  may  be  said  that  such  a  man  is  what  Sydney  Smith  called  a 
'  Squarson,'  and  that  Squarsons  are  a  very  useful  class.  No  doubt 
they  are,  or  rather  have  been,  for  their  raison  d'etre  is  less  since  the 
country  has  become  more  thickly  inhabited  by  well-to-do  people,  and 
now  that  the  labourers,  more  ripe  for  instruction  and  less  needy, 
require  patient  teachers  rather  than  judicious  almoners.  But  a 
Squarson  nascitur  non  fit.  He  is  indigenous  to  the  soil,  and  a 
purchasing  stranger  Squarson  is  a  very  inferior  form  of  the  species. 

Doubtless  there  are  plenty  of  places  in  the  poorer  parts  of  London 
and  in  the  populous  towns  where  wealth  might  be  an  instrument  of 
great  good  in  the  hands  of  a  clergyman.  But  somehow  the  rich 
among  the  clergy  do  not,  as  a  rule,  gravitate  to  the  East  end  of 
London.  Is  it  likely  that  they  should  ? 

Those  who  talk  of  the  advantages  of  introducing  wealth  into  the 
Church  by  the  perpetuation  of  the  present  system  should  remember 
that,  by  permitting  preferment  to  be  purchased,  the  incumbent  is 
pro  tanto  mulcted  for  the  benefit  of  the  patron.  The  labourer  is 
worthy  of  his  hire.  The  clergyman's  stipend  is  the  pay  for  his  work. 
If  he  has  to  buy  preferment,  he  is  deprived,  to  the  extent  of  the 
purchase-money  he  has  paid,  of  that  which  is  his  due.  It  is  neither 
more  nor  less  than  a  conversion  pro  tanto  to  his  own  use,  by  the 
patron,  of  the  stipend  of  the  clergyman,  by  a  proceeding  which 
has  gradually  obtained  legal  connivance,  without  any  foundation 
in  right.  The  miserable  plea  that  the  jus  patronatus  arose  in 


1880.  PURCHASE  IN  THE  CHURCH.  89 

consideration  of  the  liberality  of  the  founder,  and  that  what  he  gave 
his  representatives  may  claim  back  again,  is  utterly  worthless.  The 
origin  of  the  jus  patronatus  is  in  most  cases  lost  in  antiquity.  A 
claim  to  raise  money  upon  such  a  right  would  (as  has  been  shown) 
have  been  indignantly  repudiated  two  or  three  centuries  ago,  and  is 
the  outcome  of  a  growingly  lax  morality  on  the  subject  in  com- 
paratively recent  times.  The  jus  patronatus  can  no  more  justify  the 
sale  of  a  presentation  to  a  living  than  to  the  office  of  master  of  a 
college  or  of  a  public  school. 

At  the  same  time  it  must  be  remembered  that  the  vested  interests 
which  would  be  injured  by  too  sweeping  a  measure  have  grown  up  with 
the  connivance  more  or  less  of  the  legislature  ;  and  what  the  legislature 
has  wrongly  permitted  to  be  built  up  it  must  take  down  with  care. 
Under  all  systems,  however  bad,  there  are  men  who  live  innocently 
under  them,  who  take  customs  which  they  do  not  fully  understand  as 
they  find  them,  in  all  simplicity,  without  questioning,  and  who  work 
well  and  faithfully  wherever  they  may  find  themselves  placed  by 
circumstances.  There  are,  I  know  well,  many  faithful,  honourable,  and 
excellent  incumbents  who  have  bought  preferment,  just  as  (to  borrow 
the  comparison  of  the  speaker  at  the  Langham  Place  meeting)  there 
were  many  kind  and  just  slave-owners  who  were  beyond  compari- 
son better  men  than  most  of  the  abolitionists  who  Attacked  them. 
This  is  no  argument  for  retaining  the  system,  but  it  is  a  reason  for 
using  care  and  caution  in  abolishing  it. 

Take  the  not  improbable  case  of  a  young  clergyman,  anxious  for 
honest  work,  and  not  more  than  fair  pay,  in  his  profession.  If  prefer- 
ment were  unpurchasable,  he  would  take  his  chance  along  with  others, 
as  a  young  barrister  or  doctor  does,  in  the  reasonable  expectation  that 
sooner  or  later  he  might  hope  to  obtain  such  preferment  as  he  was 
fit  for.  But  the  field  of  purely  administered  patronage  is  greatly 
narrowed  by  the  purchase  system,  and  his  chance  thereby  diminished, 
and  so  perhaps  he  loses  heart,  and,  being  advised  by  his  solicitor  that 
it  is  quite  legal,  expends,  it  may  be,  a  large  portion  of  his  capital  in 
purchasing  preferment  which  ought  to  be  bestowed  upon  him,  or 
upon  some  one  in  like  circumstances,  gratis.  Now  suppose  the 
clergyman  to  die  young  before  entering  upon  it.  In  this  case  his 
capital  would  be  lost,  and  his  family  perhaps  left  destitute,  if,  by  too 
suddenly  making  purchase  illegal,  the  widow  or  children  were  deprived 
of  the  power  of  reselling.  Such  a  case  shows  both  how  bad  the 
purchase  system  is,  even  if  legitimately  worked,  and  also  how  careful 
it  is  necessary  to  be  in  altering  it. 

In  order  to  meet  cases  such  as  this,  the  Bishop  of  Peterborough 
proposed  to  allow  a  period  of  ten  years  to  elapse  before  the  clause 
making  the  sales  of  next  presentations  illegal  came  into  operation. 
This  was  going  rather  far  in  the  way  of  tenderness  to  vested  interests ; 
and,  considering  that  more  than  five  years  have  passed  since  the 


90  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  January 

proposal  was  made,  and  warning  thereby  given,  a  five  years'  respite 
would  now  surely  be  amply  long  enough. 

Advowsons,  or  rights  to  present  in  perpetuity,  stand  on  a  different 
footing,  as  regards  purchase,  from  next  presentations.  In  principle, 
indeed,  it  is  not  always  easy  to  make  a  just  distinction  between  them, 
but  practically  some  means  must  exist  for  a  patron  who  is  unwilling 
or  incompetent  to  discharge  the  duties  of  his  trust  to  divest  himself 
of  it ;  and  it  is  not  easy  to  suggest  any  means  except  a  sale.  No 
doubt,  as  matters  now  stand,  many  of  the  scandals  connected  with 
the  sale  of  next  presentations  could  be  perpetrated  by  buying  ad vowsons 
and  selling*  them  again  after  presenting.  But  by  making  registration 
of  all  sales  of  advowsons  compulsory,  and  imposing  a  heavy  ad  valorem 
stamp-duty  on  each  transfer,  they  could  easily  be  made  too  expensive 
to  be  often  resorted  to.  Why  should  not  a  five  per  cent,  or  a  ten  per 
cent,  ad  valorem  duty  be  imposed  at  once,  rising  two  or  three  per 
cent,  every  year  till  the  rate  had  reached  fifty  per  cent.  ?  This 
would  be  a  powerful  incentive  to  mere  speculators  to  get  rid  of  their 
patronage  as  soon  as  possible,  and  would  effectually  drive  away  all 
purchasers  except  such  as  had  a  real  interest  in  exercising  it  well. 

No  attempt  has  been  made  to  introduce  a  bill  again  since  1875. 
It  is  impossible  not  to  regret  this,  because,  however  little  support  it 
met  with  in  Parliament  or  out  of  it,  the  principle  which  it  embodied, 
however  insufficiently,  is  incontestably  a  right  one.  Persistence  in 
such  a  cause,"  if  sufficiently  vigorous,  is  sure  to  meet  with  success  in 
the  end,  however  few  its  first  supporters,  and  however  ponderous  the 
opposition  to  it,  because  there  is  absolutely  nothing,  as  to  the  main 
principle,  to  be  said  on  the  other  side.  One  could  wish  that  the 
bishops  had  the  courage  of  their  opinions,  and  did  not  give  up  a  good 
cause  as  hopeless  because  at  the  outset  they  found  themselves  con- 
fronted by  influential  opponents.  In  the  same  session  we  saw  a  cause 
not  dissimilar  in  its  unanswerable  justice,  and  in  its  remoteness  from 
the  region  of  party  interests,  carried  to  a  successful  issue  by  the 
dogged  persistence  of  a  single  member  of  Parliament.  Has  the 
united  Bench  of  Bishops  less  parliamentary,  political,  and  social 
influence  than  Mr.  Plimsoll  ?  Or  are  we  driven  to  the  conclusion 
that  they  have  less  faith  in  the  triumph  of  right  over  wrong,  and 
that  they  consider,  as  the  Bishop  of  Gloucester  seems  to  do,14  that  to 
enter  a  tame  protest  against  wrong  absolves  them  from  the  plain  duty 
of  contending  with  it  to  the  bitter  end  ? 

But   the   chief  blame   rests   with   the   outside   public,  lay   and 


14    C 


'It  is  painful  to  be  forced  to  say  so,  but  we  fear  it  must  be  said,  frankly  and 
fairly,  that  there  is  now  no  likelihood  that  this  evil  will  ever  be  effectually  remedied.' 
(Nineteenth,  Century,  p.  58.)  No  likelihood,  indeed,  if  every  one  acquiesced  in  the 
perpetuity  of  a  monstrous  evil  as  patiently  as  the  Bishop  of  Gloucester  shows  that 
he  does,  by  penning  such  a  sentence  !  It  is  refreshing  to  contrast  with  this  faint- 
hearted utterance  the  vigorous  protest  contained  in  the  Bishop  of  Manchester's 
powerful  charge,  which  want  of  space  forbids  me  to  quote. 


1880.  PURCHASE  IN  THE  CHURCH.  91 

clerical.  Is  the  race  of  reformers  extinct?  Have  the  political 
descendants  of  the  old  Whigs  given  up  the  reform  of  our  institutions 
to  advocate  their  destruction  ?  It  is  easier  to  deal  a  blow  than  to 
labour  at  a  cure.  Destruction  of  the  Church  is  a  more  telling 
election-cry  for  an  aspirant  to  the  favours  of  King  Mob  than  purifi- 
cation of  the  Church.  But  surely  wiser  and  more  honourable 
counsels  will  prevail.  To  get  fresh  air  it  may  be  necessary  to  break 
a  window  on  an  emergency,  but,  after  all,  mending  windows  is  a  more 
useful  and  profitable  employment  than  breaking  them. 

4  The  evil  cuts  at  the  very  reason  for  the  existence  of  a  Church  at 
all,'  says  the  Bishop  of  Exeter.  And  assuredly  he  is  right.  A  chief 
motive  and  reason  for  a  Church  being  '  by  law  established  '  is  that  it 
shall  be  protected,  so  ^  far  as  human  law  can  protect  it,  from  the 
corruptions  and  inducements  incident  to  a  purely  voluntary  system. 
The  State  is  bound  to  see  that  it  reflects,  in  outward  act  at  least,  the 
justice  and  honesty  with  which  the  State  acts,  or  professes  to  act,  in 
secular  matters.  A  voluntary  system  supplies  clergymen,  as  a 
merchant  supplies  goods,  according  to  the  demand.  The  State 
has  held,  ever  since  England  was  England,  that  the  demand  is 
not  the  true  measure  of  the  need.  It  has  decreed  that  there  shall 
be  a  clergyman — asked  or  unasked  for — in  every  parish  throughout 
the  land,  and  has  provided  more  or  less  sufficiently  for  his  mainte- 
nance. Surely  it  is  bound  also  to  see  that  these  its  officers  are  purely 
and  honestly  appointed,  that  buying  and  selling  have  no  more  to  do 
with  their  appointment  than  with  that  of  judges  or  magistrates.  It 
is  bound  to  enforce  common  honesty  and  common  justice,  and  till  it 
has  done  that  how  can  it  dare  to  bid  its  clergy  pray  for  the  higher 
life,  the  inspiration  and  enlightenment  which  transcend  all  human 
laws  and  ordinances  ?  If  it  permit  the  Church  to  <  commit  its  works ' 
to  Mammon,  how  can  that  Church  aspire  to  have  its  ;  thoughts 
established '  from  above  ? 

The  Church  has  an  opportunity  now,  such  as  it  is  not  likely  to 
have  again,  in  the  comparative  outward  security  afforded  by  a  strong 
Conservative  government,  of  setting  its  house  in  order  against  the 
day  of  trial  which  assuredly  is  not  far  distant,  and  in  which  it  will 
be  made  manifest  what  of  true  life  there  is  in  it,  on  what  foundation 
it  is  established.  Attacks  from  without,  such  as  those  made  by  the 
so-called  '  Liberation '  Society,  being  chiefly  political  or  social,  and 
founded  on  no  real  grievance,  no  genuine  principle  or  even  sentiment 
of  justice,  morality,  or  religion,  can  have  no. power  to  injure,  but,  like 
a  fitful  passing  gust,  can  hurt  no  branch  which  is  not  already  decayed 
and  ready  to  break  off  with  its  own  dead  weight.  If  the  Church  of 
England  ceases  to  be  the  National  Church,  it  will  be  because  it  has 
deserved  to  fall.  If  its  foundations  are  to  be  moneyed  interests, 
political  or  social  support,  tradition,  however  true  and  precious, 
of  past  faith  and  past  good  works  ;  if  its  clergy  should  become,  not 
more,  but  less  truthful  than  those  whom  they  hold  it  to  be  their 


92  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY.  January 

mission  to  teach,  it  will  be  no  longer  a  branch  of  the  living  Church  of 
Christ,  and  the  sooner  it  ceases  to  exist,  the  better  for  England  and  for 
Christianity. 

Since  the  above  paper  was  written  the  Royal  Commission  on 
Church  Patronage  has  issued  its  Eeport.  In  the  main  it  follows 
on  the  lines  of  that  of  the  House  of  Lords  Committee,  but  it  is  en- 
couraging to  find  a  marked  advance  of  opinion  on  the  main  question. 
The  proposal  to  make  sales  of  next  presentations  illegal  is  adopted 
by  ten  out  of  the  twelve  Commissioners.  With  respect  to  advowsons, 
they  l  recommend,  as  a  safeguard  against  collusive  sales,  that  it  should 
not  be  lawful  for  the  purchaser  to  re-sell  the  same  until  after  the 
expiration  of  five  years.'  No  doubt  a  safeguard  of  some  kind  is  very 
necessary,  but  would  not  five  years  in  many  cases  be  an  insufficient 
time  for  the  purpose,  while  in  other  cases  the  restriction  might  be 
unnecessary  and  exceedingly  inconvenient?  Surely  the  object  might 
be  effected  in  a  much  simpler  and  more  effectual  way  by  imposing  a 
heavy  ad  valorem  duty  on  each  sale,  as  has  been  already  suggested. 

Another  proposal  of  the  Commissioners,  to  which  they  appear  to 
attach  considerable  importance,  is  to  give  the  parishioners  an  oppor- 
tunity of  objecting  to  a  presentee  on  the  grounds  of  physical  in- 
capacity or  immorality.  The  objections  are  to  be  lodged  by  seven 
resident  baptised  householders  with  the  archdeacon  or  rural  dean,  who 
is  to  forward  the  objections  to  the  bishop,  and  the  matter  is  eventually 
to  be  tried  before  the  Dean  of  Arches  or  judge  of  the  Chancery 
Court  of  York,  without  appeal.  Archdeacons  and  rural  deans  are 
usually  about  as  destitute  of  judicial  training  as  any  officials  that 
could  be  named,  and  no  judicial  proceedings  in  which  they  are  to 
bear  a  prominent  part  are  likely  to  lead  to  satisfactory  results.  No 
doubt  grievous  evils  exist  for  want  of  a  good  Church  Discipline  Act, 
to  be  applied  not  only  to  new  presentees  but  to  incumbents  in  pos- 
session ; — what  bishop  is  there  who  does  not  know  this  to  his  cost  ? 
But  one  thing  is  enough  at  a  time.  It  would  be  a  pity  to  endanger 
a  great  and  simple  reform  by  encumbering  it  with  any  doubtful  or 
tentative  additions.  The  first  thing  to  do  is  to  abolish  the  principle 
of  purchase  and  to  establish  that  of  the  direct  responsibility  of  patrons 
as  trustees  and  officers  of  the  Church.  It  is  on  this  ground  that  the 
real  fight  must  be  fought,  and  if  the  friends  of  the  Church  are  in 
earnest,  the  result  cannot  be  for  a  moment  doubtful. 

Mr.  Cross's  vigorous  and  straightforward  speech  in  the  debate  on 
Simony  on  June  26,  1877,  contained  something  like  a  promise  that 
he  would  deal  with  the  question.  Mr.  Cross  has,  more  than  most 
statesmen,  earned  a  reputation  for  standing  to  his  guns.  I  trust  that 
there  is  no  reason  to  fear  that  he  will  abandon  them  this  time,  and 
that  the  coming  Session  will  seethe  introduction,  and  also  the  passing, 
of  a  short,  simple,  and  effectual  Bill. 

JOHN  MARTINEAU. 


1880.  93 


THE   ORIGIN  OF  SPECIES  AND   GENERA. 


THE  meaning  of  the  term — now  become  a  household  word  in  science 
— '  the  origin  of  species,'  is  often  entirely  misunderstood.  It  is  very 
generally  thought  to  mean  the  origin  of  life  and  of  living  things,  and 
people  are  surprised  and  almost  incredulous  when  told  that  Mr. 
Darwin  himself,  in  the  latest  edition  of  his  celebrated  work,  still 
refers  that  origin  to  divine  agency.  Such  however  is  undoubtedly 
the  case,  as  shown  by  the  following  passage  which  concludes  the 
volume :  '  There  is  grandeur  in  this  view  of  life,  with  its  several 
powers,  having  been  originally  breathed  by  the  Creator  into  a  few  forms 
or  into  one ;  and  that,  while  this  planet  has  gone  cycling  on  according 
to  the  fixed  law  of  gravity,  from  so  simple  a  beginning  endless  forms 
most  beautiful  and  most  wonderful  have  been,  and  are  being,  evolved.' 

The  mistake  above  alluded  to  has  arisen  from  ignorance  of  the 
meaning  of  the  word '  species,'  the 4  origin '  of  which  Mr.  Darwin  under- 
takes to  show.  A  species  may  be  defined  as  a  group  of  individuals 
of  animals  or  plants  which  breed  together  freely  and  reproduce  their 
like  ;  whence  it  follows  that  all  the  individuals  of  a  species,  now  living 
or  which  have  lived,  have  descended  from  a  few  common  ancestors,  or 
perhaps  from  a  single  pair.  Thus  all  horses,  whether  Shetland  ponies, 
racers,  or  cart-horses,  form  one  species,  because  they  freely  breed 
together,  and  are  known  to  have  all  descended  from  a  common  stock. 

By  the  same  test  the  common  ass,  the  kiang,  the  quagga,  and  the 
zebra,  are  each  shown  to  be  distinct  species ;  for  though  sometimes 
two  of  these  species  will  breed  together,  they  do  not  do  so  freely,  they 
do  not  reproduce  their  like  but  an  intermediate  form  called  a  mule, 
and  these  mides  are  not  capable  of  reproducing  their  kind,  as  are  the 
offspring  of  any  pairs  of  a  single  species.  What  Mr.  Darwin  did 
was  to  prove,  by  an  overwhelming  array  of  evidence  and  a  connected 
chain  of  irresistible  argument,  that,  just  as  all  horses  and  all  asses 
have  each  descended  from  a  few  common  ancestors,  so  have  all  asses, 
horses,  quaggas,  and  zebras  descended  from  a  much  more  remote 
common  ancestral  form ;  and  that  the  same  thing  has  occurred  with 
every  group  of  allied  species.  This  is  the  '  origin  of  species '  by 
descent  with  modification,  or,  in  other  words,  by  evolution ;  while 
'  natural  selection'  was  the  term  applied  to  the  set  of  natural  causes 


94  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  January 

which  formed  the  motive  power  and  guiding  principle  by  which  the 
change  from  one  species  to  another  was  brought  about. 

In  a  very  few  years  after  the  publication  of  this  theory,  it  had 
literally  extinguished  among  all  thinking  men  the  doctrine  of  special 
creation  which  had  before  largely  prevailed  ;  and  some,  who  were  its 
most  violent  opponents  at  the  outset,  now  accept  the  fact  of  evolution 
as  applied  to  almost  every  group  of  organised  beings.  At  the  present 
day  there  is  perhaps  no  single  naturalist  of  reputation  who  upholds 
that  doctrine  of  the  independent  origin  of  each  species  of  animal  and 
plant,  which  was  a  very  few  years  ago  either  tacitly  accepted  or 
openly  maintained  by  the  great  majority  of  naturalists.  Surely  no 
such  revolution  in  scientific  thought  was  ever  effected  by  one  man  in 
so  short  a  period  ! 

At  first  the  opponents  of  Darwinism  opposed  evolution  as  well ; 
but  of  late  years  the  opposition  is  directed  wholly  to  the  adequacy  of 
the  caiises  which  Mr.  Darwin  maintains  are  sufficient  to  explain  the 
origin  of  each  species  from  some  pre-existing  species,  and  therefore  the 
origin  of  all  existing  species  from  some  one  or  more  ancestral  forms. 
It  is  maintained  that  there  are  other  laws  at  work  besides  natural 
selection,  and  Mr.  Darwin  has  himself  admitted  that  there  probably 
are  such.  Most  of  the  opponents  of  Darwinism  argue  in  favour  of 
some  guiding  or  organising  power,  either  internal  or  external,  as 
absolutely  necessary  to  the  production  of  the  kind  and  amount  of 
variation  necessary  for  the  development  of  the  various  complex  organs 
and  special  adaptations  which  characterise  each  important  class  of 
animals.  Others  go  still  further,  and  maintain  that  '  natural  selec- 
tion '  is  powerless  to  produce  new  species  in  any  case,  its  function 
being  to  keep  those  which  are  produced  in  a  state  of  health  and 
perfection  by  weeding  out  all  that  are  imperfect ;  or  they  argue 
that,  so  long  as  the  '  cause  of  variation  '  is  unknown,  the  power  that 
preserves  those  variations  when  they  have  arisen  plays  a  very  subor- 
dinate part.  These  last  writers  maintain  that  the  causes,  whatever 
they  are,  which  produce  certain  variations  in  certain  species  at  certain 
times,  are  the  true  and  only  causes  of  the  origin  of  species. 

Now  all  these  objections,  in  so  far  as  they  refer  to  the  origin  of 
the  different  species  of  one  genus  from  a  common  ancestral  species, 
or  even  of  all  the  species  and  genera  of  one  family  from  some  still 
more  remote  ancestor,  may,  I  think,  be  shown  to  be  invalid  ;  because 
we  have  direct  evidence,  almost  amounting  to  demonstration,  that 
changes  to  this  extent  are  producible  by  the  known  laws  of  variation 
and  the  admitted  action  of  natural  selection.  But  when  we  go  further 
back,  and  propose  to  account  for  the  origin  of  distinct  families, 
orders,  and  classes  of  animals  by  the  same  process,  the  evidence  be- 
comes far  less  clear  and  decisive.  We  find  groups  with  organs  of 
which  no  rudiment  exists  in  other  groups;  we  find  classes  differing 
radically  in  structure  from  other  classes ;  and  we  have  no  direct  evi- 


1880.      THE  ORIGIN  OF  SPECIES  AND   GENERA.          95 

dence  that  changes  of  this  nature  are  now  in  progress,  as  we  have 
that  the  lesser  changes  resulting  in  new  species  and  new  genera  are 
in  progress. 

Yet  the  evidence  that  these  deeper  and  more  important  changes 
in  the  structure  of  organised  beings  have  taken  place  by  gradual  steps 
through  the  ordinary  processes  of  generation  is  overwhelming.     The 
numerous  intermediate  links  that  have  been  discovered  both  among 
living  and  extinct  animals,  and  especially  the  wonderful  community 
perceptible  in  the  embryological  development  of  the  most  diverse 
living  types,  force  upon  us  the  conclusion  that  the  entire  animal  and 
vegetable  kingdoms  owe  the  wonderfully  diversified  forms  they  now 
exhibit  to  one  unbroken  process  of  '  descent  with  modification '  from 
a  few  primeval  types.     It  is  indeed  generally  assumed  that  if  we  go 
so  far,  we  must  admit  one  original  type  of  living  organism  ;  but  this 
does  not  seem  necessary.     By  means  of  whatever  laws  we  suppose 
living  things  first  to  have  originated,  why  should  not  the  primeval 
germs  have  appeared  many  times  over,  and  in  forms  determined  or 
modified  by  the  infinitely  varied  chemical  and  physical  conditions  to 
be  found  in  the  crust  of  the  earth  ?     The  identity  of  ultimate  struc- 
ture and  wonderful  similarities  of  development  of  all  organisms  may 
be  due  to  the  unity  of  the  laws  by  which  organic  life  was  first  pro- 
duced ;  the  diversity  of  the  great  types  of  animal  and   vegetable 
forms  may  be  due  to  the  operation  of  those  laws  at  different  places, 
acting  on  different  combinations  of  elements,  which  are  subject  to  un- 
like physical  conditions. 

The  point  here  insisted  upon  is,  that  the  origin  of  all  organisms, 
living  and  extinct,  by  '  descent  with  modification,'  is  not  necessarily 
the  same  thing,  and  is  not  included  in,  '  the  origin  of  species  by  means 
of  natural  selection.'  The  latter  we  not  only  know  has  occurred,  but 
we  can  follow  the  process  step  by  step  by  means  of  known  facts  and 
known  laws  ;  the  former,  we  are  almost  equally  certain,  has  occurred, 
but  we  cannot  trace  its  steps,  and  there  may  have  been  facts  and  laws 
involved  of  which  we  have  no  certain  knowledge.  The  terms  '  laws 
of  growth,'  '  laws  of  development,'  '  laws  of  inheritance,'  '  laws  of 
variation,'  '  laws  of  correlation,'  '  direct  action  of  the  environment,' 
*  laws  of  habit  and  instinct,'  with  some  others,  are  used  to  express  the 
action  of  causes  of  which  we  are  almost  wholly  ignorant,  as  we  are  of 
the  nature  of  life  itself.  Now  Mr.  Darwin  has  himself  admitted  that 
there  are  these  unknown  causes  at  work,  and  that  '  natural  selection 
is  the  most  important  but  not  the  exclusive  means  of  modification.' 
There  may  be  some  question  as  to  the  term  '  most  important,'  if,  as 
is  not  improbable,  the  most  radical  differences  in  animals  and  their 
most  important  organs  could  not  have  been  produced  by  it  alone  in 
the  same  way  as  the  specific  modifications  of  a  genus  or  family  may 
be  produced.  This,  however,  is  a  fair  matter  for  discussion  and  re- 
search, and  will  probably  continue  to  be  so  for  many  generations  ;  and 


96  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  January 

even  if  it  should  be  ever  proved  that  higher  laws  than  *  natural  selec- 
tion '  have  brought  about  the  more  fundamental  divergences  of  the 
animal  and  vegetable  kingdoms,  this  will  not  be  held  to  detract  in  any 
way  from  the  greatness  and  the  value  of  Mr.  Darwin's  work,  any  more 
than  it  will  be  held  to  detract  from  the  greatness  of  Newton,  if  it  should 
some  day  be  demonstrated  that  the  law  of  gravitation  as  expressed  by 
him  is  not  absolutely  true,  but  that  (as  some  physicists  now  suppose) 
it  should  be  found  to  be  subject  to  a  higher  law  for  remote  stellar 
distances. 

No  thoughtful  person  can  contemplate  without  amazement  the 
phenomena  presented  by  the  development  of  animals.  We  see  the 
most  diverse  forms — a  mollusc,  a  frog,  and  a  mammal — arising  from 
apparently  identical  primitive  cells,  and  progressing  for  a  time  by 
very  similar  initial  changes,  but  thereafter  each  pursuing  its  highly 
complex  and  often  circuitous  course  of  development,  with  unerring 
certainty,  by  means  of  laws  and  forces  of  which  we  are  totally  ignorant. 
It  is  surely  a  not  improbable  supposition  that  the  unknown  power 
which  determines  and  regulates  this  marvellous  process  may  also 
determine  the  initiation  of  those  more  important  changes  of  structure 
and  those  developments  of  new  parts  and  organs  which  characterise 
the  successive  stages  of  the  evolution  of  animal  forms.  In  so  far  as 
Mr.  Darwin  denies  the  necessity  of  any  such  power,  and  maintains 
that  the  origin  of  all  the  diverse  forms  and  types  and  all  the  complex 
structures  of  the  organic  world  are  due  to  identically  the  same  laws 
and  processes  as  are  adequate  to  produce  the  different  species  of 
Rubus  or  of  Canis,  from  some  ancestral  bramble  or  dog  respectively, 
his  opponents  have  undoubtedly  a  case  well  worthy  of  being  argued 
out  in  the  courts  of  science.'  They  should,  however,  remember  that  no 
final  judgment  has  been  given  or  can  be  given  while  the  evidence  on 
both  sides  is  not  only  circumstantial  but  imperfect  and  contradictory ; 
and  it  would  be  well  not  to  declare  too  confidently  that  Mr.  Darwin's 
theory  has  hopelessly  broken  down,  since  a  majority  both  of  natu- 
ralists and  geologists,  whose  evidence  as  experts  will  undoubtedly 
have  great  weight  with  the  educated  public,  are  at  present  altogether 
in  his  favour. 

Leaving  this  great  case  to  be  discussed  and  argued  in  weighty 
volumes  by  specialists  in  science,  I  here  propose  to  deal  briefly  with 
that  much  smaller  but  still  important  question,  of  the  origin  of  the 
species  of  a  genus  or  of  a  family — that  is,  of  groups  of  organisms 
differing,  as  the  wolf,  dog,  and  fox  among  animals,  or  as  the  numerous 
species  of  oaks  or  of  primulas  among  plants  ;  and  I  hope  to  be  able  to 
show  that  in  these  cases  there  is  hardly  any  room  for  doubt  as  to  the 
mode  in  which  the  change  from  species  to  species  has  been  effected. 

We  have  to  inquire,  then,  how  it  is  that  new  species  arise,  sup- 
posing the  world  to  have  been  then  very  much  as  it  is  now  ;  and  what 


1880.      THE  ORIGIN  OF  SPECIES  AND  GENERA.          97 

becomes  of  them  after  they  have  arisen.  In  the  first  place  we  must 
remember  that  new  species  can  only  be  formed  when  and  where  there 
is  room  for  them.  If  a  continent  is  well  stocked  with  animals  and 
plants,  there  is  a  balance  between  the  different  species,  those  best 
adapted  to  the  varied  existing  conditions  maintaining  themselves 
in  the  largest  numbers,  while  others,  being  only  adapted  to  special 
conditions  that  occur  in  limited  area?,  are  far  less  numerous  ;  the 
former  are  common  and  widespread,  the  latter  rare  or  local  species. 
If  the  set  of  organisms  in  any  country  has  existed  for  a  sufficient  time 
to  have  been  subjected  to  all  the  varying  conditions  which  occur  during 
considerable  cycles  of  climatal  and  other  changes,  the  balance  will 
have  become  well  established,  and  so  long  as  no  change  takes  place 
in  the  conditions  no  new  species  will  arise. 

But  now  let  us  suppose  some  change  to  begin,  either  of  climate  or 
geography.  The  land  may  sink  or  it  may  be  elevated,  in  the  former 
case  diminishing  in  area  and  perhaps  becoming  divided  by  an  arm  of 
the  sea,  in  the  latter  case  increasing  in  area  and  perhaps  becoming 
united  with  extensive  lands  formerly  separated  from  it ;  or  the  climate 
may  become  moister  or  drier,  hotter  or  colder,  more  extreme  or  more 
equable,  and  any  one  of  these  changes  or  any  combination  of  them 
would,  it  is  easy  to  see,  produce  a  special  effect  on  the  forms  of  life. 
The  vegetation  would  in  almost  any  case  become  changed,  and  this 
would  affect  both  the  insects  and  the  higher  animals  in  a  variety  of 
ways.  New  enemies  or  new  competitors  might  be  admitted,  and 
these  would  certainly  cause  the  extermination  of  some  of  the  rarer 
species,  and  perhaps  greatly  reduce  the  numbers  of  those  which  had 
been  most  numerous.  Others  might,  from  the  same  general  causes, 
obtain  fresh  supplies  of  food,  or  have  opened  to  them  fresh  areas  over 
which  to  spread  themselves. 

These  are  the  first  and  most  obvious  effects  of  such  changes,  but 
there  are  others  still  more  important,  and  not  less  certain  to  be  pro- 
duced. We  have  supposed  each  of  the  species  which  inhabited  the 
country  to  be  well  adapted  to  the  conditions  of  its  existence,  to  be 
able  to  obtain  food  for  itself  and  young,  to  protect  itself  against  all 
kinds  of  enemies,  and  to  be  able  to  resist  the  ordinary  inclemencies 
of  the  seasons,  and  to  do  all  this  in  competition  with  the  numerous 
other  species  by  which  it  was  surrounded.  But  now  all  these  con- 
ditions and  surroundings  are  undergoing  change,  and,  in  order  to 
become  equally  well  adapted  to  the  new  conditions,  some  of  the 
species  will  require  to  undergo  a  corresponding  change,  either  in 
structure,  habits,  colour,  or  some  other  characters.  New  enemies  may 
necessitate  greater  swiftness,  or  greater  cunning,  or  less  conspicuous 
colours ;  less  abundant  food  may  necessitate  some  modification  in 
structure  better  adapted  to  secure  it,  or  the  means  of  ranging  over  a 
wider  area  to  search  for  it ;  while  a  severer  climate  may  necessitate  a 
thicker  covering,  or  more  nourishing  food,  or  new  kinds  of  shelter.  To 
VOL.  VII.— No.  35.  H 


98  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  January 

bring  about  these  changes, '  variation '  and  the  '  struggle  for  existence ' 
come  into  play.  Each  year  the  old  and  less  adapted  forms  die  out, 
while  those  variations  which  are  more  in  harmony  with  the  new  con- 
ditions constantly  survive ;  and  this  process,  continued  for  many 
hundreds  or  thousands  of  successive  generations,  at  length  results  in 
the  production  of  one  or  more  new  species. 

We  now  come  to  the  difficulty  which  has  been  repeatedly  put 
forward,  and  which  seems  very  great  to  all  who  have  not  studied 
groups  of  species  as  they  occur  in  nature,  and  which  is  expressed  in 
the  question  '  How  comes  it  that  variations  of  the  right  kind  and  suffi- 
cient in  amount  have  always  occurred  just  when  they  were  wanted,  so 
as  to  form  the  endless  series  of  new  species  that  have  arisen  ? '  and  it 
is  more  especially  to  answer  this  question  that  the  present  paper  has 
been  written. 

Few  persons  consider  how  largely  and  universally  all  animals  are 
varying;  yet  it  is  certain  that  if  we  could  examine  all  the  individuals 
of  any  common  species,  we  should  find  considerable  differences,  not 
only  in  size  and  colour  but  in  the  form  and  proportions  of  all  the 
parts  and  organs  of  the  body.  In  our  domesticated  animals  we  know 
this  to  be  the  case,  and  it  is  by  means  of  the  continued  selection  of  such 
slight  varieties  to  breed  from  that  all  our  extremely  varied  domestic 
animals  and  cultivated  plants  have  been  produced.  Think  of  the 
difference  in  every  limb,  in  every  bone  and  muscle,  and  probably  in 
every  part,  internal  and  external,  of  the  whole  body,  between  a  grey- 
hound and  a  bull-dog !  Yet,  if  we  had  the  whole  series  of  ancestors 
of  these  two  breeds  before  us,  we  should  find  them  gradually  converge 
till  they  reached  the  same  original  type,  while  between  no  two  suc- 
cessive generations  would  there  be  any  greater  difference  than  now 
sometimes  occurs  in  the  same  litter.  It  is  often  thought,  however, 
that  wild  animals  do  not  vary  sufficiently  to  enable  any  such  change 
as  this  to  be  brought  about  in  the  same  limited  time  ;  and  though 
naturalists  are  well  aware  that  there  is  little,  if  any,  difference  in 
this  respect  between  wild  and  domesticated  species,  it  is  only  recently 
that  they  have  been  able  to  adduce  positive  proof  that  this  is  the 
case. 

We  owe  this  proof  to  an  American  naturalist,  Mr.  J.  A.  Allen,1 
who  has  made  an  elaborate  series  of  observations  and  measurements 
of  the  mammals,  and  more  especially  of  the  birds,  of  the  United 
States ;  and  he  finds  a  wonderful  and  altogether  unsuspected  amount 
of  variation  between  individuals  of  the  same  species  even  when 
inhabiting  the  same  locality.  They  differ  in  the  general  tint,  and 
in  the  distribution  of  the  colours  and  markings  ;  in  general  size,  and 

1  '  On  the  Mammals  and  Winter  Birds  of  East  Florida ;  with  an  Examination  of 
certain  assumed  Specific  Characters  in  Birds,  and  a  Sketch  of  the  Bird  Faunas  of 
Eastern  North  America.'  By  J.  A.  Allen.  {Bulletin  of  the  Museum  of  Comparative 
Zoology  at  Harvard  College,  Cambridge,  Mass.,  vol.  ii.  No.  3.) 


1880.      THE  ORIGIN  OF  SPECIES  AND   GENERA.          99 

in  proportions  ;  in  the  length  of  the  head,  feet,  wings,  and  tail;  in 
the  length  of  particular  feathers,  thus  altering  the  shape  of  the  wing 
or  tail ;  in  the  length  of  the  tarsi  and  of  the  separate  toes ;  and  in 
the   length,  width,   thickness,   and   curvature   of  the   bill.     These 
variations  are  by  no  means  small  in  amount  or  requiring  very  accurate 
measurements  for  their  detection,  since  they  often  reach  one-seventh, 
one-sixth,  or  sometimes  even  one-fourth,  of  the  entire  average  di- 
mensions.    Thus,  in  twelve  species  of  small  birds,  all  taken  in  the 
same  locality,  the  variation  in  twenty-five  or  thirty  specimens  of  the 
same  sex  and  age  was,  in  the  length  of  the  folded  wing,  from  14'5  to 
21  per  cent.,  and  in  the  length  of  the  tail  from  14  to  23*4  per  cent. 
If  we  take  individual  cases,  we  find  equally  striking  facts.     Wilson's 
thrush  (Turdus  fuscescens)  was  found  to  vary  in  length  of  wing 
from  3'58  to  4'15  inches,  and  in  the  tail  from  3-55  to  4  inches. 
In  the  Blue-bird  (Sialia  sialis)  the  middle  toe  varied  from  0'77  to 
0'91  inch,  and  the  hind  toe  from  0'58  to  O72  inch  ;  while  the  bill 
varied  from  0*45  to  0*56  inch  in  length,  and  from  0'30  to  O38  inch 
in  width.     In  the  Yellow-crowned  Warbler  (Dendrceca  coronata)  the 
quills  vary  in  proportionate  length,  so  that  the  first,  the  second,  the 
third,  or  the  fourth,  is  sometimes  the  longest;  and  a  similar  variation 
of  the  wing,  involving  a  change  of  proportion  between  two  or  more  of 
the  feathers,  is  recorded  in    eleven  species  of  birds.     Colour   and 
marking  vary  to  a  still  greater  extent.     The  dark  streaks  on  the 
under  parts  of  the  American  Song-sparrow  (Melospiza  melodia)  are 
sometimes  reduced  to  narroV  lines,  while  in  other  specimens  they 
are  so  enlarged  as  to  cover  the  greater  part  of  the  breast  and  sides  of 
the  body,  sometimes  uniting  on  the  middle  of  the  breast  into  a 
nearly  continuous  patch.     In  the  small  spotted  Wood-thrushes  (of 
the  sub-genus  Hylodchla)  not  only  does  the  general  tint  of  different 
parts  vary  greatly,  but  this  is  accompanied  by  great  variation  in  the 
markings,  some  specimens  being  very  pale  with  indistinct   narrow 
lines  on  the  breast,  while  others  have  dark  plumage  and  dark,  broad, 
triangular  markings.     It  must  be  remembered  that  all   these    dif- 
ferences are  independent  of  those  due  to  age,  sex,  season,  or  locality, 
and  consist  solely  of  what  may  be  termed   the   normal  individual 
variation  of  the  species. 

It  is,  however,  often  supposed  that  variations  occur  at  any  one 
time  in  single  characters  only,  all  the  rest  remaining'invariable ; 
and  it  is  objected  that  to  adapt  a  creature  to  new  conditions  it  must 
be  modified  in  several  ways  at  once.  But  a  reference  to  the  tables 
given  by  Mr.  Allen  shows  that  this  coincident  variation  of  several 
characters  does  exist  to  a  remarkable  extent.  He  has  given  the 
variation  of  no  less  than  nineteen  characters  in  ten  species  of  birds, 
from  a  comparison  in  each  case  of  only  twenty  specimens,  all  of  the 
same  sex,  all  fully  adult,  and  all  taken  in  the  same  localities.  On 
marking  the  specimens 'which  have  each  character  at  a  maximum 

H2 


100  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  January 

or  minimum  development,  we  find  the  most  curious  combinations. 
We  find,  for  example,  that  the  largest  specimens  have  not  always  the 
longest  wings  or  tails,  or  the  smallest  specimens  the  shortest ;  the 
proportion  of  the  different  parts  of  the  wing  varies  quite  regardless 
of  the  actual  dimensions ;  the  length  of  any  toe  varies  indepen- 
dently of  the  length  of  the  tarsus ;  a  long  head  sometimes  goes 
with  a  short,  sometimes  with  a  long,  wing ;  while  the  width  of  the 
bill  seems  to  vary  independently  of  its  length  or  of  any  of  the  other 
parts  of  the  body.  All  these  variations,  too,  are  very  considerable  in 
amount.  Thus  among  twenty  male  Baltimore  Orioles  the  total 
length  varied  from  7  to  8  inches;  the  wing  from  3-45  to  3*85  inches; 
the  tail  from  2'70  to  3*10  inches;  the  primaries  extended  beyond 
the  secondaries  from  0'56  to  0'90  inch  ;  the  tail  extended  beyond 
the  upper  coverts  from  1'37  to  1-87  inches;  the  tarsus  varied  from 
0-83  to  1'02  inch;  the  hind  toe  varied  from  0-62  to  0'75  inch,  and 
the  middle  toe  from  0*82  to  1*00  inch ;  the  head  varied  in  length 
from  1'50  to  1'62  inches;  the  beak  in  length  from  0'74  to  0-84  inch, 
and  in  width  from  0-32  to  0-38  inch.  And  if  these  differences  and 
these  combinations,  indicating  many  diverging  proportions  between 
two  or  more  characters,  are  found  among  only  twenty  specimens,  we 
may  certainly  expect  much  greater  differences  in  every  character, 
and  these  differences  combined  in  an  endless  variety  of  ways,  among 
the  millions  of  individuals  which  constitute  every  common  species. 
Not  only,  therefore,  is  it  clear  that  there  is,  among  birds  at  all 
events,  ample  individual  variation  for  natural  selection  to  work  upon, 
but,  what  is  even  more  important,  that  coincident  variations  in  every 
conceivable  combination  are  also  available. 

Among  mammalia  we  have  fewer  materials  for  comparison,  but 
there  is  good  reason  to  believe  that  they  are  quite  as  variable  as  birds, 
if  not  even  more  so.  Among  twenty  males  of  the  Grrey  Squirrel,  whose 
dimensions  are  given  by  Mr.  Allen,  we  find  the  length  of  the  tail  to 
vary  as  3  to  4,  of  the  fore  foot  as  9  to  11,  and  of  the  hind  foot  as  6 
to  7.  The  Virginian  Opossum  also  varies  greatly  in  colour,  and  in  the 
size  and  proportions  of  all  the  parts,  including  the  skull,  the  variation 
amounting  to  nearly  twenty  per  cent. 

If  now  we  consider  the  population  of  a  species  with  regard  to  any 
particular  character  or  combination  of  characters,  we  may  divide  it 
into  three  groups — a  central  group  in  which  the  mean  or  average 
development  prevails  with  little  variation,  one  in  which  the  cha- 
racter is  excessively,  and  one  in  which  it  is  little  developed.  These 
groups  would  not  be  of  equal  extent,  the  central  portion — that  in 
which  the  mean  characteristics  prevailed — being,  in  accordance  with 
the  law  of  averages,  much  more  numerous  than  the  extremes  ;  per- 
haps twice  or  even  three  times  as  great  as  either  of  them,  and 
forming  such  a  series  as  the  following  : — Maximum  development  10, 
mean  30,  minimum  10.  These  figures,  whatever  their  exact  proper- 


1880.      THE  ORIGIN  OF  SPECIES  AND   GENERA.         101 

tions,  would  probably  be  pretty  constant,  for  we  have  no  reason  to 
believe  that  the  mean  characters,  or  the  amount  of  variation  of  a 
species,  change  materially  from  year  to  year  or  from  century  to  cen- 
tury ;  and  we  may  therefore  look  upon  the  central  and  most  numerous 
group  as  presenting  the  typical  form  of  the  species,  being  that  which 
is  best  adapted  to  the  conditions  in  which  it  has  actually  to  exist, 
while  the  extremes,  being  less  perfectly  adapted,  are  continually 
weeded  out  by  natural  selection. 

Besides  the  individual  variation  above  noticed  in  birds  of  the 
same  locality,  another  set  of  variations  appears  in  birds  of  the  same 
species  inhabiting  different  localities.  In  North  America  birds 
decrease  in  size  as  they  inhabit  localities  further  south,  while  they 
become  larger  as  we  go  north.  In  mammalia,  on  the  other  hand, 
there  is  generally  a  decrease  of  size  both  north  and  south  from  a 
central  position  where  the  species  is  at  a  maximum.  Strange  to  say, 
the  bill  of  most  birds  increases  in  length  towards  the  south,  some- 
times relatively,  but  in  other  cases  absolutely,  so  that  the  smaller 
southern  birds  sometimes  have  a  bill  actually  longer  than  the 
northern  larger  individuals.  This  peculiarity  occurs  in  the  genera 
Quiscalus,  Agelceus,  Troglodytes,  Seiurus,  &c.,  and  is  illustrated  by 
numerous  figures  in  Mr.  Allen's  work.  In  some  cases,  as  in  the 
American  crow,  the  bill  is  so  much  larger  in  the  south  that  the 
Florida  birds  have  been  recognised  as  a  distinct  named  variety. 

Colour  also  varies  greatly  in  correspondence  to  latitude  and  longi- 
tude. Dark-coloured  birds  are  said  to  become  blacker  towards  the 
south ;  in  others  the  yellow  or  red  bands  become  deeper ;  while  in 
those  transversely  banded,  the  dark  bands  become  broader,  and  the 
light  ones  narrower.  Those  with  white  spots  or  bands  have  them 
smaller  in  the  south,  and  sometimes  lose  them  altogether.  These 
differences  are  sometimes  so  great  that  the  extreme  northern  and 
southern  forms  might  be  considered  distinct  species  were  it  not  for 
the  perfect  gradation  of  intermediate  types  in  the  intervening 
localities.  There  is  also  an  increase  of  intensity  of  colour  from  east 
to  west,  as  exhibited  by  the  same  or  by  closely  allied  representative 
species  inhabiting  the  Atlantic  and  Pacific  coasts  respectively.  In 
the  desert  plains  of  the  interior,  however,  the  colours  are  paler  than 
on  either  coast ;  but  this  is  no  doubt  a  protective  modification,  assimi- 
lating the  tints  of  animals  to  the  rock  or  surface  soil  on  which  they 
dwell.  In  some  cases  well-marked  varieties  of  the  same  species  appear 
to  be  confined  to  the  Eastern  States  and  to  California  respectively,  as, 
for  example,  the  eastern  and  western  forms  of  Bewick's  Wren  (Thryo- 
thorus  Bewickii\  which  differ  greatly  in  the  length  of  the  bill, 
although  otherwise  almost  identical ;  and  as  these  two  forms  do  not, 
so  far  as  yet  known,  anywhere  intermingle,  they  afford  a  good  example 
of  the  first  step  in  the  formation  of  a  new  species.  The  beautiful 
purple  finch  (Garpodacus  purpureus}  of  the  Eastern  States,  and  its 


102  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  January 

western  form  which  has  been  named  californicus,  perhaps  form 
another  example ;  but  until  the  range  of  these  birds  is  fully  and 
accurately  determined  we  cannot  be  sure  that  there  is  not  some 
limited  area  where  the  two  forms  intermingle  and  their  distinctive 
characters  disappear. 

From  the  fact  of  variation,  so  extensive  as  regards  the  number  of 
variable  characters  and  so  large  in  absolute  amount  as  has  now  been 
proved  to  exist  in  many  species,  we  may  fairly  draw  the  conclusion 
that  analogous  variation,  sometimes  of  less  and  sometimes  of  greater 
extent,  is  a  general  characteristic  of  animals  in  a  state  of  nature ;  and 
with  such  materials  to  work  with  it  becomes  easy  to  understand  how 
new  species  may  arise.  For  example,  the  peculiar  physical  or  organic 
conditions  that  render  one  part  of  the  area  occupied  by  a  species 
better  adapted  to  an  extreme  variety  may  became  intensified.  The 
most  extreme  variations  in  this  direction  will  then  have  the  advan- 
tage, and  will  multiply  at  the  expense  of  the  rest.  If  this  change  of 
condition  should  extend  over  the  whole  area  occupied  by  the  species, 
this  one  extreme  form  will  replace  all  the  others  ;  while,  if  the  area 
should  be  cut  in  two  by  subsidence  or  elevation,  the  conditions  of  the 
two  portions  may  be  modified  in  opposite  directions,  each  becoming 
.adapted  to  one  extreme  form.  The  original  type  of  the  species  will 
then  have  become  extinct,  being  replaced  by  two  species,  each  distin- 
guished by  a  combination  of  certain  extreme  characters  which  had 
before  existed  in  some  of  its  varieties. 

The  changes  of  conditions  which  lead  to  such  selection  of  varieties 
are  very  diverse  in  their  nature ;  and  new  species  may  thus  be  formed 
diverging  in  many  ways  from  the  parent  stock.  The  climate  may 
change  from  moist  to  dry,  or  the  reverse,  or  the  temperature  may 
increase  or  diminish  during  long  periods,  in  either  case  requiring  some 
corresponding  change  of  constitution,  of  covering,  of  vegetable  or  of 
insect  food — to  be  met  by  the  selection  of  variations  of  colour  or  of  swift- 
ness, of  length  of  bill,  or  of  strength  of  claws.  Again,  competitors  or 
enemies  may  arrive  from  other  countries,  giving  the  advantage  to 
such  varieties  as  can  change  their  food,  or  by  swifter  flight  or  greater 
wariness  can  escape  their  new  foes.  In  this  way  several  series  of 
•changes  may  occur,  each  brought  about  by  the  pressure  of  changed 
conditions ;  and  thus  what  was  before  a  single  species  may  become 
^transformed  into  a  group  of  allied  species,  differing  from  each  other 
in  a  number  of  slight  characters,  just  as  we  find  them  in  nature. 

Let  us  now  see  how  the  same  principles  will  explain  the  origin  of 
genera.  A  genus  is  a  group  of  allied  species  which  differs  from  all 
other  groups  in  some  well-marked  characters  of  a  structural  rather 
than  of  a  superficial  nature.  For  example,  species  of  the  same 
genus  usually  differ  from  each  other  in  size,  in  colour  or  markings,  in 
the  proportion  of  the  limbs  or  other  organs,  and  in  the  form  and  size 
of  such  superficial  appendages  as  horns,  crests,  manes,  and  the  acces- 


1880.      THE  ORIGIN  OF  SPECIES  AND  GENERA.         103 

sory  ornamental  plumes  of  birds ;  but  they  generally  agree  in  the 
form  and  structure  of  important  organs,  as  the  teeth,  the  bill,  the 
feet,  and  the  wings.  But  when  two  groups  of  species  differ  from 
each  other  constantly,  and  to  a  well-marked  degree,  in  one  or  more 
of  these  latter  characters,  they  are  said  to  belong  to  distinct  genera ; 
and  we  have  seen  that  species  vary  in  these  as  well  as  the  more 
superficial  characters — the  bill,  the  feet,  and  the  wings  varying  in 
size  and  proportions  just  as  frequently  as  do  the  colours  or  the  orna- 
mental parts  of  the  plumage.  If  then,  in  any  portion  of  the  area 
occupied  by  a  species,  some  important  change  of  habits  becomes  use- 
ful to  it,  all  such  structural  variations  as  facilitate  the  change  will 
be  accumulated  by  natural  selection,  and  when  they  have  thus  ac- 
quired the  proportions  most  beneficial  under  the  altered  conditions, 
we  shall  have  the  first  species  of  a  new  genus. 

A  creature  which  has  been  thus  modified  in  important  characters 
will  form  a  new  type,  specially  adapted  to  fill  its  place  in  the 
economy  of  nature.  It  will  almost  certainly  have  arisen  from  an 
extensive  or  dominant  group,  because  such  only  are  sufficiently  rich 
in  individuals  to  afford  an  ample  supply  of  the  needful  variations, 
and  it  will  therefore  inherit  the  vigour  of  constitution  and  adapta- 
bility to  a  wide  range  of  conditions  which  gave  success  to  its 
ancestors.  It  will  thus  have  every  chance  in  its  favour  in  the 
struggle  for  existence  ;  it  may  spread  widely  and  displace  some  of  its 
nearest  allies,  and  in  doing  this  will  extend  into  new  areas,  where  it 
will  be  subject  to  a  somewhat  altered  set  of  conditions,  and  by  further 
variation  and  selection  may  become  the  parent  of  a  number  of  sub- 
ordinate species.  It  will  now  have  become  a  dominant  genus,  oc- 
cupying an  entire  continent,  or  perhaps  even  two  or  more  continents, 
spreading  on  all  sides  till  it  meets  with  competing  forms  better 
adapted  to  the  conditions  which  there  prevail. 

Such  a  genus  may  continue  to  exist  during  long  geological  epochs. 
Bats  of  the  genus  Vespertilio  lived  in  the  Eocene  period,  and  still 
range  over  all  the  globe,  while  fossil  land  shells  of  the  genus  Pupa, 
hardly  distinguishable  from  some  now  living,  are  found  in  the  ancient 
carboniferous  deposits.  Generally,  however,  a  time  comes  to  every 
genus  when  either  physical  changes,  or  competing  forms,  or  new 
enemies,  are  too  much  for  it,  and  it  begins  to  lose  its  supremacy. 
First  one,  then  another  of  its  species  dwindle  away  and  become 
extinct,  till  at  last  two  or  three  only  remain.  Sometimes  these  soon 
follow  the  others,  and  the  whole  genus  dies  out,  as  thousands  of 
genera  have  died  out  during  the  long  course  of  the  earth's  life- 
history  ;  but  it  also  often  happens  that  a  few  species  continue  to 
maintain  themselves  in  areas  where  they  are  removed  from  the  in- 
fluences that  have  exterminated  their  fellows.  Thus  the  mudfish  of 
Queensland  (Ceratodus  Forsteri)  and  the  Trigonia  of  the  Australian 
seas  are  the  only  living  representatives  of  genera  which  lived  in  the 
Triassic  period. 


104  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  January 

I  have  now,  I  think,  shown  that  one  of  the  most  general  objec- 
tions to  natural  selection  as  producing  new  species — namely,  that 
there  are  enormous  chances  against  the  right  kind  of  variations 
occurring  just  when  they  are  required — is  utterly  fallacious,  by  prov- 
ing that  there  is  ample  variation  of  every  kind  constantly  occurring 
among  animals  in  a  state  of  nature.  It  has  also  been  shown  that 
many  different  kinds  of  variation  are  occurring  at  the  same  time,  and 
in  endlessly  varied  combinations,  so  that  any  required  combination 
of  characters  could  be  selected  as  well  as  any  single  character.  And 
when  we  consider  the  extreme  slowness  of  almost  all  the  changes  of 
conditions  which  lead  to  the  selection  of  new  forms,  and  the  enormous 
selecting  power  brought  to  bear  owing  to  the  rapid  increase  and 
corresponding  great  annual  mortality  among  all  animals,  it  is  impos- 
sible to  doubt  that  the  means  are  adequate  to  the  result.  To  bring 
these  means  clearly  before  our  readers,  let  us  suppose  that  a  pair  of 
birds  produce  every  year  six  young,  and  that  they  live  for  five  years. 
We  thus  have  thirty  birds  out  of  which  to  replace  the  two,  so  that, 
on  the  average,  at  least  twenty-eight  must  die  during  this  time,  and 
many  more  if  any  of  these  live  to  breed  along  with  their  parents. 
This  gives  us,  as  a  minimum,  a  destruction  every  five  years  of  four- 
teen times  as  many  birds  as  exist  at  any  one  time.  Now  let  us 
suppose  a  change  going  on  which  renders  it  beneficial  for  a  species  to 
obtain  longer  wings  in  order  to  escape  from  some  enemy,  and  a 
stronger  bill  to  enable  it  to  capture  some  fresh  insect,  both  of  which 
(the  enemy  and  the  insect)  are  gradually  increasing  in  the  country. 
Variations  of  both  these  kinds  occur  in  abundance  every  year,  to  an 
amount  measured  by  ten  or  twenty  per  cent,  of  the  average  dimensions. 
Either  of  the  variations  would  be  useful  and  would  be  preserved 
separately,  while  the  combined  variation  would  be  doubly  useful  and 
would  also  be  preserved  whenever  it  appeared.  A  race  in  which  these 
two  characters  were  from  ten  to  twenty  per  cent,  above  the  average 
would  therefore  be  easily  produced  in  twenty  or  fifty  years;  while 
in  a  thousand  or  five  thousand  years  a  change  amounting  to  thirty  or 
forty  per  cent. — far  greater  than  distinguishes  many  species — would 
probably  be  brought  about.  This  illustration,  I  think,  renders  it 
clear  that  the  extreme  slowness  of  the  action  of  natural  selection,  on 
which  Mr.  Darwin  repeatedly  dwells,  is  by  no  means  an  essential 
characteristic  of  it,  but  is  only. due  to  the  fact  that  physical  and 
other  conditions  usually  change  with  extreme  slowness.  But  if,  as 
must  often  have  happened,  conditions  have  changed  with  comparative 
rapidity,  then  the  enormous  amount  of  individual  variation,  which 
would  be  taken  advantage  of  every  year  by  the  survival  of  the  fittest, 
might  effect  changes  in  a  single  century  quite  as  great  as  those 
which  distinguish  nearly  allied  species. 

Another  objection  which  is  dwelt  upon  with  constant  reiteration 
by  Mr.  Darwin's  critics  is,  that  he  has  not  shown  the  cause  of  varia- 


1880.       THE  ORIGIN  OF  SPECIES  AND   GENERA.        105 

tion,  and  that  whatever  it  is  that  causes  variation,  that  is  the  real 
'  origin  of  species.'  This  has  always  seemed  to  me  one  of  the  most 
unmeaning  and  irrational  of  objections,  because  every  explanation 
must  take  as  a  basis  well-known  facts  to  explain  obscure  phenomena. 
When  the  geologist  explains  how  the  contour  of  a  country  has  been 
formed  by  rain  and  ice,  it  is  not  said  that  he  has  explained  nothing 
unless  he  goes  oji  to  show  exactly  how  rain  and  snow  are  formed,  or 
even  goes  further  back  to  the  cause  of  gravitation  which  is  really 
what  gives  them  all  their  power  to  do  any  work;  and  when  the 
physicist  explains  how  thunder  and  lightning  are  produced  by  a 
reference  to  the  electric  spark  and  its  accompanying  sound,  he  is  not 
told  that  the  explanation  is  valueless  till  he  has  discovered  the  nature 
and  cause  of  electricity  itself. 

But  we  may,  I  think,  go  further,  and  say  that  variation  is  an 
ultimate  fact  of  nature,  and  needs  no  other  explanation  than  a  re- 
ference to  general  principles  which  indicate  that  it  cannot  fail  to 
exist.  Does  any  one  ask  for  a  reason  why  no  two  gravel-stones  or 
beach-pebbles,  or  even  grains  of  sand,  are  absolutely  identical  in  size, 
shape,  surface,  colour,  and  composition  ?  When  we  trace  back  the 
complex  series  of  causes  and  forces  that  have  led  to  the  production  of 
these  objects,  do  we  not  see  that  their  absolute  identity  would  be 
more  remarkable  than  their  diversity  ?  So,  when  we  consider  how 
infinitely  more  complex  have  been  the  forces  that  have  produced 
each  individual  animal  or  plant,  and  when  we  know  that  no  two 
animals  can  possibly  have  been  subject  to  identical  conditions 
throughout  the  entire  course  of  their  development,  we  see  that 
perfect  identity  in  the  result  would  be  opposed  to  everything  we 
know  of  natural  agencies.  But  variation  is  merely  the  absence  of 
identity,  and  therefore  requires  no  further  explanation ;  neither  do 
the  diverse  amounts  of  variation,  for  they  correspond  to  the  countless 
diversities  of  conditions  to  which  animals  have  been  exposed  either 
during  their  own  development  or  that  of  their  ancestors. 

This  objection  has  really  its  only  possible  justification  in  the 
ignorant  belief  that  variations  of  any  tangible  amount  are  rare 
events  occurring  at  long  intervals ;  and  therefore  that  when  any 
combination  of  special  variations  was  needed  to  bring  an  animal  into 
harmony  with  changed  conditions,  the  number  of  individuals  varying 
would  not  be  sufficiently  great  to  prevent  their  being  completely 
swamped  by  the  typical  unvarying  forms.  Had  such  been  the  case, 
some  agency  capable  of  producing  a  considerable  amount  of  variation 
when  required  would  undoubtedly  have  been  needed,  and  this  un- 
known agency  might  fairly  have  been  claimed  to  be  one  of  the  most 
important  factors  in  the  '  origin  of  species.'  But  now  that  it  is 
proved  by  a  series  of  careful  observations,  that  a  large  percentage  of 
the  individuals  of  most  species  vary,  in  each  successive  generation,  to 
an  amount  far  greater  than  is  required  for  natural  selection  to  act 


106  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  January 

upon,  the  whole  difficulty  ceases  to  exist.  Variation  is  seen  to  be 
one  of  the  most  constant  and  universal  facts  of  nature,  always  pro- 
ducing what  may  be  termed  the  raw  materials  of  species  in  over- 
flowing abundance,  so  that,  whenever  and  wherever  alteration  of  the 
conditions  of  existence  is  going  on,  there  is  always  ready  to  hand  an 
ample  stock  of  varying  organisms,  by  means  of  which  an  almost  exact 
adjustment  to  those  conditions  may  be  kept  up. 

The  facts  and  arguments  now  adduced  will,  it  is  hoped,  enable 
intelligent  readers  who  are  not  naturalists  to  form  a  clear  conception 
of  what  is  really  meant  by  '  the  origin  of  species  by  means  of  natural 
selection,'  and  will  satisfy  them  that  the  most  common  and  what 
seem  at  first  sight  to  be  the  most  weighty  objections  to  it,  owe  all 
their  force  to  the  ignoring  of  some  of  the  best  established  facts  in 
natural  history. 

I  have  also  attempted  to  show  that  the  causes  which  have  pro- 
duced the  separate  species  of  one  genus,  of  one  family,  or  perhaps  of 
one  order  from  a  common  ancestor,  are  not  necessarily  the  same  as 
those  which  have  produced  the  separate  orders,  classes,  and  sub- 
kingdoms  from  more  remote  common  ancestors.  That  all  have  been 
alike  produced  by  '  descent  with  modification '  from  a  few  primitive 
types  the  whole  body  of  evidence  clearly  indicates ;  but  while  indi- 
vidual variation  with  natural  selection  is  proved  to  be  adequate  for 
the  production  of  the  former,  we  have  no  proof  and  hardly  any  evi- 
dence that  it  is  adequate  to  initiate  those  important  divergences  of 
type  which  characterise  the  latter. 

ALFEED  K.  WALLACE. 


1880  107 


DR.   ABBOTT  AND   QUEEN  ELIZABETH. 

THE  '  discourse  in  writing,  containing  a  Declaration  of  the  late  Earl  of 
Essex  treasons,'  which  on  the  14th  of  April,  1601,  Queen  Elizabeth 
ordered  '  to  be  published  for  the  better  satisfaction  of  the  world,' 
answered  its  proper  purpose  at  the  time.  The  survivors  of  the  party 
gave  no  more  trouble  to  the  Government  during  her  life.  After  her 
death  the  government  passed  peaceably  into  the  hands  of  their  own 
friends.  Her  first  historian,  in  relating  that  passage  of  her  reign, 
took  her  Declaration  for  his  guide,  and  his  narrative  keeps  its  place 
in  the  national  annals.  But  the  Declaration  itself  has  fallen  into 
discredit  with  posterity. 

In  the  next  generation,  the  anti-Spanish  party — having  nothing  to 
do  with  the  domestic  troubles  of  Queen  Elizabeth's  later  days,  but 
wanting  a  faultless  hero  of  the  past  to  rebuke  the  present — raised  the 
*  ghost  of  Essex '  for  that  office  ; — investing  his  memory  with  all  the 
virtues,  and  of  course  denouncing  the  story  of  his  misdeeds  as  a 
slanderous  libel.  The  sons  of  that  generation,  having  no  concern  with 
the  politics  of  either  period,  took  the  story  from  their  fathers,  and 
told  it  to  their  children ;  who  accepted  it  without  suspicion  or  inquiry; 
and  thus  it  became  the  creed  of  posterity — no  one  calling  it  in  ques- 
tion, because  it  crossed  the  path  of  no  cause  in  which  anybody  was 
interested. 

There  is  one  cause,  however,  in  which  (so  far  as  interest  can  attach 
to  the  past)  we  are  all  interested ;  and  that  is  the  historic  character 
and  reputation  of  our  country.  We  are  ready  enough  to  take  credit  for 
the  virtues  of  our  ancestors  ;  and  their  vices  being  as  much  ours  as 
their  virtues  are,  we  ought  to  be  prepared  to  take  shame  for  them. 
The  question,  therefore,  whether  in  the  days  of  Shakespeare  the 
greatest  and  most  popular  of  English  queens,  under  pretence  of  tell- 
ing her  subjects  the  true  history  (known  to  her,  but  not  yet  known  to 
them)  of  a  great  proceeding  of  public  justice,  did  or  did  not  deliberately 
put  forth  a  history  which  she  knew  to  be  false  and  calumnious,  is  a 
question  which  involves  the  national  character  of  England.  It  is  vain  to 
lay  it  to  the  charge  of  this  or  that  councillor  or  secretary,  and  to  say 


108  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  January 

that  his  individual  reputation  is  alone  concerned.  It  was  the  act  of 
the  first  person  in  the  kingdom,  the  person  who  represented  Eng- 
land among  the  nations,  and  had  authority  to  speak  and  act  in  her 
name.  Elizabeth  knew  the  whole  truth  with  regard  to  Essex  as  well 
as  any  of  her  councillors — probably  better  than  any.  She  ordered  the 
narrative  to  be  drawn  up  ;  and  took  so  much  personal  interest  in  the 
execution  as  to  have  the  first  copies  cancelled  and  reprinted,  to  make 
room  for  alterations  dictated  by  herself.  If  anything  was  left  in  that 
ought  to  have  been  put  out,  or  anything  left  out  that  ought  to  have 
been  put  in,  it  was  her  fault  ;  for  she  could  have  prevented  it.  If  the 
effect  was  to  cast  unjust  aspersions  upon  Essex,  she  must  have  known 
it,  and  must  be  judged  accordingly;  and  we  must  at  the  same  time 
own  with  shame  that  we  are  the  sons  of  fathers  among  whom,  not  300 
years  ago,  such  a  thing  could  be  done  by  such  a  person  in  such  a 
place. 

But  before  we  proceed  to  judgment  we  must  know  what  these 
aspersions  were,  and  how  it  appears  that  they  were  unjust. 

Now  when  I  undertook  to  tell  the  story  myself,  I  got  together  all 
the  independent  evidence  that  I  could  find  in  print  or  in  manuscript ; 
compared  it  carefully  with  the  account  given  in  the  Declaration; 
printed  it  all  in  the  most  convenient  form  I  could  devise  for  compari- 
son of  the  two  by  others ;  and  asked  to  have  an  instance  shown  me  in 
which  the  true  effect  of  the  evidence  had  been  in  any  material  circum- 
stance misrepresented  in  the  narrative :  for  I  had  not  been  able  to 
find  one.  Dr.  Abbott  undertook  to  supply  me  ;  and  in  a  little  book, 
published  in  1877  under  the  title  of  Bacon  and  Essex,  quoted 
twelve  passages  by  which  he  conceives  that  the  character  of  the 
Declaration  as  '  a  pestilent  libel '  is  '  established  beyond  dispute  ' — 
an  opinion  which,  it  now  appears,  is  not  confined  to  himself.  For 
I  find  a  writer  in  the  October  number  of  the  Edinburgh  Review 
not  only  arriving  at  the  same  general  conclusion  (which  he  may  have 
adopted  from  others  before  Dr.  Abbott  was  born),  but  attempting  to 
justify  it,  so  far  as  he  cares  to  offer  anything  in  justification,  by  a 
process  so  very  like  Dr.  Abbott's  that  I  think  he  must  have  had  it 
from  him ;  though  he  does  not  say  so.  Two  independent  inquirers 
could  hardly  have  followed  so  nearly  the  same  path  unless  one 
followed  the  other's  track.  But  however  that  may  be — whether  the 
reviewer  be  giving  his  own  judgment  or  only  endorsing  Dr.  Abbott's — 
it  is  the  judgment  of  the  Edinburgh  Revieiu  in  the  latest  edition. 
And  since,  among  the  many  who  will  be  ready  to  believe  on  that 
authority  that  the  reasons  are  conclusive,  there  are  few  who  will 
care  to  ask  what  they  are,  it  may  be  worth  while  to  offer  them 
the  information.  For  which  purpose  I  propose  to  take  them  in  order  ; 
setting  down,  first,  each  extract  as  quoted  by  Dr.  Abbott  (with  the 
occasional  insertion,  between  brackets,  of  words  which  he  has  omitted) ; 
then  his  comment  on  it ;  and  then  my  own  comment  upon  his. 


1880.        DR.   ABBOTT  AND  QUEEN  ELIZABETH.          109 


I. 

1  It  hath  been  thought  fit  [to  publish  to  the  world  a  brief  declaration  of  the 
practices  and  treasons  attempted  and  committed  by  Robert  late  Earl  of  Essex  and 
his  complices  against  her  Majesty  and  her  kingdoms,  and  of  the  proceedings  at 
the  convictions  of  the  said  late  Earl  and  his  adherents  upon  the  same  treasons : 
and  not  so  only,  but  therewithal,  for  the  better  warranting  and  verifying  of  the 
narration,]  to  set  down  in  the  end  the  very  confessions  and  testimonies  themselves, 
word  for  word  taken  out  of  the  originals.' 

The  confessions,  as  has  been  shown  above,  are  systematically  mutilated  by 
suppressions,  and  occasionally  perverted. 

As  the  omission  of  a  part  does  not  necessarily  [involve  any  mis- 
representation of  the  whole,  we  must  wait  to  hear  what  the  effect  of 
these  alleged  suppressions  and  perversions  really  is  in  each  case.  And 
we  may  in  the  meantime  set  this  general  allegation  aside,  as  fail- 
ing altogether  to  prove  anything  as  to  the  veracity  of  the  authors 
of  the  Declaration.  The  evidence  upon  which  they  founded  their 
narrative  was  contained  in  depositions  made  by  various  witnesses 
in  answer  to  interrogations  put  by  several  parties  of  examiners, 
and  framed  for  the  purpose  of  discovering  the  truth  when  as  yet 
it  was  only  known  to  those  who  had  a  vital  interest  in  concealing  it. 
Under  such  circumstances,  many  questions,  being  wide  of  the  mark, 
would  of  course  elicit  answers  that  threw  no  light  upon  the  case, 
and  being  irrelevant  to  the  allegations  would  not  be  produced 
in  support  of  them.  We  are  not  to  be  surprised,  therefore,  if  we 
find  that  there  are  many  passages  in  these  depositions  which  were 
not  included  in  the  evidence  for  the  indictment ;  or  that  in  copies 
which  profess  to  be  *  the  voluntary  confessions  themselves,  such  as 
were  given  in  evidence  at  both  the  several  arraignments,  taken 
forth  word  for  word  out  of  the  originals,'  those  parts  which  were  not 
given  in  evidence  are  omitted.  Nor  must  we  expect  to  know  with 
certainty  what  parts  were  given  in  evidence  and  what  were  not ;  for 
we  have  no  report  of  the  proceedings  at  once  authentic  enough  and 
particular  enough  to  furnish  the  information.  But  even  if  it  could 
be  proved  that  any  of  the  passages  omitted  in  the  appendix  to  the 
Declaration  had  been  read  at  the  trial,  the  omission  (taken  by  itself) 
would  be  no  proof  of  bad  faith.  When  I  profess  to  give  a  statement 
of  Dr.  Abbott's  '  in  his  own  words,'  or  when  he  quotes  a  statement 
of  mine  between  inverted  commas,  we  both  mean  that  the  passage 
is  *  taken  forth  word  for  word  out  of  the  original ; '  but  we  neither  of 
us  mean  that  there  is  nothing  more  to  be  found  there,  before  or  after. 
We  mean  that  it  is  a  passage  which  bears  upon  the  question  with 
which  we  are  dealing,  and  that  we  have  omitted  nothing  which  tends 
to  alter  or  modify  its  apparent  sense,  as  we  understand  it.  By  the 
same  rule,  when  we  are  told  in  an  official  manifesto  that  a  deposition 
is  taken  word  for  word  from  the  original,  we  are  not  to  understand 


110  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  January 

that  the  deponent  said  nothing  more ;  but  only  that  he  said  that, 
and  said  it  in  those  words,  and  said  nothing  before  or  after  which 
tended  to  give  them  a  different  meaning.  The  discovery  in  one  of 
the  original  confessions,  therefore,  of  a  sentence  marked  for  omission 
will  not  convict  the  Declaration  of  falsehood,  without  proof  of  two 
things  more — first,  that  without  those  words  the  passage  might  seem 
to  bear  out  some  statement  which  with  those  words  it  would  not ; 
and  secondly,  that  such  is  the  statement  in  the  Declaration  in  sup- 
port of  which  it  is  cited.  In  an  action  which  implicated  so  many 
persons  in  different  ways  and  degrees,  the  confession  of  one  man 
trying  to  shift  the  fault  off  himself  might  easily  shift  it  on  to  an 
innocent  neighbour  who  had  no  opportunity  of  explanation;  and 
in  a  publication  like  the  Declaration  (which  was  a  history,  not 
a  trial),  many  passages  might  be  properly  omitted  upon  considera- 
tions of  simple  justice  and  humanity.  If  such  omission  happened 
to  have  the  effect  of  altering  the  complexion  of  the  confession 
as  regarded  the  confessant  himself,  that  effect  ought,  no  doubt, 
to  have  been  allowed  for  and  corrected  in  the  narrative ;  and  if  it 
can  be  shown  that  any  part  of  the  story  is  mistold  from  not  taking 
the  omitted  passages  duly  into  account,  I  admit  it  to  be  a  fault : 
whether  a  fault  of  malice  and  falsehood,  or  of  misjudgment,  or  only 
of  inattention,  will  depend  on  the  circumstances.  But  this  is  a 
point  which  has  in  each  case  to  be  made  out.  In  our  own  times, 
when  papers  are  moved  for,  or  presented  by  command,  they  consist 
commonly  of  '  copies  or  extracts.'  The  confessions  in  the  appendix 
to  the  Declaration,  from  which  words  have  been  omitted,  are  exactly 
what  would  now  be  described  as  '  extracts.'  Extracts  may,  no  doubt, 
be  managed  so  as  to  convey  a  false  impression  of  the  whole  piece.  But 
the  question  is  whether  in  this  case  (in  which  we  have  the  means 
of  judging)  they  do.  No  attempt  has  been  made  as  yet  to  produce 
evidence  of  it.  What  kind  of  evidence  Dr.  Abbott  has  to  show 
we  shall  now  see. 

His  first  instance  is  so  peculiarly  unlucky  that  a  judicious  reader 
might  be  tempted  to  think  it  enough,  and  proceed  no  further;  but  I 
mean  to  go  through  the  list. 

II. 

'  [So  likewise]  those  points  of  popularity  which  every  man  took  notice  and  note 
of,  [as  his  affable  gestures,  open  doors,  making  his  table  and  his  bed  so  popularly 
places  of  audience  to  suitors,  denying  nothing  when  he  did  nothing,  feeding  many 
men  in  their  discontentments  against  the  QIH  <  n  and  the  State,  and  the  like,  as  they 
ever  were  since  Absalon's  time  the  forerunners  of  treasons  following,  so  in  him] 
were  [they]  either  the  qualities  of  a  nature  disposed  to  disloyalty,  or  the  beginnings 
and  conceptions  of  that  which  afterwards  grew  to  shape  and  form.' 

Contrast  this  with  Bacon's  own  advice  i  o  Essex,  to  speak  against  popularity 
and  popular  courses  vehemently,  and  to  tax  11  in  all  others  ;  but  nevertheless  to  go 
on  in  your  honourable  commonwealth  courses  af  you  do.  (See  p.  75.) 


1880.        DR.   ABBOTT  AND   QUEEN  ELIZABETH.          Ill 

The  words  between  the   brackets   are  omitted   by    Dr.  Abbott 
here,   though   he   quotes  them   in   p.  75;   but   I   give   them  here 
as  they  stand  in  the  original,  being  in  my  opinion  not  altogether 
irrelevant  to  the  question  in  hand,  which  is  this  :  Can  the  authors 
of  the   Declaration,  having  seen  Essex's  courses  end  in  an  act  of 
open   treason,   and  having  learned  since  that  he  had  secretly  but 
seriously  meditated  some  such  act  for  at  least  a  year  and  a  half  before, 
have  really  suspected  that  his  previous  assiduities  in  courting  popular 
favour  had  been  stimulated  by  some  vague  design  tending  that  way  ? 
I   say   suspected,   because  they  do   not  pretend  to  know.     On  the 
contrary,  they  expressly  say  in  the  very  next  sentence  that  it  is  one 
of  the  things  which  no  man  can  know  ;  secrets  *  known  to  none  but 
God  that  knows  the  heart,  and  the  devil  that  gives  the  instigation.' 
Dr.  Abbott  assumes  that  they  could  not  have  really  suspected  any 
such  thing,  and  thereupon  sets  down  the  suggestion  as  an  overt  act 
of  mendacity,  proving  that  the  Declaration  was  not  a   '  veracious 
narrative  ' — not  a  narrative  which  the  narrator  believed  to  be  true. 
But  why  am  I  to  believe  that  the  Queen  and  her  councillors  could  not 
really  have  entertained  such  a  suspicion  in  April  1601  ?     The  answer 
is  worth  considering  by  anybody  who  proposes  to  take  Dr.  Abbott  as 
his  guide   in  matters  of  this  kind,  and  should  have  been  a  warn- 
ing to  the  Edinburgh  Eeviewer.     Because  in   1596,  when  Essex's 
ambition  was  still  to  be  the  greatest  subject  of  the  Queen  as  well  as 
to  be   the   greatest   favourite  of  the  people,   Bacon,  believing  his 
(  commonwealth  courses '  to  be  l  honourable,'  had  encouraged  him  '  to 
go  on '  in  them  I     Even  if  Bacon  continued  in  the  belief  that  those 
earlier  courses  were  as  honourable  as  he  had  supposed  them  to  be 
before  he  saw  how  they  ended,  the  Queen,  at  least,  whose  Declaration 
it  was,  and  who  had  never  liked  them,  might  be  allowed  to  have  her 
suspicions.     If  Sisera   had  waked  when  Jael  had  already  put  her 
hand  to  the  nail  and  was  in  the  act  of  putting  her  right  hand  to 
the  workman's  hammer,  he  might  surely  have  suspected  a  treacherous 
intention   in   her   previous   hospitality,   in   spite  of  the  '  contrast ' 
between  such  a  suspicion  and  his  own  request  a  few  minutes  before, 
that  she  would  stand  in  the  door  of  the  tent  and  protect  him  from 
pursuit. 

We  must  have  a  better  instance  than  this.  And  the  next  is 
better  in  one  respect  for  Dr.  Abbott's  purpose,  inasmuch  as  it  is  not 
self-con victive,  like  the  last,  but  turns  upon  the  balance  of  conflicting 
evidence  in  circumstances  which  make  it  difficult  to  weigh. 


III. 

'  It  was  strange  with  what  appetite  and  thirst  he  did  affect  and  compass  the 
government  of  Ireland,  which  he  did  ohtain.' 


112  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  January 

It  has  been  shown  above  that  so  far  from  desiring  it,  he  desired  to  force  it  upon 
his  enemies.  (Pp.  100-115.) 

Before  I  proceed  to  search  for  the  justification  of  this  counter- 
statement  through  the  pages  indicated,  it  will  be  convenient  to  add 
the  next  sentence  in  the  Declaration ;  for  Dr.  Abbott's  extracts  are 
apt  to  be  so  arranged  as  to  omit  the  material  part.  The  sentence  is  : 

For  although  he  made  some  formal  shows  to  put  it  from  him,  yet  in  this,  as  in 
most  things  else,  his  desires  being  too  strong  for  his  dissimulations,  he  did  so  far 
pass  the  bounds  of  decorum,  as  he  did  in  effect  name  himself  to  the  Queen  by  such 
description  and  such  particularities  as  could  not  be  applied  to  any  other  but  him- 
self; neither  did  he  so  only,  but  further  he  "was  still  at  hand  to  offer  and  urge 
vehemently  exceptions  to  any  other  that  -was  named. 

Now  if  he  '  made  some  formal  shows  to  put  it  from  him,'  passages 
may  probably  be  found  in  the  news-letters  of  the  time,  or  even  in 
letters  of  his  own,  which  would  seem  to  imply  that  '  he  was  far  from 
desiring  it.'  But  the  further  statement  that  he  *  desired  to  force  it 
upon  his  enemies'  betrays  the  source  from  which  it  came.  By 
'  enemies  '  must  be  meant  Sir  George  Carew.  For  it  is  true  that  we 
have  Camden's  authority  for  the  fact  that  Essex  did  at  one  time  try 
to  remove  Sir  George  Carew  from  the  court  by  getting  him  sent  to 
Ireland  as  Lord  Lieutenant,  and  that  we  have  also  the  following 
comment  upon  the  fact  by  Sir  John  Harington  (who  must  therefore 
have  known  or  believed  it  to  be  true)  :  '  Note  here  how  much  will  a 
man  even  benefit  his  enemy,  provided  he  doth  put  him  out  of 
his  own  way.  My  Lord  of  Essex  did  lately,'  &c.  But  Dr.  Abbott 
has  failed  to  observe  that  this  was  on  another  occasion,  when  Essex 
had  no  thought  of  going  himself,  and  was  not  looked  upon  by  any- 
body as  a  possible  candidate.  It  was  in  the  summer  of  1598,  during 
the  negotiation  of  the  first  treaty  with  Tyrone,  or  at  least  before  the 
breach  of  it.  The  occasion  when  Essex  is  represented  as  desiring  the 
office  for  himself  was  some  months  later,  after  the  disaster  of  Black- 
water  and  the  death  of  Sir  Eichard  Bingham,  when  the  Lord 
Lieutenant  (whoever  he  might  be)  was  to  go  out  at  the  head  of  a 
conquering  army. 

But  to  go  through  fifteen  pages  of  Dr.  Abbott  for  proof  that  there 
is  nothing  in  them  to  justify  his  assertion,  and  to  correct  all  the 
errors,  would  take  up  too  much  time  and  space.  A  shorter  way  to 
the  same  end  will  be  to  repeat  the  evidence  I  have  myself  offered  in 
support  of  the  opposite  conclusion.  Having  stated  in  my  Letters  and 
Life  (vol.  ii.  p.  125),  that  'all  accounts  agree  that  it  was  by  his 
[Essex's]  influence  that  the  nomination  of  Montjoy  was  cancelled 
and  the  task  laid  upon  himself,'  I  inserted  the  following  foot-note  : 

It  may  be  enough  to  cite  three :  Camden's,  Fynes  Moryson's  (whose  subsequent 
intimate  relation  with  Montjoy  gives  an  independent  value  to  his  evidence,  though 


1880.        DR.   ABBOTT  AND    QUEEN  ELIZABETH.         113 

in  this  part  of  the  story  he  only  repeats  and  confirms  Caniden),   and  Essex'* 
own.1 

1.  'The  Queen,'  says  Camden,  'and  most  of  the  Council  cast  their  eyes  upon 
Charles  Blunt,  Lord  Montjoy.     But  the  Earl  of  Essex  covertly  signified  unto  them 
that  he  was  a  man  of  no  experience  in  the  wars,  save  that  he  had  commanded  a 
company  in  the  Low  Countries  and  Little  Britain ;  that  he  was  a  man  of  a  small 
estate,  strengthened  with  very  few  followers  and  dependants,  and  too  much  drowned 
in  book-learning.     That  into  Ireland  must  be  sent  some  prime  man  of  the  nobility, 
etc.,  ...  so  as  he  seemed  to  point  with  the  finger  to  himself.    Insomuch  as  the 
Queen  was  now  resolved  to  make  him  Lord  Deputy  of  Ireland  and  General  of  the 
Army  ;  which  notwithstanding  he  made  shoiv  to  refuse,  praying  her  to  bestow  so 
difficult  a  charge  on  some  other ;  and  yet  if  any  other  were  named  he  had  somewhat 
in  a  readiness  to  object.' — Camden,  1599. 

2.  'Whom'  [Lord  Montjoy],  says  Moryson, 'her  Highness  had  the  last  year 
proposed  to  employ  in  that  place :  at  which  time  the  Earl  of  Essex,  though  linked 
in  near  friendship  with  him,  yet  secretly  opposed  this  her  Majesty's  determination, 
alleging  that  the  Lord  Montjoy  had  small  experience  in  martial  affairs,  save  that  he 
had  gained  in  the  small  time  he  had  served  in  the  Low  Countries,  adding  that  he 
was  too  bookish,  and  had  too  few  followers,  and  too  small  an  estate,  to  embrace  so 
great  a  business.     So  as  the  Earl,  not  obscurely  affecting  this  employment  himself 
(to  the  end  he  might  more  strongly  confirm  that  dependency  which  all  military 
men  already  had  on  him),'  &c. — Moryson,  Part  ii.,  1.  p.  45. 

3.  '  I  have  beaten  Knollys  and  Montjoy  in  the  Council,'  writes  Essex  himself  to 
John  Harington,  offering  him  a  command,  '  and  by  God  I  will  beat  Tyr-Owen  in 
the  field ;  for  nothing  worthy  her  Majesty's  honour  hath  yet  been  achieved.' — 
NWJCK  Antiques,  i.  245. 

The  only  proof  which  Dr.  Abbott  has  thought  worth  giving,  out 
of  the  abundance  which  he  says  could  be  given,  of  Essex's  unwilling- 
ness to  go,  is  half  a  sentence  picked  out  of  an  extract  printed  by 
Birch  from  a  letter  of  Eobert  Cecil's  ;  of  which  I  will  give  him  the 
full  benefit,  on  condition  only  of  giving  the  reader  the  benefit  of 
what  else  we  know  about  this  letter. 

His  [Essex's]  demands  were  indeed  such  that  her  Majesty  was  averse  to  the 
complying  with  them,  as  appears  from  a  letter  to  Mr.  Edmondes  of  the  4th  of 
December  from  Secretary  Cecil,  wherein  he  observed  that  the  opinion  of  the  Earl's 
going  to  Ireland  had  some  stop,  by  reason  of  his  Lordship's  indisposition  to  it, 
except  with  some  such  conditions  as  were  disagreeable  to  her  Majesty's  mind ;  '  although 
the  cup,'  said  the  Secretary,  '  will  hardly  pass  from  him,  in  regard  of  his  worth  and 
fortune :  but  if  it  do,  my  Lord  Montjoy  is  named.' 

1  To  cite  them  as  sufficient  now  would  be  hardly  fair  to  my  reader,  without  giving- 
him  the  benefit  of  Dr.  Abbott's  comment.  '  For  facts  and  rumours  Chamberlain's 
testimony  is  important  and  trustworthy  ;  but  for  the  underlying  motives  and  secret 
intrigues  that  resulted  in  those  facts,  his  opinion  cannot  for  a  moment  be  weighed 
with  the  evidence  of  Camden,  of  Fy  ties  Moryson,  and  of  Essex  himself',  and  that  evi- 
dence points  unanimously  to  the  conclusion  that  these  delays  and  objections  arose 
in  great,  part,  not  from  Essex's  enemies,  but  from  his  own  desire  to  withdraw,  if  he 
could  find  a  pretext  for  doing  so,  from  the  Irish  command  '  (p.  1 10). 

I  may  add  that  these  fifteen  pages  (which  I  have  read  all  through  more  than  once) 
are  rich  in  curious  interpretations  of  words  written  or  reported,  which,  if  they 
were  a  little  more  plausible,  might  be  called  ingenious  ;  but  that  I  find  nothing  in 
them  to  make  me  think  that  Queen  Elizabeth  either  mistook  Essex's  wishes  in  thi« 
business  or  suffered  them  to  be  misrepresented ;  and  she  must  have  had  better  meant 
of  judging  than  Dr.  Abbott. 

VOL.  VII.— No.  35.  I 


114  THE  NINETEENTH    CENTURY.  January 

So  runs  the  passage  in  Birch,  which  I  have  the  rather  thought 
worth  quoting  in  full,  because  if  Dr.  Abbott  wishes  to  know  what 
kind  of  omission  I  hold  to  be  unjustifiable,  as  tending  to  alter  or 
modify  the  apparent  sense  of  the  rest,  this  supplies  a  very  good 
example.  The  words  which  he  selects  to  represent  to  the  reader  the 
effect  of  Cecil's  communication  are  only  ' "  The  cup,"  said  the  secretary, 
"  will  hardly  pass  from  him." '  And  this  he  calls  producing  '  Cecil's 
own  testimony  that  the  Earl  was  unwilling  to  go.'  Why  Cecil's 
testimony  (even  if  we  had  it)  should  be  considered  conclusive,  I  do 
not  know.  But  is  it  not  clear  that  we  have  here  no  testimony  of  the 
kind  ?  If  Dr.  Abbott  had  observed  or  understood  the  effect  of  the 
words  which  I  have  printed  in  italic,  he  would  have  seen  that  they 
give  a  different  meaning  to  the  word  '  cup  ; '  and  if  he  had  printed 
them  in  their  place,  and  said  '  We  have  Cecil's  own  testimony  that 
the  Earl  was  unwilling  to  go,  except  with  some  such  conditions  as 
were  disagreeable  to  her  Majesty's  mind,'  he  would  have  found  that 
his  testimony  was  quite  in  accordance  with  the  story  as  told  in  the 
Declaration.  And  yet  he  does  not  seem  to  have  perceived  it ;  for  on 
reading  through  again  the  fifteen  pages  to  which  we  are  referred  for 
proof  of  Essex's  reluctance  to  undertake  the  Irish  command,  I  find 
the  sentence  quoted  entire  as  if  it  were  in  favour  of  his  argument. 

The  next  instance  relates  only  to  a  matter  of  opinion,  upon  which 
Dr.  Abbott's  more  intimate  acquaintance  with  the  persons  and  affairs 
of  those  times  may  enable  him  to  correct  the  conclusions  of  the 
Queen  and  her  councillors,  but  hardly  to  convict  them  of  not  believing 
their  own  story. 

IV. 

'  He  meant  besides,  when  he  was  once  in  Ireland,  to  engage  himself  in  other 
journeys  that  should  hinder  the  prosecution  in  the  North.' 
There  is  not  a  vestige  of  evidence  for  this  statement. 

When  a  man  who  knows  his  right  hand  from  his  left  can  go 
which  way  he  pleases,  the  fact  that  he  goes  to  the  right  is  evidence 
that  he  meant  to  go  to  the  right.  If  evidence  of  this  kind  be  admis- 
sible in  a  case  like  that  of  Essex,  I  should  say  that  there  is  enough  of 
it  to  justify  us  in  accepting  this  statement  as  at  any  rate  the  most 
probable  explanation  of  a  course  of  action  which  is  very  hard  to 
explain  in  any  other  way.  How  long  beforehand  he  had  formed  his 
plan — how  far,  indeed,  he  had  formed  any  distinct  and  complete  plan 
beforehand — must  of  course  be  matter  of  conjecture.  Nor  does  this 
pretend  to  be  anything  more.  Head  the  rest  of  the  paragraph,  of 
which  the  words  quoted  are  only  one  clause  of  one  sentence,  and  you 
will  see  that  it  is  merely  a  speculation  as  to  the  probable  motives  of 
the  course  which  he  actually  pursued.  When  a  man's  actions  are 


1880.         DR.  ABBOTT  AND   QUEEN  ELIZABETH.          115 

consistent  with  each  other  upon  the  supposition  of  one  intention,  and 
of  no  other  that  you  can  imagine,  it  is  natural  to  presume  that  that  was 
the  intention  which  suggested  and  guided  them  ;  and  even  if  it  can  be 
shown  to  be  a  mistake,  it  does  not  follow  that  it  was  a  falsehood. 
Now  in  my  own  account  of  Essex's  first  proceedings  on  arriving  in 
Ireland,  I  took  pains  to  abstain  from  assuming  as  a  fact  anything 
which  rested  only  upon  the  authority  of  the  official  narrative — any- 
thing for  which  I  could  not  produce  independent  evidence.  And  as 
the  next  instance  which  is  coming  before  us  for  examination  relates 
also  to  these  proceedings,  it  will  probably  be  the  shortest  course  to 
begin  by  setting  down  my  account  of  them  at  full  length. 

Essex  landed  in  Dublin  on  the  15th  of  April.   After  hearing  a 
report  of  the  state  of  the  country  and  the  disposition  of  the  rebel  forces, 

he  proposed  to  begin  with  an  attack  on  Tyrone  in  Ulster.  But  being  advised  by 
the  Council  to  put  it  off  till  the  middle  of  June  or  the  beginning  of  July,  when 
grass  and  forage  would  be  more  plentiful,  cattle  fatter,  and  means  of  conveyance 
more  complete,  he  readily  acquiesced ;  and  as  he  acquiesced  on  this  occasion  with- 
out complaining  of  crosses  and  discouragements,  I  presume  that  he  had  no  personal 
inclination  the  other  way.  Instead  of  a  march  towards  Ulster  then,  a  '  present 
prosecution  in  Leinster,  being  the  heart  of  the  whole  kingdom,'  was  resolved  on. 
This  resolution  having  been  forwarded  to  the  Council  in  England  on  the  28th  of 
April,  and  allowed  by  them  on  the  8th  of  May, — on  the  10th  he  set  out — professedly 
to  set  on  foot  this  '  present  prosecution  in  Leiuster.'  And  if  six  weeks  must  pass 
before  the  main  action  could  be  attempted  with  advantage,  it  would  certainly  seem 
that  they  might  have  been  well  spent  in  recovering  and  making  secure  those  parts 
which  lay  next  to  the  seat  of  government,  and  within  easy  reach  of  all  resources 
— a  work  which  might  serve  to  exercise  the  army  without  wasting  it.  This,  how- 
ever, was  not  what  he  did,  or  attempted,  or  apparently  ever  intended  to  do.  He 
began,  it  is  true,  with  a  march  through  Leinster,  for  he  had  to  march  through  it 
before  he  could  get  out  of  it.  But  he  took  his  course  straight  for  the  borders  of 
Munster.  No  sooner  was  he  there  than  he  sent  word  that  he  had  been  persuaded 
by  the  president  of  that  province  '  for  a  few  days  to  look  into  his  government.' 
And  thereupon,  without  waiting  for  instructions  from  either  Council,  he  proceeded 
to  march  his  troops  up  and  down  Munster — to  the  south  as  far  as  Clonmel  on  the 
southern  border  of  Tipperary,  then  to  the  north-east  as  far  as  Askeaton  on  the 
northern  border  of  Limerick,  then  south  again  as  far  as  Kilhnalloch ;  thence  (the 
necessities  of  the  army,  now  short  of  food  and  ammunition,  obliging  him  to  think  of 
returning)  south-east  to  Dungarvon,  and  so  along  the  southern  and  eastern  shores 
to  Waterford,  to  Arklow,  and  back  to  Dublin ; — forcing  his  passage  everywhere 
through  the  rebel  skirmishers,  who  gave  way  before  him  and  closed  after  him  • 
taking  and  garrisoning  here  and  there  a  stronghold ;  displaying  much  personal 
activity  and  bravery — a  shining  figure  still  in  the  eyes  of  the  soldiers  and  probably 
in  his  own ;  welcomed  with  Latin  orations  and  popular  applause  as  he  entered  the 
principal  towns  ;  and  writing  plaintive  letters  home  about  ill-usage  and  discourage- 
ment; but  exhausting  his  troops,  consuming  his  supplies,  and  getting  nothing 
effectually  done ;  insomuch  that  when  he  returned  to  Dublin  on  the  3rd  of  July—- 
the season  when  it  had  been  agreed  that  the  great  business  of  the  campaign  was  to 
begin — though  the  grass  had  grown,  and  cattle  were  in  condition,  and  the  means 
of  transport  ready,  the  army  (what  with  marches,  skirmishes,  garrisons,  diseases 
and  decimation)  was  more  than  half  wasted  away,  and  the  remnant  greatly  dis- 
couraged. 

It  is  for  Dr.  Abbott  to  suggest  some  more  probable  motive  for  such 

12 


116  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  January 

a  course  of  proceeding  than  a  design  '  to  engage  himself  in  other 
journeys  that  should  hinder  the  prosecution  in  the  North.'  But  the 
remarkable  helplessness  of  his  comment  on  his  next  extract  may  be 
taken,  I  think,  as  an  admission  that  he  had  none  to  suggest.  My 
own  conclusion  was  that,  after  making  the  most  liberal  allowance  for 
errors  of  judgment  and  defects  of  capacity  in  Essex,  it  is  'hard  to 
believe  that  an  effectual  attack  on  the  stronghold  of  the  rebellion  in 
the  North  was  ever  seriously  intended  by  him,'  and  that  there  is  f  no 
point  of  view  from  which  the  true  history  of  his  proceedings  does  not 
seem  incredible,  except  upon  the  supposition  that  he  was  playing  a 
double  game  of  some  kind.'  My  reasons  for  thinking  so  I  have  fully 
explained  in  the  place ; 2  but  they  are  too  many  to  be  repeated  here, 
and  would  be  out  of  place  in  an  answer  to  Dr.  Abbott,  whose  taste  in 
reasons  may  be  gathered  from  the  next  article. 


V. 

'  He  did  voluntarily  engage  himself  in  an  unseasonable  and  fruitless  journey 
into  Munster,  a  journey  never  propounded  in  the  Council  there,  never  advertised 
over  hither  while  it  was  past.' 

It  has  been  shown  above  (see  pp.  123-4)  that  the  Council  approved  of  the 
journey  into  Leinster,  of  which  the  journey  into  Munster  was  intended  to  be  a  mere 
extension,  and  that  Cecil  kneiv  of  the  journey  into  Munster  before  it  had  been  com- 
menced, and  spoke  of  it  with  apparent 


I  hope  it  has  been  '  shown  above  '  (see  No.  IV.)  that  the  journey 
into  Leinster  of  which  the  Council  approved  was  quite  a  different 
thing,  and  was  moreover  neither  accomplished  nor  attempted.  But 
is  it  necessary  to  tell  any  one  who  has  looked  at  a  map  of  Ire- 
land that  a  resolution  to  begin  with  a  '  prosecution  '  of  the  rebels  in 
Leinster  (where  they  were  about  3,000  strong),  with  a  view  to  settle 
things  there  before  proceeding  against  the  main  body  in  Ulster,  was 
not  a  resolution  to  march  through  Leinster  (without  staying  to  pro- 
secute anything  there)  into  Munster^  and  spend  two  months  in  march- 
ing backwards  and  forwards  through  those  parts  of  the  island  which 
were  furthest  away  from  the  place  of  intended  action  ?  Essex  left 
Dublin,  ostensibly  to  deal  with  the  rebellion  in  Leinster,  on  the 
10th  of  May.  On  the  20th,  his  army  being  already  at  Clonmel,  he 
himself  reported  to  the  English  Council  from  Kilkenny  that  the 
President  of  Munster,  '  in  conference  with  himself,  with  my  Lord  of 

1  Letters  and  Life,  ii.  pp.  142-4. 

8  This  is  the  example  which  the  Edinburgh  reviewer  selects  from  Dr.  Abbott's 
store,  as  singly  sufficient  to  prove  the  Declaration  a  libel  ;  and  as  he  puts  it  exactly 
in  the  same  way  and  almost  in  the  same  words,  the  same  answer  will  serve.  The 
only  other  argument  which  he  offers  relates  to  the  question  discussed  in  No.  X.,  and 
will  be  found  in  a  inote  to  p.  433  of  the  Keview.  In  this  case  he  does  not  follow 
Dr.  Abbott,  but  neither  does  he  improve  upon  him.  His  evidence  is  not  more  to  the 
purpose,  and  leaves  him  in  the  same  dilemma. 


1880.        DR.   ABBOTT  AND   QUEEN  ELIZABETH.         117 

Ormonde,  and  the  rest  of  the  Council  there,  had  persuaded  him  for 
a  few  days  to  look  into  his  government.'     Did  he  wait  to  hear  what 
the  English  Council  had  to  say  about  this  change  of  plan  ?      His 
despatch  was  received  at  Greenwich  on  the  1st  of  June;  and  by  that 
time  he  and  his  army  were  at  Cashel,  on  their  way  to  Limerick,  which 
they  reached  on  the  4th.     Yet  we  are  not  to  believe  that  this  journey 
into  Munster  was  undertaken  without  having  been  *  propounded  to 
the  Council  there ' — that  is,  to  the  Council  in  Dublin — or  '  advertised 
over  hither ' — that  is,  to  the  Council  in  London — 'while  it  was  past.' 
Why  ?     Because  Kobert  Cecil  had  heard  before  the  23rd  of  May  that 
Essex  intended  to  pass  from  Leinster  into  Munster  !     An  army  such 
as  Essex  commanded  is  not  easily  marched  from  Dublin  to  Clonmel 
in  ten  days  without  some  rumour  of  its  destination  getting  abroad. 
Cecil,  whose  information  was  not  all  derived  from  official  documents, 
may  have  heard  of  it  from  one  of  his  intelligencers  when  they  were  at 
Athy,  on  the  13th.     But  (however  Cecil  came  to  know  of  it)  it  is 
plain,  from  the  very  terms  of  Essex's  letter  to  the  Council  from  Kil- 
kenny on  the  20th,  that  it  was  the  first  intimation  of  his  intention 
which  he  had  sent  to  them ;  and  from  the  fact  that  he  had  advanced 
as  far  into  Munster  as  Limerick  within  four  days  of  the  time  when 
his  letter  reached  them,  it  is  equally  plain  that  he  did  not  mean  to 
give  them  the  opportunity  of  interfering.    And  as  for  Cecil's  '  speaking 
of  it  with  apparent  approval,'  what  is  that  to  the  purpose?     He  was 
merely  sending  the  last  news  to  a  friend,  and  would  of  course  reserve 
his  judgment  on  such  a  matter  for  the  Council  board. 

The  next  instance  brings  us  to  the  question  of '  mutilation.' 


VI. 

'  This  message  was  delivered  by  Knowd  to  Lee,  and  by  Lee  was  imparted  to  the 
Earl  of  Essex.' 

This  passage  is  based  upon  a  mutilated  passage  in  the  evidence,  in  which  the 
Earl's  rejection  of  the  message,  or  treatment  of  it  as  idle,  is  omitted.  '  And  of  this 
message  this  examinate  made  the  Earl  acquainted  with  before  his  coming  to  this 
examinate's  house,  at  that  time  when  this  examinate  was  sent  to  Tyrone,  [and  the 
Earl  of  Essex  shaked  his  head  at  it  and  gave  no  certain  answer].' 

The  bracketed  words  are  omitted  both  in  the  government  edition  of  the  evidence 
and  in  the  Declaration. 

And  what  if  they  are  ?  What  had  the  manner  in  which  Essex 
received  the  message  to  do  with  the  fact  which  the  extract  from  the 
examination  was  produced  to  prove  ?  The  question  was,  whether 
Essex  had  secret  dealings  and  a  private  understanding  with  Tyrone, 
while  he  was  preparing,  or  pretending  to  prepare,  to  march  against 
him.  Thomas  Lee,  in  the  course  of  a  long  examination,  relating  to 
a  variety  of  other  matters,  and  including  grave  charges  against  persons 


118  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  January 

whom  it  was  not  thought  expedient  to  call  in  question — an  examina- 
tion in  which  not  these  fifteen  words  only,  but  nine  paragraphs  out 
of  ten,  were  on  that  account  withheld  from  publication — had  confessed 
that  he  had  been  himself  employed  in  such  secret  negotiations ;  that 
he  had  first  despatched  (with  the  sanction  of  the  Marshal  and, 
as  he  supposed,  of  Essex  also)  another  messenger  ;  that  through  him 
he  had  received  a  message  from  Tyrone  himself,  to  the  effect  that  f  if 
Essex  would  follow  his  plot,  he  would  make  him  the  greatest  man 
that  ever  was  in  England,'  &c. ;  that  he  had  acquainted  Essex  with 
this  message,  and  that  he  had  been  himself  afterwards  sent  to  Tyrone. 
The  one  paragraph  of  the  examination  in  which  these  facts  are 
stated,  and  a  line  and  a  half  from  another  relating  to  the  same  busi- 
ness, were  extracted,  and  included  among  the  '  confessions  and  other 
evidence '  appended  to  the  Declaration ;  and  it  is  true  that  the  con- 
cluding clause  of  this  paragraph  (which  Dr.  Abbott  has  printed 
between  brackets)  is  not  included  in  the  extract.  Why  should  it .? 
It  is  not  said  in  the  Declaration  that  Essex  did  not  shake  his  head,  or 
that  he  did  give  a  certain  answer.  And  even  if  such  an  action 
implied  '  a  rejection '  (whatever  that  may  mean)  '  of  the  message,  or 
a  treatment  of  it  as  idle,'  it  did  not  alter  the  material  fact  that  a 
communication  from  Tyrone  had  been  invited,  sent,  and  received ; 
that  after  it  had  been  received  some  communication  was  sent  from 
Essex  to  Tyrone  by  the  same  person ;  and  that,  whatever  these  com- 
munications may  have  been,  and  however  '  idle '  he  may  have  thought 
the  message  which  Lee  reported  to  him  as  received  through  Knowd, 
they  were  important  enough  to  make  him  think  it  worth  while  first 
to  deny,  when  questioned  by  the  Council,  that  he  had  ever  employed 
Lee  to  Tyrone  at  all,  and  then  to  send  Lee  to  Sir  C.  Blount  (who,  as 
marshal  of  the  army,  had  by  Essex's  own  order  licensed  him  to  go) 
with  a  request  that  he  would  '  take  it  upon  himself — that  is,  would 
say  that  he  had  given  him  the  licence  without  Essex's  knowledge : — 
portions  of  the  evidence — the  two  last — which  Dr.  Abbott  omits  to 
mention,  though  attention  is  specially  drawn  to  them  in  the  narra- 
tive, in  the  very  place  where  the  '  bracketed  words '  would  have 
come  in. 


VII. 

*  A  little  before  my  Lord's  going  over  into  England.' 

This  is  a  falsehood,  and  in  direct  contradiction  of  the  (suppressed)  evidence. 
'  He  confesseth  that  at  the  Castle  of  Dublin,  in  that  lodging-  which  was  once  the  Earl 
of  Southampton's,  the  Earl  of  Essex  purposing  his  return  into  England  advised 
with  the  Earl  of  Southampton  and  himself  of  his  best  manner  of  going  into  England 
for  his  security,  since  to  go  he  was  resolved.  [This  was  some  days  before  the 
Earl's  journey  into  the  North.]  '  (Compare  ii.  356  with  ii.  314.) 

Bacon's  intention  in  altering  the  date  is  to  make  the  Earl's  proposed  return  to 
England  appear  to  be  the  result  of  a  treasonable  concert  with  Tyrone.  See  p.  129, 
above. 


1880.       DR.  ABBOTT  AND   QUEEN  ELIZABETH.          119 

The  imputation  here  is  that  Bacon,  knowing  that  Essex's  consulta- 
tion with. Blount  and  Southampton  had  taken  place  before  he  marched 
against  Tyrone,  represented  it  as  taking  place  after,  in  order  to  make 
his  case  appear  worse ;  and,  in  order  to  prevent  the  falsification  from 
being  detected,  deliberately  struck  out  of  one  of  the  confessions  a 
sentence  in  which  the  true  date  was  distinctly  indicated.  Such  a 
thing  might  no  doubt  have  been  done  without  the  Queen's  observing 
it ;  and  if  it  can  be  made  out  that  it  was  done — although  I  shall 
still  believe  that  the  narrative  is  substantially  true,  because  I  find  it  in 
all  other  points  so  carefully  in  accordance  with  the  evidence — I  shall 
readily  admit  that  there  was  some  one  concerned  in  it  who  was  not 
strictly  veracious.  As  yet,  however,  I  am  entitled  to  treat  it,  not  as 
a  fact,  but  only  as  an  imputation.  And  it  happens  to  be  an  imputa- 
tion which  I  had  long  ago  considered  very  carefully  and  explained 
very  particularly.  I  need  not  here  go  into  the  particulars  ;  but  my 
conclusion  was  that  the  confession  which  contains  the  bracketed  sen- 
tence was  not  among  the  papers  which  the  authors  of  the  Declaration 
had  before  them.  They  had  another  version  of  it  which  does  not  con- 
tain that  sentence,  or  any  sentence  to  that  effect.  Blount's  confes- 
sion was  exceptional  in  all  its  circumstances.  It  was  not  extracted 
in  the  course  of  an  examination  taken  in  the  usual  way  for  the 
discovery  of  evidence,  with  arrangements  for  setting  down  the 
questions  and  answers,  and  confirming  the  report  by  the  signatures 
of  the  examinate  and  the  examiners.  It  was  a  statement  which 
he  was  permitted  to  make  at  his  own  request,  after  his  trial  and 
conviction  for  high  treason  on  the  5th  of  March,  in  a  private  inter- 
view with  Nottingham  and  Cecil.  There  would  be  no  formal  record 
of  such  a  statement  taken  at  the  time;  therefore  no  document 
signed  and  attested.  And  this  would  account  for  the  fact  that  the 
confession  as  given  in  the  appendix  (unlike  all  the  other  depositions) 
is  without  the  signatures  either  of  the  confessant  or  the  witnesses. 
We  have  it  upon  the  authority  of  the  Government  that  such  was  the 
confession  made  by  Blount  to  the  Lord  Admiral  and  Mr.  Secretary — 
authority  quite  good  enough  when  they  were  both  living  to  disclaim 
it  if  not  true.  But  there  had  been  no  paper  to  sign.  There  re- 
mains, however,  in  the  State  Paper  Office  a  rough  note  in  Coke's 
hand  of  what  Blount  said,  which  only  required  the  filling  up  of  the 
blanks — blanks  caused  apparently  by  the  difficulty  of  keeping  pace 
with  the  speaker — to  make  it  a  complete  record :  and  I  have  very 
little  doubt  that  the  report  printed  in  the  appendix  was  actually 
made  up  in  that  way.  But  in  a  matter  of  such  importance,  to  which 
the  Earl  of  Southampton  was  a  party,  and  would  therefore  have  to 
be  examined,  a  full  report  under  Blount's  own  hand  was  obviously  re~ 
quired.  The  report,  when  written  out,  would  naturally,  therefore, 
be  submitted  to  him  for  signature ;  and  the  paper  which  Dr. 
Abbott  quotes — a  paper  headed  '  Examination  of  Sir  Christopher 


120  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  January 

Blunt,  Knight,  taken  before  those  whose  names  are  underwritten,' 
and  endorsed  by  Cecil  '  7  Martii  1 600,  the  examination  of  Sir 
Christopher  Blunt' — would  be  a  natural  result.  Being  called  an 
1  examination,'  not  a  '  confession,'  it  probably  represents  not  what 
he  had  said  on  the  5th,  but  what  he  now  said  in  answer  to 
questions — one  of  which  would  of  course  relate  to  the  date  of  the 
consultation,  which  he  had  forgotten  to  mention  in  his  first  state- 
ment, or  Coke  had  omitted  to  set  down.  So  the  interpolation  of  that 
sentence  would  be  explained.  The  two  things  which  still  require  ex- 
planation are,  1st,  that  this  record  of  his  confession,  being  the  latest, 
the  fullest,  and  the  best  authenticated,  was  not  quoted  in  the 
appendix  rather  than  the  unsigned  report ;  and  2nd,  that  though  the 
signed  examination  is  said  to  have  been  '  taken  before  those  whose 
names  are  underwritten,'  there  are  no  names  underwritten.  The 
signed  confession  is  not  attested ;  the  attested  confession  is  not 
signed. 

The  second  difficulty  may  perhaps  supply  the  true  solution  of  the 
first.  The  absence  of  witnesses'  names  in  a  document  which  upon 
the  face  of  it  required  witnesses,  was  a  worse  defect  than  the  absence 
of  the  confessant's  signature  in  the  other  case,  where  no  signature  was 
needed.  But  there  were  other  reasons  for  keeping  this  paper  separate 
from  the  rest.  It  contained  matter  relating  to  practices  with  Scot- 
land, of  which  the  Queen  had  resolved  to  take  no  notice,  and  was 
found,  not  with  the  others  in  the  State  Paper  Office,  but  at  Hatfield ; 
having  no  doubt  been  kept  by  Cecil  in  his  own  hands,  and  overlooked. 
The  papers  sent  to  Bacon  by  Coke  on  the  1 6th  of  March,  presumably  for 
the  purpose  of  drawing  up  the  Declaration,  were  25  in  number,  and 
the  number  will  be  found  to  be  complete  without  counting  this  one. 
If  so,  Bacon  had  no  means  of  knowing  the  date  of  the  consultation, 
which  was  not  mentioned  in  Blunt's  original  statement,  and  assigned 
it  by  conjecture.  In  drawing  up  my  own  narrative  of  Essex's  proceed- 
ings in  Ireland  (which  I  did  before  the  discovery  of  the  Hatfield  MS.) 
I  had  come  to  the  conclusion  that  the  most  probable  date  of  the  con- 
sultation with  Blount  and  Southampton  was  about  the  22nd  of 
September — a  fortnight  or  so  after  his  agreement  with  Tyrone  ;  for  I 
connected  it  with  the  Queen's  letter  of  the  17th,  which  should  have 
reached  him  about  that  time,  demanding  a  strict  account  of  what  he 
had  done  and  what  he  proposed  to  do — a  demand  which,  as  things 
then  stood,  he  thought  he  could  not  attempt  to  meet  with  due  regard 
to  his  own  safety,  except  at  the  head  of  an  armed  force.  This  conjec- 
ture, though  arrived  at  on  grounds  quite  independent  of  Bacon's  and 
not  exactly  agreeing  with  it,  yet  resembles  it  in  this — they  both  refer 
Essex's  first  meditation  of  an  act  of  treachery  so  enormous,  to  a  crisis 
when  'he  was  in  an  inextricable  difficulty  and  a  real  danger.  If 
Blount's  recollection  was  correct  and  his  words  were  correctly  set 
down,  we  must  suppose  that  Essex  was  meditating  it  before  he  had 


1880.       DR.  ABBOTT  AND   QUEEN  ELIZABETH.  121 

received  any  check  from  the  Government  at  home,  and  while  they  were 
still  supplying  him  with  reinforcements.  This  I  call  a  much  worse 
thing  than  a  treasonable  concert  with  Tyrone  after  the  time  when  he 
had  committed  himself  so  far  that  he  saw  no  better  chance  for  his 
own  personal  safety ;  and  every  true  friend  of  his  memory  should  hope 
that  he  was  even  then  conscious  of  having  gone  so  far  in  disloyalty 
that  he  could  not  secure  himself  against  the  consequences  without 
going  further. 

VIII. 

'  Blunt  advised  him  rather  to  another  course,  which  -was  to  draw  forth  of  the 
army  some  200  resolute  gentlemen,  and  with  those  to  come  over,  and  so  to  make 
sure  of  the  Court,  and  so  to  make  his  own  conditions.' 

The  passage  in  which  the  evidence  assumes  this  shape  is  found  in  the  govern- 
ment edition  of  Blount's  speech  at  his  execution.  But  the  fuller  version  (printed 
by  Mr.  Spedding,  ii.  318)  contains  nothing  of  the  kind ;  and  the  evidence,  aa 
signed  by  Blount  himself,  runs  thus : — 

'  He  rather  advised  him,  if  needs  he  would  go,  to  take  over  with  him  some 
competent  number  of  choice  men  \ioho  might  only  have  secured  him  from  any  com- 
mitment to  prison,  if  he  had  not  found  her  Majesty  gracious,  except  it  were  no  further 
than  to  the  house  of  the  Lord  of  Canterbury,  the  Lord  Keeper,  or  his  uncle].' 

The  italicised  words  were  suppressed,  at  the  request  of  Cecil,  in  a  letter  addressed 
to  Coke  in  Bacon's  handwriting.  Cecil  gives  as  a  reason  for  suppressing  them 
(ii.  314)  that  their  insertion  might  render  the  evidence  suspected ;  but  it  is  clear 
that  they  qualify  Blount's  advice  and  make  it  far  less  objectionable. 

If  Dr.  Abbott  has  no  better  authority  for  the  first  of  these  state- 
ments than  myself,  he  is  unlucky.  I  cannot  say  from  recollection 
whether  the  paragraph  which  I  quoted  from  the  Tanner  MS.  does  or 
does  not  contain  the  passage  as  given  in  the  *  Government  edition ' — 
that  is,  in  the  report  of  Blount's  speech  as  printed  in  the  appendix  to 
the  Declaration.  But  I  should  expect  to  find  that  it  does.  I  see 
that  I  have  inserted  dots — meant  to  show  that  some  words  had  been 
omitted — exactly  at  the  place  where  it  would  have  come  in  if  it  was 
there.  If  the  words  which  followed  in  the  manuscript  agreed  with 
the  printed  version,  this  is  what  I  should  naturally  have  done ; 
whereas  if  they  differed,  I  should  probably  have  continued  the 
extract.  The  manuscript  report  is  fuller  in  some  places,  but  I  have 
no  reason  to  suppose  that  it  is  either  more  complete  upon  the  whole 
or  more  authentic.  There  were  two  passages  which — as  containing 
some  particulars  (not  to  be  found  in  the  Government  version)  that 
I  thought  worth  recording — I  extracted.  Independent  reports  of 
speeches  almost  always  supplement  each  other;  but  there  was  nothing 
to  make  one  think  the  Government  had  had  any  opportunity  to  collate 
these. 

For  the  second  statement,  that  '  the  italicised  words  were  sup- 
pressed at  the  request  of  Cecil  in  a  letter  addressed  to  Coke  in  Bacon's 
handwriting,'  I  must  also  decline  all  responsibility.  In  the  first  place, 


122  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  January 

Cecil's  request  was  that  the  words  should  not  be  '  read,'  which  proves 
that  they  did  not  refer  to  the  Declaration  which  we  are  discussing ; 
for  it  was  not  going  to  be  read.  In  the  second  place,  when  I  said 
that  his  letter  was  '  written  on  a  single  leaf  of  thin  paper,  upon  the 
back  of  which  had  been  pasted  what  seems  to  be  the  fly-leaf  of  a 
letter  from  Bacon  to  Coke,  the  address  (which  Mr.  Jardine  mistook 
for  the  direction  of  Cecil's  letter)  being  in  Bacon's  hand,'  I  did  not 
mean  that  Cecil's  letter  was  4  addressed  to  Coke  in  Bacon's  hand- 
writing.' Neither  I  nor  Dr.  Abbott  know  to  whom  it  was  addressed, 
or  on  what  occasion,  further  than  that  it  referred  to  a  passage  in  the 
note  of  Blount's  statement  made  on  the  5th  of  March.  In  the  third 
place,  whatever  Cecil's  object  may  have  been,  it  cannot  have  been  to 
prevent  the  evidence  from  contradicting  the  narrative  ;  for  the  state- 
ment in  the  narrative  agrees  with  the  evidence  quite  well,  whether 
those  words  be  retained  or  removed.  Blount's  statement,  according 
to  the  rough  note,  was  in  these  words  : — '  Then  it  was  resolved  that 
[if]  he  needs  would  go,  he  should  take  a  competent  number  of  choice 
men,  who  might  have  secured  him  from  any  commitment,  unless  it 
were  to  Cant.  Kep.  Knolls.'  The  statement  in  the  Declaration 
(which  in  this  place  professes  to  give  '  the  substance  of  that  which  was 
confessed  by  Southampton  and  Blount  touching  Essex's  purpose  to 
have  transported  into  England  the  army  of  Ireland,  and  the  changing 
of  that  design  into  the  other  design  of  surprising  the  Queen  and 
Court ')  is  that  Blount  advised  him  '  to  draw  forth  of  the  army  some 
200  resolute  gentlemen,  and  with  those  to  come  over,  and  so  to  make 
sure  of  the  Court,  and  so  to  make  his  own  conditions.' 

What  substantial  difference  is  there  between  taking  a  competent 
number  of  choice  men,  who  might  have  secured  him  against  any 
commitment  which  implied  danger,  and  coming  over  with  200 
resolute  gentlemen  to  make  sure  of  the  Court  ? 

IX. 

'  Therefore  condescending  to  Blunt's  advice  to  surprise  the  Court,  he  did  pursue 
that  plot  accordingly.' 

By  misdating  Blount's  advice  Bacon  conveys  the  impression  that  Essex  returned 
in  pursuance  of  that  advice.  Whereas  (1)  several  weeks  elapsed  between  Blount's 
advice  and  the  Earl's  return :  and  (2)  instead  of  '  surprising  the  Court  with  200 
resolute  gentlemen,'  he  took  with  him  no  more  than  six  to  Xonsuch. 

The  charge  of  '  misdating  Blount's  advice '  is  the  same  which  has 
already  been  discussed  under  No.  VII. ;  when  it  was  stated  to  have 
been  done  for  the  purpose  of  making  it  appear  '  that  the  Earl's  pro- 
posed return  to  England  was  the  result  of  a  treasonable  concert  with 
Tyrone.'  We  are  now  to  understand  that  it  was  done  in  order  to 
make  it  appear  that  his  actual  return  was  the  result  of  Blount's  advice. 
I  have  shown  that  the  misdate  (if  misdate  it  be)  was  only  a  miscon- 
jecture  upon  the  evidence  which  Bacon  had  before  him — and  a  natu- 


1880.      DR.  ABBOTT  AND   QUEEN  ELIZABETH.  123 

ral  misconjecture  ;  for  I  had  myself  upon  a  study  of  the  same  evidence 
arrived  independently  at  the  same,  or  nearly  the  same,  conclusion. 
But  suppose  it  a  falsehood :  how  could  it  serve  either  purpose  ? 
'  Treasonable  concert  with  Tyrone '  was  practicable  before  the  northern 
march  as  well  as  after ;  and  advice  given  in  August  might  surely  be 
followed  in  September.  The  material  question  is  whether  Essex 
'  pursued  that  plot ' — whether  he  came  over  with  the  intention  of 
mastering  the  Court  by  the  help  of  the  gentlemen  whom  he  selected 
to  follow  him — not  by  whose  advice  he  pursued  it.  He  did  come 
over  with  a  competent  number  of  choice  men,  who  might  have 
secured  him  from  commitment  to  other  than  friendly  keepers ;  and 
as  that  was  what  Blunt  advised  when  his  advice  was  asked,  it  is  natu- 
ral to  suppose  that  it  was  done  in  pursuance  of  it,  whether  it  had  been 
given  '  some  days  before  the  Earl's  journey  into  the  North  '  or  '  a 
little  before  his  coming  over  to  England.''  And  as  for  his  not  having 
marched  straight  to  Nonsuch  at  the  head  of  two  hundred  gentlemen 
in  order  to  make  sure  of  the  Court,  before  asking  whether  he  were 
welcome,  I  do  not  understand  either  Blount  to  say  that  he  advised 
any  such  proceeding,  or  the  authors  of  the  Declaration  to  say  that 
Essex  attempted  or  meditated  it.  What  they  say  is  that  '  he  came 
over  with  a  selected  company  of  captains  and  voluntaries,  and  such 
as  he  thought  were  most  affectionate  unto  himself,  and  most  resolute, 
though  not  knowing  of  his  purpose '  (which  I  believe  is  true),  mean- 
ing to  use  them  as  occasion  might  require — for  offence,  if  he  found 
himself  in  a  condition  to  be  the  assailant ;  for  defence,  if  he  were 
assailed.  The  date  therefore  of  Blount's  advice  could  have  made  no 
difference  either  way,  except  that  the  earlier  you  put  Essex's  proposal, 
the  less  room  you  leave  for  imputing  it  either  to  a  rash  impulse,  or  to 
a  just  apprehension  of  danger  and  the  necessity  of  taking  the  offensive 
in  self-defence. 


X. 

'  The  principal  article  of  them  (the  conditions  of  peace  with  Tyrone)  [being,  That 
there  should  be  a  general  restitution  of  rebels  in  Ireland  to  att  their  lands  and  posses- 
iions,  that  they  could  pretend  any  right  to  before  their  going  out  into  rebellion,  with- 
out reservation  of  such  lands  as  were  "by  Act  of  Parliament  passed  to  the  Crown, 
and  so  planted  with  English,  both  in  the  time  of  Queen  Mary,  and  since :  and 
without  difference  either  of  time  of  their  going  forth,  or  nature  of  their  offence,  or 
other  circumstance  :  ]  tending  in  effect  to  this,  That  all  the  Queen's  good  subjects, 
in  most  of  the  provinces,  should  have  been  displanted,  and  the  country  abandoned 
to  the  rebels.' 

No  evidence  of  this  and  much  evidence  to  the  contrary.  See  pp.  134-147, 
above. 

No  evidence  of  ivhat  ?     Much  evidence  to  the  contrary  of  what  ? 
So  vague  and  general  a  contradiction,  supported  by  so  vague  and 
general  a  reference  to  the  place  or  places  where  a  justification  of  it  is 


124  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.          January 

to  be  looked  for,4  will  hardly  serve  for  the  coming  proof  that  the 
authors  of  the  Declaration  were  guilty  of  making  positive  statements 
which  they  did  not  believe  to  be  true.     But  how  much  does  Dr. 
Abbott  himself  believe  ?     Does  he  believe  that  the  conditions  of  peace 
which  Essex  had  treated  of  with  Tyrone  in  his  private  conference 
were  such  as  he  could  reasonably  expect  the  Queen  to  be  satisfied 
with  ?     He  will  not  go  so  far  as  that ;  he  has  admitted  somewhere 
that  there  were  objections  to  some  of  them.     But  he  labours  hard  to 
prove  that  they  cannot  have  been  so  bad  as  they  appear  to  be  in  the 
only  articulate  exposition  of  them  which  is  known  to  exist.     If  the 
propositions  set  forth  under  the  title  of '  Tyrone's  Propositions,  1 599,'  in 
the  Winwood  Papers  (i.  118),  were  really  those  which  Essex  came  over 
to  recommend  for  acceptance,  he  finds  that  so  many  things  must  have 
happened  which  did  not  happen,  and  so  many  could  not  have  happened 
which  did,  that  he  thinks  himself  entitled  to  set  down  the  paper  as  a 
forgery.     This  is  a  conclusion  which  will  not  seem  so  easy  to  every- 
body as  to  Dr.  Abbott,  whose  ordinary  rule  with  regard  to  evidence  is 
to  accept  as  indisputable  that  which  suits  him  and  to  reject  as  *  pro- 
bably false '  that  which  does  not ;  but  the  question  does  not  concern 
us  at  present,  for  there  is  no  reference  to  this  paper  in  the  Declara- 
tion.    The  statement,  therefore,  which  he  finds  no  evidence  for  and 
so  much  against,  must  be  that  the  principal  article  tended  to  displant 
the  Queen's  good  subjects  in  most  of  the  provinces,  and  to  abandon 
the  country  to  the  rebels.     What  this  article  was  he  does  not  think  it 
necessary  to  say,  and  therefore  leaves  out  the   words  between  the 
brackets  ;  but  he  must  have  had  in  his  mind  the  terms  of  it  there  set 
forth,  and  meant  to  say  that  they  were  incorrectly  quoted.     But  how 
can  he  possibly  know  that?     Among  the  persons  who  were  responsible 
for  the  Declaration,  there  were  certainly  some  who  knew  what  Tyrone's 
demands  were  ;  they  had  heard  Essex  himself  state  them;  they  most 
likely  took  notes  of  them  for  their  own  use  ;  and  the  paper  which  the 
editor  of  the  Winwood  Memorials  found  and  printed  with  the  other  cor- 
respondence may  have  been  Cecil's  note  :  but  as  no  detailed  account  of 
them  is  to  be  found  in  any  of  the  many  public  declarations  made 
afterwards  by  the  government  concerning  these  matters — a  fact  which 
it  is  not  easy  to  account  for,  except  by  supposing  that  as  Essex  had 
promised  to  Tyrone  that  they  should  not  be  committed  to  paper,  so 

4  So  far  as  this  particular  paragraph  is  concerned,  the  reader  need  not  trouble 
himself  to  refer  to  any  of  the  pages  except  144  and  145.  There  he  will  find,  1st, 
that  the  Queen,  speaking  of  '  Tyrone's  offers,'  as  she  had  heard  them  explained  by 
Essex  himself,  was  of  opinion  that  they  included  a  demand  for  the  restoration  of 
all  the  ancient  exiled  rebels  to  all  that  our  laws  and  hereditary  succession  have 
bestowed  upon  us ; '  2nd,  that  Dr.  Abbott,  speaking  of  what  he  thinks  they  probably 
may  have  been,  as  deducible  from  the  negative  evidence  of  a  number  of  places  where 
they  are  not  mentioned  (see  pp.  146-7),  is  of  opinion  that  it  was  only  '  a  humble  peti- 
tion to  be  allowed  to  retain  one's  own.'  The  remaining  eleven  pages  are  occupied 
with  discussion  of  probabilities  and  improbabilities  in  matters  which  have  no  bearing 
upon  the  character  of  the  Declaration,  not  being  alluded  to  in  any  part  of  it. 


1880.        DR.  ABBOTT  AND   QUEEN  ELIZABETH.         125 

he  reported  them  to  the  Queen  upon  a  promise  that  they  should  not 
be  divulged — Dr.  Abbott  is  left  in  a  dilemma.  If  the  paper  entitled 
4  Tyrone's  Propositions  '  was  a  true  note  of  them  made  by  a  member 
of  the  Council,  he  knows  that  the  statement  which  he  contradicts  is 
substantially  true ;  if  not,  he  knows  no  thing  about  it : — unless,  indeed, 
he  will  admit  as  evidence  Essex's  own  summary  account  of  them  as 
reported  by  Camden.  Cecil's  declaration  in  the  Star  Chamber  to  the 
same  effect  in  November,  1599 — 'His  conditions  were,  pardon  for 
all  the  rebels  in  Ireland,  restoration  of  all  lands  held  from  any  by 
the  English,  and  entire  freedom  of  conscience ' — he  produces  as  a 
witness  on  his  own  side,  because  Cecil,  he  says,  'describes  the 
demand ' — the  last  of  the  three  conditions — '  not  as  monstrous,  but 
only  as  "  needless,"  implying  that  toleration  already  existed '  (p.  142) ; 
and  a  needless  demand  (he  seems  to  think)  could  not  have  been 
embodied  in  a  proposition  which  was  open  to  other  objections.  But 
Camden's  account  is  not  qualified  by  any  such  comment ;  and  for 
penetration  into  '  underlying  motives,'  Dr.  Abbott  (as  we  have  seen) 
sometimes  holds  Camden  an  authority.  Now  Camden  tells  us  that 
when  Essex,  the  day  after  his  arrival  at  Nonsuch,  was  called  before 
the  Council  to  explain — 'Being  questioned  why  he  contracted  such 
a  truce  with  the  rebels,  he  answered  that  Tyrone  was  so  confident  in 
his  strength  that  he  proudly  refused  all  conditions  of  peace,  unless  all 
the  rebels  in  Ireland  might  be  pardoned  their  offences,  the  Irish 
might  be  restored  to  their  possessions  which  the  English  enjoyed, 
and  the  Romish  religion  might  be  freely  exercised  throughout  the 
whole  kingdom.  And  these  conditions  he  [would  have]  persuaded 
(persuadere  ccepit)  the  Queen  to  ratify.'  But  then,  again,  if  he 
admits  Camden  for  a  witness  on  this  occasion,  he  admits  that  the 
statement  in  the  Declaration  is,  in  this  as  in  all  the  other  instances, 
exactly  true. 


XI. 

1  There  passed  speech  also  in  this  conspiracy  of  possessing  the  city  of  London, 
which  Essex  himself,  in  his  own  particular  and  secret  inclination,  had  ever  a  special 
mind  unto :  not  as  a  departure  or  going  from  his  purpose  of  possessing  the  Court, 
but  as  an  inducement  and  preparative  to  perform  it  upon  a  surer  ground.' 

The  object  of  this  falsehood  was  to  show  that  Essex's  attempt  upon  the  city, 
instead  of  being  a  deviation  from  the  original  plan,  was  a  part  of  the  original  plan, 
BO  as  to  fasten  upon  Essex  a  more  deliberate  treason.  But  it  is  against  all  the  evi- 
dence (see  pp.  214-15  above)  if  we  take  into  consideration  the  passages  suppressed 
by  the  Government.' 

"Which  is  the  falsehood  ?  That  '  there  passed  speech,'  &c. ;  or 
that  Essex  was  secretly  more  inclined  to  the  course  which  was  not 
taken  ?  If  the  first,  unless  Dr.  Abbott  can  find  one  of  the  suppressed 
passages  in  which  one  of  the  conspirators,  who  had  attended  all  the 


126  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  January 

meetings,  denied  that  any  speech  of  possessing  the  city  of  London 
had  passed  at  any  of  them,  I  do  not  see  how  the  publication  of  the 
entire  evidence  without  any  omission  at  all  could  have  affected  the 
question ;  for  there  is  certainly  abundant  testimony  both  in  the 
published  and  unpublished  parts  of  the  depositions  to  the  fact  that 
such  speech  did  pass.  If  the  last,  which  of  the  suppressed  passages 
proves  that  the  possession  of  the  city  was  not  the  plan  which  Essex, 
4  in  his  own  particular  and  secret  inclination,'  preferred  ? 


XII. 

'  Having  therefore  concluded  upon  this  determination,  now  was  the  time  to  exe- 
cute in  fact  all  that  he  had  before  in  purpose  digested.' 

The  truth  was  that  nothing  had  been  concluded  or  digested  up  to  the  very 
moment  when  the  conspirators  issued  from  the  gates  of  Essex  House.  See  pp.  215- 
19  above. 

Dr.  Abbott's  i  pages  above '  have  a  great  deal  to  answer  for.  But 
does  he  really  think  that  he  has  proved  in  these  four  pages  that 
Essex  had  not '  in  purpose  digested '  anything,  up  to  the  moment 
when  he  decided  to  lock  up  the  Lords  of  the  Council  in  his  library 
and  set  out  for  the  city  with  200  gentlemen  at  his  back,  crying  out 
that  somebody  was  going  to  murder  him  ?  I  read  those  pages  atten- 
tively in  their  place  without  any  suspicion  that  they  would  be  appealed 
to  in  behalf  of  so  extravagant  an  assertion  as  this ;  and  though  I  do 
not  undertake  to  report  the  substance  of  those  or  any  other  four 
pages  of  Dr.  Abbott's  composition  without  having  them  before  me  to 
refer  to,  I  think  I  may  say  that  what  he  attempted  to  prove  in  them 
was  only  that  no  part  of  the  plot  had  been  so  settled  as  not  to  admit 
of  a  change  at  the  last  moment.  This  is  true :  but  it  is  also  true 
that  this  is  what  the  official  narrative  implies :  which  represents 
Essex  as  having  on  Saturday  afternoon,  in  consequence  of  a  summons 
to  attend  the  Council,  '  determined  to  hasten  his  enterprise '  (of  sur- 
prising the  Court)  and  execute  it  the  next  morning ;  and  again,  as 
having,  later  on  the  same  evening,  in  consequence  of  news  that 
the  Court  had  taken  alarm,  determined  to  change  the  plan  and  begin 
with  an  appeal  to  the  city.  And  this  was  the  determination  which 
(having  '  before  in  purpose  digested,'  but  given  up  in  deference  to  the 
opinion  of  the  majority  of  his  advisers)  he  now — that  is,  on  Saturday 
night — resolved  to  *  execute  in  fact.' 

If  Dr.  Abbott  wishes  to  know  how  much  and  what  was  concluded 
and  digested  between  that  time  and  '  the  moment  when  the  conspi- 
rators issued  from  the  gates  of  Essex  House,'  he  will  find  it  all  in  a 
narrative  to  which  he  can  have  no  difficulty  in  referring — a  narrative 
which  was  certainly  intended  and  believed  to  be  veracious,  and  in 
which  all  the  passages  suppressed  by  the  Government  were  carefully 
taken  into  consideration — the  same  narrative,  in  fact,  to  which 


1880.        DR.   ABBOTT  AND   QUEEN  ELIZABETH.         127 

he  himself  refers  us  in  note  2,  p.  215 — and  in  the  same  page.  I 
need  not  quote  it  here;  for  I  cannot  believe  either  that  his  own 
counter-statement  will  be  thought  by  anybody  but  himself  (and 
perhaps  our  reviewer)  to  be  in  itself  credible ;  or  that,  if  it  were 
proved  correct,  it  would  be  accepted  by  anybody  else  as  a  reason  for 
concluding  that  the  statement  in  the  Declaration  was  not  believed  by 
its  authors  to  be  true. 

The  rest  of  the  story  of  that  day,  as  told  in  the  Declaration, 
supplies  Dr.  Abbott  with  no  more  instances  of  suppression  or  misre- 
presentation. And  having  now  gone  patiently  through  his  whole 
collection,  I  still  wait  to  hear  of  a  single  material  circumstance  in 
which  the  effect  of  the  original  depositions  is  misrepresented  in  the 
narrative  put  forth  by  Queen  Elizabeth. 

JAMES  SPEDDENG. 


128  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY.  January 


OLD-FASHIONED  GARDENING. 


IN  these  days  a  garden  is  an  artificial  production  with  which  nature 
has  as  much  to  do  as  with  the  weaving  of  a  Turkey  carpet.  The  art 
of  carpet-bedding  has  been  carried  to  perfection,  and  in  consequence 
we  all  know  what  to  expect  when  we  enter  a  flower-garden  in  the  late 
summer  months.  There  are  the  patches  of  scarlet,  purple,  and  white, 
as  smooth  and  even  as  the  emerald  turf  in  which  they  are  embedded. 
There  is  not  a  withered  leaf  nor  a  straggling  spray  to  be  seen,  for  it  is 
the  gardener's  first  object  to  repress  the  luxuriance  of  nature,  and  it 
is  part  of  his  duty  to  go  over  the  beds  every  morning  to  reduce 
them  to  the  same  trim  and  level  uniformity.  These  brilliant  patches 
of  colour  are  embellished  or  relieved  by  a  bordering  of  a  sedum, 
which  resembles  the  truncated  head  of  an  artichoke,  but  which 
has,  for  some  unknown  reason,  been  enrolled  in  the  catalogue  of 
ornamental  plants.  The  ideal  which  our  English  gardeners  strive  to 
fulfil  is  to  be  found  in  the  flower-beds  of  our  London  parks,  and  if  they 
are  able  to  imitate  their  model  with  more  or  less  success,  it  matters 
little  to  them  that  the  parterre  which  blazes  into  colour  in  July  and 
August  remains  brown  and  barren  for  the  greater  part  of  the  year. 
The  tyranny  of  fashion  has  prevailed  alike  in  the  gardens  of  rich  and 
poor,  of  the  squire,  the  parson,  and  the  farmer,  and  the  delightful  occu- 
pation of  gardening  is  exalted,  or  as  we  think  debased,  to  become 
a  skilled  art,  in  which  there  is  no  place  for  amateurs. 

It  was  not  so  in  the  gardens  of  our  youth,  and  over  some  of  these 
the  destroying  hand  has  not  yet  passed.  There  was  the  stamp  of  cha- 
racter and  all  the  charms  of  a  surprise  in  the  distinctive  peculiarities 
of  our  old-fashioned  walled  gardens.  One  was  famous  for  its  peaches, 
sheltered  from  the  early  frosts  by  the  thatched  coping  of  its  mud 
walls ;  another,  for  its  wealth  of  golden-drop  plums.  In  one  there  was 
a  shady  corner  for  lilies  of  the  valley ;  in  another  a  sunny  exposure 
where  the  autumn  violets  were  the  first  to  bloom.  In  all  there  were 
grass  alleys,  crooked  and  hoary  old  apple-trees,  valued  as  much  for 
their  age  as  for  the  quality  of  their  fruit ;  there  was  a  wealth  and 
variety  of  pot-herbs,  one  wall  was  crowned  by  a  patch  of  yellow 
sedum,  another  was  fringed  with  wall-flowers,  and  the  old  bricks 
were  often  covered  by  a  network  of  the  delicate  and  beautiful  creeper, 


1880.  OLD-FASHIONED   GARDENING.  129 

the  '  mother  of  millions.'  There  was  the  delightful  smell  of  newly- 
turned  mould,  to  mingle  with  the  fragrance  of  a  hedge  of  sweet  peas, 
or  of  a  bed  of  clove  gillyflowers.  Sweetwilliam  and  mignonette 
filled  the  vacant  spaces,  and  the  bees  from  a  row  of  straw  hives  were 
humming  over  all.  It  is  sad  to  think  that  such  gardens  as  we 
describe  must  almost  be  numbered  among  the  things  of  the  past. 

This  lament  over  the  lost  glories  of  our  English  gardens  is  sug- 
gested by  the  perusal  of  a  rare  and  curious  folio,  published  in  1629, 
which  bears  the  following  title  : — 

Paradisi  in  Sole.  Paradisus  Terrestris.  A  Garden  of  all  sorts  of  pleasant  flowers 
which  our  English  ayre  will  permitt  to  be  noursed  up  :  with  a  Kitchen  garden  of 
all  manner  of  herbs,  raves  and  fruites,  for  meate  or  sause,  used  with  us,  and  an 
Orchard  of  all  sorte  of  fruitbearing  Trees  and  Shrubbes  fit  for  our  Land,  together 
with  the  right  orderinge,  planting  and  preserving  of  them,  with  their  uses  and 
vertues.  Collected  by  John  Parkinson,  Apothecary  of  London,  1629. 

'  Qui  veut  paragonner  1'artifice  a  Nature, 
Et  nos  pares  a  Eden,  indiscret  il  mesure 
Le  pas  de  1'ele'phant  par  le  pas  du  ciron, 
Et  de  1'aigle  le  vol  par  ci  du  mouscheron.' 

This  comprehensive  title  is  printed  on  a  small  scutcheon,  in  order 
not  to  interfere  with  the  quaint  and  elaborate  representation  of  the 
Garden  of  Eden,  which  occupies  the  rest  of  the  title-page.  The 
tree  of  knowledge,  its  fruit  still  unplucked  by  Adam,  appears  in  the 
centre  of  the  plate.  Adam  is  grafting  an  apple-tree  ;  Eve,  clothed 
only  by  her  hair,  is  skipping  airily  downhill  to  pick  up  a  pine-apple, 
and  all  sorts  of  flowers  of  wondrous  proportions  grow  in  the  fore- 
ground. There  is  a  tulip  four  times  as  big  as  Eve's  head,  and  a 
cyclamen  which  is  at  least  five  feet  high. 

Parkinson  dedicates  his  folio  to  the  Queen,  Henrietta  Maria,  not 
in  the  fulsome  tone  of  adulation  which  we  associate  with  dedica- 
tions of  that  and  succeeding  ages,  but  rather  as  one  conscious  that 
he  confers  a  favour  in  laying  before  her  the  fruit  of  so  much  labour 
and  research.  After  giving  good  practical  direction  as  to  the  site  of 
the  garden  and  its  soil,  he  furnishes  the  reader  with  geometrical 
designs  for  the  beds,  and  advice  as  to  the  relative  merits  of  border- 
ings  in  tiles,  lead,  thrift,  and  box,  and  he  then  goes  on — 

to  furnish  the  inward  parts  and  beds  with  those  fine  Flowers  that  (being  strangers 
unto  us,  and  giving  the  beauty  and  bravery  of  their  colours  so  early  before  many  of 
our  owne  bred  flowers,  the  most  to  entice  us  to  their  delight)  are  most  beseeming  it : 
and  namely  with  Daffodils,  Fritillaries,  Jacinthes,  Saffron-flowers,  Lillies,  Flower- 
deluces,  Tulipas,  Anemones,  French  Cowslips  or  Beareseares,  and  a  number  of 
such  other  flowers,  very  beautifull,  delightfull,  and  pleasant,  whereof  although 
many  have  little  sweete  sent  to  commend  them,  yet  their  earlinesse  and  exceeding 
great  beautie  and  varietie  doth  so  farre  countervaile  that  defect  (and  yet  I  must 
tell  you  withall  that  there  is  among  the  many  sorts  of  them  some,  and  that  not  a 
few,  that  doe  excell  in  sweetnesse,  being  so  strong  and  heady,  that  they  rather 
offend  by  too  much  than  by  too  little  sent,  and  some  again  are  of  so  mild  and 
VOL.  VII.— No.  35.  K 


130  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  January 

moderate  temper,  that  [they  scarce  come  short  of  your  most  delicate  and  daintiest 
flowers)  that  they  are  almost  in  all  places  with  all  persons,  especially  with  the 
better  sort  of  the  Gentry  of  the  Land,  as  greatly  desired  and  accepted  as  any 
other  the  most  choisest,  and  the  rather,  for  that  the  most  part  of  these  Out-landish 
flowers  doe  show  forth  their  beauty  and  colours  so  early  in  the  yeare  that  they 
seem  to  make  a  Garden  of  delight  even  in  the  Winter  time,  and  doe  so  give  their 
flowers  one  after  another,  that  all  their  bravery  is  not  spent  until  that  Gilliflowers, 
the  pride  of  English  Gardens,  do  shew  themselves. 

It  is  in  this  succession  of  flowering  plants  that  modern  gardening  so 
signally  fails,  not  from  lack  of  knowledge,  "but  from  a  senseless  desire 
to  concentrate  the  whole  display  into  two  short  months  of  the  year. 

Our  author  declares  that  there  are  almost  a  hundred  sorts  of 
Daffodils,  and  '  by  the  way '  inveighs  against  the 

many  idle  and  ignorant  Gardiners  and  others  who  get  names  by  stealth,  as  they 
doe  many  other  things,  and  doe  call  some  of  these  Daffodils  Narcisses,  when  as  all 
know  that  know  any  Latine,  that  Narcisses  is  the  Latine  name,  and  Daffodil  the 
English  of  one  and  the  same  thing,  and  therefore  alone  without  any  other  Epithite 
cannot  distinguish  several  things.  I  would  willingly  therefore  that  all  would 
grow  judicious,  and  call  everything  by  his  proper  English  name  in  speaking 
English,  or  else  by  such  Latine  name  as  everything  hath  that  hath  not  a  proper 
English  name,  that  thereby  they  may  distinguish  the  several  varieties  of  things, 
aud  not  confound  them. 

We  scarcely  share  his  enthusiasm  for  tulips,  in  spite  of  his  as- 
sertion '  that  there  is  no  Lady  or  Gentlewoman  of  any  worth  that  is 
not  caught  with  this  delight,  or  not  delighted  with  these  flowers ; ' 
hilt  we  fully  agree  with  the  sentiment  that 

the  Anemones  likewise  or  Windeflowers  are  so  full  of  variety  and  so  dainty,  so 
pleasant  and  so  delightsome  flowers,  that  the  sight  of  them  doth  enforce  an  earnest 
longing  desire  in  the  minde  of  anyone  to  be  a  possessour  of  some  of  them  at  the 
leaste :  For  without  all  doubt  this  one  kind  of  flower,  so  variable  in  colours,  so 
differing  in  form  (being  almost  as  many  sortes  of  them  double  as  single*),  so  plenti- 
full  in  bearing  flowers,  and  so  durable  in  lasting,  and  also  so  easie  both  to  preserve 
and  to  encrease,  is  of  itselfe  alone  almost  sufficient  to  furnish  a  garden  with  flowers 
for  almost  half  the  yeare. 

Parkinson  goes  on  to  commend  double  poppies,  '  flowers  of  a  great 
and  goodly  proportion ; '  double  daisies, '  which  are  common  enough  in 
every  garden ; '  French  marigolds,  with  c  their  strong,  heady  sent, 
and  glorious  shew  for  colour;'  sweetwilliams  and  sweet  Johns, 
hollihocks,  and  double  and  single  peonies — in  short,  all  the  com- 
moner and  more  showy  flowers  which  still  linger  in  our  cottage 
gardens.  He  declares  carnations  and  gillyflowers  to  be  '  the  Queene 
of  delight  and  of  flowers,'  and  enumerates  more  than  a  dozen  varieties 
by  names  which  are  probably  no  longer  known  to  florists.  Eoses 
have  been  more  modified  by  culture  within  the  last  two  hundred 
years  than  any  other  of  our  garden  flowers.  Those  described  by 
Parkinson  were  for  the  most  part  single  roses,  or  with  only  two  rows 
of  petals  and  of  small  diameter.  They  seem  to  have  been  varieties  of 


1880.  OLD-FASHIONED   GARDENING.  131 

the  damask  and  briar-roses,  and  the  cabbage  and  moss-roses  which  we 
consider  old-fashioned  find  no  place  in  the  list. 

Not  content  to  deny  that  single  flowers  can  be  transformed  into 
double  '  by  the  observation  of  the  change  of  the  Moone,  the  constella- 
tions or  conjunctions  of  Planets  or  some  other  Starres  or  celestial 
bodies,'  Parkinson  holds  that  such  transformation  could  not  be  effected 
by  the  art  of  man.  • 

If  it  shall  bee  demanded,  From  whence  then  came  these  double  flowers  that  we 
have,  if  they  were  not  so  made  by  art,  I  answer  that  assuredly  all  such  flowers  did 
first  grow  wilde,  and  were  soe  found  double  as  they  doe  now  grow  in  Gardens,  but 
for  how  long  before  they  were  found  they  became  double  no  man  can  tell ;  we  onely 
have  them  as  nature  has  produced  them,  and  so  they  remaine. 

In  these  introductory  chapters,  among  other  desultory  matter, 
he  gives  a  recipe  for  the  destruction  of 

earwickes,  a  most  infestuous  vermin.  .  .  .  Some  have  used  old  shooes  and  such 
like  hollow  things  to  take  them  in,  or  else  beasts'  hoofes,  which  being  turned  downe 
upon  stickes'  ends  set  into  the  ground,  or  into  the  pots  of  earth,  will  soon  drawe 
into  them  many  Earwickes,  lying  hid  therein  from  sunne,  winde,  and  raine,  and  by 
care  and  diligence  may  soon  bee  destroyed,  if  every  mornipg  and  evening  one  take 
the  hoofes  gently  off  the  stickes,  and  knocking  them  against  the  ground  in  a  plain 
allie,  shake  out  all  the  Earwickes  that  are  crept  into  them,  which  quickly  with  one's 
foot  may  be  trode  to  peeces. 

Parkinson  next  goes  on  to  describe  his  garden  flowers  in  detail, 
in  many  cases  giving  a  list  of  more  varieties  than  we  suspect  are  to 
be  found  in  our  modern  gardens,  and  also  under  names  by  which  they 
are  not  now  known.  The  snowdrop,  for  instance,  is  termed  '  a  bulbous 
violet.'  The  iris  is  '  flowerdeluce,'  and  he  gives  an  illustration  of  the 
1  great  Turkic  Flowerdeluce,'  in  which  it  is  shown  to  be  a  much 
larger  and  handsomer  flower  than  the  blue  flags  which  we  now  culti- 
vate. The  gladiolus,  in  defiance  of  all  natural  classification,  is 
represented  in  the  same  plate  with  the  bee  and  butterfly  orchis,  and 
with  the  dog-tooth  violet ;  but  on  the  whole  the  broad  distinctions 
of  the  natural  families  are  respected. 

Under  the  head  of  'Vertues,'  which  follows  the  description  of 
each  plant,  some  curious  gleanings  might  be  made.  Parkinson,  as  a 
licensed  apothecary,  speaks  with  a  certain  lofty  incredulity  of  '  the 
physicall  vertues '  ascribed  to  many  plants,  but  he  does  not  always 
disdain  an  old-wives'  recipe,  as,  for  instance,  when  speaking  of  *  the 
Lilly  Convally  '  (lily  of  the  valley). 

The  flowers  of  the  white  kinde  are  often  used  with  those  things  that  help  to 
strengthen  the  memory,  and  to  procure  ease  to  Apopleciick  persons.  Carnerariu* 
setteth  downe  the  manner  of  making  an  oyle  of  the  flowers  which  he  saith  is  very 
enectuall  to  ease  the  pains  of  the  Goute,  and  such  like  diseases,  to  be  used  out- 
wardly, which  is  thus :  Having  filled  a  glasse  with  the  flowers,  and  being  well 
stopped,  set  it  for  a  moneths  space  in  an  Antshill,  and  after  being  dreigned  clear,  set 
it  by  to  ua  \ 

K  2 


132  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY.  January 

He  distinctly  excludes  from  his  pharmacopoeia  some  drugs  which 
are  now  considered  of  great  value,  such  as  digitalis,  which  he  declares 
'  not  to  be  used  in  Physicke  by  any  judicious  man  that  I  know.'  Of 
aconite,  on  the  other  hand,  he  says,  that  '  although  it  be  very  poison- 
ful  and  deadly,  yet  there  may  be  very  good  use  of  it  for  sore  eyes 
(being  carefully  applyed,  yet  not  to  all  sorts  of  sore  eyes  neither)  if 
the  distilled  water  be  dropped  therein.'  Of  hellebore  also  he  says 
that  '  it  is  not  carelessly  to  be  used  without  extreeme  danger,  yet  in 
contumatious  and  stubborne  diseases  it  may  be  used  with  good  caution 
and  advice.  There  is  a  Syrupe  or  Oxymel  made  hereof  in  the  Apothe- 
caries shops,  which,  as  it  is  dangerous  for  gentle  and  tender  bodies, 
so  it  may  be  very  effectuall  in  stronger  constitutions.'  He  declares 
'all  the  sorts  of  Beareseares  (auricula)  to  be  Cephalicall,  that  is,  con- 
ducing help  for  the  paines  in  the  head,  and  for  the  giddinesse  thereof, 
which  may  happen,  eyther  by  the  sight  of  steepe  places,  subject  to 
danger,  or  otherwise.'  But  in  general,  he  mentions  such  peculiar 
properties  in  a  dispassionate  tone,  disclaiming  all  responsibility  for 
the  belief,  as  when  he  says  of  the  moonwort :  '  They  that  imposed 
the  name  of  Lunaria  on  this  plant,  seem  to  referre  it  to  the  wound 
or  consolidating  herbes,  but  because  I  have  no  further  relation  or 
experience,  I  can  say  no  more  untill  tryall  hath  taught  it.' 

Our  author  is  not,  however,  afraid  of  protesting  against  some 
popular  superstitions.     He  says  of  the  mandrake  : — 

The  roote  is  sometimes  divided  into  two  branches  a  little  below  the  head,  and 
sometimes  into  three  or  more,  as  nature  listeth  to  bestow  upon  it,  as  myselfe  have 
often  seene,  by  transplanting  of  many,  as  also  by  breaking  and  cutting  off  of  many 
parts  of  the  root,  but  never  found  harme  by  so  doing,  as  many  idle  tales  have  been 
sette  down  in  writing  and  delivered  also  by  report,  of  much  danger  to  happen  to 
such  as  shall  digge  them  up,  or  breake  them ;  neyther  have  I  ever  seen  any  forme 
of  man-like  or  woman-like  partes,  in  the  rootes  of  any ;  but,  as  I  said,  it  has  often- 
times two  maine  rootes  running  downe-right  into  the  ground,  and  sometimes  three 
and  sometimes  but  one,  as  it  likewise  often  happeneth  to  Parsneps,  Carrots,  and 
the  like.  But  many  cunning,  counterfeit  rootes  have  been  shaped  to  such  forms, 
and  publickly  exposed  to  the  view  of  all  that  would  see  them,  and  have  been 
tolerated  by  the  chiefe  Magistrates  of  the  Citie,  notwithstanding  that  they  have 
been  informed  that  such  practices  were  meere  deceit  and  unsufferable :  whether 
this  happened  through  their  own  credulity  of  the  thing,  or  of  the  persons,  or 
through  an  opinion  that  the  information  of  the  truth  rose  upon  envy,  I  know  not, 
I  leave  that  to  the  Searcher  of  all  hearts. 

There  are  some  Authors  (he  says  again)  that  have  held  Tarragon  not  to  be  an 
herbe  of  its  owne  kinde ;  but  that  it  was  first  produced  by  putting  the  seede  of  Lin 
or  Flaxe  into  the  roote  of  an  Onion,  being  opened  and  so  set  into  the  ground,  which 
when  it  hath  sprung  hath  brought  forth  this  herbe  Tarragon,  which  absurd  and  idle 
opinion  hath  been  found  false. 

This  mention  of  tarragon — 'to  give  the  better  relish  unto  the 
Sallet ;  but  many  do  not  like  the  taste  thereof,  and  so  refuse  it' — brings 
us  to  the  kitchen-garden.  It  has  been  often  asserted  that  vegetables 
formed  a  small  part  of  the  diet  of  Englishmen  in  preceding  centuries, 


1880.  OLD-FASHIONED   GARDENING.  133 

and  that  the  prevalence  of  scurvy  was  due  to  this  cause.  It  appears, 
on  the  contrary,  that  all  the  vegetables  now  in  ordinary  use  were 
freely  cultivated,  and  that  there  was  much  more  variety  in  salads 
than  we  generally  find  in  our  modern  English  households.  In  the 
midst  of  a  long  list  of  pot-herbs  we  find  '  Garden  Patience,  or  Monke's 
Ehubarbe ;  a  kind  of  Docke.'  The  root  was  used  medicinally,  and 
Parkinson  adds  that  i  the  leaves  have  a  fine  acid  taste,  and  a  syrup 
made  with  the  juice  and  sugar  cannot  but  be  very  effectuall  to 
dejected  appetites.'  In  our  experience,  the  appetites  of  most  children 
are  further  dejected  by  the  discovery  that  the  tart  is  made  of  rhubarb 
instead  of  gooseberries ;  but  a  rhubarb  tart  is  at  all  events  more 
palatable  than  one  made  of  spinach,  to  which  purpose  Parkinson 
declares  it  to  be  applied  '  by  Cooks  and  Gentlewomen.' 

Of  sorrel,  of  which  so  little  use  is  now  made  in  English  cookery, 
he  says : — 

Sorrell  is  much  used  in  sauces,  both  for  the  whole  and  the  sicke,  cooling  the 
hot  livers  and  stonmckes  of  the  sicke,  and  procuring  unto  them  an  appetite  unto 
meate,  when  their  spirits  are  almost  spent  with  their  furious  and  fierie  fits  ;  and  is 
also  of  a  pleasant  rellish  for  the  whole,  in  quickning  up  a  dull  stomacke  that  is 
over-loaden  with  every  daies  plenty  of  dishes.  It  is  divers  waies  dressed  by  Cooks, 
to  please  their  Masters'  stomackes. 

The  red  beet  was  eaten  as  it  is  now,  '  with  oyle  and  vinegar,  and 
is  accounted  a  delicate  Sallet  for  the  winter.'  Parsley  was  (  much 
used  in  all  sorts  of  meates,  both  boyled,  fryed,  roasted,  stewed,  &c. 
...  It  is  also  shred  and  stopped  into  powdered  beefe,  as  also  into 
legges  of  Mutton,  with  a  little  beef  suet.' 

From  pot-herbs,  which  Parkinson  justly  regards  as  important 
ingredients  of  good  cookery,  he  goes  on  to  speak  of  blanched  endive 
for  salad,  of  spinach  and  different  sorts  of  cabbage,  and  lettuce.  He 
pronounces  '  the  Eoman  red  Lettuce  to  be  the  best  and  greatest  of  all. 
For  John  Tradescante  that  first,  as  I  thinke,  brought  it  to  England, 
and  sowed  it,  did  write  unto  mee  that  after  one  of  them  was  bound 
and  whited,  when  the  refuse  was  cut  away,  the  rest  weighed  seventeen 
ounces.'  It  seems  that  sauerkraut  was  imported  into  Germany  from 
Russia.  '  In  the  cold  Countries  of  Russia  and  Muscovia,  they  powder 
up  a  number  of  Cabbages  which  serve  them,  especially  the  poorer  sort, 
for  their  most  ordinary  foode  in  winter :  and  although  they  stinke 
most  grievously,  yet  to  them  they  are  accounted  good  meate.' 

Then  there  is  a  list  of  divers  onions,  including  '  a  great  red  Onion, 
brought  me  from  beyond  the  Sea,  that  was  as  greate  almost  as  two 
men's  fistes,  flat  and  red  quite  throughout,  and  very  pleasant  both  to 
smell  unto,  and  to  eate.'  John  Tradescante  is  quoted  again,  as  a 
man  '  who  hath  been  in  Spaine,'  with  reference  to  the  Spanish  onion, 
which  '  is  very  sweete,  and  eaten  by  many  like  an  apple.'  But  his 
English  taste  was  intolerant  of  garlic,  which  he  says,  '  being  well 
boyled  in  salt  broth,  is  often  eaten  of  them  that  have  strong  stomackes, 


134  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  January 

but  will  not  brooke  in  a  weake  and  tender  stomacke.  It  is  never 
eaten  rawe  of  any  man  that  I  know.'  John  Tradescante's  Spanish 
travels  had  probably  taught  him  otherwise. 

Yams  and  Jerusalem  artichokes  are  both  included  under  the  head 
of  potatoes :  the  first  as  the  Spanish  potato,  and  the  second  as  the 
potato  of  Canada.  The  true  or  Virginia  potato  is  dismissed  in  a  few 
lines,  and  declared  to  be  nearly  of  the  same  taste  as  the  yam,  '  but 
not  altogether  so  pleasant.' 

The  true  artichoke  was,  as  it  appears,  in  much  greater  request, 
although  it  had  been  only  '  of  late  planted  in  Gardens,  Orchards,  and 
Fieldes,  of  purpose  to  be  meate  for  men.'  Parkinson  notes  the 
superiority  of  our  English  red  artichoke  to  the  foreign  kinds,  with 
'  a  white  head,  the  scales  whereof  stand  staring  far  asunder  from  one 
another  at  the  ends,  which  are  sharpe.'  This  superiority  still  exists, 
as  any  one  may  note  who  has  eaten  the  foreign  artichokes  which  come 
early  into  the  London  market.  He  mentions  beans  as  a  diet  for  the 
poor  rather  than  the  rich,  while  peas  are  '  a  dish  for  the  table  of  the 
rich  as  well  as  the  poore ;  the  fairest,  sweetest,  youngest  and  earliest 
for  the  better  sort,  the  later  and  meaner  kindes  for  the  meaner,  who 
doe  not  give  the  deerest  price.'  The  shoots  of  asparagus  were,  he 
writes,  '  a  sallet  of  as  much  esteem  with  all  sorts  of  persons,  as  any 
other  whatsoever,  being  boy  led  tender,  and  eaten  with  butter,  vinegar 
and  pepper,  or  oyle  and  vinegar.' 

We  must  not  linger  in  the  orchard,  to  which  Parkinson  devotes 
Ms  third  book,  and  which  includes  all  kinds  of  fruit ;  there  were 
probably  as  many  varieties  of  apples  and  plums  as  are  cultivated  now, 
and  medlars,  quinces,  and  mulberries  are  mentioned  with  honour. 
Small  fruit  was  evidently  less  highly  esteemed,  although  he  admits 
that  strawberries  are  '  a  good  cooling  and  pleasant  dish  in  the  hot 
Summer  season.'  Of  the  wild  strawberry  he  says  that  '  it  may  be 
eaten  and  chewed  in  the  mouth  without  any  manner  of  offence  :  it  is 
no  great  bearer,  but  those  it  doth  beare  are  set  at  the  toppes  of  the 
stalks,  close  together,  pleasant  to  behold,  and  fit  for  a  Gentlewoman 
to  weare  on  her  arme,  &c.,  as  a  raritie  instead  of  a  flower.'  The  same 
negative  praise  is  bestowed  on  black  currants,  of  which  he  says,  that 
'  both  branches,  leaves  and  fruit,  have  a  kind  of  stinking  sent  with 
them,  yet  they  are  not  unwholesome,  but  the  berries  are  eaten  of 
many,  without  offending  either  taste  or  smell.' 

Three  chapters  are  devoted  to  the  process  of  grafting,  and  the 
tools  to  be  used — an  art  in  which  we  have  probably  learned  little 
in  the  last  two  hundred  years.  He  gives  practical  directions  as  to 
the  best  aspect  for  an  orchard,  its  soil,  and  manures.  The  fruit 
appears  to  have  been  generally  grown  on  standard  trees,  although  he 
occasionally  advises  that  they  should  be  placed  against  a  north  wall. 
Many  kinds  of  grapes,  and  even  orange-trees,  were  grown  in  the 
open  air,  but  he  adds  that  the  latter  must  be  protected  in  the 


1880.  OLD-FASHIONED   GARDENING.  135 

winter,  and  '  for  that  purpose  some  keepe  them  in  great  square  boxes, 
and  cause  them  to  be  rowled  by  trundels  or  small  wheels  into  a  gal- 
lerie  :  but  no  tent  or  meane  provision  will  preserve  them.' 

We  have,  perhaps,  dwelt  too  long  on  a  book  curious  in  itself,  and 
calling  up  pleasant  and  refreshing  pictures  of  sunny  gardens  which 
once  covered  the  ever- widening  area  on  which  London  fastens  its 
tentacles  like  a  monstrous  polype.  We  end  where  we  began,  with 
the  suggestion  that  carpet-bedding  should  be  reckoned  among  the 
luxuries  of  the  rich  and  great,  who  keep  head-gardeners  at  a  salary 
which  would  support  two  curates,  and  who  have  to  find  employment 
for  the  army  of  assistants  who  work  under  these  exalted  chiefs,  and  to 
provide  plants  to  fill  acres  of  glass  houses.  The  brilliant  piece  of 
mosaic  work  called  a  flower-garden,  through  which  the  owner  walks 
once  or  twice  in  the  course  of  his  stay  at  his  country-house,  is  as 
much  an  appendage  of  state  as  powdered  footmen  or  stables  filled 
with  sleek  and  pampered  horses.  But  for  the  many,  for  those  who- 
love  flowers  for  their  own  sake,  and  take  pleasure  in  gardening  as 
an  occupation  which  involves  the  expenditure  of  time  and  loving  care, 
rather  than  of  money,  we  advocate  such  '  a  garden  of  delight '  as  old 
Parkinson  described  to  readers  who,  like  their  flowers,  have  long 
since  mouldered  into  dust — a  garden  in  which  we  seek  to  reproduce, 
and  by  skilful  culture  and  grouping  to  enhance,  the  luxuriance,  the 
beauty,  the  infinite  variety  of  form  and  colour  which  we  find  in 
nature. 

MARGARET  A.  PAUL. 


136  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  January 


THE  CRIMINAL  CODE  (1879). 


IN  the  late  session  the  Attorney-General  introduced  a  Bill  entitled 
the  Criminal  Code  (Indictable  Offences)  1879,  which  was  prepared 
by  a  Commission,  consisting  of  Lord  Blackburn,  Mr.  Justice  Barry, 
Mr.  Justice  Lush,  and  myself.  After  the  introduction  of  the  Bill, 
but  before  the  publication  of  the  Eeport  of  the  Commission,  the 
Lord  Chief  Justice  of  England  wrote  a  letter  to  the  Attorney-General 
on  the  subject,  which  was  published  as  a  Parliamentary  Paper  on 
the  16th  of  June.  The  publication  of  this  letter  makes  me  desirous 
of  offering  to  public  consideration  some  remarks  on  the  general 
scope  of  the  Code,  and  on  the  principles  on  which  it  was  framed. 

I  do  not  propose  to  notice  the  detailed  criticisms  on  the  Code  put 
forward  in  the  letter  in  question.  Many  of  them  relate  to  matters 
of  technical  detail  of  greater  or  less  importance,  which  ought  to  be 
carefully  considered  by  those  who  have  charge  of  the  measure  before 
it  is  reintroduced  into  Parliament,  but  which  can  hardly  be  dis- 
cussed to  advantage  by  any  numerous  body  of  persons  or  be  made 
intelligible  to  unprofessional  readers.  Others  relate  to  questions  of 
a  more  general  kind,  on  which  there  will  always  be  two  opinions,  and 
which  must,  no  doubt,  be  made  the  subject  of  Parliamentary  dis- 
cussion. By  way  of  illustration  I  may  observe  that  the  question 
whether  the  section  of  the  Code  which  defines  the  extent  of  its  appli- 
cation to  foreigners  is  properly  worded  or  not  is  a  question  for  experts. 
The  question  whether  the  prisoner  should  be  a  competent  witness  is 
a  question  to  be  decided  by  Parliament. 

I  may  perhaps,  in  a  separate  article,  be  able  to  offer  a  few  remarks 
on  some  of  these  more  general  points,  with  the  view  of  contributing 
something  to  the  Parliamentary  discussion  of  the  measure.  The 
sole  object  of  the  present  article  is  to  give  explanations  as  to  the 
general  scope  of  the  measure.  I  may  observe  that  the  greater 
part  of  what  I  have  to  say  is  either  stated  expressly  or  assumed  in 
the  Eeport  of  the  Commissioners,  but  it  is  practically  impossible  to 
get  people  to  read  blue  books,  and  many  things  are  of  necessity 
omitted  from  the  report  of  a  Commission  which  an  individual  member, 
writing  in  his  own  name,  may  naturally  wish  to  say.  The  Lord 


1880.  THE  CRIMINAL   CODE  (1879).  137 

Chief  Justice's  letter  was  written,  and  I  think  published,  before  the 
publication  of  the  Keport,  which,  for  some  reason  unknown  to  me,  was 
delayed  till  long  after  it  had  been  signed.  It  is,  I  think,  to  be  re- 
gretted that  when  the  letter  was  written,  the  author  had  not  the 
Eeport  before  him,  as  it  would  no  doubt  have  led  him  either  to 
modify  or  to  develope  at  greater  length  the  criticisms  to  which  I 
propose  to  address  myself.  This,  however,  is  a  misfortune  for  which 
neither  the  Commission  nor  the  Lord  Chief  Justice  is  responsible. 

The  observations  made  by  the  Lord  Chief  Justice  upon  the  Code 
regarded  as  a  whole  are  as  follows. 

After  saying  that  he  is  a  *  firm  believer  in  not  only  the  expedi- 
ency and  possibility,  but  also  in  the  coming  necessity  of  codification,' 
he  proceeds  to  say  that  he  sees  '  in  the  present  Bill  every  encourage- 
ment to  persevere  in  the  attempt  to  codify  the  criminal  law,'  and  he 
adds  the  following  observations : — 

It  is  impossible  not  to  appreciate  the  vast  amount  of  labour  which  has  been 
bestowed  on  the  work  by  the  Commissioners,  or  the  great  learning  and  research 
displayed  in  it.  I  am  indeed  astonished  that  they  should  have  done  so  much  in  so 
short  a  time.  It  was  impossible  they  should  do  more.  And  a  serious  mistake 
was,  I  cannot  but  think,  made  in  supposing  that  so  great  and  difficult  a  work  as 
that  of  stating  the  criminal  law  in  all  its  voluminous  details,  with  a  due  regard  to 
arrangement  and  classification,  in  language  carefully  selected — avoiding  on  the  one 
hand  the  cumbrous,  prolix,  inartificial,  and  bewildering  phraseology  of  our  statutes, 
and  on  the  other  hand  taking  care  that  the  terms  used  shall  be  sufficiently  com- 
prehensive to  embrace  every  case  which  is  intended  to  come  within  it — could 
possibly  be  effected  in  the  comparatively  short  time  for  which,  consistently  with  a 
due  regard  to  their  judicial  duties,1  two  members  at  least  of  the  Commission  could 
devote  themselves  to  the  work.  I  am  not,  therefore,  surprised  at  the  signs  of  haste 
which  are  apparent  in  many  parts  of  the  Bill,  and  more  particularly  the  latter  part 
of  it,  relating  to  procedure.  We  have  to  thank  the  Commissioners  for  having 
collected  abundant  materials  for  a  complete  and  perfect  Code.  But  I  cannot  concur 
in  thinking  that  they  have  as  yet  presented  us  with  such  a  Code ;  and  I  am  bound  to 
say  that  in  my  opinion  a  great  deal  remains  to  be  done  to  make  the  present  Code  a 
complete  and  perfect  exposition,  or  a  definitive  settlement,  of  the  criminal  law. 

Whatever  may  be  the  value  of  the  Bill  of  1879,  I  do  not  think 
that  the  mistake  referred  to  by  the  Lord  Chief  Justice  was  in  fact 
made.  The  Commissioners  were  not  required  to  codify  the  criminal 
law.  They  were  required  to  inquire  into,  consider,  and  report  upon 
the  draft  Code  of  1878,  upon  which,  in  the  language  of  the  Keport, 
the  Bill  of  1879  'was  founded  throughout.'  The  history  of  the 
Bill  of  1878  was  related  with  characteristic  generosity  by  the 
Attorney-General  in  the  speech  in  which  he  introduced  it  into  Par- 
liament. The  materials  for  that  Bill  were  collected  by  me,  and  were 

1  There  were  three  judicial  members  of  that  Commission,  Lord  Blackburn,  Mr. 
Justice  Barry,  and  Mr.  Justice  Lush.  They  were  relieved  from  all  judicial  duty, 
with  small  exceptions,  whilst  the  Commission  sat.  Almost  the  whole  of  my  time 
and  of  the  time  of  Mr.  Cowie,  the  secretary,  was  devoted  to  the  work  of  the  Commis- 
sion, which  sat  for  five  months  and  more  from  day  to  day. 


138  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY.          January 

contained  in  my  Digest  of  the  Criminal  Law,  published  in  1877. 
The  Bill  of  1879  thus  represents  not  the  labours  of  a  Commission 
of  four  members  which  sat  for  five  months,  but  the  judgment  formed 
by  such  a  Commission  on  a  work  adopted  by  the  Attorney-General  after 
most  careful  study,  and  on  which  I  had  expended  a  considerable  part 
of  the  work  of  twenty-five  years.  I  do  not  think  any  Commission, 
however  able,  could  collect  all  the  materials  for  a  Criminal  Code  and 
draw  the  Code  in  five  months,  but  I  do  not  see  why  such  a  body 
should  not  be  able  in  that  time  to  criticise  a  Code  already  prepared 
for  them.  As  to  the  criticism  which  the  Code  actually  did  receive, 
I  will  say  only  that  I  doubt  whether  any  draft  was  ever  subjected  to 
such  a  test.  Every  section,  every  sentence,  every  word  was  weighed 
again  and  again.  Every  authority  for  each  proposition  was  carefully 
examined.  Though  the  real  difference  between  the  Bill  of  1878  and 
the  Bill  of  1879  is  not  great,  and  though  they  coincide  almost  exactly 
in  extent  and,  with  only  two  exceptions  of  any  importance,  in  arrange- 
ment, the  form  of  expression  is  modified  more  or  less  in  almost  every 
section.  This  is  of  importance  only  because  it  shows  that  more  time 
and  pains  were  expended  on  the  work  than  the  Lord  Chief  Justice's 
language  would  imply,  and  I  need  insist  on  the  matter  no  further. 
The  criticisms  which  I  wish  to  examine  at  length  are  those  which 
affect  the  principles  on  which  the  Bill  was  framed.  They  occur  in  the 
following  passages. 

We  have  next  a  section  (s.  5)  which  I  cannot  contemplate  without  much 
regret,  as  it  proceeds  upon  a  principle  which  I  cannot  help  thinking  fatal  to  the 
completeness  of  the  Code,  and  seriously  detrimental  to  its  utility.  While  the  Act 
abrogates  the  whole  of  the  common  law  with  reference  to  offences  being  proceeded 
against  under  it,  which  was  of  course  necessary,  it  keeps  alive  statutes,  or  parts  of 
statutes,  relating  to  the  criminal  law ;  the  whole  of  which  in  the  present  Code 
should  cease  to  have  a  separate  existence,  and,  so  far  as  it  is  desirable  to  keep  these 
enactments  alive,  should  be  embodied  in  it.  It  is  of  the  very  essence  of  a  perfect  Code 
that  it  shall  contain  and  provide  for  whatever  it  is  intended  shall  be  the  law  at  the 
date  of  its  formation ;  so  that  both  those  who  have  to  administer  the  law,  whether 
in  its  preliminary  or  after  stages,  and  those  who  have  to  obey  it,  should  have  it 
before  them  as  a  whole,  without  having  to  search  for  it  in  Acts  of  Parliament 
scattered  over  the  Statute  Book,  and  which  most  persons,  at  least  so  far  as  the  laity 
are  concerned,  are  ignorant  of,  and  know  not  where  to  find.  The  main  purpose  of 
a  codification  of  the  law  is  utterly  defeated  by  leaving  the  Code  to  be  supplemented 
by  reference  to  statutes,  and,  what  is  still  worse,  to  parts  of  statutes,  which  are  still 
to  remain  in  force,  but  are  not  embodied  in  it.  On  turning  to  the  second  Schedule 
of  the  Bill,  which  deals  with  the  repeal  of  existing  statutes,  I  find  that,  out  of  83 
Acts  of  Parliament  therein  dealt  with,  no  less  than  39,  some  of  them  very  import- 
ant ones,  are  thus  partially  repealed  and  partially  left  standing.  Nor,  in  dealing 
with  the  latter  class,  is  any  system  adopted.  Sometimes  a  whole  Act  is  repealed 
with  the  exception  of  a  section ;  sometimes  a  single  section,  or  one  or  two  sections, 
of  a  voluminous  Act  are  abolished.  I  have  no  hesitation  in  saying  that  the  course 
thus  pursued  is  radically  wrong,  and  can  only  lead  to  embarrassment  and  confusion. 
Whatever  is  intended  to  form  part  of  our  penal  law,  whether  derived  from  the 
common  law  or  statute  law,  should  be  embodied  in,  and  form  part  of,  the  intended 
Code,  not  by  reference  to  Acts  of  Parliament  to  be  found  in  the  statutes  at  large, 


1880.  THE  CRIMINAL   CODE  (1879).  139 

but  by  its  actual  presence  in  the  Code.  After  a  careful  study  of  the  law,  as 
exhibited  in  the  proposed  Code,  a  person  would  still  remain  ignorant  of  many 
important  parts  of  it  contained  in  the  portions  of  the  statute  law  thus 
remaining  unrepealed  and  omitted  from  the  Code.  Is  this  the  fitting  result 
of  codification  ?  I  cannot  think  so ;  and  would  earnestly  recommend  that 
the  statutes  thus  partially  repealed  should,  be  entirely  got  rid  of,  and  that  the 
parts  retained,  so  far  as  they  relate  to  the  offences  dealt  with  by  the  Code,  should  be 
introduced  into  the  present  statute,  and  form  part  of  the  Code,  a  matter  easy  of  ac- 
complishment at  the  expense  of  a  very  little  time  and  trouble. 

Further  on,  in  some  remarks  on  the  repealing  schedule,  the 
Lord  Chief  Justice  observes  with  reference  to  certain  sections  of  the 
Larceny  Act  which  are  left  unrepealed  : — 

It  is  obvious  that  the  reason  for  the  retention  of  these  sections  is  the  intended 
omission  from  the  Code  of  all  offences  punishable  on  summary  conviction ;  and 
herein,  as  it  seems  to  me,  is  to  be  found  a  radical  defect,  which  must  necessarily 
mar  the  completeness  of  the  work,  namely,  that  when  dealing  with  offences,  its 
operation  is  limited  to  such  offences  when  the  subject  of  indictment ;  but  surely, 
whatever  constitutes  an  offence  against  the  penal  law  should  properly  find  its 
place  in  a  code  which  can  only  be  complete  if  it  sets  forth  that  law  in  its  entirety. 
The  offence  being  established,  the  mode  in  which,  under  different  circumstances, 
the  offender  may  be  proceeded  against,  and  the  punishment  which,  according  to 
the  degree  of  guilt,  may  be  awarded,  should  be  set  forth.  It  is  all-important  to 
those  who  have  to  administer  the  penal  law  in  its  subordinate  departments,  to 
have  the  law  before  them  as  an  entire  and  unbroken  whole.  The  present  Code 
does  that  for  them  when,  as  magistrates,  they  are  called  upon  to  take  the  infor- 
mation against  a  party  accused  ;  why  should  it  not  do  so  when  they  are  called  upon 
to  deal  with  offences  summarily  as  judges  in  a  judicial  capacity  ?  It  would  no 
doubt  be  impracticable  to  enumerate  all  the  instances  in  which  penalties  are 
resorted  to  for  the  purpose  of  enforcing  the  perforinance_of  duties,  or  the  observance 
of  police  or  sanitary  regulations,  or  the  like ;  but  we  are  here  dealing  with  acts 
which  the  proposed  law  constitutes  crimes,  and  which  are  so  dealt  with  in  the  Code. 
It  is  exclusively  to  these  that  my  observations  apply ;  it  seems  in  the  highest 
degree  illogical  to  omit  all  mention  of  them,  and  all  reference  to  the  procedure 
applicable  to  them,  when  dealt  with  "otherwise  than  by  indictment,  simply  because 
the  degree  of  guilt  is  less,  or  the  circumstances  are  such  that  the  fuller  and  more 
formal  methods  of  proceeding  may  be  dispensed  with.  The  offences  being,  as  they 
necessarily  must  be,  specified,  it  would  occupy  but  comparatively  little  space,  and 
cause  little  additional  trouble,  to  say  under  what  circumstances  such  of  them  as  it  is 
intended  to  .make  the  subject  of  summary  proceeding  shall  be  so  subject,  and  what 
in  such  case  shall  be  the  method  of  proceeding  and  the  measure  of  punishment. 

Elsewhere  he  says  : — 

I  pass  on  to  Part  III.,  which  deals  with  the  matter  of  'justification  and  excuse 
for  acts  which  would  be  otherwise  offences,'  a  most  important  part  of  the  law. 
Great  indeed  was  my  astonishment  on  reading  the  first  clause  (Section  19),  which 
is  in  these  terms :  '  All  rules  and  principles  of  the  common  law  which  render  any 
circumstances  a  justification  or  excuse  for  any  act  or  a  defence  to  any  charge,  shall 
remain  in  force,  and  be  applicable  to  any  defence  to  a  charge  under  this  Act,  except 
in  so  far  as  they  are  thereby  altered,  or  are  inconsistent  therewith.'  Such  a  pro- 
vision appears  to  me  altogether  inconsistent  with  every  idea  of  codification  of  the 
law.  If  it  is  worth  while  to  codify  at  all,  whatever  forms  a  material  part  of  the 
law  should  find  its  place  in  the  Code.  The  circumstances  under  which  acts,  which 
would  otherwise  be  criminal,  will  be  excused  or  justified,  form  an  essential  part  of 


140  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  January 

the  law,  whether  unwritten  or  written.  If  the  unwritten  law  is,  as  part  of  the  law 
to  be  embodied  in  a  Code,  so  material  a  part  of  it  as  that  with  which  we  are  dealing 
ought  certainly  to  be  carried  into  the  Code,  and  should  not  be  left  at  large,  to  be 
sought  for  in  the  unwritten  and  traditional  law,  which,  the  Code  once  established, 
it  will  be  worth  no  one's  while  to  study,  and  which  will  speedily  become  obsolete. 
We  have  done  with  the  common  law  so  far  as  relates  to  criminal  matters.  No 
one  is  henceforth  to  be  indicted  under  it.  Why  then  is  this  particular  part  of  it  to 
be  kept  alive  ?  Why  should  not  its  rules,  which  it  is  thus  proposed  to  make  appli- 
cable to  offences  under  the  Code,  be  ascertained,  as  the  enactment  in  question  as- 
sumes them  to  be  capable  of  being,  and  carried  into  the  code,  and  thereby  this  part 
of  it  rendered  complete  ? 

I  have  given  these  extracts  at  length  in  order  that  the  reader 
may  have  before  him  all  that  their  distinguished  author  has  to  say  on 
the  subjects  to  which  they  relate.  In  a  summary  form  they  may  be 
stated  thus. 

The  Bill  laid  before  Parliament  is  neither  complete  nor  perfect. 
It  is  not  perfect  because  it  is  open  to  many  objections  in  detail.  It 
is  not  complete  because  it  does  not  express  the  whole  of  the  criminal 
law,  but  leaves  still  existing  many  statutes  which  create  offences,  and 
some  parts  of  the  common  law  relating  to  matters  of  excuse  and 
justification.  If,  therefore,  the  Code  should  become  law,  it  would  not 
contain  the  whole  of  the  criminal  law.  There  would  still  be  statutory 
offences  in  other  Acts  of  Parliament  unrepealed  by  it,  and  there 
would  still  be  a  certain  quantity  of  common  law  which  would  be 
contained  in  no  authoritative  written  document.  The  result  is  that 
the  so-called  Code  is  not  properly  entitled  to  that  designation,  which 
ought  to  be  reserved  for  Acts  reducing  to  writing  the  whole  of  the 
body  of  law  to  which  they  apply. 

Taking  so  very  deep  an  interest  in  the  success  of  the  measure  as 
I  do,  I  think  I  ought  to  give  such  explanations  on  the  subject  of 
these  remarks  as  I  am  able  to  afford.  I  will  deal  with  them  in  the 
order  in  which  I  have  quoted  them,  which  is  also  the  order  in  which 
they  occur  in  the  Lord  Chief  Justice's  letter. 

The  Code,  it  is  said,  is  neither  perfect  nor  complete.  First  as  to 
perfection.  Absolute  perfection  cannot,  of  course,  be  required  of  any 
human  undertaking.  If  Parliament,  before  accepting  a  Criminal 
Code,  waits  till  one  is  laid  before  it  to  which  no  objection  at  all  can 
be  taken,  and  which  is  open  to  no  criticism  in  any  of  its  details,  it 
may  wait  for  ever.  The  absence  of  such  perfection,  therefore,  cannot 
be  the  fault  with  which  the  Lord  Chief  Justice  charges  the  Code. 
I  suppose,  therefore,  that  he  refers  to  those  detailed  objections  which, 
for  the  reasons  already  given,  I  do  not  propose  to  deal  with  on  the 
present  occasion.  I  will,  however,  make  one  general  observation 
upon  them.  I  think  Parliament  would  make  a  serious  mistake  if  it 
were  to  delay  the  enactment  of  a  Code  otherwise  satisfactory,  be- 
cause it  was  alleged,  even  on  high  authority,  to  contain  mistakes  in 
detail.  In  the  first  place  the  existence  of  such  mistakes  is  almost 


1880.  THE  CRIMINAL   CODE  (1879).  141 

always  a  matter  of  uncertainty.  Expressions  which  to  one  person 
appear  ambiguous,  are  to  another  clear.  Difficulties  of  inter- 
pretation which,  before  an  Act  passes,  are  pronounced  to  be  in- 
superable, are  overcome  when  they  arise  in  actual  practice. 
The  reason  is  that  the  minds  of  the  critic  and  the  judge  are,  and 
indeed  ought  to  be,  in  attitudes  essentially  different.  The  critic  is 
trying  to  detect  faults.  The  judge  is  trying  to  do  justice.  The 
one,  in  other  words,  is  intent  on  showing  that  this  or  that  expression  is 
incomplete,  or  capable  of  being  misunderstood.  The  other  is  trying 
in  good  faith  to  ascertain  the  real  meaning  of  the  words  before  him. 

In  the  second  place  the  existence  of  a  great  number  of  unques- 
tionable defects  of  detail  is  a  matter  of  practically  little  importance  in 
comparison  with  the  advantages  of  comprehensive  legislation.  Endless 
instances  of  this  might  be  given,  but  I  will  content  myself  with  one 
or  two.  The  nearest  approach  which  we  now  possess  to  a  Criminal 
Code  is  to  be  found  in  the  Consolidation  Acts  of  1861.  I  suppose  no 
one  will  deny  either  their  want  of  any  approach  to  completeness,  or 
that  they  are  full  of  faults  of  detail.  They  contain  little  more  than 
half  the  whole  mass  of  the  criminal  law.  They  assume  the  existence 
of  all  the  common  law  definitions  of  crime,  and  of  the  other  common 
law  doctrines  relating  to  it.  Some  parts  of  them  are  so  drawn  as  to 
be  scarcely  intelligible,2  and  the  critical  examination  of  them  which 
formed  part  of  the  labours  of  the  Criminal  Code  Commission,  brought 
to  light,  I  think  in  every  one  of  them,  errors  in  drafting  about  the 
existence  of  which  there  could  hardly  be  two  opinions. 

True,  however,  as  all  this  is,  there  can,  I  think,  be  equally  little 
doubt  of  the  extreme  practical  utility  of  these  acts.  They  cleared  the 
Statute  Book  of  the  whole  or  part  of  107  statutes,  and  brought  the 
most  important  and  most  commonly  used  part  of  the  criminal  law 
into  a  moderate  compass.  The  great  bulk  of  the  offences  committed 
during  the  last  eighteen  years  have  been  dealt  with  under  their 
provisions,  and  I  calculated  two  years  ago  that  in  the  course  of  six- 
teen years  less  than  thirty  decisions  had  been  given  by  the  Court  for 
Crown  Cases  Reserved  on  the  meaning  of  any  part  of  them.3 

I  might  illustrate  the  same  point  from  the  history  of  the  Indian 
Penal  Code.  I  do  not  believe  that  any  measure  could  have  met  with 
more  complete  practical  success,  but  I  could,  if  it  were  necessary 
to  do  so,  point  out  all  sorts  of  imperfections  in  it.  A  Penal  Code 
was  in  force  in  the  Bombay  Presidency  from  1828  down  to  1861, 
which,  though  assuredly  very  imperfect,  answered  all  practical  pur- 
poses exceedingly  well.  The  same  might  be  said  of  a  similar  law 
enacted  by  Lord  Lawrence  and  his  colleagues  for  the  Punjab. 

The  French  Code  Penal  has  been  in  force  for  just  seventy  years, 

2  See  particularly  the  Forgery  Act,  24  and  25  Vic.  c.  98. 

1  See  the  Introduction  to  my  Digest  of  the  Criminal  Lam,  p.  xvi. 


142  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  January 

and  regulates  all  the  most  important  French  criminal  trials.  Yet  it 
is-drawn  in  many  places  with  what  an  English  lawyer  would  regard  as 
most  dangerous" latitude.  Take,  for  instance,  the  following  provision. 
<*I1  n'y  a  ni  crime  ni  delit  lorsque  le  prevenu  etait  en  etat  de  demence 
au  temps  de  1'action,  ou  lorsqu'il  aura  ete  contraint  par  une  force  a 
laquelle  il  n'a  pu  resister  '  (art.  64).4  The  first  part  of  the  article  seems 
to  imply  that  a  man  who  is  under  a  delusion  that  A  has  injured  him, 
may  with  impunity  forge  B's  acceptance  to  a  bill  of  exchange,  though 
there,  is  no  connection  between  the  delusion  and  the  forgery.  The 
latter  part  of  the  article  may  either  mean  that  no  compulsion  which 
leaves,  a  physical  possibility  of  resistance  excuses  what  would  other- 
wise be  a  crime,  or  that  any  compulsion  which  from  weakness  of 
character  or  otherwise  the  person  over  whom  it  is  exercised  is  in 
fact  unable  to  resist,  will  excuse  any  offence.  The  importance  of 
this  latitude  of  expression  is  increased  by  the  fact  that  the  decisions 
of  the  highest  French  courts  have  no  binding  authority,  so  that  the 
Cour  de  Cassation  of  to-day  may  interpret  an  article  differently  from 
the  Cour  de  Cassation  of  ten  years  ago. 

In  general  my  observation  upon  the  charge  that  the  Criminal 
Code  is  imperfect  would  be  that  that  is  a  reason  not  for  rejecting  but 
for  amending  it,  either  during  its  passage  through  Parliament,  or  after 
its  imperfections  have  been  brought  to  light  by  the  only  conclusive 
test,  namely,  judicial  decisions. 

The  Lord  Chief  Justice  seems  to  take  a  different  view.  He  says 
that  the  Commissioners  have  '  collected  abundant  materials  for  a 
complete  and  perfect  Code,'  an  expression  which  seems  to  imply  that 
the  Code  should  be  redrawn.  I  cannot  agree  with  this  view,  if  indeed 
it  is  suggested.  No  one  of  course  would  claim  finality  for  any  Act 
of  Parliament,  whether  it  is  called  a  Code  or  not ;  but  if  a  Code  can 
be  enacted  satisfactory  in  its  general  scheme  and  in  the  most  im- . 
portant  part  of  its  provisions,  it  would  be  better  to  pass  it,  and  to 
amend  it  afterwards  if  necessary,  than  to  throw  it  aside  that  some 
persons  other  than  its  original  authors  may  use  it  as  4  materials  ' 
for  something  which  they  consider  more  perfect.  A  finished  work 
which  is  a -whole  in  itself  may  of  course  be  amended  in  detail  to  any 
extent,  but  if  it  is  treated  merely  as  '  materials  '  for  something  else,  the 
result  will  never  be  satisfactory.  It  will  be  a  hybrid  for  which  neither 
the  original  authors  nor  the  persons  who  recast  their  work  will  be  really 
responsible,  and  the  confusion  engendered  by  the  employment  of  dif- 
ferent styles  and  the  mixture  of  different  principles  of  arrangement  is 
likely  to  produce  greater  defects  than  the  introduction  of  additional 
matter  can  remedy.  If  the  Commissioners  have  only  '  collected 
abundant  materials  for  a  complete  and  perfect  Code,'  it  would  be 

4  This  article  seems  never  to  have  been  altered  or  modified.     (See  '  Codes  et 
Lois  usuftlles.'    Roger  et  Sorel,  1879.) 


1880.  THE  CRIMINAL  CODE   (1879).  143 

important  to  know  how,  and  by  whom,  that  complete  and  perfect 
Code  is  to  be  framed.  Parliament  in  enacting  a  Code  must,  from  the 
nature  of  the  case,  place  much  confidence  in  some  one.  They  were 
asked  in  this  instance  to  place  that  confidence  in  a  bill  introduced  by 
an  Attorney-General  who  had  had  exceptionally  wide  experience  in 
criminal  cases,  and  approved  by  the  Lord  Chancellor  ;  a  bill  repre- 
senting the  labour  of  many  of  the  best  years  of  my  life  ;  a  bill  which 
had  been  revised  and  settled  by  three  eminent  judges.  I  think  that 
something  more  than  imperfection  ought  to  be  proved  against  such 
a  work  before  it  is  rejected  on  that  ground.  It  ought  to  be  shown 
to  be  a  failure,  to  be  so  faulty  that  no  confidence  can  be  placed  in  it, 
or  so  incomplete  as  not  to  deserve  the  title  which  it  claims. 

The  phrase  may,  however,  be  employed  in  a  different  sense  from 
that  which  I  have  ascribed  to  it.  If  the  expression  means  only  that 
the  draft  of  the  Commissioners  may,  without  being  redrawn,  be  made 
both  '  complete  and  perfect '  by  amendments  in  substance  and  ar- 
rangement which  the  Lord  Chief  Justice  is  prepared  to  suggest,  I  ac- 
cept his  statement  as  embodying  high  praise  proceeding  from  one  of 
the  greatest  of  living  authorities.  It  has  always  been  a  subject  of 
regret  to  me  that  the  Lord  Chief  Justice  was  not  himself  a  member 
of  the  Commission.  If  he  is  willing  to  undertake  the  labour  of 
minute  criticism,  nothing  but  good  can  result  from  his  exertions,  and 
both  the  public  and  the  Commissioners  will,  in  my  opinion,  be  greatly 
indebted  to  him. 

I  now  proceed  to  examine  the  statement  that  the  Code  is  incom- 
plete. Upon  Section  5  of  the  Code,5  the  Lord  Chief  Justice  makes 
the  observations  already  quoted  in  full.  The  gist  of  them  lies  in 
the  following  words  : — 

The  Act  .  .  .  keeps  alive  statutes,  or  parts  of  statutes,  relating  to  the 
criminal  law ;  the  whole  of  which,  in  the  present  Code,  should  cease  to  have  a 
separate  existence,  and,  so  far  as  it  is  desirable  to  keep  those  enactments  alive, 
should  be  embodied  in  it.  It  is  of  the  very  essence  of  a  perfect  Code  that  it  shall 
contain  and  provide  for  whatever  it  is  intended  shall  be  the  law  at  the  date  of  its 
formation.  .  .  .  The  main  purpose  of  a  codification  of  the  law  is  utterly  defeated 
by  leaving  the  Code  to  be  supplemented  by  reference  to  statutes,  and,  what  is  still 
worse,  to  parts  of  statutes,  .which  are  still  to  remain  in  force,  but  are  not  embodied 
in  it. 

5  Every  one  who,  after  this  Act  comes  into  force,  is  a  party  to  any  indictable 
offence  shall  be  proceeded  against  under  some  provision  of  this  Act,  or  under  some 
provision  of  some  statute  not  inconsistent  therewith  and  not  repealed,  and  shall  not 
be  proceeded  against  in  England  or  Ireland  at  common  law.  Provided  that  when 
any  offender  is  punishable,  both  under  this  Act  and  under  any  other  statute,  every 
such  offender  maybe  tried  and  punished  either  under  this  Act  or  such  other  statute  ; 
and  when  any  offender  is  punishable  under  two  or  more  sections  of  this  Act,  he  may 
be  tried  and  punished  under  any  of  such  sections ;  provided  also  that  nothing  in  this 
Act  shall  extend  to  any  proceeding  by  way  of  parliamentary  impeachment,  or  to 
affecf  the  Court  of  the  Queen  in  Parliament,  or  the  Court  of  the  Lord  High 
Steward,  or  the  right  of  any  person  entitled  by  privilege  of  peerage  to  be  tried 
therein,  or  to  affect  the  privilege  of  peerage  in  any  way  whatever.' 


144  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY.  January 

In  a  word,  the  Code  does  not  include  all  statutory  offences,  and 
is  therefore  incomplete.  I  admit  the  fact,  but  I  deny  the  conclusion. 
If  the  Lord  Chief  Justice  had  had  the  Report  of  the  Commissioners 
before  him  when  he  made  this  observation,  he  would  no  doubt  have 
thought  it  right  to  notice  the  matters  stated  at  pp.  12,  13,  under  the 
heading,  *  What  a  Criminal  Code  should  contain.'  The  matter  con- 
tained in  the  passage  referred  to  is  quoted  below,  but  some  further 
explanations  may  be  necessary  to  enable  unprofessional  readers  to 
appreciate  its  importance. 

The  enterprise  of  codification  is  hampered  by  two  opposite  sets  of 
objections.  On  the  one  hand,  the  process  is  declared  to  be  impossible, 
and  objectionable  if  possible.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  not  at  all  un- 
common to  speak  highly  of  the  importance  of  codification,  but  at  the 
same  time  to  prescribe  to  the  codifier  an  unattainable  standard  of 
perfection.  The  result  of  the  two  ways  of  treating  the  subject  is 
identical.  Codification  upon  either  view  is  impossible.  One  objector 
proves  this  a  priori.  The  other  admits  its  theoretical  possibility,  but 
is  prepared  to  prove  that  any  given  Code  is  not  worth  having.  The 
objections  urged  against  all  codification,  and  the  criticisms  made  on 
particular  Codes,  thus  throw  light  on  each  other. 

The  objections  against  codification  commonly  relied  upon  are 
these.  The  laws  of  all  countries,  and  above  most  others  the  laws 
of  England,  have  a  history.  They  have  been  enacted  by  degrees, 
as  circumstances  rendered  them  necessary,  and  unless  you  are  pre- 
pared to  revolutionise  them  altogether,  you  will  never  be  able  to 
reduce  them  to  an  exact  symmetrical  system.  You  can  no  more 
give  to  an  ancient  body  of  law  the  symmetrical  completeness  which 
might  perhaps  be  attained  in  legislating  for  a  new  country,  than  you 
can  give  to  an  ancient  house,  built  at  various  periods,  in  different 
styles,  and  with  a  view  to  different  habits  of  life,  the  simplicity  and 
unity  of  plan  which  you  expect  in  an  entirely  new  house. 

It  is  commonly  added  that  to  reduce  the  whole  of  the  law  to  a 
definite  written  form  would,  if  possible,  be  undesirable.  Such  a 
process,  it  is  said,  would  *  deprive  the  common  law  of  its  elasticity.' 
An  unwritten  law  can,  it  is  said,  be  moulded  by  the  courts  so  as  to 
suit  the  wants  of  different  generations,  and  to  meet  social  changes. 
A  written  law  can  be  altered  only  by  the  Legislature.  The  best  and 
most  useful  part  of  the  law  of  England  is  unwritten,  and  the  pro- 
cess by  which  this  unwritten  law  was  produced  must  necessarily  be 
brought  to  an  end  if  the  law  is,  once  for  all,  reduced  to  writing. 

These  are  the  standing  objections  to  codification.  The  true 
answer  to  them  appears  to  me  to  supply  an  answer  at  the  same  time 
to  the  criticisms  made  by  the  Lord  Chief  Justice  on  this  particular 
proposed  Code.  The  answer  is  that  each  of  them  ascribes  to  the 
advocates  of  codification  pretensions  which  ought  not  to  be,  and 
which,  if  they  understand  the  subject,  are  not,  advanced  by  them.  It 


1880.  THE  CRIMINAL   CODE  (1879).  145 

is  perfectly  true  that  the  legislation  of  a  nation  so  ancient,  and 
composed  of  such  varied  classes  and  interests  as  our  own,  can  never 
be  deprived  of  its  historical  character  and  reduced  to  mathematical 
regularity ;  but  it  is  no  less  true  that  large  departments  of  it,  perhaps 
in  time  the  whole  of  it,  may  be  far  more  distinctly,  conveniently,  and 
systematically  arranged  than  they  are  at  present,  though  that  arrange- 
ment ought  always  to  have  reference  as  well  to  past  history,  and  to 
proved  convenience,  as  to  theoretical  symmetry. 

It  is  also  perfectly  true  that  no  part  of  the  law  is  better  entitled 
to  respect,  or  more  carefully  and  skilfully  adapted  to  public  con- 
venience, than  that  part  of  it  which  is  contained  in  decided  cases,  or 
(to  use  an  expression  which  I  think  incorrect,  though  it  is  very 
common)  which  is  due  to  the  elasticity  of  the  common  law.  But  it 
is  not  inconsistent  with  this  to  be  of  opinion,  that,  when  a  sufficient 
number  of  judicial  decisions  have  clearly  defined  a  principle  or  laid 
down  a  rule,  an  authoritative  statutory  statement  of  that  principle 
or  rule  superseding  the  cases  on  which  it  depends,  is  a  great  con- 
venience on  many  well-known  grounds,  and  especially  because  it  abbre- 
viates the  law  and  renders  it  distinct  to  an  incredible  extent.  The 
definition  of  the  crimes  of  theft  and  murder  would  probably  supersede 
many  volumes  of  law  reports. 

It  seems  to  me  to  follow,  upon  the  whole,  that  in  preparing  a  code 
of  any  given  branch  of  the  law,  composed  partly  of  statutes  and  partly 
of  common  law,  the  proper  course  is  to  have  regard,  in  consolidating 
the  statutes,  not  merely  to  their  position  in  reference  to  any  particu- 
lar theory  or  system,  but  to  their  history ;  and  in  codifying  the 
common  law  to  put  the  result  of  the  existing  judicial  decisions  and 
other  authorities  into  the  most  convenient  and  systematic  form  that 
can  be  devised,  but  to  take  care  not  to  impair  the  exercise  of 
judicial  discretion  (or,  in  other  words,  the  elasticity  of  the  common 
law)  on  points  at  which  it  may  still  be  needed.  I  will  now  proceed 
to  show  that  the  charge  of  incompleteness  against  the  draft  Criminal 
Code  really  amounts  to  this,  that  its  authors  have  had  a  careful 
regard  to  these  considerations. 

First,  I  will  refer  to  the  statutes  which  they  have  not  thought  it 
expedient  to  incorporate  in  the  Code,  although  some  of  their  pro- 
visions create  indictable  offences. 

They  ought,  it  is  said,  to  have  collected  into  one  body  all  statu 
tory  provisions  creating  crimes  intended  to  be  in  force  for  the 
future.  This  is  no  doubt  true  in  general  terms,  but  it  requires 
limitations  which  are  suggested  by  the  question,  What  is  a  crime  ? 
I  suppose  that  in  strict  theory  it  would  be  impossible  to  define  a 
crime  otherwise  than  as  an  act  or  omission  punished  by  law,  and 
hence  it  may  be  inferred  that  a  complete  Criminal  Code  ought  to  con- 
tain a  complete  specification  of  all  acts  or  omissions  punished  by 
law,  or,  to  use  the  Lord  Chief  Justice's  expression,  that  upon  its  enact- 
VOL.  VII.— No.  35.  L 


146  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  January 

ment  all  statutory  offences  should  cease  to  have  a  separate  existence. 
If,  however,  we  refer  either  to  the  common  use  of  language,  or  to  the 
history  and  present  state  of  English  legislation,  it  will  be  found  that 
this  definition  is  too  wide  for  practical  purposes,  and  that  the  result 
of  taking  it  as  the  basis  of  a  Criminal  Code  would  be  to  produce  an 
Act  clumsy,  heterogeneous,  and  practically  inconvenient.  The  reason 
is  that  Parliament  has  for  many  reasons,  at  different  times,  subjected 
to  punishment  various  acts  which  would  not  usually  be  described  as 
crimes.  These  acts  may  be  reduced  to  four  well-marked  classes 
enumerated  below. 

If,  on  the  other  hand,  for  a  rigid  definition  of  a  crime,  we  sub- 
stitute a  description  sufficiently  accurate  for  practical  purposes,  we 
shall  arrive  at  a  different  result.  •  For  this  purpose  a  crime  may  be 
said  to  be  an  act  or  omission  punished  either  because  it  disturbs  the 
public  peace  or  interferes  with  some  well-known  and  commonly 
recognised  public  interest,  or  because  it  inflicts  injury  on  the  person, 
or  property,  or  reputation,  of  an  individual.  A  Criminal  Code,  founded 
on  this  description  of  a  crime,  would  include  all  the  offences 
against  the  public  or  against  individuals  with  which  the  common 
criminal  courts — the  assizes  and  the  quarter  sessions — are  usually  con- 
cerned ;  it  would,  in  a  word,  include  all  indictable  offences.  Such 
a  Code  would,  if  well  drawn,  be  sufficient  for  all  the  ordinary  purposes 
of  judges,  counsel,  magistrates,  solicitors,  and  others  engaged  in  the 
common  run  of  criminal  business.  It  would,  no  doubt,  omit  some 
offences,  some  '  crimes '  in  the  widest  sense  of  the  word,  at  each  end 
of  the  scale.  It  would  not  interfere,  on  the  one  hand,  with  the 
'  high  crimes  and  misdemeanours  '  which  once  or  twice  in  a  century 
may  require  a  parliamentary  impeachment.  It  would  not  provide, 
on  the  other  hand,  for  offences  usually  dealt  with  by  magistrates  in 
the  exercise  of  their  summary  j  urisdiction. 

Parliamentary  impeachments  and  acts  of  attainder  obviously  lie 
out  of  the  province  of  what  is  commonly  understood  by  the  criminal 
law.  It  would  be  idle  to  attempt  to  define  such  offences  as  were 
imputed  to  Warren  Hastings 6  or  Lord  Strafford.  The  two  Houses  of 
Parliament  in  such  cases  act  rather  as  ex  post  facto  legislators  than 
the  one  as  an  accuser  and  the  other  as  a  judge.  I  suppose,  however, 
that  no  one  will  seriously  maintain  that  the  Code  is  incomplete 
because  it  does  not  deal  with  this  matter.  I  need  not  therefore 
enlarge  upon  it. 

As  to  the  omission  of  summary  offences  some  remarks  may  be 

6  It  is  exceedingly  difficult  to  find  a  copy  of  the  articles  of  impeachment  against 
Hastings,  and  when  they  are  found  it  is  almost  impossible  to  disentangle  from  the 
cloud  of  words,  and  the  angry  rhetoric  which  pervades  them,  any  distinct  or  pointed 
charge  such  as  would  be  required  in  an  indictment.  There  hare  been  little  more 
than  fifty  impeachments  in  the  whole  course  of  English  history,  and  four  only  since 
1725 — namely,  those  of  Lord  Macclesfield  in  1725,  Lord  Lovat  in  1746,  Warren 
Hastings  in  1785,  and  Lord  Melrille  in  1806. 


1880.  THE  CRIMINAL  CODE  (1879).  147 

needed.    I  think  that  this  omission  is  approved  (subject  to  some  ex- 
ceptions) by  the  Lord  Chief  Justice  himself.     He  says,  in  one  of  the 
passages  already  quoted,  that  'it  would  be  impracticable  to  enumerate' 
(i.e.  in  the  Code)  4  all  the  instances  in  which  penalties  are  resorted  to 
for  the  purpose  of  enforcing  the  performance  of  duties,  or  the  observ- 
ance of  police  or  sanitary  regulations,  or  the   like.'     This  is  un- 
questionably true.     A  Criminal  Code  would  be  a  strangely  cumbrous 
and  heterogeneous  production  if  it   contained   not  only  provisions 
relating  to  treason,  murder,  theft,  and  forgery,  but  provisions  taken 
from  the  Poor  Laws,  the  Vagrancy  Acts,  the  Local  Government  Act, 
the  Police  and  Highway  Acts,  the  Acts  for  the  protection  of  sea- 
fowl  and  the  regulation  of  salmon  rivers,  the  greater  part  of  the- 
Game  Laws,  Acts  regulating  the  sale  of  explosive  substances,  and 
other  provisions  upon  an  infinite  variety  of  other  subjects  too  nume- 
rous to  mention.     There  are  several  hundred  provisions  of  this  kind 
in  the  Statute  Book.     Many  of  them  (the  Game  Laws  for  instance) 
could  not  be  re-enacted  without  rousing  most  acrimonious  discussions. 
Many  of  them  stand  greatly  in  need  of  reconsideration.7     I  think 
it  would  be  hardly  possible  to  devise  any  arrangement  which  would 
find  appropriate  places  in  one  Code  for  both  summary  and  indictable 
offences.     Nor  do  I  think  there  would  be  any  advantage  in  doing  so. 
Summary  offences  and  indictable  offences  are  adjudicated  upon  by 
different  courts,  and  according  to  a  different  system  of  procedure. 
The  practitioners  usually  concerned  with  them  are  different ;  and, 
above  all,  the  offences  themselves  are,  generally  speaking,  not  what 
in  popular  language  would  be  described  as  crimes.     A  man  may  be 
fined,  but  would  hardly  be  described  as  a  criminal,  for  not  sweeping 
the  snow  from  the  pavement  in  front  of  his  house,  or  for  shooting  a 
sea-gull  in  breeding  time.    A  Code  of  Summary  Offences  would,  I 
have  no  doubt,  be  a  most  useful  undertaking,  and  it  would  form  a 
proper  supplement  to  the  Summary   Jurisdiction   Act   passed   last 
session,  but  to  attempt  to  make  it  a  part  of  a  Criminal  Code  would  be 
to  introduce  into  the  law  confusion  instead  of  symmetry. 

As  I  have  already  observed,  I  do  not  think  that  the  Lord  Chief 
Justice  would  dissent  from  these  observations,  though,  if  hastily  read, 
some  of  his  criticisms  would  appear  to  imply  that  he  would.  The 
objection  which  he  does  make  to  the  Code  on  this  particular  matter 
is  in  part,  I  think,  due  to  a  slight  and  natural  oversight,  and  is  in 
part  of  a  somewhat  technical  nature. 

In  the  passage  quoted  above  he  observes  that  l  when  dealing  with 
offences '  the  operation  of  the  Code  f  is  limited  to  such  offences  when 
the  object  of  indictment ; '  and  he  appears  to  be  under  the  impression 
that  the  effect  of  the  Code  would  be  that  a  person  tried  for  theft  (say) 
upon  an  indictment  would  have  to  be  brought  within  the  definition 
of  that  offence  given  in  the  Code,  whereas,  if  he  were  proceeded 
7  E.g.  the  Vagrancy  Act,  the  Police  Acts,  the  Highway  Act. 
L2 


148  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  January 

against  in  a  summary  way  for  the  same  offence,  the  magistrates  must 
be  guided  by  the  common  law  definition.  This  difficulty  was  foreseen 
and  provided  against  by  the  Commissioners  in  Section  552.  As  it  is 
the  very  last  provision  in  the  Code,  it  may  probably  have  escaped  the 
attention  of  the  Lord  Chief  Justice.  I  am  not  sure  that  the  section 
is  not  too  narrowly  worded,  but  this  is  a  small  matter  which  could 
easily  be  set  right.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  in  principle  the 
Lord  Chief  Justice  is  perfectly  right.  Every  offence  defined  in  the 
Code  ought  to  be  defined  for  all  purposes. 

Part  of  the  criticism  quoted  applies  to  a  more  technical  and 
intricate  matter.  The  Lord  Chief  Justice  seems  to  think  that  too 
many  of  the  sections  of  the  Consolidation  Acts  of  1861  which  create 
summary  offences  are  left  unrepealed.  I  do  not  propose  to  enter  here 
upon  this  matter.  The  remarks  made  by  the  Lord  Chief  Justice  on 
the  repealing  schedule  are  extremely  valuable,  and  ought  to  be  care- 
fully considered  before  the  Bill  is  reintroduced.  I  think  that  the 
schedule  might  be  considerably  enlarged  with  no  real  risk,  and  to  the 
great  advantage  of  the  Statute  Book.  However  this  may  be,  the 
legislation  of  the  last  session,  and  especially  the  Summary  Jurisdiction 
Act,  will  make  several  alterations  in  the  Code  necessary.  This, 
however,  is  a  matter  not  likely  to  be  interesting  to  any  except  pro- 
fessional readers. 

The  way  in  which  the  Code  deals  with  summary  offences  is,  how- 
ever, only  one  of  the  omissions  on  the  ground  of  which  it  is  charged 
with  incompleteness.  There  are  other  statutory  offences  which  it 
leaves  unrepealed  without  re-enacting  the  provisions  which  create 
them.  This  the  Lord  Chief  Justice  considers  radically  wrong. 

He  observes : — 

The  main  purpose  of  a  codification  of  the  law  is  utterly  defeated  by  leaving  the 
Code  to  be  supplemented  by  reference  to  statutes,  and,  what  is  worse,  to  parts  of 
statutes,  which  are  still  to  remain  in  force,  but  are  not  embodied  in  it.  And  (he  adds) 
whatever  is  intended  to  form  part  of  our  penal  law  should  be  embodied  in  and  form 
part  of  the  intended  Code,  not  by  reference  to  Acts  of  Parliament  to  be  found  in  the 
statutes  at  large,  but  by  its  actual  presence  in  the  Code. 

It  may,  I  think,  be  shown  that  these  propositions,  though  their 
general  soundness  is  unquestionable,  require  some  qualification.  An 
enumeration  of  the  classes  of  enactments  omitted  is  given  in  the 
Report  (pp.  12,  13),  and  will,  I  think,  be  found  to  justify  the 
course  taken.  It  is  as  follows  : — 

1.  A  certain  number  of  statutes  create  indictable  offences,  which 
are  rather  historical  monuments  of  the  political  and  religious  strug- 
gles of  former  times  than  part  of  the  ordinary  criminal  law.  As 
instances,  we  may  refer  to  1  Eliz.  c.  2,  which  punishes  '  depraving  or 
despising  the  Book  of  Common  Prayer,'  on  a  third  conviction,  by  im- 
prisonment for  life ;  the  2  and  3  Edw.  VI.  c.  1,  which  inflicts  the 
like  punishment  on  clergymen  who  refuse  to  use  the  said  book  (these 


1880.  THE  CRIMINAL   CODE  (1879;.  149 

statutes  are  applied  to  the  existing  Prayer  Book  by  14  Ch.  II.  c.  4, 
s.  20);  the  13  Eliz.  c.  2,  which  makes  it  high  treason  to  '  use  or  put 
in  ure '  certain  kinds  of  papal  bulls  (as  to  which,  however,  see  9  and 
10  Vic.  c.  59) ;  the  13  Ch.  II.  c.  5,  which  punishes  with  fine  and  im- 
prisonment all  persons  who  collect  more  than  twenty  signatures  to 
a  petition  to  Parliament  without  leave  from  certain  specified  autho- 
rities. 

2.  A  certain  number  of  statutes  create  indictable  offences  which 
cannot  perhaps  be  said  to  be  obsolete,  but  which  were  passed  under 
special  circumstances,  and  which  are  seldom,  if  ever,  enforced.     To 
propose  either  to  re-enact  or  to  repeal  them  would  be  to  revive,  without 
any  practical  advantage,  controversies  which  would  probably  be  both 
bitter  and  useless.     We  propose,  therefore,  to  leave  them  untouched. 
As  instances  of  statutes   of  this  class,  we   may  mention  the  Royal 
Marriage  Act,  12  Geo.  III.  c.  11,  which  subjects  persons  present  at 
the  celebration  of  certain  marriages  to  a  praemunire;  the  21  Geo.  III. 
c.  49,  the  Lord's  Day  Observance  Act,  which  declares  certain  places 
opened   for   amusement  or  discussion  on  Sundays  to  be  disorderly 
houses;  the  39  Geo.  III.  c.  79,  which  subjects  the  members  of  certain 
societies   to  seven  years'  penal  servitude;  the  57   Geo.  III.  c.   19, 
which  forbids  political  meetings  within  a  mile  of  Westminster  Hall 
during  the  sitting  of  Parliament  or  the  courts  of  justice  ;  the  clauses 
of  the  Catholic  Emancipation  Act  (10  Geo.  IV.  c.  7,  ss.  28,  29,  &c.), 
which  bring  Jesuits,  monks,  &c.,  under'  extremely  severe  penalties, 
extending,  under  some  circumstances,  to  penal  servitude  for  life.8 

3.  Many   statutes  which  create   indictable   offences   are    of  so 
special  a  nature,  and  are  so  closely  connected  with  branches  of  law 
which  have  little  or  nothing  to  do  with  crimes  commonly  so  called, 
that  it  seems  better  to  leave  them  as  they  stand  than  to  introduce 
them  into  a  Criminal  Code.     The  following  are  the  most  important 
statutes  of  this  class  : — the  Acts  for  the  Suppression  of  the  Slave  Trade 
(5  Geo.  IV.  c.  113,  36  and  37  Vic.  c.  88);  the  Foreign  Enlistment 
Act  (33  and  34  Vic.  c.  90) ;  the  Corrupt  Practices  Acts  (17  and  18 
Vic.  c.  102,  and  some  others) ;  the  Customs  Act  (39  and  40  Vic. 
c.  36) ;  the  Post  Office  Act  (7  Will.  IV.  and  1  Vic,  c.  36)  ;  the  Mer- 
chant Shipping  Acts   (17  and  18  Vic.  c.   104,  and  several  others). 
These  Acts  are  complete  in  themselves,  and  though  each   creates 
indictable  offences,  each  would  be  mutilated  and  rendered  far  less 
convenient  than  it  is  at  present,  if  the  parts  which  create  offences 
were  separated  from  the  parts  which  deal  with  other  matters  ;  whilst 
if  the  offences  were  transferred  to  the  proposed  Code  in  a  form  intelli- 
gible and  complete,  they  would  necessitate  the  introduction  of  an 

8  My  personal  opinion  is  that  all  the  Acts  mentioned  under  this  and  the  preceding 
head  might  be  properly  put  in  the  repealing  schedule  ;  but  this  is  rather  a  question 
of  general  policy  than  of  the  codification  of  the  criminal  law.  I  would  also  take  the 
opportunity  of  repealing  the  criminal  jurisdiction  of  the  Ecclesiastical  Courts  over 
the  laity.  It  is  practically  obsolete,  and  might  be  made  the  subject  of  great  abuse. 


150  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  January 

amount  of  matter  which  would  render  it  inconveniently  cumbersome 
without  any  corresponding  advantage.9 

4.  A  large  number  of  statutes  contain  clauses  of  a  penal  nature, 
intended  to  sanction  their  other  provisions,  and  scarcely  intelligible 
apart  from  them.  Thus  the  25  Hen.  VIII.  c.  20  provides  for  the 
election  of  archbishops  and  bishops  by  deans  and  chapters  upon  the 
king's  license,  and  section  6  enacts  that  persons  refusing  to  elect 
shall  be  liable  to  a  prsemunire.  The  Marriage  Acts  of  1823  (4 
G-eo.  IV.  c.  76)  and  1837  (6  &  7  Will.  IV.  c.  85)  both  punish  the 
celebration  of  marriages  otherwise  than  in  certain  specified  ways. 
The  Acts  which  regulate  lunatic  asylums  create  several  special  offences 
(e.g.  8  &  9  Vic.  c.  100,  s.  56 ;  18  &  19  Vic.  c.  105,  s.  18).  The  Acts 
which  establish  certain  prisons  give  special  powers  to  the  keepers  of 
the  prisons,  and  subject  the  prisoners  to  special  punishments  for  par- 
ticular offences  (see  as  to  Parkhurst  prison,  1  &  2  Vic.  c.  82,  s.  12  ; 
Pentonville,  5  &  6  Vic.  c.  29,  s.  24 ;  Millbank,  6  &  7  Vic.  c.  26,  s.  22). 
It  is  obvious  that  many  clauses  of  this  sort  are  more  conveniently 
placed  in  the  special  Acts  than  they  would  be  in  a  general  Criminal 
Code.10 

I  would  confidently  ask  (1)  which  of  these  classes  of  statutory 
offences  the  Commissioners  ought  to  have  included  in  the  Code  ?  and 
(2)  what  statutory  offence  not  falling  under  one  of  these  heads  they 
have  excluded  from  it  ?  If  neither  of  these  questions  admits  of  an 
answer,  I  maintain  that  the  Code,  as  regards  statutory  offences,  is 
complete,  that  it  contains  all  the  statutory  offences  which  could 
properly  be  introduced  into  it,  and  omits  those  only  which  would 
have  made  it  cumbrous  and  inconvenient,  and  which  are  more  con- 
veniently placed  elsewhere.  I  would  further  observe  that  it  is  incon- 
sistent to  say  first  that  the  Code  ought  to  contain  all  penal  enactments, 
and  nest  that  it  ought  to  contain  no  partial  repeals.  If  it  is  to  con- 
tain all  penal  enactments,  it  must  contain,  e.g.,  the  penal  clauses  of 
the  Merchant  Shipping  Act.  If  it  is  to  contain  no  partial  repeals,  it 
cannot  repeal  those  sections.  The  only  way  by  which  this  could  be 
avoided  would  be  by  making  the  whole  of  every  Act  which  contains  any 
penal  clause  a  part  of  the  Criminal  Code ;  but  this  would  have  the  absurd 

9  As  a  special   illustration  I  may  observe  that  the    Foreign   Enlistment  Act 
consists  of  thirty-three  sections,  ten  of  which  define  indictable  offences.     Of  the 
remaining  twenty-three,   twenty  contain  provisions  as  to  procedure,  and  confer 
special  powers  upon  officers  of  customs,  the  Secretary  of  State,  and  other  official 
.persons.     The  two  sets  of  sections  imply  each  other's  existence.     If  part  only  were 
•transferred  to  a  Criminal  Code,  a  cross  reference  to  the  others  would  be  necessary. 
If  the  whole  Act  were  embodied  in  a  Criminal  Code,  it  would  be  out  of  keeping  with 
the  rest. 

10  I  may  add  that  a  great  number  of  special  provisions  are  to  be  found  in 
different  Acts  punishing  the  forgery  of  particular  documents  the  use  of  which  is 
prescribed  by  the  Act,  or  the  making  of  false  declarations  in  cases  in  which  the  Act 
requires    a  declaration  to  be  made.     All  these  cases  would  be   provided  for  by 
ss.  122  and  123,  or  some  one  of  the  provisions  as  to  forgery. 


1880.  TEE  CRIMINAL   CODE  (1879).  151 

effect  of  making  the  Criminal  Code  contain  the  whole  of  the  Merchant 
Shipping  Acts,  the  Customs  Act,  the  Post  Office  Act,  and  many  others. 

In  concluding  my  remarks  upon  this  point  I  may  observe  that 
one  criticism  of  the  Lord  Chief  Justice  is  either  founded  on  a  mis- 
conception or  at  least  suggests  one.  Some  of  the  phrases  already 
quoted  suggest  that  the  Criminal  Code  embodies  in  itself  other 
statutes  by  way  of  reference.  This  mode  of  legislation  is  no  doubt 
attended  with  some  inconveniences,  though  I  think  they  are  often 
exaggerated  ;  but,  however  this  may  be,  the  number  of  references  to 
other  Acts  in  the  Criminal  Code  is  so  small,  that  it  may  be  said  to  be 
substantially  complete  in  itself.  I  give  in  a  note  a  complete  list  of 
the  exceptions.11 

I  may  add  in  connection  with  this  subject,  that  a  comparison 
between  the  Bill  of  1878  and  the  Bill  of  1879  will  show  that  though 
the  Bill  of  1879  omits  a  variety  of  statutes  which  I  had  included  in 
the  Bill  of  1878  (the  acts  relating  to  the  Slave  Trade,  the  Foreign 
Enlistment  Act,  and  the  Corrupt  Practices  Act  were  the  most  impor- 
tant), it  contains,  I  think,  only  two  statutory  offences  which  I  had 
overlooked,  namely,  23  &  24  Vic.  c.  75,  s.  12,  which  punishes  the 
offence  of  aiding  the  escape  of  a  criminal  lunatic,  and  50  Geo.  III. 
c.  59,  s.  2,  which  punishes  public  officers  making  false  statements 
in  their  accounts.  The  Commission  checked  the  contents  of  the 
Bill  by  reference  to  a  variety  of  indexes  to  the  statute  book,  and  to 
catalogues  of  indictable  offences  of  more  or  less  authority,  amongst 
whicli  I  may  particularly  mention  lists  prepared  by  Mr.  R.  S.  Wright 
'for  the  Statute  Law  Eevision  Committee. 

So  very  close  a  correspondence  between  the  results  arrived  at  by 
myself  in  the  Bill  of  1878  and  by  the  subsequent  independent  in- 
quiries of  the  Commission  is,  I  think,  a  strong  proof  of  the  complete- 
ness of  the  Bill  of  1879  so  far  as  statutory  offences  are  concerned. 

It  is,  however,  objected  that  the  Code  is  incomplete  in  relation  to 
the  common  law,  as  well  as  in  relation  to  the  statute  law.  Part 
III.  deals  with  matter  of  justification  and  excuse  for  what  would 
otherwise  be  offences,  and  begins  with  a  section  12  which  the  Lord 
Chief  Justice  says  he  '  read  with  astonishment,'  and  which  appears 
to  him  '  inconsistent  with  every  idea  of  a  codification  of  the  law.'  '  If 

11  §§  8  and  75  refer  to  the  Act  for  private  executions.     §§  411, 413,  and  444  refer 
to  the  English  and  Irish  Bankruptcy  Acts.     §  421  refers  to  the  Conspiracy  Act, 
1875.  §  432  refers  to  the  Habeas  Corpus  Acts  for  England  and  Ireland.   §  473  refers 
to  11  and  12  Vic.  c.  42,  and  the  corresponding  Irish  Act.    §  478  refers  to  the  English 
and  Irish  Juries  Act.     It  will  be  seen  on  reference  to  these  sections  that  in  no  case 
is  any  act  incorporated  with  the  Code.     In  nearly  every  instance  the  reason  for 
the  reference  is  obvious  on  inspection.     In  a  single  instance  (that  of  s.  473)  its 
necessity  appears  to  me  doubtful. 

12  §  19.  All  rules  and  principles  of  the  common  law  which  render  any  circum- 
stances a  justification  or  excuse  for  any  act  or  a  defence  to  any  charge,  shall  remain 
in  force  and  be  applicable  to  any  defence  to  a  charge  under  this  Act,  except  in  so 
far  as  they  are  hereby  altered  or  are  inconsistent  herewith. 


152  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  January 

it  is  worth  while  to  codify  at  all,  whatever  is  a  material  part  of  the 
law  should  find  its  place  in  the  Code ; '  and  he  goes  on  to  ask  why,  if 
all  common  law  definitions  of  crimes  are  abolished,  the  part  of  the 
common  law  which  relates  to  matter  of  excuse  or  justification  is  kept 
alive. 

In  order  to  answer  this  question  fully,  it  will  be  necessary  to  con- 
sider what  the  common  law  relating  to  crime  is. 

The  expression  *  common  law '  has  two  perfectly  distinct  mean- 
ings. It  means  in  the  first  place  those  parts  of  the  known  and 
ascertained  law  which  are  to  be  found  in  decided  cases  and  in  the 
works  of  authoritative  writers  like  Coke  or  Hale,  but  which  have  never 
been  reduced  to  the  form  of  a  statute.  It  means  in  the  second  place 
not  a  part  of  the  law  actually  existing,  but  law  which  has  only  a  poten- 
tial existence — that  which,  if  the  case  should  ever  occur,  the  judges 
would  declare  to  be  the  law.  In  this  case  the  expression '  common  law ' 
means  the  qualified  power  which  the  judges  possess  of  making  new  law, 
under  the  fiction  of  declaring  existing  law  in  cases  unprovided  for  by 
existing  statutes  or  other  authorities.  The  qualification  upon  this 
power  is  that  the  new  law  must  be  so  made  as  to  develope,  and  not 
otherwise  to  innovate  upon,  the  law  which  already  exists.  The  judges 
must  be  guided  in  making  it  not  by  their  own  views  of  expediency  or 
justice  solely,  but  mainly  by  carrying  established  principles  and 
analogies  a  step  further  than  they  have  hitherto  been  carried. 

Nearly  the  whole  of  the  existing  common  law  (in  the  first  of 
these  two  senses)  has  been  made  by  the  common  law  in  the  second 
sense,  that  is  to  say  by  the  exercise  of  this  modified  power  of  legisla- 
tion. This  process  of  reproduction  is  often  described  as  '  the  elasticity 
of  the  common  law,'  a  form  offcexpression  which  conceals  a  power  vested 
in  human  beings  by  describing  it  as  a  quality  inherent  in  a  collec- 
tion of  words. 

This  fiction  leads  to  much  misunderstanding.  Amongst  other 
things,  it  suggests  that  that  part  of  the  law  which,  though  well  ascer- 
tained, is  contained  not  in  the  Statute  Book,  but  in  the  Eeports,  is  less 
determinate  than  that  which  is  contained  in  the  Statute  Book.  This 
is  not  the  case.  On  the  contrary,  when  any  proposition  has  once  been 
solemnly  held  to  be  a  part  of  the  common  law,  it  becomes  as  inelastic  as 
if  it  were  embodied  in  an  Act  of  Parliament,  and  neither  the  judges 
nor  any  other  authority  except  that  of  Parliament  can  alter  it.  So 
long  as  it  is  doubtful  whether  the  judges  will  decide  this  way  or  that, 
their  judicial  discretion  or  qualified  legislative  authority  is  still  unex- 
hausted upon  that  matter,  and  the  common  law  is  to  that  extent  elas- 
tic. For  instance,  before  the  decision  in  R.  v.  Keyn  (the  '  Franconia ' 
case)  the  common  law  was  elastic  as  to  the  question,  or,  in  other 
words,  the  judges  had  a  qualified  legislative  authority  to  decide  in 
case  of  need  the  question,  Whether  a  foreigner  committing  a  crime 
on  board  a  foreign  ship  within  three  miles  of  the  coast  was  liable  to 


1880.  TEE  CRIMINAL  CODE  (1879).  153 

be  tried  in  an  English  court.  The  case  of  R.  v.  Keyn  exhausted  the 
legislative  authority  of  the  judges  on  that  point,  and  answered  the 
question  in  the  negative.  As  soon  as  that  decision  was  pronounced, 
the  common  law  upon  the  subject  became  as  rigid  as  if  it  had  never 
been  elastic  at  all. 

The  parts  of  the  criminal  law  on  which  this  power  can  be  exercised 
are  two,  namely,13  The  definition  of  offences,  and  Matter  of  justifica- 
tion or  excuse  for  what  would  otherwise  be  offences.  The  effect 
of  the  two  sections I4  of  the  Code  referred  to  by  the  Lord  Chief 
Justice,  when  taken  together,  is  this.  The  judges  shall  no  longer  have 
power  to  declare  any  act  or  omission  which  is  not  within  the  words 
of  the  Code  or  some  other  Act  to  be  an  indictable  offence,  but  in 
cases  not  expressly  provided  for  by  the  Code  they  shall  continue  to 
have  the  same  power  as  they  possess  at  present,  of  declaring  circum- 
stances to  form  an  excuse  or  justification  for  what  would  otherwise 
be  an  offence.  The  Lord  Chief  Justice  considers  that  the  first  part 
of  this  provision  is  right,  but  that  the  second  gives  up  the  whole 
principle  of  codification. 

It  appears  to  me  that  the  two  proposed  enactments  stand  on 
entirely  different  principles.  After  the  experience  of  centuries,  and 
with  a  Parliament  sitting  every  year,  and  keenly  alive  to  all  matters 
likely  to  endanger  the  public  interests,  we  are  surely  in  a  position  to 
say  the  power  of  declaring  new  offences  shall  henceforth  be  vested  in 
Parliament  only.  The  power  which  has  at  times  been  claimed  for  the 
judges  of  declaring  new  offences  cannot  be  useful  now,  whatever  may 
have  "been  its  value  in  earlier  times. 

On  the  other  hand  it  is  hardly  possible  to  foresee  all  the  circum- 
stances which  might  possibly  justify  or  excuse  acts  which  might 
otherwise  be  crimes.  A  long  series  of  authorities  have  settled  certain 
rules  which  can  be  put  into  a  distinct  and  convenient  form,  and  it  is 
of  course  desirable  to  take  the  opportunity  of  deciding  by  the  way 
minor  points  which  an  examination  of  the  authorities  shows  to  be 
still  open.  In  this  manner  rules  can  be  laid  down  as  to  the  effect 
of  infancy,  insanity,  compulsion,  and  ignorance  of  law,  and  also  as 
to  the  cases  in  which  force  may  lawfully  be  employed  against  the 
person  of  another ;  but  is  it  therefore  wise  or  safe  to  go  so  far  as  to 
say  that  no  other  circumstances  than  those  expressly  enumerated  shall 
operate  by  way  of  excuse  or  justification  for  what  would  otherwise 
be  a  crime  ?  To  do  so  would  be  to  run  a  risk,  the  extent  of  which  it  is 
difficult  to  estimate,  of  producing  a  conflict  between  the  Code  and  the 

13  It  must  also  of  course  apply  to  the  interpretation  of  statutes,  but  upon  this 
it  is  unnecessary  to  say  anything,  as  no  question  arises  upon  it.     I  may  however 
point  out  that  it  is  just  as  much  an  act  of  legislation,  a  making  of  a  new  law,  to 
say  '  Aio  te  uEacida,  &c.'  shall  from  henceforth  be  held  to  mean  that  the  Eomans  can 
conquer  Pyrrhus,  and  not  that  Pyrrhus  can  conquer  the  Romans,  as  to  lay  down  any 

other  rule  not  previously  existing. 

14  §  5  and  §  19. 


154  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY.  January 

moral  feelings  of  the  public.  Such  a  conflict  is  upon  all  possible 
grounds  to  be  avoided.  It  would,  if  it  occurred,  do  more  to  discredit 
codification  than  anything  which  could  possibly  happen,  and  it 
might  cause  serious  evils  of  another  kind.  Cases  sometimes  occur 
in  which  public  opinion  is  at  once  violently  excited  and  greatly 
divided,  so  that  conduct  is  regarded  as  criminal  or  praiseworthy 
according  to  the  sympathies  of  excited  partisans.  If  the  Code  pro- 
vided that  nothing  should  amount  to  an  excuse  or  justification 
which  was  not  within  the  express  words  of  the  Code,  it  would,  in 
such  a  case,  be  vain  to  allege  that  the  conduct  of  the  accused  person 
was  morally  justifiable  ;  that,  but  for  the  Code,  it  would  have  been 
legally  justifiable ;  that  every  legal  analogy  was  in  its  favour  ;  and 
that  the  omission  of  an  express  provision  about  it  was  probably  an 
oversight.  I  think  such  a  result  would  be  eminently  unsatisfactory. 
I  think  the  public  would  feel  that  the  allegations  referred  to  ought  to 
have  been  carefully  examined  and  duly  decided  upon. 

To  put  the  whole  matter  very  shortly,  the  reason  why  the 
common  law  definitions  of  offences  should  be  taken  away,  whilst 
the  common  law  principles  as  to  justification  and  excuse  are 
kept  alive,  is  like  the  reason  why  the  benefit  of  a  doubt  should 
be  given  to  a  prisoner.  The  worst  result  that  could  arise  from 
the  abolition  of  the  common  law  offences  would  be  the  occasional 
escape  of  a  person  morally  guilty.  The  only  result  which  can 
follow  from  preserving  the  common  law  as  to  justification  and 
excuse  is,  that  a  man  morally  innocent,  not  otherwise  protected, 
may  avoid  punishment.  In  the  one  case  you  remove  rusty  spring- 
guns  and  man-traps  from  unfrequented  plantations,  in  the  other 
you  decline  to  issue  an  order  for  the  destruction  of  every  old-fashioned 
drag  or  life-buoy  which  may  be  found  on  the  banks  of  a  dangerous 
river,  but  is  not  in  the  inventory  of  the  Royal  Humane  Society. 

This  indeed  does  not  put  the  matter  strongly  enough.  The  con- 
tinued existence  of  the  undefined  common  law  offences  is  not  only 
dangerous  to  individuals,  but  may  be  dangerous  to  the  administration 
of  justice  itself.  By  allowing  them  to  remain,  we  run  the  risk  of 
tempting  the  judges  to  express  their  disapproval  of  conduct  which, 
upon  political,  moral,  or  social  grounds,  they  consider  deserving  of 
punishment,  by  declaring  upon  slender  authority  that  it  constitutes 
an  offence  at  common  law ; 15  nothing,  I  think,  could  place  the  bench 
in  a  more  invidious  position,  or  go  further  to  shake  its  authority. 


15  The  right  to  do  so  has  been  distinctly  claimed  on  several  occasions.  In 
Jefferys  v.  Boosey  (4  H.  L.  C.  936),  Lord  Chief  Baron  Pollock  quoted  the  dictum 
of  Mr.  Justice  Willes  (Lord  Mansfield's  colleague)  :  'Justice,  moral  fitness,  and  public 
convenience,  which  when  applied  to  a  new  subject  make  common  law  without  a 
precedent '  (see  Millar  v.  Taylor,  4  Burr.  2312) ;  and  added, '  I  entirely  agree  with  the 
spirit  of  this  passage  so  far  as  it  regards  the  repressing  what  is  a  public  evil  and 
preventing  what  would  become  a  public  mischief.' 


1880.  THE  CRIMINAL   CODE  (1879).  155 

This  is  the  main  and  leading  reason,  at  least  in  my  opinion,  for 
the  course  taken  by  the  Commission.  If  it  is  said  that  it  involves  a 
confession  of  weakness,  and  that  the  attempt  to  codify  the  law  at  all 
implies  on  the  part  of  those  who  undertake  it  a  conviction  that  they 
are  acquainted  with  the  whole  of  the  law,  and  can  reduce  it  to  writ- 
ing, I  reply  that  such  a  remark  appears  to  me  to  involve  a  miscon- 
ception, not  only  of  the  nature  of  codification,  but  also  of  the  nature 
of  law  itself.  Law,  like  every  other  branch  of  human  knowledge  or 
subject  of  human  study,  never  can  be  complete  as  long  as  it  is  the 
law  of  a  living  and  growing  nation.  The  organ  by  which  it  is 
developed  is  the  discussion — in  this  country  the  discussion  before 
courts  of  justice — of  the  new  problems  which  from  time  to  time 
present  themselves.  The  duty  of  the  codifier  (as  I  understand  it)  is 
to  study,  to  express,  to  arrange,  and  to  amend  the  ascertained  law  as  it 
stands,  but  it  would  be  a  great  mistake  if  he  thought  it  his  duty  to 
try  to  arrest  its  further  development  by  judicial  decision  on  points 
of  delicacy  and  importance  as  to  which  there  are  at  present  no 
materials,  or  scanty  materials,  for  the  enactment  of  express  rales. 

Those  who  wish  to  see  this  matter  fully  developed  may  be 
referred  to  Savigny's  treatise  on  the  vocation  of  our  age  to  legislation 
and  jurisprudence,  and  to  Austin's  criticism  on  it  (ii.  698,  &c.). 
Savigny  was  in  favour  of  the  codification  of  existing  law,  but  thought 
it  dangerous  to  try  to  anticipate  future  cases.  My  view  nearly  coincides 
with  this,  though  I  think  that,  where  the  existing  authorities  clearly 
show  both  sides  of  a  disputed  question,  it  is  generally  better  to  decide 
it  one  way  or  the  other  than  to  leave  it  doubtful.  I  would  not,  for 
instance,  preserve  the  doubt  which  at  present  exists  whether  a  man 
who,  believing  in  good  faith  and  on  reasonable  grounds  that  his  wife  is 
dead,  marries  again  within  seven  years  of  the  time  when  he  last  saw 
her,  commits  bigamy  if  she  is  alive. 

This  view  of  the  subject  is,  I  think,  both  illustrated  and  con- 
firmed by  a  more  special  consideration  of  the  parts  of  the  common 
law  relating  to  crime  which  would  be  kept  alive  by  the  provision 
objected  to  by  the  Lord  Chief  Justice.  It  must  be  observed  that  the 
common  law  is  kept  alive  only  in  those  cases  to  which  the  express  words 
of  the  Code  do  not  apply.  In  point  of  fact  those  words  cover  every 
part  of  the  common  law  which  is  at  present  sufficiently  well  ascer- 
tained to  be  stated  in  the  form  of  rules.  The  only  parts  of  it  of 
which  I  am  aware,  which  are  not  replaced  by  the  Code,  fall  under 
three  heads. 

1.  Besides  the.  well-known  matters  dealt  with  by  the  Code,  there 
are  a  variety  of  speculative  questions  which  have  been  discussed  by 
ingenious  persons  for  centuries,16  but  which  could  be  raised  only  by 

16  'Plenus  est  sextus  liber  de  Officiis  Hecatonis  talium  quasstionum.  ...  Si 
tabulam  de  naufragio  stultus  arripuerit,  extorquebitne  earn  sapiens  si  potuerit  ? 
negat,  quia  sit  injurium.  Quid  dominus  navis  eripietne  suam  ?  Minime  :  non  plus 


156  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  January 

such  rare  occurrences  that  it  may  be  thought  pedantic  to  legislate 
for  them  expressly  beforehand,  and  rash  to  do  so  without  materials 
which  the  course  of  events  has  not  provided.17  Such  cases  are  the 
case  of  necessity  (two  shipwrecked  men  on  one  plank),  the  case  of  a 
choice  of  evils  (my  horses  are  running  away,  and  I  can  avoid  running 
over  A  only  by  running  over  B),  and  some  others  which  might  be 
suggested.  Suppose,  for  instance,  a  man  were  to  injure  or  even  kill 
another  under  a  sincere  belief  that  the  person  killed  or  injured  was  be- 
witching him,  and  that  the  charm  could  be  broken  in  no  other  way;  or 
suppose  death  were  to  be  caused  by  a  poison  administered  with  the 
full  knowledge  and  consent  of  the  person  taking  it,  in  order  to  prove 
the  efficacy  of  a  supposed  antidote.  Any  ingenious  person  may 
divert  himself,  as  Hecato  did,  by  playing  with  such  questions.  The 
Commission  acted  on  the  view  that  in  practice  the  wisest  answer  to  all 
of  them  is  to  say, '  When  the  case  actually  happens  it  shall  be  decided;' 
and  this  is  effected  kby  the  preservation  of  such  parts  of  the  com- 
mon law  as  to  justification  and  excuse  as  are  not  embodied  in  the  Code. 
Fiction  apart,  there  is  at  present  no  law  at  all  upon  the  subject,  but 
the  judges  will  make  one  under  the  fiction  of  declaring  it,  if  the  occasion 
for  doing  so  should  ever  arise.  This  is  open  no  doubt  to  the  remark 
that  it  is  a  fiction  to  describe  as  common  law  a  rule  which  does  not 
exist  at  all,  and  which  probably  never  will  exist.  I  admit  this,  but 
it  would  be  pedantic  to  attempt  to  alter  by  legislation  a  well  esta- 
blished form  of  expression.  The  meaning  of  the  provision  in  question 
might  no  doubt  be  expressed  somewhat  as  follows :  '  It  shall  be  law- 
ful for  any  court  before  which  any  matter  may  be  proved  which  is 
not  expressly  provided  for  by  the  enactments  hereinafter  contained,  to 
declare  that  such  matter  amounts  to  a  justification  or  excuse  for  any 
offence,  if  that  court  is  of  opinion  that  such  matter  is  closely  analogous 
to  the  matters  which  are  hereby  declared  to  amount  to  a  justification 
or  excuse  for  what  would  otherwise  be  an  offence.'  But  would  it  be 
worth  while  to  employ  such  a  novel  form  of  expression,  and  one  so 
likely  to  give  offence,  when  precisely  the  same  purpose  may  be 


quam  si  navigantem  in  alto  ejicere  de  navi  velit  quia  sua  sit.  Quoad  enim  perventum 
sit  eo  quo  sumpta  navis  est  non  domini  est  navis  sed  navigantium.  Quid  si  una 
tabula  sit,  duo  naufragi,  seque  sapientes  ;  sibi,  uterque  rapiat  an  alter  cedat  alteri  1 
Cedat  vero  ;  sed  ei  cujus  magis  intersit  vel  sua  vel  reipublicas  causS,  vivere.  Quid, 
si  base  paria  in  utroque  ?  nullum  erit  certamen  sed  quasi  sorte,  aut  micando  victus, 
alteri  cedet  alter.' — Cicero  de  Officiis,  lib.  iii.  ch.  xxiii.  In  the  American  case  of 
Commonwealth  v.  Holms  (1  Wall  Jr.  1),  the  court  held  that  if  it  was  necessary  to 
the  common  safety  to  throw  overboard  one  of  a  shipwrecked  crew,  the  sailors  ought 
to  go  first ;  but  at  all  events  the  victim  should  be  chosen  by  ballot.  I  do  not  know 
whether  the  passage  quoted  above  was  cited  in  argument. 

17  In  the  Bill  of  1878  there  was  a  provision  on  this  subject.  There  is  in  the 
Indian  Penal  Code  a  provision  as  to  a  choice  of  evils.  It  seems  to  me  to  be  a 
matter. of  very  little  practical  consequence  whether  a  Code  does  or  does  not  provide 
for  such  cases,  but  surely  it  ought  not  to  provide  negatively  that  no  such  circum- 
stances shall  ever  amount  to  an  excuse. 


1880.  THE  CRIMINAL   CODE  (1879).  157 

effected  by  retaining  the  well-known  language  about  the  common  law? 
Would  it  be  worth  while  to  try  to  teach  people  to  say  that  the  rota- 
tion of  the  earth  brings  the  sun  into  the  range  of  our  eyes  in  order 
to  avoid  the  fiction  that  the  sun  rises  ? 

2.  Some  other  questions  may  occur  which  it  would  on  all  accounts 
be  better  to  leave  to  be  decided  according  to  established  legal  prin- 
ciples and  analogies  when  they  arise,  than  to  prejudge  by  a  rule  resting 
on  little  or  no  authority. 

There  is  a  class  of  cases  in  which  the  sovereign  power  is  entitled 
by  law  to  authorise  what  but  for  such  authority  would  be  crimes. 
Such  acts  possibly  may,  though  it  is  not  probable  that  they  ever 
should,  come  before  the  criminal  courts,  and  if  they  did  it  would  be 
far  more  satisfactory  that  the  matter  should  be  solemnly  debated  ex 
post  facto  before  a  court  of  justice  than  that  a  rule  should  be  laid 
down  beforehand  which  might  either  authorise  great  hardship  to  in- 
dividuals, or  cripple  public  servants  in  emergency,  to  the  great  injury 
of  the  public  interests.      The  following  cases   will  illustrate   this. 
Captain  Denman  (see  the  case  of  Buron  v.  Denman,  2  Ex.  167),  acting 
in  the  discharge  of  what  he  conceived  to  be  his  duty,  landed  on  the 
west  coast  of  Africa  and  burnt  certain  barracoons  or  depots  for  slaves. 
His  act  was  adopted  by  the  executive  Government,  and  it  was  held 
that  this  ratification  was  equivalent  to  an  order,  and  that  no  action 
would  lie  against  him  by  the  persons  injured.     If  life  had  been  lost 
in  the  affray,  and  if  Captain  Denman  had  been  indicted  for  murder,  I 
suppose  he  would  have   been  entitled  to  an  acquittal.     No  doubt 
the  same  would  be  the  case  if  a  man-of-war  were  ordered  to  enforce 
our  neutral  rights,   and   sacrificed   life   in  doing   so.     During  the 
American  Civil  War  one  of  the  Northern  and  one  of  the  Southern 
cruisers  were  both  anchored  in  the  same  English  harbour.  Whichever 
of  the  two  left  last  was  compelled  to  wait  till  the  other  had  had 
twenty-four  hours'  start.      Suppose  she  had   attempted   to  force  a 
passage,  had  been  fired  into,  and  had  returned  the  fire,  and  life  had 
in  consequence  been  lost  on  both  sides  :  I  suppose  that  neither  the 
captain  nor  the  crew  of  the  vessel  which  fired  into  her,  nor  her  own 
captain  or  crew,  would  have  been  guilty  of  murder ;  and  I  should 
think  it  probable  that  a  similar  rule  would  apply  to  a  prisoner  of  war 
shooting  or  being  shot  in  an  attempt  to  escape  from  confinement, 
and  possibly  to  a  foreign  marine  who,  by  his  officer's  orders,  took  life 
in  resisting  an  attempt  to  execute  process  on  board  a  foreign  ship  of 
war  in  an  English  harbour. 

It  would  be  extremely  difficult,  not  to  say  impossible,  to  think 
beforehand  of  all  the  cases  of  this  sort  which  might  arise,  and  of  all 
the  circumstances  which  might  have  to  be  taken  into  account 
in  framing  a  rule  in  respect  to  them;  and  it  therefore  appears 
better  to  leave  them  to  be  dealt  with  when  they  happen,  if  they 
ever  do. 


158  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  January 

3.  There  are  a  certain  number  of  maxims  relating  to  the  criminal 
law  which  are  in  themselves  too  indefinite  to  be  stated  in  the  form  of 
categorical  propositions,  but  which  are  useful  guides  to  the  courts  on 
a  variety  of  matters  connected  with  crime,  and  more  particularly  in 
the  interpretation  of  statutes  bearing  on  the  subject,  and  in  deciding 
questions  as  to  the  effect  and  admissibility  of  evidence.  The  nearer 
we  are  able  to  approach  to  a  complete  codification  of  the  whole  of  the 
criminal  law,  the  less  frequently  will  there  be  occasion  to  resort  to  the 
use  of  such  maxims ;  but  I  should  be  sorry  to  introduce  into  a  general 
Criminal  Code  negative  and  exclusive  words  which,  whilst  they  rendered 
the  Code  theoretically  complete,  might  be  thought  to  impair  the  autho- 
rity of  such  maxims.  The  following  are  the  cases  which  occur  to  me 
at  the  moment.  There  may  be  more.  There  is  a  maxim  which  says. 
Actus  non  facit  reum  nisi  mens  sit  rea,  a  maxim  which  is  a  great 
deal  less  instructive  than  it  looks  at  first  sight.  It  is  often  supposed 
to  mean  that  nothing  is  legally  a  crime  unless  it  is  morally  wrong, 
which  is  obviously  untrue,  unless  the  powers  of  the  legislator  are  to  be 
bounded  by  the  conscience  of  the  judge.  It  may  also  mean  that  the 
complete  definition  of  every  crime  includes,  either  expressly  or  by  im- 
plication, one  or  more  mental  elements  ;  and  this  is  no  doubt,  generally 
speaking,  true.  If,  however,  all  crimes  are  expressly  defined  by  sta- 
tute, this  fact  will  always  be  apparent  on  the  face  of  the  definition, 
and  in  regard  to  such  offences  the  maxim  will  be  superfluous.  Thus, 
for  instance,  in  Part  XXXIV.  of  the  Code,  which  corresponds  to  the 
Malicious  Mischief  Act  (24  &  25  Vic.  c.  97),  the  word  '  wilfully ' 
forms  part  of  every  definition.  '  Fraudulently  and  without  colour  of 
right '  forms  part  of  the  definition  of  theft.  Murder  is  defined  to  be 
an  unlawful  killing,  accompanied  by  certain  specified  intents.  In 
other  cases  the  word  '  knowingly '  is  introduced.  In  every  such  case 
the  mental  element  necessary  to  constitute  the  offence  being  specified 
in  the  enactment  which  creates  it,  there  is  no  room  for  the  applica- 
tion of  the  maxim.  It  is,  however,  possible  that  there  may  be  cases, 
either  in  the  Code  itself  or  in  other  statutes  not  repealed  by  it,  in 
which  this  rule  of  interpretation  might  be  found  useful,  and  if  that  is 
so,  its  preservation  can  do  no  harm. 

A  maxim  closely  allied  to  it,  and  I  think  practically  identical 
with  it,  is,  ignorantia  facti  excused.  It  indeed  expresses  the  only 
part  of  the  maxim  about  mens  rea  which  is  ever  likely  to  come  into 
use.  Its  application  was  lately  much  discussed  in  K.  v.  Prince 
(L.  R.  1  C.  C.  R.,  154),  where  the  question  was  whether  a  man  who 
abducted  a  girl  who  in  fact  was  fifteen,  though  he  upon  reasonable 
grounds  believed  her  to  be  seventeen,  could  be  punished  under  a  statute 
which  protects  girls  under  sixteen  only.  The  provision  in  the  Code 
relating  to  abduction  was  drawn  with  an  eye  to  the  decision  in  R.  v. 
Prince  and  the  principle  established  by  it.  It  is  possible,  however, 
that  the  principle  might  still  be  needed  for  the  decision  of  some 


1880.  THE   CRIMINAL   CODE  (1879).  159 

possible  though  improbable  cases ;  18  but  it  is  difficult  to  express  the 
principle  shortly  and  simply,  and  it  is  of  such  rare  application,  and 
the  decisions  upon  it  are  so  few,  that  it  would  probably  be  unwise  to 
try  to  do  so.  An  attempt  at  such  a  statement  was  made  in  the  Draft 
Code  of  1878,  but  I  must  own  that  the  result  was  not  satisfactory. 

It  is  possible  that  a  general  declaration  that  the  whole  of  the 
common  law  on  the  subject  of  excuse  and  justification  was  contained 
in  the  Code  might  be  held  to  interfere  with  some  applications  of  the 
principle  of  the  presumption  in  favour  of  innocence,  though  I  am 
not  prepared  to  give  any  specific  illustrations  upon  this  point. 

Upon  all  these  points  I  would  observe  that  the  condition  which 
makes  codification  at  once  practicable  and  expedient  is  that  the 
principles,  definitions,  and  rules  to  be  reduced  to  the  form  of  definite 
propositions,  should  already  be  held  in  suspension  or  solution  (if  I 
may  be  allowed  such  an  expression)  in  recognised  authorities.  Where 
no  such  materials  exist,  the  common  law  should  be  left  alive,  or, 
to  speak  without  metaphors  and  legal  fictions,  where  a  legal  ques- 
tion has  been  solved  by  authority  the  solution  should  be  enacted  as 
law  ;  but  legal  questions  for  the  solution  of  which  the  existing  autho- 
rities provide  either  no  materials  or  scanty  materials,  should  not  be 
disposed  of  by  rules  made  beforehand,  but  should  be  left  to  be 
decided  by  the  judges  when,  if  ever,  circumstances  occur  which  raise 
them  for  solution.  To  say  that  this  is  to  give  up  the  principle  of 
codification  appears  to  me  like  saying  that  constitutional  principles 
are  inconsistent  with  monarchy,  and  that  our  choice  lies  between 
anarchy  and  despotism.  Surely  it  is  the  part  of  wisdom  to  recognise 
the  number  and  the  intricacy  of  the  principles  which  ought  to  be 
taken  into  account  in  devising  any  measure  of  importance,  and  all 
that  I  have  been  saying  comes  to  this :  that  although  in  the  present 
state  of  the  law  its  most  striking  want  is  definite  and  systematic 
statement  and  re-arrangement,  a  place  ought  still  to  be  left  for 
judicial  discretion,  and  that  though  it  is  certainly  most  important  to 
bring  the  whole  of  the  statute  law  upon  given  subjects  into  single, 
well-arranged  Acts  of  Parliament,  it  will  in  practice  be  found  im- 
possible to  make  such  an  arrangement  absolutely  complete. 

Having  said  this  much  in  explanation  and  justification  of  the 
course  taken  by  the  Commissioners  as  to  the  omission  from  the  Code 
of  certain  parts  both  of  the  statute  and  of  the  common  law,  I  ought  in 
conclusion  to  observe  that  I  hope  that  nothing  written  by  me  will 
suggest  that  I  do  not  perceive  or  appreciate  the  importance  of  the 
service  rendered  to  the  public  by  the  Lord  Chief  Justice  in  under- 

18  A  goes  down  from  London  to  Penzance  to  commit  a  robbery.  Wishing  to  stoj  > 
short  of  burglary  and  confine  himself  to  housebreaking,  he  sets  his  watch  by  the 
railway  clock,  and  does  not  break  into  the  house  till  6.10  A.M.  by  his  watch.  He 
forgets  that  the  night  (9-6)  is  measured  by  local  mean  time,  and  that  the  railway 
clock  is  set  to  London  time.  Hence  his  crime  is  actually  committed  at  5.50. 
According  to  E.  r.  Prince  he  would  be  guilty  of  burglary. 


160  TEE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  January 

taking  a  criticism  of  the  Code  which  can  hardly  fail  (especially  if  it  is 
completed  in  a  reasonable  time  before  the  next  session  of  Parliament)  to 
improve  it  in  many  particulars,  and  to  make  up  for  his  not  having 
been  a  member  of  the  Commission.  In  some  points  I  differ  from 
him,  but  I  feel  that  the  connection  of  his  great  name,  almost  un- 
equalled experience,  and  splendid  abilities  with  the  Criminal  Code 
will  go  far  to  assure  the  public  that  it  is  what  it  ought  to  be. 

On  a  subsequent  occasion  I  hope  to  make  some  observations  on 
some  of  the  leading  characteristics  of  the  Code,  and  especially  on  the 
more  important  changes  in  the  administration  of  criminal  justice 
proposed  to  be  effected  by  it.  The  object  of  this  will  be  to  facilitate 
in  some  measure  Parliamentary  discussion,  by  showing  which  parts  of 
the  Bill  it  would  be  wise  to  take  qn  trust,  as  being  substantially 
re-enactments  of  the  existing  law,  and  which  parts  suggest  changes 
the  expediency  of  which  may  be  considered  without  any  technical 
legal  knowledge, 

JAMES  FITZJAMES  STEPHEN. 


1880.  161 


ATHEISTIC  METHODISM. 

MY  recent  volume  Is  Life  worth  Living  ? *  has,  I  am  told,  been 
widely  read  in  America,  where  by  numbers  its  arguments  have  been 
endorsed  as  valid,  and  by  others  treated  in  an  exactly  opposite  way. 
In  the  former  case  they  have  produced  or  expressed  conviction ; 
wherever  they  have  not  done  that,  they  have  roused  intense  irritation. 
A  lengthy  treatise,2  inspired  by  this  latter  feeling,  has  reached  me 
lately  from  New  York.  The  writer  is  anonymous  ;  but  the  publishers 
vouch  for  it  that,  in  his  own  line,  he  is  a  man  of  fame  and  eminence ; 
nor,  though  he  is  apparently  self-taught  and  very  poorly  instructed, 
do  I  see  any  reason  to  doubt  their  statement.  Had  the  volume  in 
question  been  more  successful  than  I  can  yet  learn  it  has  been,  I 
should  perhaps  have  exposed  its  fallacies  in  some  American  journal. 
Possibly,  indeed,  I  may  yet  do  so.  But  whatever  may  be  my  course 
with  regard  to  this  special  critic,  I  shall  at  all  events  have  occasion 
to  deal  with  certain  of  his  criticisms.  For  these,  most  of  them,  are 
confessedly  not  his  own.  They  are  the  common  property  of  the 
positive  camp  in  general.  Their  only  peculiarity  here  is  in  the  plan 
of  their  arrangement,  and  the  explicit  application  of  them  to  the 
arguments  used  by  me.  A  few  days  after  the  above  volume  had 
reached  me,  I  found  myself  the  object  of  another  direct  attack, 
coming  indeed  from  a  quite  independent  quarter,  but  conducted 
in  a  manner  almost  exactly  similar.  My  critic  now  was  an  English 
scientific  lady,  who  has  by  this  time  devoted  two  essays 3  in  the 
Nineteenth  Century  to  the  exposure  both  of  me  and  of  my 
sophistries  and  to  meeting  all  future  doubt  by  a  '  definite  scientific 
utterance.'  My  fair  enemy  in  England  covers  far  less  ground  than 
her  sterner  cousin  in  America ;  but,  when  upon  the  same  ground, 
what  the  two  urge  is  identical.  It  is  not,  however,  with  these  only, 
or  indeed  mainly,  that  I  have  had  occasion  to  concern  myself. 
Since  the  publication  of  my  own  volume  there  has  appeared  a  third, 
and  a  yet  more  weighty  reply  to  me — a  reply  not  indeed  designed 
to  be  such,  but  turning  out  so  practically.  I  refer  to  Mr.  Herbert 
Spencer's  latest  work,  the  Data  of  Ethics  ;  which  the  writer  implies, 

1  Is  Life  Worth  Living  ?    London  :  Chatto  &tWindus,  1879. 

2  The    Value  of  Life,  a  Reply.    New  York:   Putnam's  Sons,   1879. 

8  '  Modern  Atheism  and  Mr.  Mallock,'  by  Miss  L.  S.  Bevington,  Nineteenth  Cen- 
tury, October  and  December  1 879. 

VOL.  VII.— No.  35.  M 


162  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  January 

and  his  disciples  believe,  to  be  the  final  and  formal  statement  of 
the  new  philosophy  of  life.  Now,  of  both  my  other  critics  Mr. 
Spencer  is  the  avowed  or  evident  master  ;  all  that  they  urge  is  virtu- 
ally a  repetition  of  him  ;  and  thus  their  own  personal  attacks  on  me 
may  be  fairly  looked  on  as  merely  the  special  channels  through  which 
the  condemnatory  merits  of  his  philosophy  are  applied  to  mine. 
Considering,  therefore,  Mr.  Spencer's  high  repute,  and  how  he  has 
localised  the  scattered  speculations  of  our  modern  non-theistic  thinkers, 
such  criticisms  as  those  I  have  just  alluded  to  have  seemed  to  me  full 
of  deep  significance,  and  worthy  of  my  best  attention. 

My  best  attention  has  been  given  them,  and  not  without  result. 
They  have  strengthened  my  belief  in  all  that  I  have  urged  hitherto, 
and  in  the  ultimate  helplessness  of  all  that  can  be  said  against  it. 
The  views  of  life  they  embody  are  doubtless  in  some  ways  plausible, 
or  they  would  not  have  found  advocates  amongst  trained  and  in- 
tructed  thinkers ;  and  under  certain  special  conditions  of  thought 
and  feeling  they'may  for  a  moment  perhaps  impose  on  any  one.  But 
let  reason  and  common  sense  and  a  common  knowledge  of  history  be 
brought  to  bear  on  them,  and  their  baseless  fabric  slowly  melts  away 
like  a  vision. 

But  though  my  critics  have  not  convinced  me  of  any  flaw  in  my 
argument,  they  have  shown  me  that  something  has  been  wanting  in 
my  own  way  of  stating  it.  They  have  shown  me  that  in  certain  places  I 
have  not  been  full  or  clear  enough,  or  that  I  have  trusted  too  much 
to  the  co-operation  of  their  own  intelligence.  They  have  shown  me 
also  certain  slight  confusions  of  language,  which  I  thought  at  the 
time  were  harmless,  but  which,  it  seems,  have  for  some  readers  com- 
pletely obscured  my  meaning.  All  this  they  have  done  directly; 
and  indirectly  they  have  done  more  than  this.  They  have  suggested 
fresh  questions,  which  before  I  had  not  even  glanced  at,  nearer, 
more  definite,  and  more  perplexing  than  any,  of  those  dealt  with  in 
my  last  volume,  and  which  they  themselves,  though  certainly  almost 
touching  them,  seem  to  be  altogether  unconscious  of.  I  see,  there- 
fore, a  new  task  before  me,  which  may  take  me  some  time  to 
accomplish.  A  part  of  it,  however,  which  is  both  easy  and  im- 
portant, it  has  been  suggested  that  I  should  at  once  proceed  with. 
It  has  been  suggested  that  I  should  apply  to  Miss  Bevington,  my  late 
critic  in  the  Nineteenth  Century,  such  of  my  own  remarks  as  may 
happen  to  bear  on  hers.  And  I  do  this  the  more  readily  because  not 
only  would  the  lady's  talents  make  her  doubtless  a  serious  foe  for 
any  one,  but  because  she  for  this  very  reason  embodies  something  far 
more  serious  than  herself.  She  represents,  I  think,  in  her  two  essays 
every  main  characteristic  of  the  positive  school  of  moralists,  such,  at 
least,  as  we  know  them  in  England  and  America.  She  represents 
their  high  average  intelligence,  combined  with  their  strange  intellec- 
tual confusion  ;  their  set  determination  to  be  virtuous,  and  above  all 


1880.  ATHEISTIC  METHODISM.  163 

respectable,  and  the  tangled  lines  of  argument  by  which  they  declare 
that  their  determination  supports  itself. 

Now  there  is  much  in  this  school  that  we  ought  all  to  treat  with 
deference  ;  and  I  should  regret  seriously  having  given  scandal  by  my 
writings  to  any  one  of  its  members.  And  yet  such  is,  I  fear,  the 
case  with  my  critic  of  the  Nineteenth  Century  ;  for  not  only  have  I 
roused  her  intellect  against  me,  but  in  a  still  greater  measure  her 
wit  and  her  indignation  also.  Not  content  with  explaining  at  the 
outset  how  she  will  treat  my  arguments,  she  proceeds  to  explain 
further,  how  she  will  treat  me.  She  believes  me,  she  says,  to  be 
personally  a  most  marvellous  and  unlovely  portent.  She  believes  me, 
if  I  may  put  together  her  own  scattered  epithets,  to  be  a  '  glib,' 
*  airily-assuming,'  '  thoroughly  unscientific,'  '  clever,'  '  young,'  '  in- 
sinuating,' 'sinister'  'conjuror,'  who  is  attempting  by  his  'tricks' 
and  his  logical  '  hocus-pocus '  to  do  a  dark  deed,  and  for  a  yet  darker 
reason.  My  attempt  is  to  deprive  my  critic  of  her  '  inducements  to 
live  righteously ; '  my  reason  is  that  I  may  myself  reap '  advantage  '  from 
my  critic's  unrighteousness,  and — more  curious  still — that  she  herself 
may  be  '  amused '  at  it.  At  any  rate,  she  says,  if  this  be  not  a  true 
description  of  me,  she  finds  it  '  the  best  way  to  treat  me  as  if '  it 
were  so.  The  import  of  this  quaint  indictment  is  to  be  found  later 
on,  in  the  wonder  which  she  says  she  feels  as  to  what  possible  '  cause, 
social,  moral,  or  religious,'  I  could  expect  to  serve  by  arguing  in  the 
way  I  have  done.  No  conceivable  good,  so  far  as  she  can  see,  could 
come  of  it :  and  my  only  possible  motive,  as  she  strongly  hints, 
must  be  either  a  degraded  or  perverse  one.  Others,  perhaps,  may 
also  think  as  she  does — indeed,  my  censor  in  America  is  even  more 
severe  than  she  is — and  it  may  therefore  be  well  briefly  to  say  a  word 
or  two  on  the  matter.  To  me  the  answer  to  the  question  seems 
sufficiently  obvious  :  indeed,  my  critic  has  herself  given  a  part  of  it. 
My  arguments,  she  confesses,  are  of  value  to  all  scientific  writers,  who 
would  know  at  what  points  in  morals  men  were  asking  for  '  definite 
scientific  utterance.'  Surely  one  would  think  that  this  was  no 
superfluous  task,  to  browbeat  the  reluctant  oracle,  by  whose  responses 
we  are  told  that  the  whole  world  is  to  guide  itself,  and  to  force  its 
lips  to  utter  some  definite  and  coherent  sentence.  And  the  task 
would  be  of  equal  use,  whether  its  aim  were  to  make  the  oracle  help  us, 
or  to  make  it  reveal  its  helplessness.  Surely  here  is  a  motive  that 
one  would  think  is  plain  and  sane  enough.  And  is  it  not  equally 
plain  that  there  may  be  yet  another  also,  springing  out  of  and  com- 
pleting this  one  ?  What  good,  exclaims  my  critic,  can  I  think  to 
gain  by  elaborate  attempts  at  reducing  unbelievers  to  despondency, 
and  at  loosing  their  hold  upon  hopes  which  they  are  still  struggling 
to  cling  to  ?  The  answer  is  near  to  hand.  For  those  who  hold  that 
on  theism  the  hopes  of  the  human  race  depend,  and  that  this  alone 
can  sustain  it  in  the  unexampled  trial  or  transformation  to  which 

M  2 


164  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  January 

it  seems  about  to  be  subjected,  it  may  be  of  the  utmost  moment 
to  strip  from  the  unredeeming  philosophies  all  the  fragments  of 
truth  which  for  a  moment  disguise  their  nakedness ;  and  to  show, 
though  at  the  cost  of  pain  and  despair  to  many,  that  the  end  of  these 
things  is  death.  Whenever  a  fight  grows  hard  between  a  false  belief 
and  a  true  one,  there  will  be  found  worthy  soldiers  fighting  on  either 
side ;  and  the  iron  will  go  through  the  souls  of  many,  who,  so  far  as 
we  can  see,  have  little  deserved  to  feel  it.  But  such  pain  in  the 
present  case  does  not  seem  needless.  To  the  eyes  of  the  believer,  a 
large  and  leading  body  of  men  are  entering  an  Inferno,  which  they 
honestly  mistake  for  Paradise.  At  present  they  are  only  on  the 
confines  of  the  '  brown  air ; '  and  they  trust  that  it  will  grow  brighter 
as  they  dive  further  into  it.  To  call  them  back  by  the  way  they 
have  gone  seems  hopeless.  The  one  course  is  to  plunge  them  as 
quickly  as  may  be  to  the  lowest  circle,  where  the  Grod  they  have 
denied  is  most  completely  absent ;  that  so  at  last  they  may  emerge 
on  the  other  side,  and  again  see  the  stars. 

And  now  having  said  this,  let  me  proceed  to  what  lies  before  us 
— to  the  special  points  that  I  am  about  to  deal  with  now.  The 
main  questions  that  my  late  volume  has  treated  have  been,  roughly 
speaking,  two  :  first,  the  relation  of  human  life  to  theism ;  secondly, 
the  relation  of  theism  to  exact  knowledge  and  thought.  It  is  the 
former  of  these  only  that  my  fair  critic  has  touched  upon ;  and  what 
I  am  about  to  say  will  accordingly  be  confined  to  that.  Let  us 
define  more  closely  the  exact  scope  of  the  argument.  It  is  concerned 
with  the  truth  or  falsehood  of  two  statements  of  my  own,  which  my 
two  critics,  English  and  American,  have,  for  precisely  the  same  reasons, 
formally  contradicted.  I  have  maintained  that  theism,  with  its 
attendant  doctrine  of  man's  personal  immortality,  '  has  a  practical 
effect  upon  practical  life — upon  what  men  do,  and  what  they  forbear 
to  do — what  they  think  of  themselves,  and  of  one  another.'  Without 
these  beliefs,  I  have  said  further,  '  there  can  be  no  standard  by  which 
the  quality  of  pleasures  can  be  tested  ;  that  truth  as  truth,  and  virtue 
as  virtue,  cease  to  be  in  any  way  admirable.'  And  should  these 
beliefs  ever  quite  vanish  from  the  world,  I  have  predicted  a  cata- 
strophe as  the  result,  that  might  be  not  unfitly  spoken  of  as  the 
second  fall  of  man.  My  critics  maintain,  on  the  contrary,  that  not 
even  in  its  most  modified  form  is  such  a  catastrophe  possible.  That 
a  vast  change  is  imminent,  they  indeed  admit  readily,  but  it  is  a 
change,  they  say,  that  does  not  touch  virtue,  nor  any  of  the  great 
emotions  that  are  at  present  connected  with  it.  There  is,  they 
assure  us,  to  be  no  lowering  of  life ;  our  highest  hopes  and  pleasures, 
and  all  our  profoundest  consolations,  are  to  still  remain  to  us ;  and 
'  so  long  as  man  is  man,'  says  Miss  Bevington,  c  virtue,  as  virtue,  will 
never  cease  to  be  admirable.' 

Such  are  the  counter-statements  that  I  am  again  about  to  deal 


1880.  ATHEISTIC  METHODISM.  165 

with,  and  which  I  trust  to  end  by  setting  in  a  far  plainer  light. 
Here  and  there,  perhaps,  I  shall  have  for  a  moment  to  repeat 
myself;  but  I  agree  with  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer  in  not  much 
regretting  this.  '  For  only,'  as  that  writer  says,  '  by  varied  iteration 
can  alien  conceptions  be  forced  upon  reluctant  minds.' 

What  I  have  to  do  chiefly,  however,  is  not  to  repeat,  but  to  correct 
myself.  In  parts  of  my  former  writings  there  has  been  a  certain 
ambiguity,  with  which  both  my  critics  have  very  justly  taxed  me. 
It  lies  in  my  use  of  the  two  words  virtue  and  morality,  which  on 
certain  occasions  I  have  seemed  to  confound  with  happiness ;  and, 
indeed,  in  the  cases  I  am  referring  to,  they  practically  were  in- 
separable. In  thought,  however,  at  any  rate,  they  are  always  distinct 
things ;  and  we  shall  save  much  confusion  if  we  transfer  this  dis- 
tinction to  language,  and  resolve  always  to  retain  it  there.  Let  us 
begin  with  this :  and  we  cannot  do  better  here  than  refer  to  the 
positive  writers  themselves.  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer  shall  speak  first. 
*  No  school,'  he  says  in  his  latest  volume,  '  can  avoid  taking  for  the 
ultimate  moral  aim  a  desirable  state  of  feeling  called  by  whatever 
name — gratification,  enjoyment,  happiness.  Pleasure,  somewhere,  at 
some  time,  to  some  being  or  beings,  is  an  inexpugnable  element  of 
the  conception.  It  is  as  much  a  necessary  form  of  moral  intuition 
as  space  is  a  necessary  form  of  intellectual  intuition.'  4  And  i  if,'  he 
says  further,  *  we  call  good  the  conduct  conducive  to  life,  we  can 
only  do  so  with  the  implication  that  it  is  conducive  to  a  balance  of 
pleasures  over  pains.' 8  Morality,  or  goodness  itself,  says  my  American 
critic,  repeating  my  own  words, 'is- not  the  prize  of  life.'  That 
prize  is  happiness ;  and  '  morality,'  he  says,  '  only  furnishes  the 
negative  conditions.'6  Miss  Bevington  is  even  more  explicit. 
1  Every  one  else,'  she  says,  *  knows  and  affirms,  and  no  positive 
moralist  attempts  to  deny,  that  virtuous  conduct  is  only  to  be 
achieved  at  all  for  the  sake  of  what  lies  beyond  it.' 7  And,  finally,  I 
may  add  to  this  a  former  remark  of  my  own,  that  all  those  actions 
which  my  critics  praise  as  virtuous,  are  only  the  '  creatures '  of  the 
happiness  they  lead  to,  '  and  can  have  no  more  honour  than  the  latter 
is  able  to  bestow  upon  them.' 8 

What  follows  then  is  this,  and  all  our  positive  writers  will  do 
well  to  remember  it.  The  entire  worth  of  life — the  dignity,  the 
glory,  or  whatever  we  please  to  call  it,  of  humanity — rests  on  the  fact 
that  humanity  is  capable,  not  of  virtue,  or  of  heroism,  not  of  truth, 
or  purity ;  but  that  it  is  capable  of  pleasure,  of  gratification,  of  en- 
joyment, or  of  happiness.  The  former  are  of  value  only  because  they 
lead  to  the  latter,  at  some  time,  and  for  some  certain  persons ;  and 
we  only  praise  or  felicitate  those  pursuing  them,  in  so  far  as  the 
gratification  they  lead  to  has  been  in  some  way  tasted  by  themselves. 

4  Data  of  Ethics,  p.  46.  5  lUd.  p.  45.  6  The  Value  of  Life,  p.  229. 

7  Nineteenth  Century,  October  1879,  p.  598.  8  Is  Life  Worth  Living  ?  p.  57. 


166  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  January 

Thus  all  our  interest  in  humanity,  and  all  our  ardour  in  behalf  of  it, 
must  rise  and  fall  with  the  fortunes  of  one  belief — our  belief  that 
humanity  does  secure,  or  that  it  some  day  will  secure,  a  preponderance 
of  pleasurable  over  painful  feelings  ;  or,  in  other  words,  that  certain 
human  brains  shall  at  all  events  some  day,  and  perhaps  do  now,  exist 
in  a  certain  state.  The  one  and  only  thing  in  the  universe  that, 
according  to  the  positive  system,  can  per  se  be  adored  or  valued,  is, 
as  Mr.  Spencer  expresses  it,  '  the  balance  of  pleasures  over  pains  ' — 
the  aggregate  of  agreeable  states  of  consciousness  that  shall  be  ours 
between  our  births  and  death-beds. 

Now  all  this,  with  but  a  single  difference,  the  theist  admits  quite 
as  fully  as  any  one ;  and  indeed  so  far  as  it  goes,  it  can  be  denied  by 
no  sane  person.  Of  the  difference  in  question  we  shall  come  to  speak 
presently ;  but  there  is  another  point  that  we  must  first  go  on  to  deal 
with.  We  must  first  ask  how,  since  the  ultimate  aim  of  action  is 
nothing  but  unalloyed  gratification,  not  gratification  but  virtue  is 
the  foremost  thing  that  the  positive  teachers  commend  to  us.  The 
answer,  of  course,  is  easy ;  but  none  the  less  will  it  be  well  to  re- 
state it  clearly.  It  lies  in  the  fact  that  we  are,  as  Miss  Bevington 
expresses  it,  '  all  helplessly  social.'  In  other  words,  we  each  need 
some  help  or  some  self-restraint  from  others ;  we  each  owe  others 
some  help  or  some  self-restraint  in  return  ;  and  it  is  on  the  gradual 
adjustment  of  these  mutual  offices  that  all  human  progress  depends. 
It  is  the  voluntary  rendering  of  such  help,  or  the  voluntary  practice  of 
such  self-restraint,  that  is  called  by  the  positivists  indifferently  virtue, 
righteousness,  or  morality.  Now  the  acts  that  these  names  are 
applied  to  are  all  of  them,  in  their  primary  nature,  an  unmixed  pain  to 
us.  They  are  the  foregoing  of  what  is  directly  pleasing  to  ourselves, 
that  others  may  obtain  what  is  directly  pleasing  to  them ;  and  as 
such,  though  the  laws  could  of  course  in  some  measure  enforce  them, 
it  is  a  psychological  impossibility  that  they  would  ever  be  voluntary 
— sought,  that  is,  for  their  own  sake,  as  a  gratification.  To  be 
voluntary,  or,  in  other  words,  to  be  virtuous,  these  painful  acts  must 
become  flavoured  with  a  taste  of  pleasure  for  the  agent — with,  as  Mr. 
Spencer  would  say, 'some  state  of  feeling  that. is  desirable.'  And 
there  is  in  all  of  us  a  certain  natural  sense,  by  which  such  pleasure 
can,  within  limits,  be  given.  This  sense  is  the  sense  of  sympathy, 
our  possession  of  which  not  enables  only,  but,  within  limits,  compels 
us,  to  rejoice  and  suffer  with  others,  as  well  as  with  ourselves ;  and 
makes  their  welfare  in  some  degree  traverse  our  own.  It  is  this  sense 
of  sympathy,  and  this  alone,  that,  for  the  positive  thinker,  makes 
virtue  possible.  It  alone  consecrates  the  beggarly  elements  of  our 
own  pain,  changing  the  substance  of  it,  although  it  leaves  the 
accidents,  and  makes  us  partakers  sacramentally  of  the  agreeable 
feelings  of  our  neighbours,  and  even  of  our  remote  posterity. 

It  will  be  seen  that,  thus  analysed,  a  virtuous  act  is  this.     It  is  an 


1880.  ATHEISTIC  METHODISM.  167 

act  whose  necessary  concomitants  are  two  distinct  feelings,  a  feeling  of 
personal  pain,  and  a  feeling  of  vicarious  pleasure  that  outweighs  it. 
Each  of  these  two  is  equally  necessary.  Without  the  first,  the  act 
would  not  be  virtuous  ;  without  the  second,  it  would  not  be  possible. 
But  yet  more  is  implied  than  this.  In  producing  the  clear  balance  of 
vicarious  pleasure,  in  securing  its  final  victory  over  personal  pain,  it 
is  understood  always  that  there  is  a  struggle,  never  easy,  and  in  some 
cases  desperate  ;  and  the  one  end  and  object  of  all  moral  systems  is 
neither  more  nor  less  than  to  succour  and  guide  the  combatant.  When 
the  triumph  is  won,  says  Miss  Bevington,  it  is  a  triumph  of  '  will ; ' 
*  will,''  she  says, '  and  I  use  the  word  advisedly.'  We  may  therefore 
define  the  virtue,  the  morality,  or  the  righteousness  with  which  we 
have  to  deal  in  the  two  following  ways.  It  may  be  defined,  by  the 
analytical  spectator,  as  the  will,  when  it  so  intensifies  sympathy,  that 
the  pain  an  act  gives  to  self  is  more  than  neutralised  by  the  pleasure 
it  gives  to  others.  It  may  be  defined,  by  the  virtuous  agent,  as 
personal  pain,  over-balanced  by  vicarious  pleasure.  Such  is  the 
definition  of  it  in  its  completeness.  But  viewed  as  a  thing  to  be 
desired  and  striven  for  by  the  agent — viewed  in  the  only  light  that 
can  make  its  attainment  possible — the  definition  will  be  yet  shorter. 
We  must  define  it  only  as  the  balance  of  vicarious  pleasure,  without 
any  account  being  taken  of  its  near  connection  with  pain. 

I  will  now  check  this  account  of  the  matter  by  reference  to  the 
critic  to  whom  for  the  present  I  am  more  specially  adverting. 
Virtue,  from  the  positive  thinker's  stand-point,  is  defined  formally  by 
Miss  Bevington  as  '  such  conduct  in  another  as  forwards  his  own 
interests  at  that  other's  cost ; '  and  she  adds  further,  as  a  second 
ground  for  praising  it,  that  it  is  not  thus  good  in  its  outward  effects 
only,  but  it  is  also  '  a  good  achieved  with  difficulty.' 9  She  is  here 
in  entire  agreement  with  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer;  it  will  be  plain, 
therefore,  that  I  am  not  misleading  the  reader. 

Now  that  virtue,  thus  regarded,  is  a  good  when  tested  externally, 
may  doubtless  be  true  enough.  But  this  theory  of  it  does  but  take  us 
a  very  short  part  of  our  way.  *  It  is,'  as  Miss  Bevington  herself  truly 
says,  *  null  and  void  even  as  a  theory,  unless  it  can  be  married  to 
existing  human  emotion,  and  can  so  sway  the  motives  which  under- 
lie conduct.'  In  other  words,  the  first  practical  task  of  the  moralist 
is  not  to  present  virtue  as  agreeable  to  others — that  for  the  present 
we  may  take  for  granted — but  to  present  it  as  an  end  for  personal 
action ;  that  is,  as  an  end  agreeable  in  some  way  to  ourselves. 
Virtue,  to  be  virtue,  must  be  followed  voluntarily — nay,  with  ardour ; 
and  an  agreeable  feeling  of  some  kind  is,  therefore,  in  Mr.  Spencer's 
words,  'an  inexpugnable  element  in  our  conception  of  it.'  There 
must,  if  I  may  borrow  his  phraseology  yet  further,  be  '  a  particular 
mode  of  (agreeable)  feeling,  temporarily  existing  as  a  concomitant  of 
9  Nineteenth  Century,  October  1879,  p.  591. 


168  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  January 

each  kind  of  beneficent  action ; '  or  the  beneficent  actions  would  never 
be  done  at  all.  It  is  only  such  feeling  that,  in  the  absence  of  out- 
ward force,  can  make  any  action  possible.  Nor  does  it  matter  that 
the  pleasure  the  virtuous  act  produces  may  pass  in  its  course  through 
others.  The  important  point  is  that  like  an  electric  current,  no 
matter  how  long  the  circuit,  it  returns  without  fail  to  ourselves. 
Virtue,  therefore,  for  the  practical,  for  the  preaching  moralist,  is 
neither  more  nor  less  than  a  particular  mode  of  pleasure,  for  which 
he  has  to  cultivate  a  taste  amongst  disciples  professedly  reluctant. 
That  the  rudiments  of  the  taste  exist  is  admitted  by  all ;  but  the  re- 
luctance to  have  these  developed  is  admitted  also — indeed,  not 
admitted  only,  but,  as  we  have  seen,  emphasised  as  essential  by  the 
positive  thinkers  themselves.  Enormous  difficulties  stand  in  the 
way  of  our  conquering  it — difficulties  so  great  that  the  whole  history 
of  mankind  hitherto  has  been  little  else  but  an  ever-baffled  struggle 
against  them. 

This  struggle,  which  religion  has  sustained  so  painfully,  our 
new  philosophers  tell  us  they  will  undertake  with  a  better  heart ; 
and  this  for  two  different  reasons.  One  is  that  the  course  of 
human  events,  independent  of  any  conscious  effort  on  our  part,  tends 
of  itself  to  evolve  that  general  happiness  which  it  is  the  essence  of 
virtue  to  aim  at  consciously.  Such  a  theory,  however,  taken  by  itself, 
is  rather  a  sedative  to  virtue  than  a  stimulant ;  and  the  moralist,  as 
a  moralist,  has  nothing  at  all  to  do  with  it,  unless  he  can  '  marry  it,' 
in  Miss  Bevington's  language,  to  a  quite  other  set  of  considera- 
tions. It  is  nothing  to  him  that,  whether  we  will  or  no,  there  are 
certain  impersonal  forces  that  are  inexorably  moving  all  of  us  in  one 
direction.  The  thing  precious  in  his  eyes  is  that  with  these  forces 
the  will  of  each  of  us  should  co-operate.  It  is  his  one  task  to  induce 
the  will  to  do  so  ;  and  the  task,  he  admits  himself,  is  a  very  hard  one. 
Still  the  positive  thinker  maintains  that  it  is  no  harder  for  him  than 
for  the  religious  thinker ;  indeed,  in  some  ways  easier.  It  is  with 
his  reasons  for  this  confidence — not  with  his  theories,  however  true, 
about  the  tendency  of  impersonal  forces — that  we  first  of  all  have  to 
deal. 

Let  us  inquire,  then,  what  this  confidence  means.  It  means  a 
confidence  that  he  can  do  some  particular  thing.  But  what?  It 
can  be  defined  very  narrowly.  We  have  seen  that  his  general  task  is 
so  to  present  virtue  that  the  will  shall  seize  on  it  always  as  the  chief 
end  of  action :  and  he  must  present  it,  for  this  end,  as  essentially 
a  balance  of  pleasure  outweighing  a  load  of  pain.  It  is  on  the 
character  of  this  balance,  as  related  to  the  virtuous  agent,  that  the 
whole  question  hangs;  and  the  power  of  the  positive  moralist, 
and  the  entire  meaning  of  his  system,  are  determined  by  how  he 
handles  it. 

The  task  before  him  is  indeed  formidable.     What  he  must  prove, 


1880.  ATHEISTIC  METHODISM.  169 

and  what  he  engages  he  will  prove,  is  that  this  balance  of  pleasure 
is,  for  the  agent  himself,  of  all  pleasures,  the  intensest — that  it  is 
for  him  subjectively  the  most  agreeable  of  all  sensations  ;  so  agreeable 
indeed,  that  all  others,  matched  with  it,  are,  as  George  Eliot  expresses 
it, '  dross  for  ever,'  and  that  in  so  far  as  he  fails  to  secure  it,  he  really 
has  nothing,  although  he  possesses  all  things.  That  I  do  not  ex- 
aggerate the  sentiments  which  my  critics  engage  to  justify,  can 
be  shown  by  extracts  from  the  words  of  Miss  Bevington  herself. 
That  lady  shows  a  nervous  zeal  in  proclaiming  that  '  every  word '  I 
have  said  on  this  head  '  is  emphatically  true.' 10  She  speaks  of  virtue 
as  'that  thing  we  love  so  well  .  .  .  and  which  we  hug  as  our 
choicest  treasure.'  u  'It  would  be  a  terrible  thing,'  she  says,  'to  be 
equally  happy,  and  equally  prosperous,  supposing  such  a  case  were 
possible,  without  a  belief  in  right  and  wrong  as  such ; ' la  and  the 
results  that  would  follow  the  destruction  of  this  belief  would  be,  she 
says,  '  thoroughly  dismal  and  sickening.' 13 

Nor  is  this  unique  intensity  of  the  pleasures  brought  by  virtue 
ascribed  to  them,  by  the  positivists,  through  any  kind  of  bravado. 
They  are  obliged  to  ascribe  it.  Their  system  makes  them  do  so,  as 
we  can  soon  readily  see. 

We  will  illustrate  the  whole  case  by  a  short  and  homely  parable. 
Bill  and  James,  we  will  say,  are  two  tourists,  whose  keenest  personal 
pleasure  is  in  cutting  their  own  names  on  the  roofs  of  public 
buildings.  They  take  a  long  and  toilsome  walk,  that  they  may 
perform  this  feat  on  the  highest  pinnacle  of  a  certain  cathedral 
tower.  Having  climbed  at  last,  however,  to  the  lofty  scene  of  action, 
they  find,  to  their  horror,  that  they  have  only  two  minutes  to  spare, 
that  the  leads  of  the  coveted  pinnacle  are  some  distance  out  of  reach, 
and  that  if  either  is  to  cut  his  name  at  all,  it  can  only  be  one  of 
them  raised  on  the  other's  shoulders.  There  is,  for  a  moment,  a 
struggle  in  the  minds  of  both.  Then  Bill's  will  triumphs,  and, 
lifting  James  up,  who  cuts  his  name  in  rapture,  Bill's  only  pleasure, 
the  only  reward  of  his  walk,  is  such  of  James's  pleasure  as,  received 
by  himself  vicariously,  is  in  excess  of  the  pain  consequent  on  his  own 
self-denial. 

Now,  in  this  short  drama,  of  which  Bill  is  the  moral  hero,  we  have 
all  the  elements  of  virtue,  as  conceived  of  by  the  positivist,  in  their 
immediate  bearing  on  the  agent.  We  see  what  is  virtue,  we  see  what 
is  not  virtue,  and  we  see  that  which,  while  resembling  it,  yet  is  not 
it.  The  delight  of  the  two  tourists  in  cutting  their  respective  names 
stands  here  for  the  logical  end  of  life,  and  the  vindication  of  it  as 
being  worth  the  living.  But  the  separate  pursuance  of  this  end  by 
each  of  them  is  not  virtue  ;  neither  is  the  suffering  undergone  by 
each  in  his  long  and  toilsome  walk.  This  last,  as  Miss  Bevington 

10  Nineteenth  Century,  October  1879,  p.  587.  n  Ibid.  p.  602. 

"  Ibid.  p.  587.     The  italics  are  in  the  original.  ls  Ibid.  p.  586. 


170  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY.  January 

puts  it,  is  'but  disguised  personal  expediency  ; '  and  so  far  from  being 
identical  with  virtue,  is,  in  her  opinion,  in  strong  contrast  to  it.  We 
find  virtue  only  in  one  place ;  that  is,  in  the  foregoing  by  Bill  per- 
sonally of  the  one  end  of  his  existence,  and  choosing  instead,  as  it 
were,  only  such  a  margin  of  it  as,  conveyed  to  him  at  second  hand, 
is  not  eclipsed  by  the  pain  of  his  own  personal  loss  of  it. 

Or  let  us  have  recourse  to  yet  another  parable  ;  and  compare  the 
gladness  of  life  to  some  splendid  opera,  which  all  the  musical  world 
is  thronging  eagerly  to  hear.  Were  there  enough  seats  to  accommo- 
date all  the  applicants,  there  would  indeed  be  unmixed  pleasure ;  but 
there  would  be  no  pleasure  that  could  be  praised  as  virtuous.  Virtue 
arises  only  through  the  theatre  being  too  small  for  the  audience,  and 
through  me,  for  instance,  resigning  willingly  a  seat  already  reserved 
for  me.  I  am  not  virtuous  in  this  case  because  I  drive  to  the 
theatre  in  a  draughty  hansom.  I  am  not  virtuous  because  I  enjoy  to 
the  full  the  opera.  I  am  virtuous  only  in  so  far  as  I  enjoy  nothing 
of  what  I  came  to  enjoy,  but  am  yet  happier  than  if  I  had  done  so, 
because  I  know  my  friend  is  enjoying  it ;  though  I  may  myself  be 
catching  my  death  of  cold  in  the  passage,  and  hear  no  more  classical 
music  than  the  barmaids'  voices  in  the  refreshment  room.  I  say  I 
am  virtuous  only  because  I  get  my  enjoyment  thus,  and  under  these 
conditions — because  the  indirect  end  of  life,  largely  deadened  by  pain, 
is  more  agreeable  to  me — to  me  personally — than  the  direct  one  ever 
could  be,  even  with  no  pain  to  detract  from  it. 

Let  us  consider  well  these  two  parables  ;  for  they  are  all  the  more 
instructive  because  in  their  details  they  are  so  trivial.  The  severe 
moralist  may  say  that  my  pleasure  in  the  opera  is  only  a  selfish 
luxury ;  and  that  the  tourist's  pleasure  in  cutting  his  own  name  is 
only  an  offensive  vulgarity.  But  yet  when  we  each  of  us,  respectively, 
secure  these  ends  for  others,  and,  at  the  expense  of  pain,  get  the 
despised  pleasures  at  second  hand,  these  despised  pleasures  are  held 
to  change  their  character,  and  they  become  the  one  thing  in  life  we 
are  '  to  hug  as  our  choicest  treasure.'  My  friend  has  not  this  pleasure 
when  he  sits  entranced  in  the  stall  that  I  have  given  up  to  him. 
James  has  not  this  pleasure  when,  knife  in  hand,  he  is  cutting  his 
name  delightedly.  It  is  I  who  have  it,  as  I  stand  shivering  in  the 
passage.  It  is  poor  Bill  who  has  it,  with  James's  boots  resting  on  his 
coat-collar. 

Having  thus  far  defined  virtuous  happiness  as  a  conception,  we 
must  now  see  how  it  is  to  be  turned  into  a  reality,  how  it  is  to  be 
hoisted  into  the  lofty  niche  designed  for  it,  how  it  is  to  be  made 
practically  operative  with  those  who  we  desire  should  seek  it.  As  con- 
ceived of  by  the  theist,  it  has  three  essential  characteristics  by  which 
in  his  system  it  gains  its  hold  on  man — its  inwardness,  its  importance, 
and  (within  limits)  its  absolute  character.  I  have  pointed  these  out 
in  my  former  volume  ;  and  have  declared  that  the  theist  could  alone 


1880.  ATHEISTIC  METHODISM.  171 

invest  it  with  them.  That  the  characteristics  are  essential  both  my 
positive  critics  declare  loudly ;  but  they  declare  also  that  they  are 
quite  independent  of  theism,  and  that  the  positive  philosophy  leaves 
them  as  marked  as  ever.  Let  us  now  proceed  to  examine  again  the 
two  first  of  them,  leaving  the  third  to  be  dealt  with  later  on,  and  see 
how  the  positive  moralists  try  to  make  good  their  premisses. 

First,  then,  as  to  the  inwardness  of  virtue,  as  virtue — what  do 
both  parties  confessedly  mean  by  that  ?  They  mean  that  its  excel- 
lence results  in  the  will,  not  in  the  outward  act.  The  virtue,  as  a 
virtue,  with  the  special  pleasure  it  brings  with  it,  is  complete  when 
the  will  has  triumphed ;  and  it  is  regarded  as  good  with  reference  to 
the  person  willing,  not  with  reference  to  those  others  on  whose  behalf 
he  has  willed.  Professor  Clifford  has  declared  this  as  loudly  and  as 
plainly  as  any  one.  The  virtuous  act,  in  the  acting  of  it,  has  its  dis- 
tinctive character  '  for  ever,'  he  says,  '  and  no  accidental  failure  of 
its  good  or  evil  fruits  can  possibly  alter  that.' 14  And  the  language  of 
Miss  Bevington  herself  shows  that  she  quite  agrees  with  him.  When 
we  call  virtue  inward,  therefore,  we  mean  that  as  a  pleasure,  as  a 
possible  end  of  action — in  other  words,  as  virtue — it  is  self-regarding. 
We  mean  that  we  are  enabled  to  pay  a  certain  debt  to  our  neighbours, 
only  because  we  make  ourselves  feel  that  we  owe  a  certain  debt  to 
ourselves. 

Next  as  to  its  special,  its  incalculable  importance,  our  meaning  is 
precisely  similar.  When,  as  an  end  of  action,  we  declare  that  it  is 
important  a  man  should  follow  it,  we  mean  that  it  is  important  to 
himself;  important  indeed  by  the  way  to  others,  but  of  special  and 
incalculable  importance  to  himself  alone. 

Let  us  now  see  how  my  positive  critic  defends  herself,  in  con- 
tinuing to  ascribe  to  virtue  these  two  special  characteristics ;  and  it 
will  be  plain  at  once  that  she  and  her  school  in  common  with  her, 
instead  of  defending  their  position,  are  in  reality  utterly  and  for  ever 
abandoning  it ;  and  that  they  only  seem  to  be  not  doing  so  because 
they  retain  certain  marked  words,  though  they  have  completely 
reversed  the  meaning  of  them.  Thus,  instead  of  vindicating  for 
virtue  in  any  way  the  inwardness  we  have  above  spoken  of,  she 
merely  '  emphatically  maintains  '  the  here  meaningless  truism  that 
virtue  initiates  in  a  certain  'set  of  ...  sensibilities  in  the  in- 
dividual ' H — a  thing  which  is  not  peculiar  to  virtue,  but  is  at  once 
common  and  essential  to  all  free  action  whatsoever.  Whilst  as  to  its 
importance,  she  here  not  so  much  misses  but  inverts  the  meaning ; 
for  referring  it  not  to  the  agent,  but  to  the  vast  sum  of  events  present 
and  to  come,  external  to  him,  she  does  indeed  show  this  importance 
to  be,  in  the  case  of  each  man,  incalculable,  but  incalculable  not 
because  it  is  so  large,  but  because  it  is  so  infinite  simally  small. 

It  will  be  thus  seen,  and  no  one  can  more  clearly  though  more 
unconsciously  confess  this  than  Miss  Bevington,  that  virtue,  as  a 
14  Professor  Clifford,  Ethict  of  Belief . 


172  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  January 

personal  end  of  action,  is  placed  by  the  positivists  in  a  completely 
new  position ;  that  everything  supreme  and  special  in  its  pleasures 
altogether  evaporates,  and  that,  were  their  account  of  it  a  true  one, 
there  would  be  no  means  of  'marrying  it  to  existing  human 
emotion.' 15 

It  will  be  here  again  urged  that  the  sympathetic  appetite,  or 
the  motive  power  in  virtue,  even  if  not  to  be  roused  by  argument  in 
the  individual  man  now,  will  be  evolved  to  the  needed  strength 
amongst  the  individual  men  of  the  future.  This  theory,  however — 
itself  open  to  dispute — would,  were  it  never  so  true,  be  nothing  to  the 
point  here.  The  business  of  the  moralist  is  not  scientific  prophecy, 
though  he  will  doubtless  call  that  to  his  aid.  His  business  is  with 
living  men  and  women,  and  lies  in  educating  their  wavering  and  way- 
ward wills  ;  nay,  unless  he  can  manage  to  do  this,  the  prophecy  just 
alluded  to  must,  he  believes,  be  falsified.  *  Positivism,'  says  my 
American  critic,  '  recognises  that  beyond  a  certain  stage  of  develop- 
ment, changes  in  human  destiny  depend  immediately  on  the  combined 
knowledge,  desire,  and  will  of  human  beings.' 16  '  It  is  well  aware,' 
also,  he  adds, '  of  the  feebleness  of  the  sympathetic  instincts ;  and  .  .  . 
it  proposes  therefore  to  develope  such  sentiments  by  every  practicable 
means.' 17  This  development  produces,  when  accomplished,  virtue ;  and 
virtue,  to  make  plainness  doubly  plain,  we  will  define  yet  once  more. 
It  is,  says  Miss  Bevington,  '  a  special  meeting  of  two  characteristics,' 
and  these  two  characteristics  are  *  use  and  difficulty.' 18  It  is,  there- 
fore, not  only  the  intensification  in  the  individual  of  the  sympathetic 
appetite,  but  it  is  such  an  intensification  when  secured  with  a 
struggle  by  the  will. 

I  repeat  again,  then,  that  to  produce  this  struggle,  still  more  to 
secure  the  final  success  of  it,  is  a  thing  that  the  positive  theory  makes 
a  logical  impossibility.  What  that  system  professes  to  do,  is,  when 
stated  nakedly,  neither  more  nor  less  than  this.  Starting  with 
unalloyed  happiness — with  a  balance  of  pure  gratification,  as  not 
merely  the  only  right,  but  the  only  possible  end  of  action,  it  professes 
to  show  that,  as  reaching  us  directly,  this  happiness  is  a  thing  to  be 
despised  and  renounced  by  all  of  us  ;  and  that  whilst  despised  as  the 
subject  of  our  own  enjoyment,  we  are  to  fall  down  and  adore  it  as  an 
object  of  contemplation.  But  to  show  this  is  plainly  a  quite  im- 
possible feat.  If  the  delight  of  James  is  in  itself  despicable,  this 
delight  does  not  become  noble  in  Bill's  case,  because  it  reaches  him  at 
second  hand,  and  because  personally  he  has  foregone  all  share  in  it. 
If  it  is  good  in  itself  at  all,  it  must  be  best  at  first  hand.  If  it  is 
great  at  all,  it  must  be  greater  when  there  is  no  pain  to  detract  from 
it.  The  positive  system  can  indeed  prove  one  thing  with  regard  to 

15  Nineteenth  Century,  October  1879,  p.  GOO. 

18  The  Value  of  Life,  p.  235.  IT  Ibid.  p.  205. 

18  Nineteenth  Century,  October  1879,  p.  592. 


1880.  ATHEISTIC  METHODISM.  173 

virtue  ;  but  this  is  the  exact  opposite  of  what  it  wants  to  prove.  It 
can  prove  that  we  should  each  of  us  be  glad  if  the  rest  of  the  world 
was  virtuous ;  but  that  we  should  each  of  us  avoid  to  the  utmost 
being  virtuous  ourselves.  Let  me  consult  Miss  Bevington,  and  see 
if  she  does  not  agree  with  me.  '  Virtue,  as  virtue?  she  says,  <  will 
never  cease  to  be  admirable,  and  for  this  reason.  Man  will  always 
accord  a  very  special  kind  of  admiration  to  such  conduct  in  another 
as  forwards  his  own  interest  at  that  other's  cost.  .  .  .  When,  moreover, 
he  receives  the  benefit  of  such  struggle,  without  himself  encountering 
its  difficulty — in  other  words,  receives  his  own  good  fortune  as  the 
result  of  his  neighbour's  struggle — not  the  death,  burial,  and  oblivion 
of  a  thousand  creeds  will  avail  to  hinder  the  instinctively  special 
force  of  his  admiration.' 19  In  other  words,  our  liking  for  virtue  lies 
in  this,  that  its  presence  in  another  saves  us  from  the  needing  it 
in  ourselves. 

Now  I  am  aware  that  the  above  account  of  the  matter  will  seem 
at  first  sight  to  be  nothing  more  than  a  parody.  And  that  it  is 
essentially  absurd  is  without  doubt  true.  But  its  absurdity  does  not 
prove  that  it  is  not  a  true  analysis  of  the  positive  theory ;  but  that 
the  positive  theory  is  not  a  true  analysis  of  facts.  That  virtue,  as  a 
fact,  may  be  in  many  cases  possible  without  any  assent  to  theism,  or 
any  conscious  thought  of  it,  is  plain  enough,  and  is  denied  by  nobody. 
But  this  is  just  what  the  theist  would  expect ;  and,  as  we  shall  see 
presently,  he  can  perfectly  well  account  for  it. 

We  must  first  note,  however,  that  though  such  instances  of  virtue 
might  be  adduced  in  numbers  by  the  positive  writers,  those  which 
they  do  adduce  generally  are  not  true  instances  at  all.  They  consist 
almost  always  in  abstentions  from  three  crimes  or  vices,  murder,  theft, 
and  drunkenness.  But  such  abstentions,  though  containing  in  them, 
as  virtue  does,  a  personal  desire  over-balanced  by  a  desire  not 
personal,  for  all  this  are  yet  not  virtues.  They  lack,  at  least  in  most 
cases,  the  essential  element,  struggle.  They  are  useful,  but  they 
are  not  difficult.  A  selfish  nephew,  desiring  the  death  of  a  rich 
uncle,  is  not  praised  as  virtuous  because  he  does  not  kill  him ;  nor, 
supposing  he  forbears  to  do  so,  although  he  could  do  so  safely,  do  we 
conceive  him  to  experience  any  virtuous  rapture.  Or  let  us  take  an 
instance  that  is  yet  more  suggestive — one  connected  not  with  murder, 
but  with  what  is  next  door  to  it — vindictive  cruelty.  A  man  in  a 
rage  with  his  wife  yields  to  his  passion,  and  begins  to  kick  her 
wildly.  This  at  first  gives  him  unmixed  gratification  ;  but  he  finds 
in  a  few  seconds  that  he  is  more  annoyed  by  the  scratches  she  inflicts 
on  him  than  he  is  gratified  by  the  kicks  that  he  inflicts  on  her.  He 
therefore  at  once  checks  his  passion ;  and  though  it  often  again 
disturbs  him,  he  never  again  yields  to  it.  It  is  yet  plainer  here, 
that,  in  spite  of  his  self-restraint,  the  man  in  question  is  not  virtuous. 
19  Nineteenth  Century,  October  1879,  p.  591. 


174  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY.  January 

And  we  have  in  this  case  a  type  of  a  large  number  of  actions,  which, 
though  they  all  of  them  resemble  virtues,  yet  could  some  of  them 
never  have  been  such,  and  have,  some  of  them,  in  the  course  of 
progress  long  ceased  to  be  so. 

We  are  here  brought  to  the  question  of  virtue  and  evolution  ;  and 
we  are  now  in  a  position  to  appreciate  two  important  facts  about  it. 
The  first  of  these  is  that  when  virtuous  conduct  comes,  through  evo- 
lution, to  be  spontaneous  conduct,  it  loses  altogether  its  special 
character  as  virtue ;  and  so,  as  far  as  such  virtue  is  concerned 
with  it,  '  our  choicest  treasure  '  vanishes.  The  second  point  is  that 
such  evolution  has  brought  us  but  a  certain  way ;  and,  without 
conscious  endeavour  on  our  part,  it  cannot,  as  my  American  critic 
admits,  take  us  further.  We  are  standing  now,  as  it  were,  on  the 
stepping-stones  of  a  dead  savagery,  and  are  asking  both  how  and 
why  we  should  painfully  climb  higher ;  at  all  events,  we  are  only 
capable  of  virtue,  in  so  far  as  we  are  in  this  position. 

And  in  this  position  it  is  that  positivism  fails  to  help  us.  To 
this  how  ?  and  why  ?  it  can  give  no  coherent  answer.  The  only 
answer  it  can  give  has  a  radical  flaw  in  it — a  flaw,  indeed,  which  its 
exponents  at  times  perceive,  but  which,  as  we  shall  see  presently, 
they  utterly  fail  to  remedy.  What  we  want,  as  virtuous  agents,  to 
have  scientifically  made  plain  to  us,  is  that  certain  pleasures  that  lie 
for  us  on  the  far  side  of  pain  are  greater  for  us  beyond  comparison 
than  those  that  lie  on  the  near  side.  The  supreme  amount  of  their 
pleasurableness  is  an  '  inexpugnable  element,'  as  Mr.  Spencer  says, '  in 
our  conception  of  them.' 

Now  the  pleasures  in  question  are,  as  we  have  seen,  vicarious ; 
they  are,  so  to  speak,  not  self-luminous.  What  we  require  then  in 
a  satisfactory  answer  must  be  one  of  two  things.  One  of  these 
might  be  a  proof  that  those  pleasures  which  are  self-luminous,  that 
is,  which  are  secured  by  us  for  others,  so  far  exceed  any  that  could  be 
self-luminous  for  ourselves,  that  the  mere  reflection  of  the  former 
will  outshine  the  sunlight  of  the  latter.  But  this,  we  see  at  once,  is  an 
impossibility.  No  such  pleasures  exist.  Nor,  even  if  they  did,  would 
their  existence  meet  the  needs  of  the  case ;  for  though  they  might,  no 
doubt,  excite  virtue  in  a  minority,  yet,  from  the  very  terms  of  the 
proposition,  they  could  do  so  in  a  minority  only.  Those  who  enjoyed 
them  directly  would  not  be  virtuous  at  all ;  whilst  virtuous  pleasure, 
so  far  from  being  the  highest,  would  be  nothing  but  a  poor  substitute, 
good  for  those  only  who  could  not  get  the  original. 

What  we  require  to  have  proved,  then,  must  be  plainly  some- 
thing different.  I  must  be  shown,  not  that  the  moonlight  that  is 
reflected  on  me  from  my  friend's  pleasure,  is  brighter  than  any 
candle-light  I  could  get  from  my  own  ;  not  that  it  is  brighter  than 
my  candle,  but  that  it  is  brighter  than  what  seems  to  be  its  own  sun. 
Such  is  the  nature  of  the  phenomenon  that  we  really  have  to  account 


1880.  ATHEISTIC  METHODISM.  175 

for.  We  get  more  out  of  the  sack  than  we,  as  yet,  seem  to  have  put 
into  it.  And  here  at  last  we  are  getting  near  the  secret.  We  here 
see  that,  as  yet,  we  have  not  the  whole  matter  before  us,  but  that  there 
must  be  some  new  element  that  remains  to  be  taken  account  of. 
When  Bill,  in  lifting  James  on  his  shoulders,  is  happier  than  James 
thus  lifted,  his  greater  happiness  must  have  some  source  beyond  its 
seeming  one.  Its  only  seeming  source  is  the  delight  of  James  ;  but 
that  delight  is  despicable  and  vulgar,  and  Bill  is  vulgar  also,  in  so 
far  as  he  thinks  it  delightful.  But  Bill's  balance  of  pleasure  which  his 
self-bestowal  brings  with  it,  is  of  a  character  very  different.  On 
this  the  moralist  will  bestow  all  his  best  praise ;  and  it  is  typical,  for 
the  positive  moralist,  of  the  pleasures  of  all  virtue.  And  what  has 
happened  in  producing  it  ?  A  few  pains  and  pleasures,  all  objectively 
trivial  and  unworthy  of  a  refined  man's  notice,  have  been  arranged 
together  in  a  certain  way  by  a  will.  And  the  result  is,  that,  as  a 
modern  poet  has  said  of  music, 

Out  of  three  sounds  are  framed,  not  a  fourth  sound,  but  a  star. 

Whence  then — from  what  alien  source,  does  this  star-like  pleasure 
come — this  '  choicest  treasure,'  this  '  blessedness,'  which,  as  Mr. 
Spencer  takes  several  pages  to  tell  us,  can  be  only  some  form  of 
personal,  of  subjective  gratification  ? 20  It  is  clear  that  it  cannot 
derive  its  value  from  those  enjoyments  which  the  virtue,  that  alone 
secures  it  to  us,  shuffles  from  hand  to  hand.  It  must  derive  it  from 
something  else  that  can  yield  far  greater  pleasure  than  these  ;  some- 
thing that,  through  all  our  thoughts  for  others,  we  must  each  '  covet 
earnestly  '  for  ourselves,  and  in  which,  through  all  denials  of  self,  we 
are  each  to  the  utmost  to  indulge  self. 

The  positivists  admit,  though  they  continually  lose  sight  of  the 
fact,  that  such  a  something  is  essential ;  and  they  declare,  with  much 
pomp  of  language,  that  their  system  supplies  us  with  it.  According 
to  their  account  of  it,  it  is  this.  It  is  an  intense,  a  passionate,  an 
adoring  joy  at  the  fact  of  the  human  race  existing :  or,  to  put  it  accu- 
rately, and  in  Mr.  Spencer's  language,  at  the  fact  of  its  presupposed 
existence  having  a  *  balance  of  pleasures  over  pains,'  as  a  *  necessary 
concomitant.'  This  balance  is  presented  to  us  by  the  positive 
system,  as,  for  us,  the  one  august  and  precious  thing  in  the  universe  ; 
as  a  vast  treasury  of  the  highest  possible  rapture,  in  the  whole  of 
which  we  may  every  one  of  us  share,  if  we  only  contribute  faithfully 
each  our  private  mite  to  it.  On  this  conception  the  positivists  have 
bestowed  the  greatest  pains.  They  have  used  every  means  at  their 
disposal  to  make  it  splendid  and  alluring,  and  it  seems,  in  many 
cases,  to  be  actually  doing  the  work  it  is  designed  to  do.  They  seem 
actually  to  have  aroused  by  it  an  emotion  that  can  be  '  married '  to 
their  'theory  of  virtue,'  and  'so  sway  the  motives  that  underlie  con- 

20  Vide  Data  of  Etlist,  pp.  -11-14. 


176  TEE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY.  January 

duct.'  This  last  fact  we  may  admit  readily ;  and  it  is  not  unnaturally 
conceived  by  many  to  be  a  conclusive  and  practical  proof  of  the 
validity  of  the  positive  system.  Such,  however,  is  very  far  from 
being  the  case.  In  the  first  place,  as  we  shall  see  by-and-by,  the 
final  object  of  emotion  we  have  just  been  speaking  of,  though  im- 
pressive enough  under  the  limelight  of  the  imagination,  is  disen- 
chanted instantly  by  a  touch  of  logical  daylight.  Whilst  as  to  its 
reality  being  proved  by  its  apparent  efficacy,  we  will  first  proceed  to 
see  how  the  theist  replies  to  that. 

When  the  positivist  points  out  to  him  the  emotion  in  question, 
as  not  existing  only,  but  existing  efficaciously,  the  theist  replies  that 
the  emotion  is  doubtless  there,  but  that  its  analysis  is  very  different 
from  what  the  other  thinks  it  is.  It  is,  says  the  theist,  no  mere 
delight  in  the  fact  of  the  human  race  existing,  though  under  one  of 
its  aspects  it  may  coincide  with  that.  Primarily,  he  says,  it  is  a 
delight  in  the  will  of  Grod,  and  a  conformity  with  it,  more  or  less 
impassioned.  Whatever  else  the  individual  takes  it  for,  it  really  is 
this.  Man  is,  on  this  theory,  the  child  of  Grod,  and  part  of  the  child's 
nature  is  an  innate  love  for  his  father,  and  an  innate  longing  to 
please  him,  though  these  very  often  may  not  rightly  understand 
themselves.  The  theist  goes  on  to  say,  that,  unless  they  do  under- 
stand themselves,  they  will  not  indeed  lie  dormant,  still  less  be  extin- 
guished ;  but  that  their  action  will  be  uncertain  and  wayward,  and 
will  never  give  their  possessor  either  true  peace  or  guidance.  Thus 
what  they  are  always  craving  for,  always  goading  him  to  seek  for 
them,  is  a  logical  account  of  what  they  really  mean  and  aim  at.  And 
what  the  theist  maintains  is,  that  his  system  can  alone  give  them 
this ;  not  that  it  is  alone  in,  to  some  degree,  touching  them ;  still 
less,  that  it  is  alone  in  finding  them  at  hand  to  be  touched.21 

Let  us  now  see  what  the  theistic  system  is  ;  remembering,  as  we 
do  so,  that  the  propositions  we  shall  find  it  to  consist  of  are  not  to 
be  here  discussed  as  true  statements  of  facts,  but  as  true  translations 
of  a  belief  in  facts  that  is  already  latent  in  us,  under  the  form  of 
feeling.  The  feeling  in  question  is  that  of  the  supreme  value  of 
virtue,  in  other  words,  the  supremacy  of  the  pleasure  it  is  attended 
by.  Now,  as  the  theist  and  the  positivist  both  here  agree  about 
much,  we  will  start  with  their  points  of  agreement,  and  we  shall  so 
the  better  signalise  the  point  where  they  part  company.  The  theist, 
then,  agrees  with  the  positivist  in  accepting  as  virtues  all  those  acts 

21  Miss  Bevington  and  others  completely  misrepresent  the  matter,  when  they 
speak  of  the  theist  as  maintaining  that  religion,  or  belief  in  God,  has  created 
conscience  or  virtue.  What  the  theist  maintains  is  that  God,  not  the  belief  in  God, 
has  created  them  ;  and  that  the  belief  in  God  has  developed  them.  When  the  re- 
lations between  religion  and  virtue  are  spoken  of,  the  others  fail  to  distinguish  the 
simple  and  obvious  difference  between  the  logical  connection  and  the  historical ; 
and  to  see  that  though  historically  virtue  may  be  prior  to  religion,  religion  logically  is 
prior  to  virtue. 


1880.  ATHEISTIC  METHODISM.  177 

which  the  latter  defines  as  such ;  and  he  agrees  that  they  all  tend, 
as  Miss  Bevington  says  they  do,  '  to  the  slow  amelioration  of 
man's  condition  upon  earth,' 22  or,  as  she  explains  herself  more  dis- 
tinctly, '  to  the  securing  him  a  maximum  of  comfort,  and  a  minimum 
of  friction,'  and  this,  too,  for  the  largest  number  of  generations  pos- 
sible. Here  the  positivist  stops,  and  the  theist  goes  on  alone.  The 
former  says  that  the  virtuous  appetite  has  now  met  with  its  proper 
and  sufficient  object,  in  such  vague  happiness,  as  is  called  comfort,  for 
an  indefinite  number  of  human  beings.  The  theist  altogether  denies 
this.  The  virtuous  appetite,  he  says,  is  not  satisfied  that  these 
human  beings  should  be  happy.  This  is  an  object  that  not  only  does 
not  satisfy  the  appetite,  but  barely  even  excites  it.  It  is  not  enough, 
lie  says,  that  these  human  beings  should  be  happy,  but  that  their 
happiness  should  be  of  one  special  kind.  And  for  such  special 
happiness  he  has  a  special  name,  and  that  name  is  holiness.  Granted 
that  man  as  man  is  capable  of  this,  it  at  once  becomes  his  duty  to 
labour  for  man's  existence  ;  and  a  new  meaning  shoots  for  him  into 
that  result  of  virtue,  which  Miss  Bevington  can  describe  only  as  its 
'  life-ward  tendency.' 

"What,  then,  is  holiness,  that  such  should  be  the  result  of  our  re- 
cognition of  it?  In  the  answer  to  this  question  we  have  all  theism 
in  embryo.  Holiness  is  a  form  of  happiness  so  apart,  and  by  itself, 
that  it  can  be  described,  to  those  who  have  not  felt  it,  no  more  than 
any  simple  taste  can.  To  those  who  do  not  feel  it,  the  theist  is 
dumb  ;  for  morally  such  men  are,  for  the  theist,  deaf.  But  for  those 
who  do  feel  it,  or  can  remember  once  to  have  felt  it,  what  the  theist 
says  is  sufficiently  plain  and  moving.  They  will  know  what  he 
means,  however  vague  his  language,  when  he  tells  them  it  is  a 
feeling, 

Unde  nil  majus  generatur  ipso, 

Nee  viget  quidquam  simile  aut  secundum ; 

and  that  life,  except  as  a  selfish  and  contemned  pleasure,  is  of  value 
only  as  being  the  condition  of  this.  They  will  know  what  he  means 
when  he  tells  them  further  that  this  feeling  unites  in  itself  two 
qualities,  which  in  all  the  positive  virtues  are  of  necessity  in  anta- 
gonism— selfishness  and  unselfishness  ;  that  there  is  here  a  perfect 
marriage  and  balance  between  the  pair,  and  that  neither  of  them  is 
afore  or  after  the  other.  They  will  know  what  he  means  when  he 
tells  them  finally  that  the  one  cause  and  source  of  this  feeling  is  the 
vision  and  the  fruition  of  Grod  ;  and  that  the  saint  when  he  exclaims, 
*  My  Lord,  I  desire  nothing  but  thee,'  is  exclaiming  in  the  same 
breath,  '  and  that  my  brother  may  desire  thee  also.' 23 

21  Nineteenth  Century,  December  1879,  p.  1012. 

28  Another  characteristic  error  may  be  here  noticed  in  Miss  Bevington 's  second 
paper,  which  so  vitiates  nearly  all  its  reasonings,  that,  regarded  as  an  answer  to 
myself,  they  are  absolutely  of  no  import.  All  the  propositions  of  mine  that  she 

VOL.  VII.— No.  35.  N 


178  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  January 

In  this  desire,  says  the  theist,  in  this  supreme  desire,  though  it 
often  does  its  work  in  secret,  and  in  ways  past  finding  out,  is  the  real 
motive  for  all  those  painful  acts,  which  the  positivists  praise  as  virtues 
because  of  their  '  life-ward  tendency,'  meaning  only  by  this  that  they 
conduce  to  general  *  comfort.'  The  theist  values  life,  and  he  values 
life- ward  tendencies,  not  as  subserving  comfort,  but  as  subserving 
holiness.  That  men  should  live  and  be  holy,  is,  he  believes,  God's 
will ;  and  to  co-operate  with  that  will  in  all  ways  is  the  essence  of 
holiness.  It  is  thus  that  the  theory  of  life-ward  actions  is  for  him 
*  married  to  the  emotions,'  and  *  so  sways  the  motives  that  underlie 
conduct.' 

But  what,  then,  of  those  direct  pleasures  of  life,  which  it  is  but 
fair  to  suppose*  that  Miss  Bevington  includes  in  '  comfort  ?  '  What 
of  the  pleasures,  the  excitements,  and,  above  all,  the  affections,  with 
which  for  most  of  us  the  entire  daily  landscape  is  occupied,  and 
amongst  which  exclusively  our  active  work  lies  ?  What  account  does 
the  theist  give  of  these,  that  is  in  harmony  with  common  sense,  and 
with  the  common  estimate  of  them  ?  The  account  he  gives  is  com- 
plete ;  and  it  is  the  only  account  that  can  justify  the  manner  in 
which  they  are  regarded  at  present,  and  in  which  the  positivists 
declare  they  shall  never  cease  to  be  regarded.  All  the  pleasures,  he 
says,  and  all  the  comforts  in  question,  are  arranged  in  a  scale,  as- 
cending and  descending,  according  to  their  relation  to  the  supreme 
pleasure  of  holiness.  Some  of  them  are  incompatible  with  it,  and 
from  their  very  nature,  quench  it.  These  are  the  fleshly  lusts  that 
war  against  the  Spirit.  Others,  though  not  it,  are  yet  imbued  with 
a  portion  of  it,  some  in  a  greater  degree,  some  less ;  until,  into  the 
thirst  for  knowledge,  and  into  chastened  human  affection,  there 
seems  to  have  been  transubstituted  the  very  thing  itself. 

But  we  must  here  note  this.  These  pleasures,  even  the  highest  of 
them,  though  they  may  be  granted  to  us  as  sacraments  of  holiness, 
are  yet  in  themselves  distinct  from  holiness.  The  good  man  may 
long  to  acquire  knowledge  ;  the  good  man  may  long  to  receive  love. 
But  he  may  be  called  upon,  also,  to  forego  both ;  and  if  he  respond 
to  this  call  of  God  willingly  and  with  his  whole  heart,  he  will  be  not 

there  engages  to  refute,  are  based  primarily  by  me,  she  says,  '  on  the  following 
fundamentally  erroneous  assumption  :  that  the  full  value  of  life  depends  upon  a 
belief  that  it  will  last  forever.'  (Nineteenth  Century,  December  1879,  p.  1001.)  My 
critic  in  writing  these  words  has  had  before  her  eyes  the  following  passage  of  mine  : 
'  By  a  curious  confusion  of  thought  the  positive  school  have  imagined  that  what 
religion  adds  to  life  is  the  hope  of  prolongation  only,  not  of  development  also.  .  .  . 
The  positivists  have  confused  the  true  saying  that  the  pleasure  of  painting  one  picture 
does  not  depend  on  the  fact  that  we  shall  paint  many,  with  the  false  saying  that 
the  pleasure  of  beginning  that  one  does  not  depend  on  the  belief  that  we  shall  finish 
it.  On  this  last  belief  it  is  plain  that  the  pleasure  does  depend,  largely  if  not  en- 
tirely; and  it  is  precisely  this  last  belief  that  positivism  takes  away.'  (Is  Life 
Win-tli  Living  ?  p.  98.)  These  remarks  were  originally  applied  to  human  love;  but 
they  are  equally  applicable  to  the  case  of  holiness. 


1880.  ATHEISTIC  METHODISM.  179 

the  less  holy,  but  the  holier.  It  is  essential  to  the  entire  position 
that  we  remember  this.  For  were  this  not  the  case,  the  system  of 
the  theist  would  be  as  faulty  as  the  system  of  the  positivist.  Each 
system  requires  alike  that  we  should,  if  asked  to  do  so,  surrender  all 
pleasures  but  one.  But  the  theistic  system  alone  can  supply  such  a 
pleasure,  which,  through  all  self-surrender,  will  still  remain  for  ever 
with  us. 

This  system,  however,  whilst  denying  any  pleasures  but  this 
one  to  be  necessary,  yet  admits  others  as  good  in  a  deep,  though 
secondary,  sense;  not  despising  those  even,  which  as  related  to 
holiness,  seem  at  first  to  be  most  indifferent.  I  speak  of  those  very 
pleasures  which  alone  Miss  Bevington  and  her  school  dwell  upon — 
those  pleasures  or  comforts,  on  the  general  distribution  of  which  the 
continuance  of  the  human  race,  in  the  long  run,  depends  ;  and  with 
which  alone,  on  their  theory,  virtue  has  to  deal.  The  pursuit  of 
holiness  does  not  force  us  aside  from  these ;  for  these,  so  far  as  they 
are  '  life-ward  in  their  tendency,'  are  all  of  them  in  accordance  with 
the  will  of  Grod.  Nor  does  the  pursuit  of  holiness  fail  to  give  a 
meaning  to  the  allaying  at  our  own  cost  of  the  slightest  pain  in 
another  ;  or  to  giving  another,  at  our  own  cost,  the  slightest  innocent 
pleasure.  The  theist  agrees  with  the  positivist  that  such  actions  are 
virtues,  and  that  they  bring  a  pleasure  with  them  that  far  outweighs 
their  pain.  But  the  virtuous  pleasure  that  lures  us  to  such  self- 
bestowals,  comes  not  from  the  pleasure  foregone,  which  ex  hypoihesi 
is  indifferent,  but  from  the  oblation,  conscious  or  unconscious,  of  our 
self-bestowal,  to  (rod.  If  its  after-consequences  have  been  really  life- 
ward,  well  and  good.  We  shall  so  have  been  forwarding  His  will. 
But  even  should  they  fail  entirely,  our  act  is  not  in  vain.  It  is  good 
in  itself,  in  its  own  nature.  In  Professor  Clifford's  words, '  no  accidental 
failure  of  its  fruits  can  possibly  alter  that.'  It  is  good  in  its  effect 
on  ourselves,  as  a  surrender  of  ourselves  to  Grod.  It  is  the  giving 
Him  the  best  that  the  moment  has  enabled  us  to  give  Him ;  it  is 
what  He  values  most,  the  conforming  of  our  will  to  His.  And  such 
an  act  in  one  single  man  is  an  exemplar  of  what  should  be  the  acts  of 
all  men — an  exemplar,  not  because  its  results  as  a  fact  are  valuable, 
but  because  with  all  earnestness  they  have  been  meant  to  be  so. 
For  the  positivist  the  only  measure  of  virtue  is  the  objective  success 
of  it;  or,  as  Miss  Bevington  puts  it,  its  active  realised  'use.' 
But  the  theist,  should  (rod  deny  all  such  use  to  it,  can  rest  in 
faith ;  and  should  it  prove  useful  he  will  rest  in  thankfulness.  Paul 
has  planted,  Apollos  watered ;  but  it  is  Grod  that  has  given  the  in- 
crease. 

Here  we  see  what  the  theist  means  when  he  says  that  virtue  is 
inward  ;  here  we  see  what  he  means  when  he  says  it  is  all-important. 
And  now  we  can  see  what  he  means  when  he  says  its  character  is 
absolute.  He  does  not  mean  the  poor  truism  of  the  positivist,  which 

N  2 


180  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  January 

no  one  contradicts  or  ever  dreamed  of  contradicting,  that  the  con- 
duct conducing  to  certain  social  advantages  cannot  be  altered  by  the 
changing  caprice  of  each  of  us.  He  means  that  amongst  the  plea- 
sures of  which  these  advantages  are,  by  the  other's  confession,  the 
negative  conditions  only,  there  is  one  pleasure  supreme  over  all  the 
others,  and  to  whose  throne  the  others  are  precious  only  as 
steps.  We  now  see  what  and  whence  is  that  pure  and  perfect 
passion,  which,  when  once  sure  of  its  end,  gives  a  meaning  to  all 
virtue. 

And  in  seeing  this,  we  must  also  have  seen  more  than  this.  We 
must  have  seen  that  whilst  the  theist  admits,  as  virtues,  all  the  acts 
that  positivists  define  as  such,  he  includes  a  further  set  that  the  positi- 
vist  cannot  include.  He  includes  not  only  the  subjugation  of  our  own 
pleasures  as  warring  against  others'  happiness ;  but  the  subjugation 
of  our  own  lower  pleasures,  as  warring  against  our  own  holiness. 
And  logically r,  in  our  conception  of  virtue,  it  is  this  last-named  part 
of  it  that  is  the  first.  My  desire  for  holiness  must  first  make  my 
life  precious  to  me,  before  I  can  attach  much  preciousness  to  the  lives 
of  other  people.  Thus  the  meaning  of  the  word  virtue  is  at  once 
immeasurably  widened  :  and  its  present  popular  use  is  explained  natur- 
ally. I  will  but  quote  one  instance,  and  that  shall  be  the  com- 
monest and  the  most  significant — the  popular  identification  of  vir- 
tue with  sexual  continence.  What  is  implied  here  is,  not  that  chastity 
is  a  virtue,  because  externally  it  is  of  social  use  to  others,  but  because 
internally  it  prepares  self  for  (rod ;  because  it  is  a  part  of  the  pay- 
ment of  that  same  debt  to  Him,  of  which  subserving  the  welfare  of 
others  is  another  part,  and  a  part  logically  subordinate. 

Here  is  the  explanation  of  that  ambiguity  in  my  language,  which 
I  said  just  now  I  would  correct — my  use  at  times,  in  my  former 
volume,  of  the  words  virtue  and  morality  as  synonymous  with  the 
highest  happiness,  and  with  the  final  end  of  life.  I  should,  to  have 
been  entirely  accurate,  have  named  that  end  not  virtue  but  holiness ; 
and,  for  the  sake  of  entire  clearness,  let  me  do  so  now.  Let  me  re- 
state my  former  proposition,  with  its  meaning  unchanged,  but  only 
with  its  terms  amended.  Let  me  say  that  what  positivism  subtracts 
from  life,  utterly  and  for  ever,  is  primarily  not  virtue  as  virtue, 
but  holiness  as  holiness;  to  which  I  add,  in  what  is  here  only  a 
parenthesis,  that,  in  destroying  the  latter,  it  also  destroys  the 
former ;  leaving  us  indeed,  as  its  objects,  many  reasons  to  wish  for 
it ;  but  as  agents,  no  motive  that  can  make  us  practise  even  a  part 
-of  it. 

Holiness  then,  let  me  remind  Miss  Bevington  and  all  those  who 
agree  with  her,  is  the  real  name  of  the  thing  that  their  system  takes 
away  from  them.  And  indeed,  though  they  do  not  use  the  word  in 
•question,  they  make  no  secret  that  there  is  some  such  loss.  But 
what  they  fail  to  see  is  the  extent  and  the  result  of  it.  Miss  Beving- 


188C.  ATHEISTIC  METHODISM.  181 

ton  in  her  last  Essay  informs  us  that  we  have  lost  nothing  but  c  a 
moral  sofa.'  This  is  her  simile  for  the  sense  of  trust  in  God.24 
But  I  can  tell  her  that  the  loss  she  speaks  of  is  indeed  a  loss,  not 
only  of  '•  spiritual  cakes  and  ale,'  but  of  food  and  drink — and  of  food 
and  drink  without  which  the  soul  dies  of  starvation  ;  producing  those 
results,  during  its  lingering,  painful  death,  which  my  critic  herself 
describes  as  '  thoroughly  dismal  and  sickening.' 

If  she  and  her  school  deny  this,  out  of  their  own  mouth  I  can 
judge  them ;  and  for  such  witness  I  need  go  no  further  than  the 
words  of  my  present  critic  herself.  Throughout  the  whole  of  her  two 
essays,  what  she  is  really  appealing  to,  is  no  sense  on  our  part  that 
virtue  produces  comfort,  which,  besides  its  difficulty,  is  the  only 
characteristic  she  gives  it;  but  a  sense  that  it  is  precious  as  con- 
nected with  that  hierarchy  of  ascending  pleasures,  whicli  are  ranged 
in  due  gradation  about  the  throne  of  holiness.  Thus  '  greedy  seizure 
on  handy  pleasure '  she  thinks  need  be  named  merely  to  be  at  once 
condemned  by  us ;  and  she  puts  the  *  bliss  of  the  moment '  in  con- 
trast with  '  the  strength  of  the  morrow  : ' 25  although  bliss  and  plea- 
sure are,  she  affirms,  the  only  things  to  live  for ;  although  strength 
has  no  value  except  as  a  means  of  bliss ;  and  although  the  value  of 
bliss,  she  says,  depends  on  itself,  and  not  on  the  '  hours  or  the  years ' 
for  which  it  is  or  will  be  present.  Again,  there  are  two  classes,  she 
says,  for  whom  we  must  labour ;  one  is  '  sufferers,'  and  the  other  is 
*  sinners.' 26  Sexual  passion  she  describes  as  in  itself  a  '  reeking 
miasm : ' 27  and  yet  more  significantly  she  says  she  has  '  not  the 
least  fear ' 28  that  its  admitted  pleasures  will  ever  receive  the  ap- 
proval of  positivism.  Why,  let  me  ask  her,  should  she  use  the  word 
'  fear '  ?  Surely  on  her  own  grounds  she  should  have  said  '  hope  ' 
instead.  The  pleasures  she  alludes  to  are  for  many  men  very  keen 
pleasures.  Could  they  then  only  be  found  not  injurious  to  the 
general  '  comfort,'  the  world  would,  on  her  own  grounds,  be  so 
much  the  richer  for  enjoying  them.  My  critic  is  plainly  quite 
sincere  in  her  feelings;  but  they  belong  to  the  creed  she  denies, 
not  to  the  creed  she  is  defending.  She  really  hates  vice  be- 
cause it  wars  against  the  spirit  of  holiness ;  not  because  it  wars 
in  any  way  against  the  spirit  of  comfort.  But  she  makes  this 
plainer  yet  in  another  place.  Fortunately,  as  an  illustration  of  the 
present  condition  of  the  positivists,  she  has  published  a  small 
volume  of  verse,  in  which  the  restless  movements — I  might  almost 
say  the  antics — of  theism  are  pathetically  visible  under  the  stifling 

24  '  Our  "  unbelievers  "  know  what  they  lose  in  losing  religion.  They  lose  their 
moral  sofas,  their  spiritual  "  cakes  and  ale ;  "  but  the  solid  ground  remains  for 
spiritual  exercise,  and  the  bread  and  meat  of  success  and  survival  will  continue  to 
reward  that  exercise  wherever  faithfully  performed.' 

24  Nineteenth  Century,  December  1879,  p.  1006.  ™  Ibid.  27  Hid. 

28  Ibid.  October  1879,  p.  591. 


182  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  January 

skin  of  positivism.     The  following  lines  are  from  the  most  prominent 
and  the  most  powerful  of  the  poems : — 

But  now — what  says  philosophy  of  Self  ? 

What  thinks  her  follower  of  the  man  he  is  ? 

Can  he,  in  presence  of  the  symphony 

That  rolls  around  him,  played  by  viewless  cause, 

On  suns  for  instruments,  with  life  for  key.  .  .  . 

Can  he  revert  to  his  small  destiny 

As  worth  a  moment's  stopping  of  his  ears, 

While  that  sweet  thundering  of  the  huge  '  Not  Self ' 

Challenges  him  to  listen  while  he  may  ? 29 

Now  what  do  these  lines  mean  as  explained  by  the  professed 
theories  of  their  writer  ?  The  'huge  Not  Self  seems  here  to  mean 
What  she  calls  in  another  place  'nature's  large  impersonal  workings;' 
-and  in  these  she  says  '  we  do  like  to  think  there  is  an  end,  that  we 
may  make  our  special  personal  oitm.' 30  But '  the  unbelieving  moralist,' 
-she  goes  on  immediately,  '  must  resign  the  luxury  of  such  a  belief.' 
If  this  be  the  case,  in  what  possible  sense  can  the  k  huge  Not  Self '  be 
said  to  '  thunder '  at  all,  still  more,  to  '  thunder  sweetly  '  ?  In  Words- 
worth's ears  it  is  quite  true  it  did  :  for  him  it  was  a  shell  that  mur- 
mured with  the  voice  of  (rod.  But  Miss  Bevington's  case  is  altogether 
different.  Perhaps,  however,  the  *  huge  Not  Self '  means  what  she  else- 
where calls  '  many-millioned  humanity.'  But  in  that  case  her 
meaning  is  no  more  satisfactory.  If  every  self  is  paltry,  so  are  all 
selves  put  together.  If  the  talking  of  one  man  is  senseless  babble, 
the  united  babbling  of  a  million  men  may  indeed  *  out-thunder '  it ; 
but  the  *  thundering '  will  be  neither  '  sweet '  nor  sensible.  Let  us 
take  a  case  of  a  like  confusion  in  her  prose,  to  which  the  mention  of 
4  Humanity '  at  once  conducts  us.  '  The  evolutionist,'  she  teDs  us, 
•*  feels  (through  virtue)  the  glow  of  a  calm  blessedness  in  contemplating 
a  mass  of  human  beings ' — and  why  ?  Because  '  his  own  smallest 
-achievement  in  self-education  and  self-elevation  cannot  but  affect 
them  beneficially.  There  is  no  small  and  great  for  him,  since  all 
is  effectual.' 31  In  this  language  we  have  a  still  more  evident  sur- 
vival of  theism,  for  in  the  mouth  of  the  theist  it  has  a  distinct 
meaning;  in  the  mouth  of  the  positivist  none.  Let  the  will  be 
good,  and  for  the  theist  there  is  indeed  no  small  and  great  ob- 
jectively. But  for  the  positivist  the  case  is  otherwise.  The  '  mass 
of  human  beings '  cannot  thus  take  the  will  for  the  deed  ;  and  our 
virtues  are  great  and  small  in  exact  proportion  to  results  they 
accomplish  severally.  For  the  positivists  to  say  that  there  is  no 
small  or  great  in  them  is  as  if  a  railway  company  were  to  say  to  the 
public,  '  Pay  us  with  two  pence  or  two  pounds  for  your  tickets ;  there 
is  neither  much  nor  little  with  us,  for  all  is  effectual.' 

29  Key  Nates,  by  L.  S.  Bevington,  1879,  p.  16. 

30  Nineteenth  Century,  October  1879,  p.  601. 
81  Ibid.  December  1879,  p.  1008. 


1880.  ATHEISTIC  METHODISM.  ]«3 

What  Miss  Bevington  has  here  had  in  her  mind  is  what  Christ 
said  of  the  widow's  mite  ;  but  in  attempting  to  transplant  this  from 
His  system  to  hers  she  shows  not  the  difference  only,  but  the  antagon- 
ism of  the  two.  The  *  mass  of  human  beings,'  as  an  object  of  work 
and  ardour,  can  never  supply  the  place  of  God,  nor  does  it  go  even 
the  smallest  way  towards  doing  so.  Every  effort  made  by  the 
positivists  to  invest  it  with  the  divine  glory  and  to  raise  it  to  the 
divine  eminence  fails.  They  attempt  to  perform  the  feat  in  many 
ways,  but  each  effort  ends  in  its  own  discomfiture  ;  and  the  logic  they 
invoke  to  aid  them  by  and  by  turns  round  and  confounds  them.  "We 
are  to  adore  humanity,  they  say,  as  a  vast  corporate  Pleasure,  and  our 
emotions  are  to  make  us  serve  it  by  our  each  doing  our  all  to  add  to 
it.  But  the  coin,  they  proceed  to  tell  us,  in  which  our  several  shares 
are  to  be  paid  is  self-denial,  and  toil,  and  difficulty.  And  thus  the 
idol  they  hoped  to  show  us  as  a  gigantic  pleasure  confronts  them 
as  nothing  but  a  sum-total  of  pains.  Then,  again,  if  swerving  from 
this  conclusion,  they  seek  to  fix  the  mind  on  life's  direct  and  per- 
sonal pleasures,  they  find  that  they  are  already  pledged  in  each  case 
to  speak  of  these  as  contemptible ;  and  their  system  thus  demands 
of  them  the  new  paradox  that  the  sum  of  countless  negative  quan- 
tities is  a  vast  positive  total.  Whilst,  finally,  if  they  appeal  to 
the  feeling  they  find  existing  for  virtue,  and  trust  to  rouse  a  re- 
sponse, when  they  call  it  c  our  choicest  treasure,'  they  are  confronted 
by  their  system  with  this  blighting  doctrine,  that  the  one  final 
end  which  it  bids  us  hope  for  is  that  virtue  shall  work  itself  out 
of,  not  into,  the  great  human  entity.  That,  unconsciously,  they 
feel  all  this  themselves  is  apparent  whenever  they  forget  their  logic, 
and  trust  themselves  for  a  moment  to  utter  their  own  emotions; 
never  more  so  than  when  they  fly  off  at  a  tangent,  and  appeal  to 
*  stars '  and  '  suns,'  and  '  aeons,'  and  all  the  fine  things  in  the  extra- 
human  universe. 

That  the  emotion  that  prompts  such  language  is  genuine,  none 
need  doubt ;  nor  will  the  theist  deny  to  it  all  fitting  reverence.  But 
the  more  reverend  he  considers  the  emotion  of  the  positivists,  the 
more  completely  ludicrous  does  he  consider  their  own  analysis  of  it. 
What  he  sees  in  it  is  a  survival  of  the  religion  they  deny ;  not  the 
first  fruits  of  the  irreligion  they  profess.  Positivism,  as  preached  in 
France,  has  been  called  by  Professor  Huxley  '  Catholicism  minus 
Christianity.'  As  preached  in  England  and  America,  it  may  be 
called  similarly  'Methodism  minus  Christianity.'  That  Methodism 
contains  it  in  the  sense  of  holiness,  the  sense  of  sin,  and  the  longing 
to  co-operate  with  (rod's  will — we  all  of  us  know  this.  But  this  is 
not  positivism. 

What  is  positivism,  is  the  theory  true  or  false  that,  independent 
of  our  own  wills,  or  in  defiance  of  them,  our  race  is  tending  steadily  to 
get  rid  of  its  own  discomforts.  And  the  positivists  present  this 


184  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY.  January 

race  to  us  as  one  single  individual,  whose  vast  career  it  imagines 
will  inflame  and  move  us.  But  this  'huge  Not  Self,'  presented 
to  the  lover  of  virtue,  so  far  from  being  better  than  the  small 
1  selves '  that  compose  it,  must  really  seem  but  the  type  of  what  is 
worst  and  lowest  in  them.  Humanity,  regarded  as  a  single  being, 
is  a  being  without  any  aspirations  that  are  not  selfish,  and  without 
any  duties  at  all.  It  has  been  bestial  at  its  infancy,  savage  in  its 
youth,  unutterably  impure  in  its  manhood  ;  and  as  a  worthy  crown  of 
a  worthy  life,  it  is  to  simper  at  last  through  an  unrepentant  dotage 
into  an  hopeless  and  unremembered  grave. 

I  have  alluded  in  this  essay  to  Miss  Bevington's  remarks  on  my- 
self, only  in  so  far  as  they  seem  convenient  examples  of  the  reasonings 
of  the  school  she  is  representing.  I  have  had  no  such  unchivalrous  or 
useless  purpose  as  to  show  that  a  gifted  lady  may  personally  be  at  fault 
in  her  logic.  But  if  I  may  say  at  parting  a  single  word  to  herself,  I 
would  remind  her  that  all  that  her  new  teachers  can  tell  her  about 
virtue  has  been  told  the  world  long  ago  by  Christianity.  They  have 
not  contributed  a  single  new  truth  to  it ;  though  doubtless  to  prove 
its  truth  they  may  have  subpoenaed  new  witnesses.  All  that  they  have 
done  new  is  not  to  add  to  the  Christian  teaching,  but  to  subtract  from 
it ;  and  to  subtract  from  it  the  one  part  that  alone  gave  the  whole 
vitality. 

Oh  the  little  more,  and  how  much  it  is  ! 
And  the  little  less,  and  what  worlds  away  ! 

How  a  sound  shall  quicken  content  to  Hiss, 
Or  a  touch  suspend  the  blood's  best  play — 

And  life  be  a  proof  of  this  ! 

"VV.  H.  MALLOCK. 


1880.  185 


WAR   CORRESPONDENTS  AND    THE 
AUTHORITIES. 

THE  profession  of  war  correspondent  may  be  said  to  have  been 
definitely  founded  in  the  Crimean  War.  Since  that  struggle  there 
has  been  no  war,  at  least  in  the  old  world,  permission  to  chronicle 
the  events  of  which  has  been  denied  to  the  representatives  of 
Journalism,  until  the  recent  advance  on  Cabul,  following  upon  the 
massacre  of  our  forlorn-hope  skeleton  of  an  embassy  to  that  turbulent 
capital.  During  the  advance  on  Cabul,  permission  to  correspond  for 
newspapers  was  accorded  only  to  officers.  When  Cabul  had  been 
reached,  the  stringency  was  colourably  so  far  relaxed,  as  that  civilian 
correspondents  were  no  longer  to  be  hindered  from  being  present 
with  the  forces  in  the  field,  who  were  willing  to  comply  with  a  code  of 
regulations,  which  has  since  been  published,  in  all  its  disgraceful  en- 
tirety, in  the  journals  of  this  country.  When  that  code  first  appeared 
in  India,  it  was  believed  to  be  a  grim  hoax.  The  Anglo-Indian 
press  hailed  it  with  contemptuous  derision.  The  Indian  authorities 
who  promulgated  it,  who,  it  may  be  assumed,  asked  for  it  from  the 
Home  authorities,  and  who  are  now  acting  upon  it,  quailed  from  the 
courage  of  their  opinions,  in  that  they  were  fain  to  disclaim  the 
debasing  responsibility  of  its  conception.  That  bewildering  ana- 
chronism, the  Indian  '  Press  Commissioner,'  shambled  into  deprecatory 

publicity  with  the  following  official  communique : — 

SIMLA,  Oct.  29. 

The  rules  for  the  guidance  of  editors  of  newspapers  and  of  correspondents  with 
an  army  in  the  field,  recently  communicated  through  the  Press  Commissioner  to 
the  Press,  were  prepared  in  the  Intelligence  Branch  of  the  Quartermaster-General's 
Department  at  the  Horse  Guards,  and  have  received  the  provisional  approval  of 
H.R.H.  the  Duke  of  Cambridge,  and  of  Her  Majesty's  Secretary  of  State  for  War. 
The  only  alterations  made  in  the  text,  as  received  from  the  Horse  Guards,  are  of  a 
purely  formal  and  trivial  character,  such  as  the  substitution  of  the  words  '  Govern- 
ment of  India '  and  f  General  Officer  Commanding  in  the  Field '  for  the  words 
'  Commander-in-Chief '  and  'military  authorities.' 

It  is  clearly  intended  to  be  inferred  that  the  Indian  Government 
has  been  merely  the  instrument  of  the  Home  authorities  in  enforcing 
the  rules  specified.  These  rules  have  not  been  recalled  or  formally 
altered  ;  and  they  are  still,  at  all  events,  nominally  and  potentially 
operative.  The  Home  authorities  cannot  be  ignorant  of  the  fact 
that  the  Indian  Government  has  shuffled  its  responsibility  in  regard 
to  them  on  to  their  shoulders.  They  have  not  disavowed  this  re- 
sponsibility. I  know  not,  indeed,  whether  from  shame,  from  cynical 


186  THE  NINETEENTH    CENTURY.  January 

indifference,  or  from  timidity ;  they  have,  nevertheless,  refrained 
from  specifically  acknowledging  it.  No  reply  has  been  vouchsafed 
to  two  formal  requests  for  information  on  this  point  addressed  to  the 
Horse  Guards  by  the  conductor  of  one  of  the  Service  Papers.  I 
have  a  serene  confidence,  based  on  experience,  that  the  thumbscrew 
of  Parliament  will  by  and  by  succeed  in  the  enterprise  in  which 
the  missives  of  the  journalist  have  failed  to  achieve  success.  Mean- 
while I  am  anxious  to  lay  before  the  public  some  arguments  and  con- 
siderations bearing  on  a  subject  which  cannot  seriously  be  regarded 
as  one  of  insignificant  importance.  It  is  difficult  to  state  a  case 
with  befitting  calmness  and  impartiality  when  one  is  conscious  of 
thrilling  indignantly  with  a  sense  of  insult  that  is  almost  brutal ; 
and  yet,  since  I  have  the  fullest  realisation  that  this  subject  must  be 
regarded  neither  wholly  from  the  view  of  the  insulted  journalist,  nor 
from  that  of  an  hungry  and  unsatisfied  public,  I  can  easily  conceive 
that  in  dealing  with  it  I  may  subject  myself  to  the  imputation  of 
being  but  a  lukewarm  vindicator  of  the  position  of  my  order,  and  a 
philistine  indifferentist  to  the  cravings  of  a  reading  public. 

It  may  seem  wasting  discussion  on  a  foregone  conclusion,  to  set 
forth  the  arguments  for  and  against  the  permission  of  war  corre- 
spondents with  armies  in  the  field.  That  this  would  have  been  so  six 
months  ago,  I  readily  admit ;  the  man  who  would  have  solemnly  gone 
about  such  an  undertaking  might  have  been  regarded  as  a  feeble  Rip 
van  Winkle.  But  during  the  past  six  months,  war  correspondents 
have  been  altogether  prohibited  from  accompanying  a  British  army 
in  the  field.  A  code  of  regulations  has  been  issued  and  acted  on 
which,  whether  intentionally  or  not,  has  the  effect  of  prohibiting  from 
accompanying  an  army  in  the  field  every  war  correspondent  who 
possesses  a  tittle  of  that  sense  of  self-respect  which  must  have  deserted 
alike  those  who  drew  it  up,  those  who  promulgated  and  acted  on  it, 
and  those  who,  in  dogged,  sullen  shame-facedness,  decline  to  own  and 
to  commit  infanticide  on  the  scandalous  bantling  which  has  been 
sworn  upon  them.  In  such  a  juncture,  I  submit,  we  are  forced  back 
upon  first  principles.  Let  me  essay  to  argue  the  matter  on  these, 
bringing  to  bear  on  the  subject  the  somewhat  rare  experience  of  one 
whose  military  instincts  are  certainly  not  less  keen  than  are  his 
aspirations  to  be  an  effective  and  faithful  war  correspondent  (the  two 
impulses  being  perfectly  compatible),  and  of  one  who  has  served  as  a 
war  correspondent  with  the  armies  of  at  least  six  diverse  nationalities. 

It  is  not  easy  to  conceive  any  other  objections  to  the  presence  of 
war  correspondents  in  the  field  than  the  three  following : — 

1.  That  they  may  detrimentally  affect  public  opinion  at  home 
either  by  unpleasant  and  inopportune  truth-telling,  or  by  wanton  lying. 

2.  That  they  may  produce  discontent  and  want  of  confidence  in 
an  army  in  the  field,  by  hostile  criticisms  on  its  leader. 

3.  That  they  may  give  information  to  the  enemy,  by  revealing 
prematurely  intentions  and  combinations,  or  by  forwarding  for  publi- 


1880.  WAR  CORRESPONDENTS.  187 

cation  details  of  strengths,  fortifications,  means  of,  or  shortcomings 
in,  transport,  supplies,  &c.,  of  which  the  enemy  may  take  advantage. 
In  respect  of  the  two  first  of  these  objections,  it  may  well  be 
imagined  that  a  section  of  British  journalism  would  summarily  set  them 
aside,  on  the  plea  of  the  '  liberty  of  the  press.'  The  argument  would 
run  in  this  wise  :  '  We  are  free  to  make  what  strictures  we  please,  so 
long  as  they  are  neither  libellous  nor  seditious.  By  leading  articles 
we  can,  without  check,  essay  to  influence  public  opinion.  "We  can 
say  bitter  true  things ;  nay,  if  we  are  so  minded,  we  can  lie  that  our 
diatribes  may  have  the  more  effective  purchase.  We  can  fulminate 
against  a  general  with  ink  dipped  in  gall,  nor  can  any  man  make  us 
afraid.  We  have  a  right,  by  acknowledged  use  and  wont,  to  send  our 
representative  with  the  army,  and  no  man  has  a  right  to  infringe  the 
liberty — or  call  it  license,  if  you  please — of  the  press,  to  influence  or 
curb  the  tenor  of  his  comments  on  what  he  sees.  If  this  position  is 
disputed,  you  touch  the  palladium  of  British  freedom,  the  liberty  of 
the  press ;  and  you  have  as  much,  or  rather  as  little,  right  to  establish 
a  censorship  on  our  leading  articles  as  on  our  war  correspondence.' 
This  reasoning  is  doubtless  specious,  but  it  has  a  fatal  defect.  The 
right  to  publish  leading  articles,  so  long  as  they  are  neither  libellous 
nor  seditious,  is  indefeasible.  No  such  right  exists  in  relation  to  war 
correspondence,  or  at  least  in  relation  to  the  fountain  of  genuine  war 
correspondence,  the  correspondent  in  the  field.  By  consuetitude,  he 
accompanies  armies,  but  always  on  conditions  implied  or  expressed, 
mostly  the  latter.  He  is  there  on  privilege,  and  on  his  honest  be- 
haviour as^a  good  citizen  and  a  truth-telling  man.  There  is  no  getting 
over  this.  I  have  no  ruth  for  the  lying  war  correspondent,  who 
happily  is  a  very  rare  creature.  A  case  occurred  the  other  day  in 
Afghanistan,  in  which  a  correspondent  branded  with  atrocious  cruelty 
the  soldiers  of  a  noble  regiment.  He  has  owned  to  his  lie,  and  he 
would  be  a  strange  man  who  would  grieve  over  his  deserved  expulsion. 
The  Nemesis  in  such  a  case  is  inexorable.  Nor  is  it  any  matter  that 
it  may  be  somewhat  tardy,  because  the  regulation  is  none  the  less 
crushing  that  it  comes  late.  As  for  the  truth,  the  telling  of  it  can 
never  be  detrimental  to  a  nation.  A  nation  is  entitled  to  know  the 
truth  about  its  own  business  ;  because,  if  the  truth  is  disastrous,  it  is 
afforded  the  opportunity  of  urging  with  the  force  of  knowledge  the 
necessity  for  efforts  at  retrieval  or  reformation.  On  this  point,  the 
occasion  will  occur  for  speaking  later  with  more  detail.  As  regards 
the  objection  of  the  untoward  influence  on  an  army  in  the  field  of  hostile 
criticisms  on  its  chief,  it  collapses,  to  make  a  bull,  before  it  is  set  up. 
The  leader  in  a  recent  campaign  thought  proper  to  put  it  forward, 
else  it  would  not  have  demanded  notice.  I  ventured  to  reply  to  that 
general  with  the  simple  remark,  that  '  an  army  in  the  field  does  its 
own  criticism.'  The  ablest  penman,  even  supposing  that  his  work 
came  quickly  back  into  the  force  which  it  concerned,  could  no  more 
depreciate  in  its  eyes  the  chief  in  whom  it  believed,  than  he  could 


188  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  January 

inspire  confidence  in  the  chief  regarding  whom  it  had  already,  with 
unerring  instinct,  formed  its  own  unfavourable  conviction.  He  might 
wound  or  flatter,  as  the  case  might  be,  that  chiefs  self-love ;  but  I 
should  not  think  highly  of  a  leader  thus  defective  in  the  mens  cequus 
which  is  one  of  the  highest  attributes  of  generalhood,  nor  could  the 
welfare  of  the  country  hang  on  this  impressionability  of  his. 

There  is  vastly  more  weight  in  the  objection  that  the  war  corre- 
spondent with  his  head  loose  may  give  information  to  the  enemy. 
It  is,  however,  obvious  that  this  objection  can  only  have  weight  were 
it  possible  that  his  information  can  reach  that  enemy ;  in  other 
words,  in  wars  in  which  a  modicum  of  civilisation  and  accessibility  is 
the  attribute  of  your  enemy.  Now  this  condition  has  been  applicable 
to  but  one  enemy  of  England  since  Waterloo.  Barring  the  Kussians 
in  the  Crimea,  although  we  have  been  fighting  off  and  on  ever  since 
Wellington  confronted  Napoleon,  we  have  never  had  an  adversary  of 
whom  it  was  possible  that,  in  the  nature  of  things,  he  could  learn 
anything  from  journalistic  sources.  The  Saturday  Review,  whose 
eccentric  rdle  is  to  vituperate  war  correspondents,  while  making  no 
scruple  to  avail  itself,  very  much  without  thanks,  of  the  fruits  of  their 
toil,  gave  to  its  world  the  ludicrous  suggestion  that  the  Afghans  were 
being  supplied  by  the  Eussians  from  Central  Asia  with  intelligence 
concerning  our  forces  operating  against  them  telegraphed  to  the 
English  newspapers.  When  one  reflects  on  the  distance  between 
Cabul  and  Charjui,  the  Eussian  telegraphic  terminus,  one  hardly 
knows  whether  the  more  to  scorn  the  rancour,  or  smile  at  the 
geographical  ignorance,  of  the  paper  I  have  named.  With  a  free 
thoroughfare  for  spies  from  the  seething  city  of  Peshawur  all  the 
way  to  the  mal-odorous  Bala  Hissar,  the  Afghans  have  never  had 
any  need  to  lean  upon  Eussian  enterprise  for  efforts  to  accomplish 
physical  impossibilities. 

Ketchwayo  was  reported  to  take  in  the  Natal  Witness.,  but  the 
nimble  runner  who  brought  him  a  stale  copy  of  that  print  could 
4  wipe  the  eye'  of  its  out  of  date  '  latest  intelligence,'  by  the  informa- 
tion gathered  by  his  own  powers  of  observation.  If  that  only  be  war, 
in  its  true  sense,  when  the  adversaries  are  reasonably  fairly  matched 
in  point  of  equipment,  resources,  and  the  general  appliances  of 
civilisation,  including  tactical  and  strategical  intuition,  then  England 
has  never  been  at  war,  save  once  in  1854-5-6,  since  Waterloo.  We 
have  only  been  slaughtering  barbarians,  with  the  occasional  alterative 
of  being  slaughtered  by  them.  The  wanton  inapplicability  of  the 
present  rule  to  the  contest  now  occurring  in  Afghanistan  is  therefore 
glaringly  apparent. 

But  these  rules  were  drawn  up  in  view  of  a  real  war,  and  it  is  in 
relation  to  a  struggle  of  that  description  that  the  question  of  the 
danger  that  correspondents  may  give  information  to  an  enemy  has 
seriously  to  be  considered.  Fairness  compels  the  acknowledgment 
that  such  a  risk  does  exist.  I  have  known  the  evil  done.  One 


1880  WAR  CORRESPONDENTS.  189 

journal,  during  the  recent  Eusso-Turkish  war,  published  wholly 
unjustifiable  details  of  the  defences  of  Kars,  and  its  information  was 
actually  and  naturally  taken  advantage  of  by  the  assailants  of  that 
fortress.  Another  journal  printed,  from  its  correspondent,  particulars 
of  the  defences  of  Eustchuck,  which  I  personally  know  were  regarded 
as  extremely  opportune  by  the  force  contemplating  its  attack.  I  can 
easily  imagine  cases  in  which  the  simple  name  of  the  place,  whence 
a  wholly  innocent  communication  might  be  despatched  by  a  cor- 
respondent known  to  have  his  wits  about  him,  would  be  calculated 
to  inspire  an  adversary  with  the  suspicion  of  an  impending  movement 
in  a  region  otherwise  unheeded.  Blinking  of  facts  will  never  help  a 
case.  But  the  experience  of  nations  who  have  made  wars  on  a  large 
scale  is  in  favour  nevertheless  of  taking  the  risks  for  the  sake  of  the 
advantages  resulting  from  the  presence  of  war  correspondents  with 
the  armies.  The  Germans  are  the  warriors  of  modern  Europe, 
according  to  the  modern  conception  of  warfare.  In  1870-71  they 
freely  admitted  correspondents,  imposing  upon  them  no  censorship 
whatsoever.  As  a  rule,  I  think  they  trusted  most  to  the  ignorance  of 
correspondents,  and  simply  left  them  out  in  the  cold  in  the  matter  of 
information,  relying  on  the  likelihood  that  a  combination  would  have 
come  off,  a  blow  been  struck  and  done  with,  before  the  correspondent 
could  have  grasped  the  situation,  so  as  to  give  it  injurious  publicity, 
had  he  been  ever  so  willing. 

To  some  correspondents  intentions  were  guardedly  indicated  just 
sufficiently  to  allow  of  their  following  events  intelligently ;  and  there 
were  occasions  on  which  a  correspondent  who  had  proved  himself 
trustworthy  was  taken  into  full  confidence  in  the  safe  assurance  of 
his  fidelity.  It  was  understood,  rather  than  definitely  expressed,  that 
indiscretion  would  be  summarily  dealt  with,  and  when  indiscretions 
were  committed,  they  were  summarily  dealt  with.  The  fieldpost 
was  open  to  every  correspondent;  to  use  the  military  telegraphic 
wire  was  a  favour  sparsely  accorded,  owing  to  the  pressure'  of  army 
work ;  and  all  telegrams  so  sent  had  first  to  be  approved.  But  the 
German  wires  from  the  frontier  were  open  without  let  or  hindrance, 
nor  was  there  any  restriction,  as  in  the  present  rules,  to  specified 
modes  of  conveyance,  nor  any  prohibition  against  special  couriers. 
The  correspondent  had  his  head  loose,  with  the  full  fore-knowledge 
that  his  head  would  journalistically  be  taken  off  if  he  wrote  what  he 
ought  not  to  write.  I  have  no  reason,  but  the  contrary,  to  believe 
that  the  experience  of  the  Franco-German  war  has  had  any  tendency 
toward  inducing  the  General  Staff  in  Berlin  to  impose  more  stringent 
regulations  on  correspondents  for  the  future.  And  there  is  every 
reason  to  believe  that  the  French  military  authorities  are  keenly  alive 
to  the  detriment  wrought  on  the  impulsive  and  spasmodic  idiosyn- 
crasy of  the  French  nation,  under  dire  strain,  by  the  withholding 
from  it  of  plain  truth,  with  the  inevitable  result  of  omne  ignotum 
pro  terribili. 


190  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  January 

The  Russians  in  the  recent  war  admitted  all  comers  decently 
vouched  for,  on  very  simple  stipulations.  An  officer  was  appointed 
to  give  authoritative  information  to  correspondents  on  application, 
but  correspondents  were  not  prohibited  from  finding  their  information 
elsewhere.  They  were  free  to  go  where  they  listed ;  they  were 
warned  that  indiscreet  revelations  would  subject  them  to  expulsion, 
but  otherwise  they  had  '  their  heads  loose.'  '  You  may  criticise  and 
abuse  us  as  much  as  you  please,'  was  Colonel  Hausenkampf's  formula, 
4  only  don't  tell  anything  about  us  that  would  be  of  use  to  the  enemy.' 
True,  that  in  one  instance  they  failed  to  act  up  to  this  fine  wide 
charter,  but  when  they  sent  Mr.  Boyle  away,  their  tempers  had  been 
sorely  wrung  by  misfortune.  They,  too,  seemed  to  trust  a  good  deal 
to  their  power  of  keeping  a  secret,  and  although,  when  the  crossing 
of  the  Danube  was  impending,  every  correspondent  was  free  to  make 
for  the  spot  of  his  own  unaided  selection,  only  one  succeeded  in 
hitting  off  the  scent  in  time  to  witness  the  event. 

I  do  not  imagine  that  we  are  likely  to  be  more  strategic  than 
the  Germans,  or  franker  than  the  Russians  ;  and  if  they  have  suc- 
ceeded in  making  war  without  inflicting  on  correspondents  with 
their  armies  a  code  of  rules  so  stringent,  so  debasing,  and,  indeed,  so 
impossible  as  the  one  I  am  discussing,  I  think  a  failure  to  do  the 
same  on  the  part  of  British  commanders,  if  such  an  event  were 
unfortunately  to  occur,  would  not  be  obviated  by  the  muzzling,  or 
rather  the  prohibition,  of  intelligent,  competent,  and  loyal  correspond- 
ents. And  there  is  the  consideration,  too,  that  a  resort  to  this 
expedient  would  deprive  the  failure  of  a  specious  excuse,  a  very  con- 
venient thing  to  have. 

The  advantages  of  the  presence  of  correspondents  with  armies  in 
the  field  are,  to  my  thinking,  multitudinous.  If  it  were  merely  to 
gratify  a' nation's  curiosity,  one  might  refrain  from  pleading.  There 
is  a  great  deal  too  much  irrelevant  curiosity  about,  for  which  there 
can  be  no  sympathy.  But  to  know  how  our  arms  are  faring  in  war 
is  no  mere  irrelevant  curiosity.  Great  heaven !  is  it  unreasonable 
to  require  that  we  should  learn  from  impartial  and  unbiassed  lips 
how  goeth  the  day  with  our  brothers,  our  heart's-blood,  the  fathers 
of  our  children  ?  Is  it  in  the  cold  official  words  alone  that  we  are  to 
be  told  how  our  countrymen,  our  dear  ones,  toil  and  thole,  vindicate 
Britain's  manhood,  and  joyously  expend  their  lives  for  Queen  and 
fatherland  ?  Are  our  gallant  ones  to  be  denied  the  noble  recompense 
of  knowing  that  a  record  of  their  steadfastness,  their  unmurmuring 
fortitude,  their  flashes  of  buoyant  heroism,  their  gallant  manhood,  their 
blythesome  cheeriness,  go  home  to  kindle  and  to  console  the  anxious 
hearts  by  the  quiet  firesides  ?  Is  this  craft  of  ours,  not  less  noble 
than  that  of  the  clergyman  himself,  not  less  patriotic  than  that 
of  him  who  gladly  dies  for  his  country,  not  less  tender  than  that  of 


1880.  WAR  CORRESPONDENTS.  191 

the  poet,  in  that  our  theme  throbs  and  glows,  and  dares  and  dies, 
under  our  very  hand,  not  less  reciprocative  to  the  beating  heart  of 
a  nation  than  is  the  devotion  of  a  sister  of  mercy  in  the  field- 
hospital,  to  be  stamped  out  on  the  pretext  of  a  narrow  utilitarianism 
that  is  as  fictitious  as  it  is  short-sighted  ? 

But  let  me  betake  myself  to  more  prosaic  reasoning  in  favour  of 
the  contention  that  war  correspondence  is  not  baneful  but  beneficial. 
If  the  authorities  of  a  State  owning  an  army  in  the  field  are  honest, 
and  mean  honestly  by  the  nation,  the  observation  of  impartial  spec- 
tators of  military  events  ought  to  be  the  reverse  of  distasteful.  If 
affairs  are  progressing  well,  the  correspondents  are  eager  to  accentu- 
ate the  prosperity ;  if  there  is  an  element  of  hollowness  in  the  good 
fortune,  if  luck  rather  than  skill  has  stood  our  friend,  if  it  be  apparent 
that  success  would  have  been  doubtful  but  for  the  incapacity  of  the 
enemy,  it  surely  advantages  the  commonwealth,  the  advent  of  the 
millennium  being  uncertain,  that  such  matters  should  be  frankly,  but 
not  rancorously  set  forth.  To  elect  to  live  in  what  is  called  a  fool's 
paradise  is  worse  than  folly ;  it  is  imbecility.  And  if  failure 
unhappily  occurs,  it  cannot  be  hurtful  that  the  springs  and  the 
circumstances  of  the  failure  should  be  candidly  set  forth,  with  firm 
finger  on  the  errors,  with  glow  of  warm  commendation  for  the 
brighter  features.  The  Eussians  are  wise  in  their  generation.  At 
Plevna,  in  July  1877,  they  sustained  a  terrible  reverse.  The  general- 
ship was  contemptible,  the  fighting  virtue  nobly  conspicuous.  It  fell 
to  the  present  writer  to  record  that  event  in  its  sadness  alike  and 
its  unavailing  heroism.  The  record  neither  spared  blame  nor 
stinted  praise.  Its  author  did  his  work  in  the  full  conviction  that 
his  candour  would  cost  him  his  permission  to  witness  the  succeeding 
episodes  of  the  campaign.  But  the  Kussian  military  authorities, 
recognising  the  solid  virtue  of  truthfulness,  accepted  his  narrative  of 
the  battle,  and  authorised  its  publication  in  their  home  newspapers, 
with  their  imprimatur  on  it  as  an  accurate  record  of  a  miserable  fail- 
ure relieved  by  gallant  courage.  Independent  war  correspondence  has 
become  a  necessity  to  the  contentment  of  the  nation.  It  placates 
the  just  uneasiness  that  is  occasioned  by  meagre,  unexhaustive,  and 
not  always  wholly  candid  communications  from  official  sources.  These 
are  the  spoon-meat  of  a  nation  in  its  intellectual  babyhood;  and 
if  the  nation  is  so  supine  as  to  tolerate  that  for  the  future  they  are 
to  be  its  main  pabulum,  and  that  independent  correspondence  is  to  be 
throttled,  it  may  lay  its  account  with  pitiful  degeneracy  from  adult  in- 
tellectual robustness  into  limp,  sycophantic  credulity,  feebly  dashed  with 
impotent,  querulous  suspiciousness  tempered  by  moody  indifference. 

If  affairs  are  going  seriously  wrong,  the  nation,  whose  interests 
are  surely  of  more  importance  than  the  prestige  of  an  ephemeral 
satrap,  or  the  fortunes  of  the  Ministry  of  the  day,  have  a  right 
to  know  the  worst,  honestly  and  fully  told.  Not  for  the  mere 
gratification  of  quidnunc  curiosity ;  but  that  it  may,  if  need  there 


192  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  January 

should  seem,  take  its  fortunes  into  its  own  hands,  and  urge,  full- 
throated,  on  its  servants — not  its  masters — the  authorities  of  the 
hour,  that  their  care  be  not  wholly  for  their  own  petty  prospects, 
but  for  the  broad  national  weal.  But  that  the  Times  had  an  out- 
spoken representative  in  the  Crimean  war,  the  cruelly  needless  mor- 
tality would  have  been  indefinitely  multiplied.  When  the  strain  of 
that  terrible  struggle  had  relaxed,  who  among  all  that  shared  its 
vicissitudes  deserved  better  of  his  country  than  William  Howard 
Eussell,  in  that  his  pen,  vivid  as  truthful,  stimulated  successful 
efforts  to  rescue  the  army  from  that  direst  of  all  maladies,  red 
tape  in  a  state  of  collapse  ?  The  cause  of  military  science  is 
benefited  by  the  presence  in  the  field  of  intelligent  and  impartial 
correspondents.  While  soldiers  are  fighting  they  are  watching. 
Theirs  it  is  to  note  not  alone  that  here  the  attack  hangs,  that  there 
it  marches  with  bounding  swiftness,  but  the  circumstances,  the 
differences  in  the  methods,  the  distinctions  in  the  character  of  the 
preparations,  that  bring  about  the  discrepancy.  Theirs  it  is,  stand- 
ing aloof  as  they  do  from  professional  jealousies  and  professional 
prejudices,  free  from  the  traditions  which  so  tend  to  narrow  the  field 
of  observation,  to  suggest  reforms  in  transport,  in  medical  appliances, 
in  formations,  in  methods  of  effective  command.  With  their  all 
but  universal  share  of  acquaintance  with  the  armies  of  foreign  nations, 
correspondents  bring  to  bear  on  such  matters  a  breadth  of  varied  expe- 
rience, the  expressed  outcome  of  which  cannot  always  be  wholly  value- 
less. But  this  acquaintance  of  theirs  with  foreign  armies  on  campaign 
cannot  be  expected  to  be  further  extended.  When  our  authorities  have 
proclaimed  the  virtual  exclusion  of  correspondents  from  their  camps, 
the  foreigner  at  war  will  be  hard  to  convince  that  it  can  be  for  his 
good  that  England  should  see  how  his  soldiers  fight,  and  should  in- 
vestigate his  military  system  under  the  strain  of  war,  through  the 
eyes  and  by  the  brains  of  her  war  correspondents.  It  may  be  that,  in 
a  purely  military  sense,  such  a  deprivation  will  be  of  insignificant 
importance.  But  if  this  be  so,  how  has  it  come  about  that,  not  a 
few  times,  the  scientific  elite  of  our  military  service  have  crowded 
into  the  lecture  hall  of  the  United  Service  Institution  to  listen  to 
lectures  from  war  correspondents,  on  the  abstrusest  technicalities  of 
the  strategy  and  tactics  of  foreign  armies  ? 

It  is  quite  probable  that  a  considerable  section  of  readers  will 
scarcely  be  inclined  to  attach  much  weight  to  an  argument  in  fa- 
vour of  war  correspondents,  which  to  me  seems  of  no  small  moment, 
that  their  work,  worthily  done,  should  tend  to  stimulate  the  martial 
ardour  of  a  nation.  When  we  are  fighting,  say  I,  let  us  fight  with  a 
will,  and  not  with  intermittent  prostrations  before  the  hrine  of  Mr. 
Henry  Kichard.  But  at  all  events,  it  is  well  that  when  we  are  at 
war,  there  should  be  recruits  galore  to  furnish  fuel  for  the  fire  ;  and 
I  am  convinced  that  war  correspondence,  with  the  right  ring  in  it, 
is  one  of  the  most  potent  encouragements  to  the  production  of  the 


1880.  WAR  CORRESPONDENTS.  193 

class  of  recruits  that  are  most  wanted  ;  adventurous  young  fellows, 
with  a  throb  of  fighting  enthusiasm  in  their  blood,  who  enlist,  not 
because  they  have  become  feckless  waifs  and  strays,  biit  because  they 
are  spoiling  for  a  fight. 

I  will  conclude  this  paper  with  some  comments  on  the  new  rules 
taken  seriatim,  and  it  will  conduce  to  lucidity  that  these  rules  be  here 
quoted.  It  is  to  be  noted  that,  as  explained  in  the  communique  of 
the  Indian  'Press  Commissioner,'  the  few  minor  alterations  that 
make  them  applicable  to  a  force  serving  under  the  Government  of 
India  are  interpolations. 

1.  All  correspondents  desiring  to  write  for  newspapers  at  the  seat  of  war  must 
be  furnished  with  a  licence  granted  under  the  authority  of  the  Government  of 
India.    This  licence  shall  state  the  paper  or  papers  to  which  the  correspondent  is 
agent. 

2.  On  no  account  may  a  correspondent  write  for  other  papers  than  those  men- 
tioned on  his  licence.    If  he  desires  to  do  so  he  must  get  leave,  the  fact  being  duly 
registered  on  his  licence. 

3.  No  one  may  write  for  a  newspaper  without  a  licence.   'The  Government  of 
India  will  not  grant  licences  to  those  whom  they  consider  undesirable  to  have  as 
correspondents  in  the  field.     Retired  officers  will  be  preferred. 

4.  All  correspondents  in  the  field  are  placed  under  the  Mutiny  Act  during  their 
stay  with  the  army. 

5.  All  correspondents  shall  wear  a  distinctive  badge';  they  must  also  on  all 
occasions  carry  their  licences  with  them. 

6.  It  may  be  necessary  on  certain  occasions  not  to  allow  correspondents  to  roam 
about  the  theatre  of  war  at  pleasure.     If  so,  an  order  will  be  issued  to  that  effect, 
and  they  must  obtain  passes  to  go  from  one  place  to  another.     It  must  be  under- 
stood that,  even  if  they  have  a  pass  to  view  a  certain  position,  they  may  still  be 
prohibited  from  approaching  it  by  the  local  military  authorities  ;  on  all  occasions 
they  must  conform  to  the  military  exigencies  of  the  time  and  place. 

7.  Correspondents  will  not  be  allowed  to  go  to  the  outposts  without  special 
permission,  which  will  not,  however,  be  generally  granted. 

8.  The  use  of  any  cypher  is  forbidden  to  correspondents.     English  is  the  only 
language  permitted. 

9.  A  military  staff  officer  is  appointed  to   act  as  press  censor.     He  grants 
licences  subject  to  the  approval  of  Government ;  he  is  the  channel  through  which 
the  general  officer  commanding  in  the  field  communicates  with  correspondents  ;  he 
supervises  the  intelligence  sent  by  them  to  their  newspapers  ;  and  he  is  charged 
with  the  duty  of  preventing  the  press  laws  in  the  field  from  being  broken  or 
evaded. 

10.  The  military  censor  has  the  power  of  obliging  all  communications  sent  by 
correspondents  to  their  newspapers  to  go  to  their  destination  through  him ;  and 
should  he  deem  the  intelligence  to  be  dangerous  to  the  good  of  the  army  he  may 
stop  it  or  alter  it.     In  the  case  of  telegrams  the  military  censor  will  generally 
exercise  this  power. 

11.  The  military  authorities  will  give  to  correspondents  as  much  information  as 
they  may  consider  advisable  aud  consistent  with  their  duty ;  the  ktter  are,  there- 
fore, invited  wget  their  news  from  that  source  as  much  as  possible. 

12.  The  military  authorities  will  facilitate,  as  far  as  they  can,  the  despatch  and 
the  conveyance  of  the  messages  of  correspondents. 

13.  Should  the  means  of  communication  at  the  disposal  of  the  general  officer  in 
command  net  be,  sufficient  to  take  the  intelligence  of  correspondents,  the  latter 

VOL.  VII.— No.  35.  0 


194  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  January 

may,  under  the  sanction  of  the  military  censor,  arrange  for  a  special  means  of 
transmitting  their  messages.  It  is,  however,  to  be  clearly  understood  that  these 
new  arrangements  are  to  be  entirely  under  the  control  and  surveillance  of  the 
military  censor. 

14.  It  is,  therefore,  illegal  for  correspondents  to  organise  any  special  means  of 
communication  under  their  own  control  and  management,  or  to  employ  telegraphic 
or  post-offices  beyond  the  radius  of  military  jurisdiction  ;  neither  may  they  secretly 
employ  railway  officials  or  others  to  carry  their  letters  for  them. 

16.  All  newspapers  having  correspondents  in  the  field  must  send  regularly  a 
copy  of  their  paper  to  the  head-quarters  where  their  correspondent  is. 

16.  Correspondents  who  infringe  the  field  press  regulations  are  not  only  liable 
to  punishment  according  to  the  military  law  in  force,  but  their  licences  can  be 
taken  from  them  and  they  themselves  sent  to  the  rear  out  of  the  zone  of  military 
operations. 

17.  Should  a  correspondent  be  expelled,  no  other  will  be  allowed  to  take  his 
place  in  the  service  of  the  newspaper  which  he  represented.     Editors  of  newspapers 
are  held  responsible  for  the  conduct  of  their  agents  with  the  army. 

18.  Editors  of  newspapers  desirous  of  sending  out  agents  to  the  theatre  of  war, 
and  the  correspondents  whom  they  propose  for  that  purpose,  will  be  required  to 
sign  the  following  declaration  : — 

'  We  have  read  the  rules  for  the  guidance  of  editors  of  newspapers  and  of  cor- 
respondents with  an  army  in  the  field,  and  we  hereby  agree  to  abide  by  the  same. 

'  Signed, ,  Editor  of  the 

*  Signed,  Proposed  correspondent   to    the 
to  accompany  the  army.' 

To  Nos.  1  and  3  in  principle  no  valid  objection  can  be  taken. 
It  would  be  unwise,  and,  indeed,  impossible,  to  legitimatise  all 
comers,  irrespective  of  character  and  specification.  It  may  be  as- 
sumed that  the  force  of  public  opinion  would  deter  a  Government 
from  refusing  a  license  arbitrarily  or  resentfully.  The  most  satis- 
factory licensing  machinery  would  be  a  Board  consisting  of  a  military 
officer  of  rank,  a  senior  official  of  the  War  Office,  and  the  President 
for  the  time  being  of  the  Newspaper  Press  Fund. 

No.  2  is  perfectly  fair.  No  man  ought  to  be  ashamed  of  his  work 
wherever  it  may  appear,  and  he  is  simply  present  under  false  pre- 
tences who  writes  surreptitiously  for  a  paper  other  than  the  one  which 
accredits  him. 

No.  4  enacts  nothing  that  is  not  already  enacted,  as  a  reference 
to  the  *  Army  Discipline  and  Regulation  Act  1878 'will  show.  A 
correspondent  comes  under  the  category  of '  all  persons  not  otherwise 
subject  to  military  law  who  are  followers  of,  or  accompany  Her 
Majesty's  troops,  or  any  portion  thereof,  when  employed  on  active 
service  beyond  the  seas.'  Under  the  provisions  of  this  act,  the  cor- 
respondent who  '  knowingly  does  on  active  service  any  act  calculated 
to  imperil  the  success  of  Her  Majesty's  forces,'  or  who  '  misbehaves 
in  such  manner  as  to  show  cowardice,' — in  other  words,  who  on  occa- 
sion does  not  stand  up  to  be  shot  at  with  affable  and  unconcerned 
demeanour — is  liable  *  on  conviction  by  court-martial,  to  suffer  death.' 
If  he  commits  the  offence  of  t  spreading  by  word  of  mouth,  or  in 
writing,  reports  calculated  to  create  unnecessary  alarm  or  despondency,' 
he  subjects  himself  to  penal  servitude,  and  if  he  '  knowingly  makes, 


1880.  WAR  CORRESPONDENTS.  195 

or  is  privy  to  the  making  of,  any  false  or  fraudulent  statement,'  he  is 
liable  to  imprisonment  on  conviction.  No  fair-dealing  man  can 
object  to  underlie  provisions  which  are  essential  to  the  well-being  of 
an  army  in  the  field.  If  he  does  not  relish  them,  he  can  stay  at  home 
with  his  mother ;  he  cannot  reasonably  expect  to  be  the  chartered 
libertine  of  the  force. 

No.  5  has  excited  great  wrath  in  the  Indian  press ;  to  my  think- 
ing causelessly.  An  officer  is  defined  by  his  uniform  ;  a  badge  may 
be  taken  as  the  correspondent's  uniform,  serving  to  distinguish  him 
from  that  most  flagrant  of  all  campaigning  nuisances,  the  proverbial 
T.  Gr.  We  wore  them  with  the  Kussian  army  in  Bulgaria,  and  they 
were  invariably  useful,  obviating  the  necessity  for  the  production  of 
papers,  and  saving  a  world  of  preliminary  circumlocution.  I  am  not 
ashamed  of  my  profession,  and  therefore  have  no  objection  to  any 
device  that  indicates  it. 

No.  6  is  simply  self-evident  to  reasonable  men  conversant  with 
military  exigencies.  It  has  practically  been  always  in  force.  If  an 
officer  chooses  to  stop  a  correspondent,  what  can  the  correspondent 
do  ?  My  advice  to  him  is  to  keep  his  temper. 

With  No.  7  the  correspondent  may  put  up  without  feeling  greatly 
aggrieved.  It  is  a  bore  to  get  shot,  especially  to  your  editor,  and  the 
outposts  are  likely  places  for  that  dispensation.  Besides  they  are  mostly 
uninteresting,  and  generally  when  they  become  interesting  they  cease  to 
be  outposts,  and  the  right  of  way  is  free  if  there  haply  be  stomach  for 
the  journey.  I  would  not  have  the  correspondent  captious. 

No.  8.  No  honest  man  needs  to  resort  to  a  cypher  in  newspaper 
correspondence,  which,  further,  all  experience  shows  to  be  abortive 
and  unpurposeful.  A  press  censor  cannot  be  expected  to  know  foreign 
languages. 

Nos.  9, 10, 1 3,  and  14,  are  the  degrading  and  intolerable  paragraphs. 
No  general  in  the  field  has  the  right  thus,  vicariously,  to  '  supervise 
the  intelligence  sent  by  correspondents  to  their  newspapers.'  He  can 
shoot  them,  or  send  them  to  prison,  if  they  transgress,  but  the  despot- 
ism of  burking  is  not  to  be  tholed.  But  to  burke  their  work  is  not  the 
limit  of  the  powers  of  his  creature,  the  press  censor.  To  that  func- 
tionary is  accorded  the  right  to  '  alter  '  that  work,  if  he  thinks  that 
to  pass  it  would  be  '  detrimental  to  the  good  of  the  army.'  In  other 
words,  it  is  in  his  power,  if  the  correspondent  perversely  declines  to 
lie,  nevertheless  to  make  a  liar  of  him !  Why  not  prescribe  the 
torture  till  he  lie  at  first  hand  ?  Why  descend  to  the  nefarious  base- 
ness of  authorised  forgery  ? — for  virtual  forgery  it  is  thus  to  alter,  to 
warp,  to  overturn.  Who,  among  my  colleagues,  could  those  who 
'  provisionally  authorised  '  this  Jesuitical  code,  have  imagined  so  lost 
to  honour  as  to  bow  their  necks  to  a  yoke  so  insulting  and  so  ignoble? 
I  will  not  retort  insult  on  them  by  regarding  it  as  possible  that  they 
expected  to  find  any  man  base  enough  to  have  the  literary  offspring, 
for  which  he  stands  responsible  to  his  fellow-countrymen,  thus  sur- 


196  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTUR7.  January 

reptitiously  changed  at  nurse.  I  prefer  to  hold  that  they  desired  to 
make  the  position  of  a  war  correspondent  untenable  by  a  gentleman. 
At  all  events  they  have  done  so.  Against  No.  14  I  may  perhaps  be 
allowed  to  entertain  a  special  grudge.  I  have  not  uniformly  been  in 
the  habit  of  tarrying  for  the  despatch  of  posts ;  and  a  variety  of  per- 
sonages, from  the  Emperor  of  Russia  to  Sir  Grarnet  Wolseley,  have 
declined  quite  to  give  expression  to  disappointment  that  I  have  not 
been  thus  supine. 

The  four  paragraphs  specified  are  conceived  not  only  in  an  in- 
sulting but  an  erroneous  spirit.  The  field  telegraph  wire  is  the 
property  of  the  military  authorities.  No  man  can  claim  to  use  it. 
No  man  can  reasonably  object  to  the  stipulation  of  the  military 
authorities  that  by  it  shall  be  transmitted  only  what  they  choose  to 
pass,  and  he  will  regard  it  as  a  privilege  that  they  allow  anything  to 
pass  at  all.  Thus  they  are  masters  of  the  items  of  intelligence  to  be 
instantaneously  transmitted ;  and  it  is  open  for  them  to  fence  or  to 
supervise  telegraph  offices  other  than  military  for  a  certain  distance 
in  their  rear.  These  measures  would  amply  suffice  to  prevent  the  only 
real  danger  that  indiscreet  disclosures  can  give  rise  to,  the  risk  of 
giving  information  to  an  enemy.  Conditions  change  so  rapidly 
in  warfare  that  the  fresh  news  of  to-day  is  dead,  stale  and  useless  to 
an  enemy  two  days  later.  Thus  no  injury  can  be  wrought  by  leaving 
individual  enterprise  open  to  correspondents  in  a  rayon  outside  the 
limits  indicated.  The  Russians  allowed  scarcely  any  press  telegraphy 
from  Bulgaria,  exercised  a  censorship  at  Bucharest,  whither  converged 
all  telegrams  from  Roumanian  out-offices,  but  left  enterprise  free  to 
devise  courier  systems  to  Kronstadt  and  Orsova,  inside  the  Hungarian 
frontiers.  Their  expressed  view  was  that  intelligence  so  retarded 
could  not  well  hurt  them  with  the  enemy,  whatever  its  nature.  With 
correspondence  by  post  they  never  interfered.  They  regarded  that 
species  of  leverage  as  too  remote.  It  has  been  reserved  for  English 
functionaries  to  '  provisionally  authorise '  regulations  which  chastise 
correspondents  with  scorpions,  whereas  the  Russians  but  tickled  them 
with  whips. 

It  remains  to  be  said,  if,  indeed,  it  did  not  go  without  saying, 
that  any  correspondent  who  chose  could  drive  a  coach  and  four 
through  these  rules,  and  indeed  through  any  rules.  The  authorities 
may  accept  the  assurance  that  any  man  so  destitute  of  self-respect  as  to 
take  service  under  them  would  promptly  utilise  his  convenient  lack 
of  that  commodity,  in  devising  schemes  for  their  facile  circumvention. 
It  is  curious  that  the  present  people  will  not  recognise  that  straight- 
forwardness is  wiser  than  wriggle,  that  it  is  better  policy  to  be 
honourable  than  Jesuitical.  It  has  been  hinted  that  these  rules  are 
intended  for  show  rather  than  for  use,  and  that  there  is  no  intention 
of  their  being  systematically  enforced.  If  this  be  so,  the  insult  is 
only  the  more  gratuitous. 

ARCHIBALD  FORBES. 


THE 


NINETEENTH 
C  E  N  T  U  E  Y. 


No.  XXXVI.— FEBRUARY  1880. 


THE  SITUATION  IN  AFGHANISTAN. 


IT  is  certain  that  great  anxiety  prevails  at  present  throughout  the 
country  respecting  our  position  in  Afghanistan,  and  the  probable  issue 
of  events  in  that  quarter.  The  unreasoning  scare,  indeed,  which  arose 
last  month  both  in  India  and  at  home,  in  consequence  of  the  inter- 
ruption for  a  few  days  of  telegraphic  communication  with  General 
Roberta's  force,  testifies  to  the  feverish  state  of  public  feeling.  Pro- 
phets of  evil,  on  one  side,  alarm  the  country  with  their  weekly  homilies 
of  curse  and  commination.  Political  orators,  on  the  other,  improve  the 
occasion  by  magnifying  the  dangers  of  the  situation  for  party  pur- 
poses. If  I  venture,  then,  under  such  circumstances,  to  appear  again, 
pen  in  hand,  before  the  public,  I  think  it  right  to  explain  that  I  do 
not  come  forward  as  a  controversialist  or  a  prophet.  I  make  no  claim 
to  be  the  apologist  of  the  Government,  or  the  exponent  of  an  occult 
policy.  I  write  simply  as  an  independent  observer  who,  by  applying 
his  long  experience  of  Central  Asian  affairs — extending  now  over  a 
period  of  fifty  years — to  passing  events,  is  able  to  form  an  opinion 
on  the  present  crisis  at  least  as  worthy  of  attention  as  that  of  the 
amateur  critics  of  the  public  press,  and  who  is  desirous,  at  a  period 
of  great  national  interest,  to  place  that  opinion  before  the  public,  to 
be  taken  for  what  it  may  be  worth. 

I  shall  not  revive  the  vexed  question  as  to  which  party  in  the  State 
is  to  be  held  responsible  for  the  Afghan  war,  though  some  new  light 
has  been  thrown  upon  the  subject  by  recent  discoveries  at  Cabul. 
It  is  asserted,  for  instance,  in  the  Indian  papers,  and  apparently  on 

VOL.  VII.— No.  36.  P 


198  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY.  February 

the  best  authority,  that  Yacub  Khan  has  been  very  unreserved  in 
his  communications  with  our  officers,  and  has  made  disclosures  of 
some  moment  with  regard  to  his  father's  dealings  with  the  British 
and  Eussian  Governments  respectively.     He  is  said  to  have  described 
Shir  AH  as  having  left  Amballa  in  1869  in  some  degree  disappointed, 
but  not  to  have  been  offended  or  hopeless  till   1873,  when,  on  the 
return  of  his  messenger  from  Simla,  he  resolved  to  throw  in  his  lot 
with  Russia,  and  accordingly  formed  an  alliance  with  that  Govern- 
ment, which  continued  uninterrupted  till  the  final  catastrophe  in 
1878.     Now,  although  this   explanation   contains  to   me  no  unex- 
pected revelation  of  Shir  Ali's  feelings,  but  is,  on  the  contrary,  a 
mere  confirmation  of  the  views  which,  in  common  with  many  other?, 
I  had  always  taken  of  the   respective  results  of  the  Amballa  and 
the  Simla  conference,   it   does,   I  confess,  suggest   some  important 
considerations   in    stating   that    the   Amir's    alliance    with   Russia 
was  continued  uninterrupted  from   1873  to  the  termination  of  his 
career :  an  alliance,  as  I  understand  the  statement,  not  dependent  on 
strict  treaty  engagements,  but  cultivated  and  maintained  by  the  con- 
stant interchange  of  friendly  and  confidential  correspondence,  and  in 
evident  substitution  of  a  previously  existing  good  understanding  with 
England.     The  importance  of  this  admission  is  twofold.     It  authen- 
ticates, in  the  first  place>  the  charge  that  has  been  so  often  brought 
against  Russia  of  sustained  duplicity  in  keeping  up  political  relations 
with  Cabul  through  her  most  trusted  officers  in  Asia,  while  in  Europe 
she  repudiated  any  such  connection,  and  asserted  over  and  over  again, 
in  the  most  solemn  manner,  that '  Afghanistan  was  beyond  the  scope 
of  her  political  action.'     And,  in  the  second  place,  it  points  to  the 
conclusion  that  the  Peshawer  conference,  and  the  various  negotiations 
which  preceded  it,  were  mere  shams,  encouraged  by  Shir  Ali  for  no 
other  purpose  than  that  of  gaining  time,  while  he  matured  arrange- 
ments with   his    Russian  allies.     Yacub    Khan's    brief  explanation, 
indeed,  of  his  father's  policy  compared  with  the    provisions  of  the 
treaty  negotiated  by  Stolietof  at  Cabul,  which  are  also  given  in  the 
Indian  papers,  as  communicated  by  the  subordinates  employed  in  the 
negotiations,  enable  us  for  the  first  time  to  comprehend  with  dis- 
tinctness and  certainty  the  true  position    of  affairs  at    the  Amir's 
court  at  the  close  of  1878,  a  position  which,  in  my  view,  gave  to 
the    Afghan   war    a    strictly    national    character,    and    rendered    it 
quite   independent   of    the    engagements    or    predilections    of    par- 
ties competing  for  power  in  England.      I  have  no    wish    to    waste 
time  in  controversy,  but  as  this  view  of  the  question,  which  would  raise 
the  Afghan  war  beyond  the  sphere  of  party  debate,  is,  I  know,  much 
contested,  I  would  ask  leave  briefly  to  state  the  heads  of  the  argument 
as  it  presents  itself  to  my  deliberate  judgment.     I  am  quite  free  to 
admit,  then,  that  the  necessity  for  armed  intervention  in  Afghanistan 
might  have  been  obviated  by  better  statesmanship  in  bygone  years. 


1880.  THE  SITUATION  IN  AFGHANISTAN.  199 

We  might  probably  have  attached  Shir  Ali  to  our  interests  as  com- 
pletely as  we  had  attached  Dost  Mahomed  Khan  towards  the  close  of 
his  career,  by  a  timely  and  efficient  support  against  the  competitors 
who,  when  he  first  entered  on  his  birthright,  challenged  his  supremacy 
and  for  years  obstructed  his  path  to  power  ;  or  at  a.  later  period — at 
Amballa,  for  instance — we  might  have  expiated  our  previous  short- 
comings, and  secured  Shir  Ali's  loyalty  by  a  personal  and  dynastic 
guarantee ;  or,  if  we  hesitated  to  commit  India  to  liabilities  of  this 
magnitude,  we  might  have  reassured  the  Amir  as  to  his  political 
safety  and  have  at  any  rate  secured  his  respect,  by  showing  a  bolder 
front  to  Russia  after  the  Khiva  campaign,  and  arresting,  under  a  threat 
of  war,  her  further  advance  towards  our  Indian  frontier.  Any  one  of 
these  lines  of  policy  would,  it  may  be  admitted,  have  rendered  the 
present  war  unnecessary ;  but  we  have  now  passed  beyond  such  specu- 
lations, and  any  recurrence  to  the  subject  is  useless,  except  as  an  his- 
torical lesson  for  future  generations.  The  only  question  for  present 
consideration  is  whether  at  the  close  of  1878  it  would  have  been 
possible  with  a  due  regard  to  the  safety  of  India  to  avoid  de- 
claring war  with  Cabul.  The  position  at  the  court  of  the  Amir,  as 
we  have  learnt  from  our  later  experience  at  Cabul,  and  from  the  in- 
sight we  have  gained  into  Russian  proceedings,  was  simply  as  follows : 
— Shir  Ali  had  cultivated  for  the  preceding  five  years  close  and  con- 
fidential relations  with  Russia ;  he  had  deliberately  renounced  the 
nope  of  preserving  the  friendship  of  England ;  in  the  meantime  he 
had  prepared  a  most  formidable  armament :  he  had  collected  sixty- 
eight  regiments  of  regular  infantry,  armed  for  the  most  part  with 
serviceable  rifles,  and  sixteen  regiments  of  cavalry ;  he  had  at  his 
disposal  about  300  guns  and  an  enormous  amount  of  powder,  ammu- 
nition, and  material  of  war ;  and,  to  crown  all,  his  influence  over  the 
border  tribes,  who  constitute  the  chief  element  of  Afghan  strength,  was 
at  least  as  powerful  as  his  father's,  and  was  liable  at  any  moment  to 
be  employed  against  us.  Under  such  circumstances,  he  received  with 
distinction  a  Russian  Envoy  and  concluded  a  treaty  with  the  Russian 
Government  which  guaranteed  to  him  the  protection  of  the  Emperor 
in  regard  both  to  foreign  and  domestic  enemies,  and  virtually  placed 
the  whole  resources  of  the  country  at  the  disposal  of  his  Russian  ally. 
Shortly  before  this  critical  period  our  own  relations  with  Russia  had 
been  strained  to  the  utmost,  and  in  view  of  eventualities  a  consider- 
able Russian  force  had  actually  marched  from  the  Turkistan  head- 
quarters towards  the  Afghan  frontier,  for  service  beyond  the  Oxus. 
It  was  quite  possible,  too,  though  the  Treaty  of  Berlin  had  been 
signed,  that  local  misunderstanding  or  collision  might  impede  its 
execution,  and  that  we  might  thus  be  obliged  after  all  to  confront 
Russia  in  the  field.  Let  me  ask  if  any  British  Minister  would  have 
ventured  under  such  circumstances  to  leave  Russia  in  the  undisturbed 
enjoyment  of  her  vantage-ground  in  Afghanistan.  Even  without  her 

P  2 


200  .       THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY.  February 

co-operation  the  position  of  Shir  Ali  in  respect  to  the  Punjab  would 
have  been  very  similar  to  that  of  Cetewayo  in  respect  to  Natal ;  but 
•with  that  co-operation — Russian  officers  being  available  to  lead  the 
troops  and  fortify  the  passes  ;  Russian  money  being  forthcoming  to  re- 
plenish the  Cabul  Treasury  ;  and  Russian  science  being  at  hand  to  sup- 
plement the  Afghan  wants — the  danger  which  threatened  British  India 
was,  I  contend,  of  the  gravest  character.  It  is  my  firm  conviction  that 
no  British  Minister,  whether  Liberal  or  Conservative,  could  have  re- 
mained insensible  to  such  weighty  considerations.  If  the  Duke  of 
Argyll  had  been  at  the  India  Office  in  1878,  he  would,  equally  with 
Lord  Cranbrook,  have  recognised  it  as  an  imperative  duty  for  the 
safety  of  British  India  to  break  up  the  Russo- Afghan  confederacy, 
and  he  would  have  further  felt  himself  obliged,  as  the  only  means  of 
Accomplishing  this  end — after  the  attempt  to  send  a  friendly  mission 
had  failed — to  push  an  army  up  the  passes  and  threaten  Cabul. 

It  seems  to  me  that  this  point  once  admitted  there  is  no  room  for 
further  argument ;  and  moreover  that,  since  the  resolution  to  embark 
in  war  was  first  taken  in  defence  of  the  national  interests,  our  pro- 
ceedings have  been  marked  throughout  with  singular  moderation  and 
consistency   of  purpose.      Events   have   certainly   hurried  on  in  a 
most  rapid  sequence,  and   have   carried  us  further  than  we  either 
contemplated  or  desired ;  but  we  have  done  our  utmost  in  the  past 
and  are  doing  our  utmost  at  the  present  time  to  restrict  the  area 
of  action,  and  if  in  any  case  the  limit  of  our  original  lines  should  be 
transgressed,  our  misfortune,  not  our  will,  must  bear  the  blame.  After 
the  advance,  for  instance,  on  Jellalabad  and  on  the  Piwer  pass  had 
been  accomplished — an  advance  which  was  as  skilfully  planned  as  it 
was  brilliantly  executed,  and  which  impressed  not  only  the  Afghans, 
but  their  Russian  protectors  also,  with  a  very  high  estimate  of  our 
military  strength — we  halted  in  mid  career  to  allow  time  for  a  possible 
settlement.     There  can  be  no  doubt  that  Roberts,  after  defeating  the 
enemy  at  the  Piwer  pass,  might  have  marched  directly  upon  Cabul,  and 
have  occupied  the  city,  there  and  then,  either  with  or  without  the  co- 
operation of  the  Jellalabad  column,  but  it  was  judged  that  so  sudden  a 
collapse  of  the  Afghan  power  would  embarrass  rather  than  benefit  our 
future  prospects.     We  preferred  accordingly  to  wait,  and  in  due  time 
negotiated  the  Treaty  of  Gandamak,  our  special  object  being,  not  to 
ruin  the  Afghan  monarchy,  but  to  banish  Russian   influence    and 
Russian  intrigue  from   Cabul  and   its  neighbourhood  once  for  all ; 
while  at  the  same  time  we  provided  for  possible  difficulties  in  the 
future  by  strengthening  our  Indian  frontier,  and  by  establishing  at 
the  Afghan  capital  a  permanent  mission  for  observation,  for  counsel, 
and  for  support. 

It  has  been  the  fashion,  judging  after  the  event,  to  denounce 
the  Treaty  of  Gandamak,  as  a  notable  example  of  diplomatic 
pedaairy,  as  a  project,  indeed,  wrong  in  principle,  cumbrous  and  un- 


1880.  THE  SITUATION  IN  AFGHANISTAN.  201 

manageable  in  its  details,  and  aiming  at  impracticable  results.  I 
have  always  maintained,  on  the  contrary,  that,  except  in  regard  to 
the  abandonment  of  Candahar,  it  was  a  sound  political  compact,  and 
shadowed  forth  a  fairly  reasonable  scheme  for  the  future  government 
of  Afghanistan,  consistently  with  British  interests  and  with  a  due 
regard  to  the  rights  and  feelings  of  the  inhabitants. 

In  reality  the  success  or  failure  of  the  treaty  depended  on  the 
character  of  Yacub  Khan,  which  was  a  dark  element  in  the  calculation. 
There  were  many  who  doubted  his  power  and  foresaw  local  troubles 
ahead,  but  had  no  reason  to  mistrust  the  estimate  that  had  been  formed 
of  his  personal  capacity  and  loyalty.  It  may  have  been  an  error 
to  allow  Cavagnari — fea  rless,  self-reliant,  and  admirably  fitted 
as  he  was  to  acquire,  if  time  had  been  allowed,  a  commanding  influence 
in  the  country — to  proceed  on  his  mission,  attended  by  such  a 
moderate  escort ;  but  it  must  be  remembered  that  the  fatal  catastrophe 
— a  catastrophe  which  will  remain  as  a  dark  spot  in  our  annals  to  all 
time — did  not  arise  from  the  smallness  of  the  escort.  There  was 
ample  time  to  relieve  the  Mission  after  the  first  alarm  was 
given,  had  there  been  a  vigorous  and  loyal  ruler  in  the  Bala  Hissar 
to  second  the  gallant  efforts  of  the  Guides.  As  it  was,  an  escort  of  a 
regiment,  or  even  of  a  brigade,  would  not  have  sufficed,  without 
support  from  the  local  authorities,  to  hold  the  Mission-quarters 
till  succour  arrived,  against  the  forces  united  in  the  attack.  But 
no  good  can  arise  from  pursuing  this .  painful  subject  further.  I 
merely  wish  to  point  out  that  this  deplorable  incident  of  the  Afghan 
struggle  was  alike  independent  of  the  political  grounds  on  which  the 
war  was  undertaken  and  of  the  principles  on  which  it  was  conducted, 
but  was  due  to  causes  over  which  the  Government  of  India  had  in 
reality  no  control  whatever.  We  have,  in  fact,  had  more  than  our  due 
share  of  misfortunes  since  the  war  began.  It  was  most  unfortunate  for 
us  in  the  first  place  that  Shir  Ali  was  persuaded  to  fly  prematurely 
from  Cabul,  for  had  he  remained  at  his  post  long  enough  to  test  the 
hollowness  of  the  Kussian  promises,  it  is  not  at  all  unlikely  that  he 
might  have  been  reclaimed  from  that  most  unnatural  connection,  and 
have  thus  proved  to  us  in  the  sequel  an  ally  as  honest  and  trusted  as 
he  would  certainly  have  been  powerful  to  protect  our  interests.  But 
it  was  still  more  unfortunate  that  on  leaving  his  capital  he  trans- 
ferred his  power  to  so  weak  and  irresolute  a  character  as  Yacub 
Khan.  There  had  been  disquieting  rumours,  long  previously,  that 
Yacub  Khan's  imprisonment  at  Cabul  had  impaired  both  his  mental 
and  his  physical  faculties,  but  Cavagnari's  intercourse  with  him  at 
Gandamak  did  not  confirm  the  story.  Our  envoy,  on  the  contrary, 
believed  him  to  be  well  disposed  and  sufficiently  docile  and  sagacious 
to  profit  by  the  counsel  he  was  prepared  to  give  him.  It  was  not, 
indeed,  till  after  some  weeks'  experience  at  Cabul  that  there  was  any 
reason  to  mistrust  this  estimate  of  Yacub's  powers.  Latterly  the 


202  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  February 

envoy  had  occasion,  it  is  believed,  to  complain  of  Yacub's  inertness 
and  indecision,  but  whether  to  these  shortcomings  the  Amir  added 
the  more  serious  offence  of  disloyalty,  has  been  the  subject  of  inquiry, 
the  result  of  which  has  not  yet  transpired.  The  Treaty  of  Gandaruak 
can  thus,  I  submit,  be  hardly  held  responsible  for  the  Cabul  massacre, 
or  for  the  long  series  of  embarrassments  it  has  brought  in  its  train. 
That  the  said  treaty,  indeed,  was  an  honest  endeavour  to  protect 
our  interests  with  as  little  disturbance  as  possible  to  existing  rights^ 
and  did  not,  therefore,  merit  the  obloquy  and  ridicule  that  have  been 
cast  on  it,  is  proved  by  the  conviction  which  now  presses  on  all 
practical  men,  both  in  England  and  in  India,  that  in  any  new 
arrangement  of  our  Afghan  relations,  the  closer  we  adhere,  as  far  as 
Cabul  is  concerned,  to  the  Gandamak  engagements,  the  better  for 
the  peace  and  security  of  India. 

It  may  now  be  convenient  to  take  a  rapid  survey  of  the  events 
which  have  led  up  to  our  present  position.  General  Roberta's 
advance  upon  Cabul  from  the  Shutar  Gardan  Pass  during  the  first 
week  of  October  is  admitted  on  all  hands  to  have  been  as  brilliant  a 
military  movement  as  was  ever  executed.  Its  rapidity  and  dash 
seem  to  have  completely  disconcerted  the  Afghan  plan  of  resistance, 
which  was  further  neutralised  by  the  flight  of  the  Amir,  who,  in  a 
frenzy  of  bewilderment  and  fear,  joined  the  British  camp  with  his 
principal  Ministers  as  our  troops  debouched  upon  the  Loghar  Plain. 
The  political  position,  however,  was  embarrassing  enough  even  at  this 
early  period.  Our  immediate  object  was  to  avenge  the  treacherous  mur- 
der of  the  British  Envoy  and  his  suite  ;  but  could  the  Amir  be  trusted 
to  co-operate  in  measures  of  severity  which  must  irretrievably  compro- 
mise him  with  his  subjects  ?  In  General  Roberts's  first  proclamation 
of  October  3,  on  approaching  Cabul,  he  put  boldly  forward  the 
authority  and  interests  of  Yacub  Khan  as  identical  with  our  own  ; 
and  even  on  the  1 3th,  on  appointing  a  British  Military  Governor  to 
the  city,  and  imposing  stringent  penalties  on  the  townspeople,  he 
assumed  to  be  acting  with  the  full  consent  of  his  Highness  ;  but  on 
the  following  day,  Yacub  Khan  walked  to  the  British  camp., 
accompanied  by  only  two  attendants,  and  threw  up  the  Amirship, 
saying  that  '  his  life  was  miserable,  and  he  would  rather  be  a  grass- 
cutter  in  the  British  camp  than  ruler  of  Afghanistan.'  It  was  in 
vain  that  General  Roberts  urged  him  to  reconsider  the  serious  step 
he  was  taking.  Yacub  never  faltered  in  his  resolve,  and  is  now  an 
exile  in  India. 

It  occurred  to  some  at  the  time  that  it  might  possibly  be  to 
the  public  advantage  that  the  British  Government  should  thus  be 
relieved  of  so  very  doubtful  and  inefficient  an  ally,  but  consequences 
soon  made  themselves  felt  of  such  extreme  gravity,  on  the  other  side, 
as  entirely  to  dispel  any  such  illusion.  The  immediate  effect  of 
Yacub  Khan's  disappearance,  and  the_virtual  extinction  which  it  in- 


1880.          THE  SITUATION  IN  AFGHANISTAN.  203 

volved  of  the  Baruckzye  dynasty — for  there  was  no  available  member  of 
the  family  qualified  in  any  way  to  take  his  place — was  to  necessitate 
the  disintegration  of  Afghanistan,  thus  scattering  to  the  winds  the 
prospect  we  had  so  long  entertained  and  clung  to,  of  a  '  strong,  friendly 
and  independent  power '  on  our  north-western  frontier.   As  a  first  result 
came  forward   the  obvious   necessity  of  retaining   our   position  at 
Candahar.     We  had  only  promised  to  withdraw  from  that  province 
in  the  hope  of  preserving  a  united  Afghanistan.     If  such  an  object 
were  no  longer  attainable,  a  permanent  military  occupation  of  the 
Western  Afghan  capital  became  indispensable  to   our   safety ;   and 
with  an  arrangement   of    this   nature   were   inseparably    connected 
further  considerations  of  the  utmost  moment  in  regard  to  the  future 
government   of  Herat.     The  more  immediate  object  of  solicitude, 
however,  was  the  state  of  affairs  at  Cabul.     No  one — not  the  ex- 
tremest   optimist — could   doubt,   after    the    experience   of  General 
Roberts's  occupation  of  the  capital,  that  we  were  objects  of  intense 
dislike  to  the  Eastern  Afghan  population  generally.      The  Hindoo 
traders  of  Cabul,  it  is  true,  and  perhaps  a  certain  portion  of  the  Tajik 
shopkeepers  and  the  agricultural  peasantry,  might  appreciate  the  bene- 
fits of  order  and  good  government,  and  thus  welcome  our  presence  ; 
but  to  the  great  majority  of  the  population,  to  the  disbanded  soldiers 
and  tribesmen,  to  the  priesthood,  the  nobles  and  the  landowners 
generally,  we  were  infidels  and  aliens,  enemies  to  their  faith  and 
freedom,  whom  it  was  incumbent  on  them  to  resist  to  the  bitter  end. 
Xo  one,  indeed,  can  read  the  depositions  of  the  few  Sepoys  of  the 
escort  who  survived  the  massacre,  without  feeling  that  there  exists 
a  great  gulf  of  hatred  and  mistrust  between   us  and  the  Eastern 
Afghans  which  it  will  take  years  of  careful  and  conciliatory  treat- 
ment to  bridge  over.     As  soon,  indeed,  as  General  Eoberts  entered 
upon   the   very  difficult  task  of  executive   government  which  had 
devolved  upon  him  in  consequence  of  Yacub  Khan's  abdication,  he 
was  made  sensibly  aware  of  the  intensity  of  the  feeling  against  us. 
Two  Sirdars  of  note,  Shahbaz  Khan  Baruckzye,  and  Abdulla  Khan, 
who  had  been  sent  as  local  governors  respectively  to  Kohistan  and 
Loghar,  were  compelled  by  a  rising  of  the  people  to  retire  precipi- 
tately to  Cabul,  while  a  third  chieftain,  Mahomed  Hassan  Khan,  a 
half-brother  to  Shir  Ali,  who  was  a  great  favourite  in  the  British 
camp,  from  his  kind  disposition  and  his  hearty  frankness  of  manner, 
and  who  was  employed  as  our  representative  in  the  Mydan  district, 
was  murdered  by  a  body  of  men  from  the  hills,  in  revenge,  as  it  is 
said,  for  the  previous  burning  of  their  villages.1     It  is  not  likely  that 
the  feeling  of  the  Cabulis  towards  us  will  have  been  improved  by 

1  These  villages,  which  belonged  to  Bahadur  Khan,  chief  of  the  Omar-Kheil 
division  of .  the  Ghilzyes  of  Mydan,  were  burnt  on  November  24,  as  a  punishment 
for  having  fired  on  Captain  Turner's  detachment  which  had  visited  them  on  the 
previous  day  in  quest  of  forage  and  supplies. 


204  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  February 

the  severe  fighting  which  took  place  on  the  hills  around  the  city 
upon  the  1 3th  and  1 4th  of  December,  or  by  the  heavy  loss  inflicted 
on  the  insurgents  in  their  subsequent  assault  on  the  Shirpoor  en- 
trenchments. We  may  now  accept  it  as  an  undoubted  fact  that, 
although  our  military  character  stands  higher  than  ever  in  Afghan 
estimation,  although  neither  the  tribesmen  nor  the  disbanded  soldiery 
will  probably  again  make  a  determined  stand  against  us,  except 
under  exceptionally  favourable  conditions,  still  we  are  as  far  off,  or 
farther  off  than  ever,  from  the  pacification  of  Eastern  Afghanistan. 
The  inhabitants  of  the  Kohistan  of  Cabul  upon  the  one  side,  including 
the  numerous  valleys  which  run  up  from  the  Kohistan  into  the  Hindu- 
Kush  range  and  its  branches,  together  with  the  warlike  Ghilzye  popu- 
lation stretching  from  Laghman  to  below  Grhazni,  are  our  implacable 
enemies,  and  will  continue  to  be  so  through  many  long  years, 
probably,  of  conflict  and  disorder.  It  is  a  poor  consolation  to  me 
personally  to  know  that  I  always  protested  against  meddling  with 
such  a  hornets'  nest  as  Cabul,  that  I  counselled  indeed  bestowing  our 
undivided  attention  upon  Western  Afghanistan,  while  we  left  *  Cabul 
and  Ghazni,  the  scene  of  our  old  disasters,  to  struggle  on  in  isolated 
anarchy.' 2  Destiny  has  been  too  strong  ;  we  have  been  forced  on  by 
a  train  of  adverse  circumstances,  by  a  concatenation  of  events  which 
we  could  not  control,  into  our  present  position  as  '  conquerors  of 
Cabul ; '  and  the  question  now  is  how  we  can  convert  a  tenure  of 
so  very  undesirable  a  nature  into  a  lasting  bulwark  of  defence  to  India. 

There  are  two  courses  which  we  may  pursue,  and  two  courses  which 
we  may  not  pursue.  We  may  decide  in  favour  of  annexation  pur  et 
simple ;  or  we  may  be  content  with  control  and  protection  without 
annexation.  On  the  other  hand,  we  cannot  retire  altogether,  nor  can 
we  long  maintain  our  present  position,  in  military  occupation,  and  yet 
not  in  possession.  If  we  decide  to  annex  the  country  and  hold  it  vi  et 
armis,  as  the  Moghul  Emperors  of  India  held  it  for  two  centuries,  we 
must  submit  to  many  sacrifices.  The  expense  of  such  an  annexation, 
in  the  first  place,  would  be  serious,  for  the  annual  revenue  of  Cabul  is 
small,  not  above  eighty  lakhs  of  rupees  all  told,  and  we  should  for 
many  years  be  only  able  to  realise  a  small  portion  of  that  revenue, 
and  even  that  small  portion  at  the  cost  of  constant  bloodshed ;  our 
civil  administration,  indeed,  for  a  long  time  to  come  would  be  beset 
with  difficulty ;  our  officers  would  meet  with  opposition  from  the 
Moolahs,  from  the  Maliks,  from  the  tribesmen  and  villagers  alike. 
To  disarm  the  country  generally  would  be  quite  beyond  our  power, 
and  we  should  have  infinite  trouble  in  repressing  disorder  and 
establishing  an  efficient  police.  That  the  task,  however,  would  be 
impossible,  I  will  not  pretend  to  assert ;  and,  in  some  respects  at  any 
rate,  there  would  be  compensating  advantages. 

But  there  are  many  in  England  to  whom  annexation  is  utterly 
*  See  England  and  Russia  in  the  East.     2nd  Edition,  p.  209. 


1880.  THE  SITUATION  IN  AFGHANISTAN.  205 

distasteful,  as  implying  outrage,  territorial  greed,-  and  national  dis- 
honour, not  to  speak  of  the  very  serious  complications  that  might 
arise  from  extending  our  Indian  frontier  to  the  north,  so  as  to  become 
immediately  conterminous  with  Russian  dependencies.  Politicians  of 
the  broadest  views  on  other  questions  of  frontier  defence  recoil,  in- 
deed, with  dismay  from  the  idea  of  placing  British  garrisons  in  My- 
meneh,  in  Balkh  and  in  Kunduz,  600  miles  beyond  the  Indus,  a 
measure  nevertheless  which  would  infallibly  follow  on  the  annexation 
of  Cabul,  unless  we  adopted  the  still  more  dangerous  expedient  of  a 
common  frontier  with  Eussia  along  the  crests  of  the  Hindu-Rush. 
To  such  politicians  it  would  seem  far  preferable  that  Afghan  Turk- 
istan,  and  Cabul  should  not  be  annexed,  but  should  be  ruled  by  native 
chiefs,  politically  dependent  on  the  British  Government,  but  uncon- 
trolled in  their  administrative  functions.  General  Roberts  is  about 
to  experimentalise  in  this  direction,  by  sending  Hashim  Khan,  the 
son  of  our  pensioner,  Mahomed  Sherif  Khan,  who  resides  in  India,  to 
Balkh  as  provincial  governor,  and  we  must  patiently  await  the  result. 
The  Uzbeg  population  of  the  province  will  accept  probably  without 
a  murmur  a  British  nominee,  but  the  allegiance  of  the  sporadic 
Afghans,  Ghilzye  settlers,  and  Durani  military  retainers,  can  hardly 
be  counted  on.  If  British  support  is  too  obtrusive,  it  will  certainly 
excite  opposition ;  if  kept  entirely  in  the  background,  the  authority 
of  the  Governor  will  be  reduced  to  a  shadow,  especially  if,  as  we  have 
reason  to  believe,  a  candidate  with  the  claims  of  Abdur-Rahman 
Khan  should  appear  upon  the  scene  ready  to  strike  in  for  power. 

How  the  responsible  authorities  will  ultimately  determine  this 
knotty  question  of  the  future  government  of  Eastern  Afghanistan,  I 
shall  not  venture  to  predict ;  but  if,  as  appears  probable,  they  decide 
against  annexation  and  recur  to  the  familiar  model  of  a  protected  Indian 
State,  if  in  fact  they  resolve  to  withdraw  from  all  executive  detail, 
leaving  to  the  native  chiefs  as  much  liberty  of  action  as  is  compatible 
with  the  dependence  of  Afghanistan  upon  Great  Britain,  then  I  would 
venture  to  submit  that,  in  order  to  confirm  our  supremacy  and  guarantee 
our  right  to  an  exclusive  political  control  over  the  nation,  it  would 
be  of  the  first  importance  to  establish  a  strong  nucleus  of  power 
at  the  capital,  and  to  retain  in  our  hands  a  complete  command  of 
the  military  organisation  of  the  province.  Undoubtedly  if  we  were 
prepared  to  maintain  a  permanent  garrison  of  2,000  British  troops  of 
all  arms  in  an  unassailable  position  at  Cabul,  amply  provisioned  and 
stored,  so  as  to  bid  defiance  if  necessary  to  the  whole  power  of  Eastern 
Afghanistan,  and  if  we  further  raised  a  contingent  of  20,000  men 
from  the  Hazarehs,  Kizzil-bashis,  and  Parsiwans,  furnishing  them  with 
arms  of  precision  and  placing  them  under  British  officers,  as  in  the 
case  of  the  Hyderabad  Contingent,  then  we  might  safely  allow  the 
local  Sirdars  to  levy  revenue  and  exercise  all  the  functions  of  executive 
government ;  our  Resident  in  the  mean  time  remaining  in  the  British 


206  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  February 

citadel,  from  whence,  secure  against  all  personal  danger,  he  might 
direct  the  Afghan  councils,  watch  the  northern  frontier,  and  act  as 
referee  between  rival  interests.  Under  such  a  system  there  would 
be  friction  at  first  starting,  and  to  a  very  serious  extent.  The 
jealousy  of  the  chiefs  who  had  formerly  held  military  command,  but 
were  now  unemployed,  would  keep  alive  disaffection  among  the 
peasantry,  and  it  would  be  long  before  the  country  settled  down  into 
anything  like  order  or  content ;  but  still  patience  and  firmness  will 
do  wonders,  and  looking  at  the  results  obtained  -in  other  quarters 
where  our  officers  have  undertaken  to  civilise  communities  not  less 
fierce  and  untamable  than  the  Afghans,  it  would  not  be  presumptuous 
to  expect  an  ultimate  success.  At  any  rate  the  experiment  of  intro- 
ducing a  native  and  quasi-independent  civil  authority  throughout 
the  province  in  substitution  for  the  direct  military  pressure  which  we 
now  exert,  must  surely  be  tried  before  we  resort  to  the  more  drastic  and 
extreme  remedy  of  annexation.  Greneral  Koberts's  recent  nomination 
of  Wali  Mahomed  Khan  as  Military  Governor  of  Cabul,  following 
on  his  proclamations  of  general  amnesty,  are  steps  in  the  right 
direction.  If  this  Sirdar,  who  is  the  most  influential  member  of 
Dost  Mahomed's  family  now  remaining  at  Cabul,  should  be  able  to 
make  his  authority  generally  respected  in  the  capital  and  immediate 
neighbourhood,  he  might  be  subsequently  promoted- to  the  government 
of  the  entire  province,  and  the  experiment  of  native  rule  would 
thus  be  commenced  under  the  most  favourable  auspices. 

It  would  be  useless  at  present  to  indulge  in  further  speculations. 
If  our  positive  duties  in  the  future  are  difficult  to  foresee,  our 
negative  duties  are  at  any  rate  sufficiently  well  defined ;  we  cannot 
in  the  first  place  prolong  for  an  indefinite  time  our  present  anomalous 
position  in  military  occupation  of  Cabul  but  without  assuming  the 
responsibilities  of  permanent  government.  We  cannot  leave  it  an 
open  question  whether  we  are  lords  of  the  soil  or  merely  visitors. 
The  expense,  indeed,  of  maintaining  a  force  of  1 0,000  men  at  Cabul 
with  a  perfect  line  of  communication  to  Peshawer,  is  too  great  to  be 
borne  without  grudging ;  and  it  must  further  be  remembered  that 
this  heavy  expenditure  must  continue  unabated  until  our  line  of 
policy  is  finally  declared,  while  the  effect  of  our  indecision  in  the 
mean  time  must  be  to  keep  alive  in  the  country  a  state  of  feverish 
expectancy  and  unrest. 

Nor,  I  submit,  as  another  negative  duty  equally  certain  and  well 
defined,  can  we  possibly  retire  within  our  Indian  frontier,  as  we  did 
in  1 842,  without  any  material  guarantees  or  other  tangible  results  of 
the  war  :  we  should  simply  by  so  doing  make  ourselves  ridiculous  to  our 
friends  and  contemptible  to  our  enemies.  We  should  aggravate  tenfold 
the  dangers  from  without  with  which  we  were  threatened  in  1878, 
and  we  should  weaken  our  hold  on  our  Indian  subjects  to  a  perilous — 
nay,  I  do  not  hesitate  to  say,  to  a  fatal — extent.  Coute  que  coute, 


1880.  THE  SITUATION  IN  AFGHANISTAN.  207 

we  must  now  hold  on,  either  as  the  possessors  or  the  protectors  of  CabuL 
We  must,  I  submit,  under  any  circumstances,  incorporate  Jellalabad 
in  our  Indian  territory,  and  extend  the  Punjab  railway  to  that  point ; 
and  even  if  we  were  presently  to  withdraw  our  British  force  from  Cabul, 
with  the  exception  of  the  permanent  garrison  located  in  the  place 
Cannes  to  which  I  have  before  alluded,  we  must  be  prepared  at  any 
moment  to  reoccupy  the  place  if  our  garrison  should  require  support, 
or  if  serious  danger  threatened  us  from  beyond  the  Oxus. 

And  now,  having  thus  cursorily  glanced  at  the  Cabul  difficulties,  I 
turn  with  a  feeling  of  relief  to  other  portions  of  the  subject,  where  the 
prospect  is  less  hazy  and  indistinct.  The  disintegration  of  Afghanis- 
tan following  as  a  matter  of  course  on  the  abolition  of  the  Amirship  at 
Cabul,  it  becomes  necessary  to  consider  the  position  of  the  other  portions 
of  the  Afghan  state.  Badakshan,  the  most  easterly  Afghan  province,  may 
for  the  present  be  left  to  itself.  Its  importance  to  India  may  be  esti- 
mated from  the  fact  that  it  was  the  appanage  of  the  Crown  Prince  Huma- 
yim  in  Baber's  original  distribution  of  the  frontier  provinces.  Being 
peopled  by  Tajiks,  who  are  equally  hostile  to  the  Afghans  and  Uzbegs, 
it  may  be  diplomatically  dealt  with  from  Cashmire  by  way  of  Grilgit 
and  Chitral  without  reference  to  complications  at  Cabul  or  in  Turk- 
istan,  and  the  sooner  it  is  so  dealt  with  the  better,  since  the  scions  of 
the  old  royal  house,  who  at  the  commencement  of  Shir  Ali's  troubles 
threw  off  the  Afghan  yoke,  and  have  since,  among  themselves,  been 
struggling  for  supremacy,  have  also,  for  their  own  purposes,  engaged  in 
close  communication  with  Samarcand,  and  are  thus  liable  to  some 
suspicion. 

There  is  no  denying  the  fact  that  in  regard  to  the  future  settle- 
ment of  Cabul  the  position  of  Afghan-Turkistan  is  most  embarrass- 
ing. Notwithstanding  that  there  is  an  identity  of  race  between  the 
inhabitants  of  the  Bokhara  territory  to  the  north  of  the  Oxus  and  the 
population  on  the  southern  side  of  the  river  from  Kunduzto  Mymeneh, 
it  would  be,  I  submit,  a  grave  error  on  our  part  to  allow  that  community 
of  race  to  decide  the  political  distribution  without  reservation  or  re- 
straint. It  is  well  known  how  indefatigably  Russia  worked  throughout 
the  long-protracted  frontier  negotiations  from  1869  to  1872,  in  order 
to  detach  Afghan-Turkistan  from  Cabul.  She  failed  at  the  time, 
mainly  through  the  firmness  of  Lord  Mayo's  Government,  but  since  our 
appearance  above  the  passes,  her  inspired  press  has  revived  the  subject 
with  such  marked  persistency  that  we  may  take  it  for  granted,  if 
negotiations  are  reopened  with  Russia  as  to  our  mutual  relations  on 
the  frontier,  she  will  claim  to  confine  the  Afghan  rule  to  the  plateau 
of  the  Paropamisus,  the  jurisdiction  of  Bokhara  extending,  according 
to  this  distribution,  over  the  northern  slopes  of  the  range  where  the 
Uzbegs  of  the  plains  replace  the  Hazareh  and  Eymack  tribesmen.  An 
arrangement  of  this  nature,  however,  would  bring  the  Russian  frontier, 
or  at  any  rate  Russian  influence,  inconveniently  near  many  of  the 


208  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY.  February 

strong  places  of  Afghan  power.  Mymeneh,  for  instance,  which  is  an 
Uzbeg  district  northward  of  the  great  chain,  is  the  key  of  Herat  and 
has  been  for  many  years  dependent  on  that  city.  Sir-i-pul  again, 
which  also  belongs  to  an  Uzbeg  chief,  commands  the  easiest  passes  to 
the  upper  plateau;  while  Yeka-Ulang,  peopled  by  Hazarehs,  and  even 
Bamian  itself,  would,  if  the  geographical  rule  were  strictly  carried  out, 
be  severed  from  Cabul.  Eussia  has  done  much  by  establishing  a 
steam  flotilla  on  the  Oxus,  by  surveying  the  course  of  the  river,  and 
by  conciliating  the  tribes  and  villagers  on  the  right  bank,  to  realise 
her  hold  upon  the  adjacent  country,  but  to  abandon  Afghan-Turkistan 
in  its  entirety  to  her  insatiable  grasp  would  be,  in  my  opinion,  most 
seriously  to  impair  the  value  of  our  Afghan  defence  and  to  render  our 
Indian  frontier  almost  as  faulty  as  it  was  before. 

The  Paropamisan  range  itself  need  not  much  concern  us.  The 
Shiah  Hazarehs,  who  occupy  the  eastern  half  of  the  range,  are 
thoroughly  well  disposed  to  us,  and  will  be  most  valuable  allies, 
whether  we  annex  or  merely  protect  the  Afghan  state ;  while  the 
tribes  further  west,  the  Firoz-Kohis,  Tymenis,  Tymooris,  and 
Jamshidis,  will  naturally  follow  the  fortunes  of  Herat. 

South  of  the  range,  we  have  first  to  consider  Grhazni.  It  was  un- 
fortunate that  we  could  not  spare  troops  to  garrison  this  town 
before  our  recent  occupation  of  Cabul.  A  regiment  thrown  in  as 
Roberts  was  marching  from  the  Shutar  Gardan  pass,  and  strengthened 
in  due  course  by  another  regiment  detached  from  the  Candahar  force, 
would  have  saved  us  in  the  sequel  much  trouble  and  expense. 
It  may  now  become  necessary,  as  the  season  opens,  to  storm  the 
place  in  order  to  expel  Mahomed  Jan  and  his  puppet  prince.  In  1842, 
when  Shamsoddin  Khan  held  the  city,  our  engineers  undertook  to 
make  a  practicable  breach  in  three  days,  from  our  battery  of  18- 
pounders  on  the  Bahlul  Hill,  so  that  if  an  attack  be  now  ordered,  the 
operations,  in  a  military  point  of  view,  need  not  be  of  a  very  serious 
character ;  but  we  are  in  the  mean  time  suffering  much  inconvenience 
and  loss  of  prestige  from  the  fact  that  Grhazni,  situated  in  the 
immediate  vicinity  of  the  most  turbulent  Grhilzye  tribes,  offers  a 
rallying-point  for  the  disaffected,  and  thus  keeps  up  the  appearance 
of  an  organised  national  resistance.  Ultimately  Ghazni  must,  it 
would  seem,  be  treated  like  Cabul,  confided  probably  to  an  indepen- 
dent native  chief,  who  would  be  dominated  from  our  permanent  camp 
at  Ali  Kheil  or  Kuram. 

The  Candahar  question  affords  the  most  pleasing  topic  in  the 
whole  chapter  of  our  Afghan  relations.  Here,  whether  we  are  acting 
rightly  or  wrongly,  the  horizon  at  any  rate  is  clear  and  we  can  look 
ahead  with  little  misgiving  or  doubt.  When  in  August  last  I  wrote 
an  article  on  Afghan  affairs  in  this  Review,  I  ventured  to  express  a 
doubt  whether  the  orders  for  evacuating  Candahar  early  in  the  follow- 
ing month  would  really  be  carried  out.  They  were  not  carried  out. 


1880.  THE  SITUATION  IN  AFGHANISTAN.  209 

The  main  column  of  the  Candahar  force  had  already  left  for  India, 
and  Sir  Donald  Stewart  and  the  head-quarters  were  to  follow  on  the  7th 
of  September.     On  the  6th  telegraphic  orders  arrived  to  stand  fast,  in 
consequence  of  news  of  the  Cabul  outrage.     The  troops  returned,  the 
British  flag  was  again  hoisted,  and,  though  there  has  been  no  formal 
transfer  of  jurisdiction  nor  assumption  of  sovereignty  on  the  part 
of  the  British  Crown,  I  trust  we  may  assume  that  Candahar  has  now 
virtually  passed  under  our  rule.     All  the  proceedings  of  Sir  Donald 
Stewart  and  Major  St.  John,  his  invaluable  Political  Assistant,  have 
been  marked  by  consummate  skill,  by  a  rare  combination,  indeed,  of 
prudence  with  firmness  and  decision.     Shir  Ali  Khan,  the  son  of  one 
of  the  old  Candahar  Sirdars,  who  has  been  familiar  from  his  childhood 
with  the  local  politics,  with  tribe  feelings,  with  revenue  details,  with 
all  the  intricacies  of  Durani  management,  has  been  appointed  Gover- 
nor of  the  province  by  proclamation,  and  allowed  all  reasonable  scope 
for   asserting   his  authority ;    while   British   intervention  has   been 
hitherto  most  sparingly  used,  and  only  to  prevent  abuses,  to  check 
extortion,  and  generally  to  promote  the  wellbeing  of  the  population. 
The  present  administrative  arrangements  are  understood  to  be  only 
provisional,  but  I  see  no  reason  why  they  should  not  be  permanent. 
There  will  be  difficulties  no  doubt  in  overcoming  the  antipathy  of 
the  Moolahs  and  Peers,  who  resent  the  appearance  even  of  infidel 
intrusion  in   their  affairs.     There  will  be  difficulties  in  equalising 
taxation  between  the  privileged  Duranis  and  the  servile  agricultural 
peasantry  ;  but   it   will,  I  believe,  all  come   right  in  time ;  and  I 
can  see  no  reason  why  in  the  course  of  a  few  years  Candahar  should  not 
be  as  easily  and  as  profitably  governed  as  the  districts  in  the  Indus 
valley.      The  railway  will  no  doubt  in  due  time  be  extended  from 
Sukker  through  Sibi  and  Pishin  to  the  plain  of  Candahar.     The 
agricultural  productiveness  of  this  plain  will  be  increased  fourfold 
by  a  more  scientific  distribution  of  the   waters   of  the  Arghendab. 
Trade  will  flourish.     A  large  immigrant  population  will  be  attracted 
from  the  neighbouring  hills.     Local  levies  both  horse  and  foot,  com- 
posed of  Hazarehs,  Beluches,  and  Parsiwans,  will  replace  the  greater 
portion  of  our  Indian  garrison,  and  I  make  no  doubt  that,  as  far.  as 
Western  Afghanistan  is  concerned,  our  administration  of  the  country 
will  be  made  self-supporting. 

In  recommending,  on  so  many  previous  occasions,  that  we  should 
concentrate  our  attention  on  Candahar  and  leave  Cabul  to  take  care 
of  itself,  I  have  been  guided  not  merely  by  the  consideration  of  the 
immense  superiority  of  the  former  position  in  regard  to  climate,  sup- 
plies, accessibility,  and  above  all  in  regard  to  the  comparative  docility 
of  the  population,  but  I  have  also  more  especially  based  my  arguments 
on  strategic  and  political  grounds,  maintaining  that  Herat  is  the  only 
really  vulnerable  point  on  our  north-west  frontier,  and  that  Candahar 
is  by  far  the  most  favourable  standpoint  from  whence  to  observe  and 


210  THE .  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  February 

if  necessary  to  protect  that  outlying  exposed  position.  If  Eussia 
should  ever  seriously  menace  India,  her  approach,  whether  directed 
from  the  Caspian  or  from  her  Samarcand  base,  would  certainly  be  by 
way  of  Herat  and  not  by  way  of  Cabul.  It  is,  as  has  often  been  said, 
the  line  of  least  resistance,  and  although,  therefore,  I  do  not  contem- 
plate anything  like  a  direct  invasion  of  India,  in  this  generation  at 
any  rate,  I  am  not  the  less  disposed  to  urge  preparedness  at  what  I 
may  call  the  natural  point  of  attack.  So  long  as  we  are  in  strength 
at  Candahar,  Eussia  will  hesitate  about  marching  a  column  on  Herat, 
though  she  may  have  already  occupied  Merv,  or  even  established  her 
posts  upon  the  Oxus  confronting  Mymeneh. 

The  consideration  of  the  Herat  question  naturally  follows  on  that 
of  Candahar.  Shir  Ali  Khan,  whose  services,  as  already  noticed,  are 
simply  invaluable,  might  well  be  entrusted,  under  our  political  super- 
vision, with  the  government,  not  only  of  Candahar  proper,  but  of  the 
country  west  of  the  Helmend,  including  Gririshk  and  Zamindawer  and 
extending  as  far  as  Farrah,  which  is  too  important  a  position  to  remain 
a 'derelict'  as  at  present.  Beyond  that  point  the  jurisdiction  of 
Herat  must  commence,  and  it  becomes  a  very  serious  matter  to  deter- 
mine what  Power  is  to  be  thus  our  immediate  neighbour.  Herat 
is  at  present  held  by  Mahomed  Ayub  Khan,  own  brother  to  Yacub, 
who  has  been  recently  deported  to  India.  Ayub,  who  was  a  refugee 
in  Persia  during  his  brother's  imprisonment  at  Cabul,  has  had  a 
troublous  time  of  it  since  his  return  to  Herat.  Sometimes  held  a 
prisoner  by  his  rebellious  troops,  sometimes  obliged  to  witness  the 
massacre  of  his  best  officers  and  the  spoliation  of  his  city,  he  has 
looked  in  vain  for  counsel  and  support  to  Persia,  to  Cabul,  and  perhaps 
to  Eussia.  Anarchy  now  reigns  supreme  in  his  capital,  and  any  day 
the  news  may  arrive  that  he  has  been  murdered  or  has  fled  into  the 
mountains.  What,  then,  is  to  become  of  Herat  ?  Persia,  as  it  is 
well  known,  has  during  the  last  forty  years  made  repeated  attempts  to 
obtain  possession  of  the  place,  regarding  the  lower  valley  of  the  Heririid 
as  an  integral  portion  of  her  own  province  of  Khorassan.  We  have 
as  steadily  resisted  the  encroachment,  not  from  mere  jealousy  of  the 
extension  of  Persian  power,  but  because  we  believed  that  the  occupa- 
tion of  Herat  by  Persia  was  equivalent — or  at  any  rate  a  prelude — to 
its  passing  under  Eussian  dominion.  Under  the  influence  of  such 
feelings  we  have  at  various  times  suspended  relations  with  Persia,  we 
have  even  gone  to  war  with  her  on  the  subject  of  Herat ;  and  we  have 
finally  concluded  with  her  a  solemn  treaty  which  debars  her  from  all 
interference  with  the  district.  But  the  aspect  of  affairs  is  now  very 
materially  altered.  There  is  no  longer  a  united  Afghanistan  which 
we  are  required  to  protect.  Our  own  position  at  Candahar  renders 
it  of  the  first  moment  that  we  should  have  a  friendly  and  orderly 
neighbour  on  our  western  frontier,  instead  of  a  weak,  disorganised,  and 
intriguing  State,  unable  to  resist  pressure  from  any  quarter  that  might 


1880.  THE  SITUATION  IN  AFGHANISTAN.  211 

be  brought  to  bear  on  it.  Persia  at  the  same  time  has  been  aroused 
from  her  self-satisfied  dream  of  security  by  the  persistent  efforts  of 
Kussia  to  envelop  her  north-eastern  frontier  in  the  direction  of 
Merv.  Under  the  influence,  as  it  would  seem,  of  an  instinct  of  self- 
preservation,  she  has  accepted  the  allegiance  of  the  principal  Tekkeh 
chiefs  of  Merv,  and  will  probably  soon  proceed  to  realise  her  territorial 
claim  to  the  oasis  on  the  Murghab — a  claim,  be  it  observed,  which 
though  dormant  has  never  been  abandoned  at  Teheran,  and  which, 
indeed,  as  far  as  I  am  aware,  has  never  been  contested  de  jure,  either 
by  England  or  Eussia.  In  connection  with  this  proposed  rectifica- 
tion of  frontier,  the  possible  Persian  occupation  of  Herat  becomes  a 
very  serious  and  important  question.  If  the  6th  Article  of  the  Treaty 
of  Paris  (March  4,  1857)  were  cancelled,  it  is  probable  that  a  Persian 
garrison  might  gain  an  entrance  into  Herat  without  much  difficulty, 
either  by  common  consent  of  Ayub  Khan  and  his  subjects,  or,  at  worst, 
after  a  brief  struggle  with  the  mutinous  Cabul  regiments  who  now  hold 
the  city,  but  who  could  not  rely  on  the  support  of  the  townspeople ;  but, 
it  may  be  asked,  would  this  transfer  of  jurisdiction  consist  with  our 
interests,  not  only  at  the  present  juncture,  but  in  the  proximate  future? 
The  first  consideration  that  arises  is  what  guarantee  have  we  that  Persia 
would  not  abuse  our  confidence,  and  sooner  or  later  make  use  of  Herat 
to  our  injury  ?  In  reply  to  this,  I  inquire  what  is  the  alternative  ? 
Herat  cannot  remain  as  it  is,  a  hotbed  of  anarchy  and  violence,  and 
a  nuisance  to  the  surrounding  districts.  Are  we  prepared  to  occupy 
the  city  ourselves  as  an  outwork  to  our  position  at  Candahar  ?  If  not, 
there  is  positively  no  resource,  it  would  seem,  but  to  confide  it  pro- 
visionally to  the  keeping  of  Persia.  As  for  guarantees,  there  are, 
first,  Persia's  own  interests  ;  secondly,  the  popular  feeling,  which  is 
altogether  in  favour  of  England,  and  which  is  strong  enough  to  control 
the  possible  inclinations  of  the  Shah  in  the  other  direction ;  and 
thirdly,  we  are  fully  as  competent  as  Russia  to  exert  pressure  upon 
Persia  in  case  of  necessity,  her  whole  seaboard  being  as  open  to  attack 
from  India  as  are  the  Caspian  provinces  to  attack  from  the  army  of 
the  Caucasus.  Altogether  I  am  disposed  to  revert  to  the  position 
from  which  I  was  driven  in  1853,  and,  notwithstanding  all  that  is  past, 
to  counsel  the  transfer  of  Herat  to  Persia.  It  is  a  maxim  which  I 
have  long  held,  and  the  truth  of  which  is,  I  believe,  beginning  to  dawn 
upon  statesmen  both  in  England  and  Persia,  that  the  common  interests 
of  both  countries  in  the  East  point  to  a  defensive  alliance  against 
Russia.  That  the  co-operation  of  Persia  would  be  most  valuable  to  us  in 
checking  the  further  extension  of  Russian  power  towards  Afghanistan 
and  India  needs  hardly  to  be  insisted  on ;  while  it  is  equally  certain 
that  we  are  fully  as  well  able  to  protect  Persia  as  to  protect  Asia 
Minor  against  renewed  aggression  from  Russia.  Looking,  indeed,  to 
the  improvements  in  the  communications  between  Teheran  and  the 
Persian  Gulf  both  by  means  of  railway  and  internal  river  navigation 


212  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  February 

which  may  be  expected  to  follow  on  the  establishment  of  really 
cordial  relations  between  the  Persian  and  British  Governments,  it 
seems  to  me  that  the  country  is  singularly  accessible,  not  only  to  our 
influence,  but  to  our  material  aid,  and  that  we  might  thus  at  no  great 
cost  succeed,  if  so  minded,  in  converting  Persia  into  a  permanent  and 
impregnable  bulwark  of  defence  to  India.  In  the  mean  time  of  course, 
if  we  did  acquiesce  in  the  Persian  occupation  of  Herat,  it  would  be 
necessary  to  make  special  provision  for  possible  local  requirements. 
Our  Candahar  frontier  would  require  to  be  strengthened  by  the  Farrah 
outpost ;  we  must  have  the  right  of  throwing  a  British  garrison  into 
Herat,  to  support  the  Persians  if  the  place  should  be  really  threatened 
from  the  north  ;  above  all,  satisfactory  arrangements  must  be  made  for 
the  control  of  the  Eymack  tribes,  for  the  permanent  tranquillisation 
of  the  Seistan  frontier,  and  especially  for  the  safety  of  Mymeneh,  a 
point  of  the  utmost  strategic  value  in  the  future  of  Afghanistan. 

And  now,  although  it  hardly  falls  within  the  scope  of  the  present 
paper,  which  treats  especially  of  the  situation  in  Afghanistan,  to 
scrutinise  the  general  policy  of  Russia  in  Central  Asia,  still  a  few 
remarks  on  her  proceedings  as  connected  with  the  Afghan  frontier 
can  hardly  be  dispensed  with.  There  can  be  no  doubt,  then,  but  that 
Eussia,  so  far  as  Central  Asia  is  concerned,  is  profoundly  dissatisfied 
with  England's  policy,  and  not  without  some  reason.  She  ascribes, 
in  the  first  place,  her  Turcoman  failure  of  last  year  in  a  great  measure 
to  the  want  of  Persian  co-operation,  the  result,  as  she  presumes,  of 
our  growing  influence  at  Teheran.  To  our  counsels  may  be  also  due, 
she  thinks,  the  revival  of  the  Persian  claim  to  the  allegiance  of  the 
Tekkehs  of  Merv,  and  though  she  can  hardly  take  exception,  as  a 
question  of  policy,  to  the  possible  transfer  of  Herat  to  Persian  juris- 
diction, inasmuch  as  she  has  fostered  and  stimulated  Persian  ambition 
in  that  direction  since  the  days  of  Graf  Simonitch  and  Vitkavitch, 
still  the  arrangement  would  be  undoubtedly  distasteful  to  her  as  an 
evidence  of  the  good  understanding  existing  between  Teheran  and 
London.  But  her  main  grievance  at  present  centres  on  the  Oxus. 
Our  Afghan  successes  have  disconcerted  her  policy,  diminished — 
perhaps  for  a  time  destroyed — her  prestige,  and,  as  she  asserts, 
become  a  source  of  danger  to  her  Central  Asian  dominion.  She  is 
deeply  irritated,  and  will  infallibly  try  to  right  herself.  Possibly  the 
Austro-German  alliance  and  its  consequences  may  find  her  full  oc- 
cupation in  Europe.  Possibly  she  may  be  paralysed  by  internal 
troubles  ;  but  supposing  her  to  be  in  any  degree  at  liberty  to  follow 
her  inclinations,  we  may  expect  reprisals  on  a  large  scale  during  the 
current  year.  It  will  be  incumbent  on  her  in  the  first  place  to  strain 
every  nerve  in  order  to  retrieve  her  Turcoman  disasters.  Should  it 
be  really  true  that  she  has  been  driven  out  of  Chikishlar  and  her 
magazines  destroyed,  including  the  supplies  and  war  material  already 
stored  at  Chat,  she  may  find  it  beyond  her  power  to  resume  imme- 


1880.  THE  SITUATION  IN  AFGHANISTAN.  213 

•diately  offensive  operations  in  the  Steppe  from  the  Caspian  base  ; 
but  she  has  at  any  rate  an  alternative  line  of  attack,  and,  according 
to  all  the  information  which  reaches  Persia  and  India  from  Turkistan, 
she  is  thus  already  making  the  most  strenuous  exertions  to  advance 
on  Merv  by  the  direct  line  of  approach  from  the  Oxus.  Doubtless 
this  would  be  a  hazardous  operation,  as  the  intervening  desert  of  above 
100  miles  can  only  be  crossed  in  detachments,  or  by  flying  columns,  in 
consequence  of  the  very  limited  supply  of  water  at  the  wells ;  and 
the  Persian  claim  to  Merv,  if  persisted  in  and  supported  by  us, 
would  also  raise  a  further  diplomatic  difficulty ;  but,  in  spite  of  such 
drawbacks,  in  spite  of  all  that  England  or  Persia  can  do  to  the  con- 
trary, I  have  the  gravest  misgivings  that  the  fate  of  Merv  is  sealed, 
and  that  sooner  or  later  the  Eussian  flag  will  be  planted  on  the 
Murghab.  In  the  meantime,  it  is  only  natural  to  expect  that  Kussia 
will  do  all  she  can  to  impede  our  Afghan  settlement.  Abdur-Rahman 
Khan,  the  only  surviving  member  of  Dost  Mahomed's  family  who  has 
any  strong  personal  influence  in  the  country,  has  been  already 
launched,  well  supplied  with  funds,  from  his  Samarcand  seclusion, 
and  may  be  expected  ere  long  to  make  his  presence  felt  upon 
the  frontier.  The  chief  Sirdars  of  Shir  All's  government,  such  as 
Gholam  Hyder  Khan,  the  late  Naib  of  Turkistan  ;  Nek  Mahomed 
Khan,  Shir  Ali's  brother ;  and  others  who  now  find  themselves  un- 
employed, are  received  with  open  arms  when  they  cross  the  Oxus. 
Unless,  indeed,  we  can  come  at  once  to  an  understanding  with 
Russia  as  to  our  common  frontier, — whether,  as  I  should  greatly 
prefer,  the  river  line  be  retained,  or  whether  Kunduz,  Khulm,  and 
Balkh  be  detached  from  Cabul  and  formed  into  a  neutral  zone — we 
shall  be  kept  no  doubt  in  a  state  of  turmoil  and  agitation  which  will  be 
most  prejudicial  to  the  restoration  of  order  at  Cabul,  and  which  may 
even  necessitate  a  campaign  upon  the  Oxus.  At  present  the  outlook 
in  this  quarter  is  most  unsatisfactory,  and  although  it  does  not 
portend  immediate  or  actual  danger  to  India,  remedial  measures  of 
a  decided  character  are  loudly  called  for. 

My  sketch  would  be  incomplete  without  a  few  parting  words  on 
the  condition  of  the  tribes,  the  true  Afghan  tribes  of  history,  who 
dwell  upon  the  Indian  border.  It  has  been  observed — and  with 
truth — that  the  aggregate  strength  of  these  tribes  is  so  considerable, 
amounting  to  at  least  100,000  fighting  men,  that  their  due  control 
forms  the  most  important  feature  in  any  general  scheme  of  Afghan 
g-overnment.  Fortunately,  they  are  without  the  means,  without 
even  the  desire,  of  combination.  They  are  actuated  by  divergent 
in  many  cases  by  conflicting,  interests.  They  have  been  for  so  long 
a  time  virtually  independent  of  Cabul,  that  it  can  make  but  little 
difference  to  them  whether  we  annex  the  upper  country,  or  whether 
it  continues  to  be  administered  by  native  chiefs  acting  under  our 
supervision.  In  either  case  we  should  have  to  deal  with  the  great 

VOL.  VII.— No  36.  Q 


214  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  February 

tribes  separately,  and  probably  on  dissimilar  terms.  In  some  cases 
we  must  apply  the  strong  hand  of  coercion,  and  punish  raids  by 
retaliation  or  blockade.  In  others  we  may,  like  our  predecessors  for 
centuries  back,  purchase  immunity  from  attack  by  blackmail  and 
subsidies.  I  have  seen  no  reason,  indeed,  in  the  events  which  have 
transpired  since  we  resumed  hostilities  with  Cabul,  to  modify  the 
opinions  I  expressed  in  August  last  regarding  the  tribal  clauses  of  the 
Treaty  of  Grandamak.  It  is,  I  think,  surprising,  and  bears  grateful 
evidence  of  the  care  and  skill  with  which  our  political  officers  have 
conducted  relations  with  the  great  Afghan  tribes,  that,  notwith- 
standing the  stirring  events  that  have  occurred  at  Cabul,  and  the 
incentives  thereby  offered  to  insurrection  in  the  passes  and  around 
our  advanced  posts  in  the  mountains,  so  very  little  annoyance  has 
been  hitherto  encountered  by  us  at  their  hands.  It  is  true  that  the 
Shinwaris,  the  Mangals,  the  Zaimushts,  and  others  have  been 
severely  punished  for  attacks  upon  our  outposts,  and  that  more 
recently  it  has  been  necessary  to  chastise  the  Eastern  Grhilzyes  for 
their  attempt  to  interrupt  our  communications  at  Jagdallak,  as  well 
as  to  attack  the  Mohmands  at  Dakka,  who  have  resented  the  depor- 
tation of  Yahya  Khan  to  India;  but  up  to  the  present  time  the 
Khyber  and  Kohat  passes  have  been  open ;  and,  strange  to  say,  the 
Viziri  frontier  has  been  undisturbed.  Much  will  depend  in  the 
future  on  the  firmness,  tempered  with  moderation,  that  may  be 
displayed  by  the  officers  who  control  and  execute  our  frontier  policy. 
I  am  entirely  averse,  on  principle,  to  burning  villages  and  shooting 
men  merely  because  they  resist  invasion,  but  I  have  seen  too  much 
of  war  in  barbarous  countries  not  to  know  that  military  exigencies  in 
the  field  override  all  other  considerations,  and  that  what  often  looks 
like  needless  severity  is,  after  all,  mercy  in  disguise.  Whatever  may 
happen  at  Cabul  and  Ofhazni,  we  shall  never,  I  trust,  abandon  our 
positions  at  Jellalabad  and  Kuram,  and  it  becomes,  therefore,  of  the 
more  importance  so  to  regulate  our  dealings  with  the  tribes  of  the 
Suliman  and  Sufid  Koh  ranges  as  not  only  to  provide  for  present 
emergencies,  but  to  pay  due  regard  to  the  future  pacification  of  the 
mountains,  and  the  condition  of  the  inhabitants  as  permanent  and,  it 
is  to  be  hoped,  contented  British  subjects. 

P.S. — I  take  this  opportunity  of  correcting  an  error  which  I 
committed  in  my  last  Afghan  paper  (The  Nineteenth  Century, 
No.  XXX.  p.  385),  and  which,  I  understand,  has  given  pain  to  the 
friends  of  so  distinguished  an  officer  as  the  late  Sir  Herbert  Edwardcs. 
Misled  by  a  confused  quotation  in  Macgregor's  Afghan  Gazetteer,  I 
attributed  to  Sir  H.  Edwardes  the  famous  Keport  on  Kuram  which 
advocated  the  occupation  of  that  valley  as  early  as  1857,  a  Report 
which  was  in  reality  drawn  up  by  Sir  Peter  Lumsden,  the  well- 
known  Quartermaster-General  of  the  Bengal  army.  To  Sir  II. 


1880.  THE  SITUATION  IN  AFGHANISTAN.  215 

Edwardes,  as  a  loyal  disciple  of  Sir  John  Lawrence,  such  a  scheme 
would  have  no  doubt  appeared  heretical ;  but  even  the  united  con- 
demnation of  all  the  statesmen  of  that  school  will  now  hardly 
persuade  us  that  the  advance  to  Piwer  was  premature  or  indiscreet. 
To  my  mind,  at  any  rate,  the  wisdom  of  Lord  Lytton  in  taking  so 
bold  a  step  in  advance  has  been  amply  vindicated  by  the  ease  and 
celerity  with  which  Sir  F.  Koberts  was  able  to  advance  from  Ali 
Kheil  to  Cabul  to  avenge  the  murder  of  our  Envoy ;  and  although,  of 
course,  with  railways  to  Candahar  and  Jellalabad,  the  Kuram  route 
from  India  to  Grhazni  will  be  of  only  secondary  value,  I  still  look 
upon  a  military  post  in  the  valley — commanding  as  it  does  the 
districts  of  Dawer,  Khost,  and  Furmul — as  of  very  great  importance 
in  preserving  order  and  tranquillity  through  the  central  mountain 
region  of  Afghanistan. 

H.  C.  EAWLIKSON. 


Q2 


216  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.          February 


LORD   CHELMSFORD  AND    THE 
ZULU   WAR. 


LORD  CHELMSFORD  is  an  incomprehensible  person.  His  conduct  of  the 
Zulu  war  offered  the  keenest  temptation  to  adverse  comment,  and 
criticism  of  that  description  was  freely  brought  to  bear  upon  it  while 
as  yet  his  Lordship  remained  at  the  head  of  affairs.  But  this  criti- 
cism was  in  its  nature  perfunctory,  and  the  appropriate  complement  of 
it  was  obviously  a  comprehensive  resume  of  the  errors  of  the  campaign 
up  to  the  period  when  he  resigned  his  functions  of  command.  It 
was  apparent  that  such  a  resume  would  be  in  itself  a  useful  contribu- 
tion to  our  critical  military  annals.  Nor  did  there  lack  other 
stimulants  to  the  production  of  a  paper  of  this  sort.  At  Cape  Town, 
after  his  resignation,  Lord  Chelmsford  cast  the  imputation  upon  the 
commentators  who  had  accompanied  the  fortunes  of  his  invasion, 
that  their  adverse  remarks  had  been  dictated  by  political  bias.  No 
more  overwhelming  refutation  of  this  unworthy  aspersion  could  well 
be  conceived,  than  the  categorical  proof  that  hostile  criticism  had 
emanated  in  a  unanimous  chorus  from  the  representatives  of 
journals  of  every  political  colour  alike.  But  just  resentment  against 
an  aspersion  so  defamatory  prompted  naturally,  human  nature  being 
what  it  is,  to  the  production  of  a  comprehensive  criticism,  the 
warrantable  severity  of  which  should  punish  a  wanton  calumny  on  an 
honourable  profession.  For "  myself  I  may  say  that  I  had  numerous 
solicitations  to  undertake  this  task.  The  natural  impulse  of  one 
whose  idiosyncrasy  has  a  family  resemblance  to  that  of  the  sturdy 
borderer  who  would  '  tak  dunts  frae  naebody,'  of  one,  too,  who 
delights  in  writing  on  military  topics,  was  to  consent.  But  other  con- 
siderations interposed.  The  heart  warms  towards  a  man  whom  one 
has  seen  carrying  his  head  high  and  displaying  worthy  demeanour  when 
the  air  throbs  with  the  roar  of  the  foe,  and  when  the  angry  bullets  are 
flying  thick.  Nor  was  there  wanting  another  incentive  to  silence  on 
the  part  of  one  who  knows  that  what  he  may  write  is  noticed  by  and 
has  weight  with  foreign  critics,  who  are  not  slow  to  rejoice  over  the 
home-demonstration  of  a  British  general's  incompetency.  Accord- 
ingly, I,  for  one,  held  my  peace ;  or  rather  indeed  held  it  not,  having 
portrayed  to  many  audiences  Lord  Chelmsford's  gallant  bearing  on 


1880.  LORD  CHELMSFORD  AND   THE  ZULU   WAR.      217 

the  battle-field,  and  refrained  from  one  word  of  allusion  to  his  errors 
as  the  director  of  a  campaign. 

But  it  apparently  is  not  given  to  Lord  Chelmsford  to  hold  his 
peace,  and,  in  the  words  of  a  familiar  proverb,  to  '  let  sleeping  dogs 
lie.'  In  these  days  men  read  fast,  think  fast,  and  forget  fast.  The 
remembrance  of  the  criticisms  which  Lord  Chelmsford's  conduct 
had  incurred  was  fading  away  into  that  limbo  of  oblivion  for  which 
there  are  few  men  who  have  not  reason  to  be  grateful,  when,  with 
unaccountable  error  in  judgment,  his  Lordship  must  needs  recall 
to  life  the  dry  bones.  At  a  dinner  in  the  City  last  December  he 
spoke  as  follows : — 

There  can  be  no  one  present  who  has  not  read  the  rather  severe  criti<jisms 
which  have  been  passed  upon  the  conduct  of  the  campaign.  But  war  is  not  one  of 
the  exact  sciences  in  which  every  move  can  be  laid  down  with  mathematical 
precision ;  and  I  believe  that  was  the  idea  which  the  Duke  of  Wellington  had  in 
his  mind  when  he  said  that  he  was  the  best  general  who  made  the  fewest  mis- 
takes. ...  I  think  it  only  fair  that  those  who  are  deputed  to  follow  the  army, 
and  to  describe  to  you  what  it  is  doing,  were  obliged,  whenever  they  deem  it  their 
duty  to  find  fault  with  and  to  criticise  the  conduct  of  the  general  who  is  entrusted 
with  the  command,  to  say  what  they  themselves  would  have  done  under  similar 
circumstances.  .  .  .  There  is  a  time  to  speak,  and  a  time  to  keep  silence.  I  trust  I 
shall  not  be  misunderstood  if  I  ask  you  to  remember  that  the  reputation  of  a 
general  officer  is  just  as  dear  to  him  as  that  of  any  other  officer  or  soldier.  I  would, 
therefore,  conclude  with  these  words  from  Shakespeare : — 

'  Good  name  in  man  and  woman,  dear  my  lord,  &c.' 

In  the  same  month,  speaking  in  Hertford  Corn  Exchange,  Lord 
Chelmsford  remarked  that  '  success  was  not  always  the  criterion  of 
a  general's  efficiency,  but  it  threw  the  onus  of  proving  the  contrary 
on  his  detractors.' 

In  the  observations  quoted,  Lord  Chelmsford  proves  himself  to 
labour  under  a  curious  variety  of  misconceptions.  In  the  abstract, 
it  is  no  part  of  a  critic's  task  to  suggest  preferable  procedure ;  the 
proposal  that  critics  of  a  campaign  in  progress  should  be  compelled 
to  do  so  is  absurd,  as  having  no  possible  practical  advantage.  It  is 
natural  that  the  reputation  of  a  general  officer  should  be  as  dear  to 
him  as  is  that  of  a  newspaper  writer  to  that  contemned  member  of 
the  community  ;  but  neither,  it  is  obvious,  has  an  indefeasible  right 
to  the  retention  of  that  reputation.  The  former  stands  to  forfeit  it 
by  his  incapacity ;  just  as  the  latter  by  any  proved  un worthiness, 
such  as  malevolent  detraction,  a  baseness  which  Lord  Chelmsford  has 
ascribed  to  his  critics.  To  no  attribute  or  belonging  has  any  man 
an  indefeasible  title,  not  even  to  his  life ;  and  Mr.  Marwood  would 
scarcely  be  seriously  influenced  by  the  representation  of  a  malefactor 
he  is  about  to  pinion  that  life  was  as  dear  to  him  as  to  any  other 
member  of  the  human  family.  Further  it  may  be  pointed  out  that 
criticism  is  not  detraction ;  if  this  were  so,  adverse  comment  on 
anybody  and  anything  would  be  simply  inadmissible. 


218  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.          February 

But  such  reflections  are  a  mere  waste  of  words.  Let  me  clear 
the  ground  at  once.  Deliberately  and,  I  may  say  wantonly,  when  all 
things  are  considered,  Lord  Chelmsford  has  thrown  down  a  challenge. 
Eeluctantly  and  compulsorily  I  take  it  up.  I  aver  that  the  conduct 
of  the  campaign  by  Lord  Chelmsford  was  one  series  of  errors,  broken 
only  by  the  combats  of  Gingihlovo  and  Ulundi ;  and,  accepting  the 
Duke  of  Wellington's  saying  quoted  by  Lord  Chelmsford,  I  point  to 
its  inexorable  converse.  While  repudiating  the  imputation  of  being 
his  detractor,  I  undertake  the  duty  of  proving  that  Lord  Chelmsford 
neither  merited  nor  achieved  success  in  his  operations  against  the 
Zulus. 

His  Lordship's  conduct  of  the  campaign  conveniently  divides 
itself  into  four  distinct  periods  : — 

1 .  From  the  inception  of  the  preparations  up  to  and  including 
the  catastrophe  of  Isandlwana. 

2.  From  Isandlwana  till  the  completion  of  the  relief  of  Etshowe. 

3.  From  the  relief  of  Etshowe  up  to  and  including  the  combat 
of  Ulundi. 

4.  From  the   combat  of  Ulundi  until  the  acceptance   of  Lord 
Chelmsford's  resignation  by  Sir  Grarnet  Wolseley. 

Let  me  deal  with  these  periods  in  their  sequence,  directing 
attention,  then,  first  to  the  period  from  the  inception  of  the  prepara- 
tions up  to  and  including  Isandlwana. 

The  problem  which  confronted  Lord  Chelmsford  was  by  no  means 
one  easy  of  satisfactory  solution.  The  task  lay  before  him  of  invading 
Zululand  with  such  success  as  would  compel  Cetchwayo  to  beg  for 
peace  on  such  conditions  as  might  seem  satisfactory  to  the  higher 
authority,  or  in  default  to  prosecute  the  war  to  the  final  discomfiture 
of  the  Zulu  King.  It  behoved  him  none  the  less,  if  possible  with  the 
means  at  his  disposal,  to  guard  the  adjacent  colonies  from  Zulu 
counter-irruption.  The  means  at  his  command  were  limited. 
Excluding  Rowlands'  force  watching  Sekukuni  away  in  the  far  north- 
west, a  force  which  for  sundry  reasons  it  might  have  seemed  unwise 
to  withdraw  from  the  Transvaal  region,  he  could  dispose  of  but  about 
five  thousand  regular  infantry,  perhaps  fifteen  hundred  irregular 
cavalry  of  varying  efficiency,  and  an  indefinite  number,  say  seven 
thousand,  of  black  auxiliaries,  whose  value  in  actual  warfare  was,  to 
say  the  least,  dubious.  The  season  enforced  on  him  for  the  com- 
mencement of  operations,  with  the  ground  a  quagmire  and  every 
hill  torrent  a  river,  was  most  inappropriate  ;  but  a  general  acting 
under  instructions  from  a  superior  who  holds  extra-official  or  rather 
supra-official  instructions  to  hasten  events  so  as  to  anticipate  official 
orders  to  be  evoked  by  the  inevitable  awakening  of  public  opinion,  must 
take  the  season  as  he  finds  it.  This  is  the  only  excuse  for  Lord 
Chelmsford's  commencement  of  operations  when  he  did.  On  all  other 


1880.  LORD   CHELMSFORD  AND  THE  ZULU   WAR.       219 

considerations  he  was  bound  to  wait  until  his  rivers  were  fordable 
and  his  roads  passable.  He  had  but  one  advantage  in  beginning 
when  he  did  :  that  the  full  boundary-rivers  were  calculated  to  hinder 
in  some  degree  a  counter-invasion  of  the  colony  by  the  Zulus. 

A  strong  general  would  have  demurred  to  obey  orders  that  com- 
mitted him  to  an  undertaking  so  manifestly  precarious.  Further,  a 
strong  general,  recognising  that  the  force  at  his  disposal  was  appa- 
rently inadequate  for  the  double  duty  of  offence  and  defence,  would 
have  been  firm  in. his  demand  for  adequate  reinforcements  and  in  his 
declinature  to  move  until  they  had  reached  him.  But  Lord  Chelms- 
ford  accepted  the  task  assigned  him,  and  had  to  look  it  in  the  face 
with  the  means  to  his  hand.  His  apology  for  his  collapse  was  that 
he  underrated  his  enemy  and  the  difficulties  of  the  country  he  had 
to  invade.  The  pleas  are  inadmissible.  Under  his  auspices  there 
had  been  compiled  a  synopsis  of  the  Zulu  army,  enumerating  its 
regiments  and  their  several  strengths,  giving  details  as  to  its  dis- 
cipline and  manner  of  manoeuvring,  and  proving,  if  any  weight  was 
to  be  attached  to  the  document,  that  Cetchwayo  was  the  reverse 
of  a  contemptible  foe.  Virtually,  then,  under  his  own  hand,  Lord 
Chelmsford  had  announced  that  the  country  he  was  about  to  invade 
was  defended  by  a  disciplined  army  over  40,000  strong.  Dozens  of 
Natalians  knew  Zululand  well ;  there  was  a  regular  wagon  trade 
between  the  colony  and  Ulundi  by  the  lower  road — a  road  studded 
with  mission  stations,  whose  supplies  were  all  drawn  from  Natal. 
It  only  needed,  then,  due  inquiry  to  ascertain  the  character  of  the 
country  to  be  invaded,  even  were  there  no  such  provision  as  recon- 
naissances within  the  scope  of  the  military  art. 

These  premisses  being  set  down,  what  course  of  invasive  action 
did  it  behove  Lord  Chelmsford  to  pursue  ?  With  his  scanty  force, 
he  could  not  both  adequately  assume  the  offensive  and  maintain  the 
defence  of  his  frontier.  He  had  to  invade ;  it  remained  then  but  to 
let  the  frontier  take  its  chance,  at  least  in  a  great  measure.  And 
how  to  invade  to  the  best  advantage  ?  In  all  warfare,  the  aim  is  to 
strike  quick,  hard,  and  decisively  ;  when  the  war  is  against  savages, 
the  force  of  the  axiom  is  tenfold  intensified.  In  a  sense  Lord 
Chelmsford  had  but  one  base,  the  seaport  of  Durban  ;  but  there  was 
a  sense  in  which  Utrecht,  on  which  might  converge  the  produce  and 
transport  of  the  Transvaal,  should  constitute  another  base.  Now 
Durban  is  little  more  than  sixty  miles  from  the  Zulu  frontier  near 
the  Tugela  mouth,  with  a  railway  over  part  of  that  distance  and  a 
good  level  road  for  the  remainder.  From  the  crossing  of  the  Tugela 
on  this  line,  the  Zulu  king's  kraal,  Ulundi,  the  manifest  objective  of 
the  invasion,  is  distant,  via,  Etshowe,  about  seventy  miles.  The  road 
by  this  route  was  the  one  habitually  taken  by  traders  from  Natal,  by 
the  wayfarers  to  and  from  the  mission  stations,  and  by  the  other 
sparse  visitors  to  the  Zulu  realm.  Clearly  every  consideration 


220  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.          February 

pointed  to  it  as  the  most  eligible  line  of  invasion.  But  no  doubt 
there  were  arguments  in  favour  of  a  double  line  of  invasion ;  and,  if 
these  were  to  be  yielded  to,  the  advantages  of  the  line  from  Utrecht, 
the  Transvaal  base,  were  obvious.  An  advance  from  Utrecht  in  the 
direction  of  Ulundi,  athwart  the  north-western  region  of  Zululand, 
offered  the  inducements  that  it  would  cut  off  the  Zulu  retreat  into 
the  country  of  the  Swazis,  inspire  useful  confidence  in  that  fighting 
race,  distract  the  concentration  of  the  Zulu  attention  on  the  advance 
from  the  south-east,  and  open  up  the  obscurest  parts  of  the  hostile 
region.  To  lead  it  was  available  Colonel  Evelyn  Wood,  an  officer  of 
proven  conduct  and  prudence.  With  the  80th  from  Pretoria,  and 
the  reinforcement  of  another  battalion,  this  column  might  be  relied 
on  to  hold  its  own  and  make  good  its  advance.  With  the  rest  of  the 
force  at  his  disposal,  numbering  some  3,500  white  men,  it  remained 
for  Lord  Chelmsford  to  make  his  direct  advance  by  the  nearest  route 
from  Durban  over  the  Lower  Tugela  Drift,  Etshowe,  St.  Paul's, 
Kwamagwasa,  and  Etonganeni,  on  Ulundi. 

Instead  of  doing  this,  he,  weak  as  he  was,  weakened  himself  yet 
further,  by  chopping  up  his  forces  into  four  separate  columns,  each 
to  enter  the  hostile  territory  at  a  separate  point.  I  am  not  aware 
that  he  sent  a  request  to  Cetchwayo  that  he  should  be  annihilated  in 
detail ;  but  indeed  he  almost  might  as  well  have  done  so.  To  No.  1 
column,  about  1,600  strong  in  white  men  (I  discard  the  black 
auxiliaries  as  trash),  he  assigned  the  direct  road,  via  the  Lower 
Tugela  ;  No.  2  column,  almost  wholly  black,  was  to  have  crossed  at  the 
Middle  Drift,  but  was  scattered  on  the  ineffective  defensive,  and  dis- 
appeared ;  No.  3  column,  about  2,000,  was  to  have  crossed  at  Eoorke's 
Drift,  and  No.  4  column,  about  1,800  strong,  had  the  line  of  advance 
from  Utrecht.  One  error  was  in  the  subdivision  of  the  force,  and 
consequent  individual  weakness  of  the  columns ;  another  was  in  the 
impossibility  of  intercommunication  and  mutual  support,  the  British 
columns  standing  around  a  great  semicircle,  with  long  intervening 
distances  and  no  lateral  roads ;  and  a  third  was  in  the  utter  ignoring 
of  the  consideration  that  the  enemy  occupied  the  '  interior  lines,'  and 
could  strike  one  column  after  another  without  let  or  hindrance.  The 
event  showed  the  faultiness  of  the  strategy.  No.  1  column  stood 
blocked  for  two  months  thirty  miles  from  the  frontier ;  No.  3 
suffered  more  than  semi-annihilation ;  No.  4  had  to  betake  itself 
to  the  defensive,  suffered  some  misfortune,  and  worked  out  its  own 
salvation  by  hard  fighting.  Yet  another  objectionable  feature  ac- 
companied this  unsoldier-like  subdivision — the  multiplication  of 
transport  and  the  increase  of  distances  traversed  and  traversable. 
Roorke's  Drift  is  two  hundred  miles  from  the  Durban  base,  as  against 
the  Lower  Tugela  sixty  miles;  it  is  one  hundred  miles  distant  from 
Ulundi,  as  against  the  latter  seventy. 

The  argument  of  '  friction,'  viz.,  overcrowding  and  undue  prolonga- 


1880.  LORD   CHELMSFORD  AND   THE  ZULU  WAR.      221 

tion,  by  a  large  force  moving  on  one  line  of  communication,  has  been 
put  forward  in  favour  of  Lord  Chelmsford's  plan  of  detached  columns. 
The  argument  fails  in  the  face  of  proven  experience  in  South 
African  marching,  and  has  weight  only  in  the  case  of  much  larger 
bodies.  Pearson  reached  Etshowe  from  the  Lower  Tugela  in  a  few 
days ;  a  brigade  of  equal  strength  marching  a  day  behind  him  would 
have  maintained  the  proportionate  and  mutually  beneficial  closeness 
of  distance,  and  Pearson  and  another  brigade  would  have  comprised 
the  whole  invading  force  on  that  line.  Wood  and  Newdigate  later 
found  no  difficulty  in  marching  at  a  few  hours'  interval  on  the  same 
line,  in  greater  strength,  and  infinitely  more  cumbrous  as  their 
impedimenta  were. 

Active  hostilities  opened  on  the  1 1th  of  January,  when  No.  3  column 
crossed  the  Tugela  at  Koorke's  Drift ;  No.  1  crossed  next  day  at  the 
Lower  Drift.  Obviously,  either  for  strategical  purposes  or  purposes  of 
respective  comparative  safety,  the  advance  of  the  columns  should  have 
borne  due  relation  to  each  other.  But  it  at  once  became  apparent 
that  No.  3  column  must  halt  for  roadmaking  on  the  very  threshold 
of  its  advance — a  strange  commentary,  by  the  way,  on  the  judgment 
that  selected  such  a  line  of  advance.  No.  1,  however,  was  allowed  to 
pursue  its  career  of  invasion  with  what  speed  it  might.  It  was 
isolated  indeed  from  the  first,  but  was  now  liable  to  the  whole  brunt 
of  a  hostile  attack.  There  is  no  other  reason  than  God's  providence 
why  Pearson's  column  might  not  have  been  annihilated  on  its  march 
to  Etshowe  by  the  massed  Zulu  army,  three  days  earlier  than  the 
catastrophe  which  befel  Glyn's  column  at  the  same  hands. 

On  the  day  of  the  crossing  at  Koorke's  Drift  Lord  Chelmsford  had 
an  insignificant  brush  with  some  outlying  people  of  Sirayo's  tribe,  and 
he  will  recollect  in  what  terms  of  premature  over-exultation  he  tele- 
graphed its  result  to  Sir  Bartle  Frere.  On  the  20th,  No.  3  column, 
with  Lord  Chelmsford  and  the  headquarter  staff,  marched  to  the 
Isandlwana  position,  and  camped  there.  I  will  appeal  to  the  de- 
liberate judgment  of  any  soldier  who  has  seen  that  position,  whether 
one  more  inherently  vicious  could  have  been  found  on  the  most 
industrious  search.  That  site  Lord  Chelmsford  selected.  No  wonder 
that  G-lyn  and  Dartnell  represented  to  him  the  obvious  advantage  of 
fire-zone  that  would  be  attained  by  locating  the  encampment  more 
out  into  the  open,  instead  of  huddling  it  with  its  back  up  against  the 
treacherous  Isandlwana  hill,  covering  the  centre  of  the  rear  indeed, 
but  leaving  dangerously  bare  the  rear  of  both  flanks.  Their  remon- 
strances were  disregarded,  and  the  camp  was  pitched  on  a  long  frontage, 
with  the  wagons  in  line  behind  the  tents,  as  if  the  business  in  hand 
were  perchance  a  race-meeting,  and  the  space  in  front  of  the  tents 
the  run  in.  Not  so  much  as  a  sod  was  set  on  end  in  the  way  of  en- 
trenchment, and  the  deployment  of  the  wagons  proved  the  absence  of 
even  a  rudimentary  idea  in  favour  of  a  laager  formation. 


222  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.           February 

There  seems  no  need  for  going  deep  into  the  details  of  the  contro- 
versy so  keenly  waged  regarding  the  responsibility  for  the  catastrophe  of 
Isandlwana.  It  is  plain  that,  on  the  broad  admitted  facts,  that  re- 
sponsibility rests  on  the  shoulders  of  Lord  Chelmsford.  To  prove  this 
it  is  almost  unnecessary  to  seek  evidence  outside  his  Lordship's  own 
despatch  on  that  sad  occurrence.  It  was  certain  from  Dartnell's 
message,  received  in  the  early  morning  of  the  fatal  day,  that  the 
enemy  was  in  strong  force  in  the  terrain  through  which  lay  the  line 
of  advance.  Weak  as  No.  3  column  was  by  the  fatal  policy  of  sub- 
division of  the  invading  force,  every  military  consideration  was  in 
favour  of  keeping  it  concentrated,  and  thus  retaining  its  maximum 
of  offensive  power  or  defensive  potentiality  as  the  case  might  demand, 
always  in  combination  with  adequate  front  and  flank  scouting.  How 
little  attention  this  latter  duty  met  with  is  proven  by  the  Zulu 
testimony  recorded  by  Lord  Chelmsford's  intelligence  officer,  that 
Cetchwayo's  army  on  the  night  between  the  21st  and  22nd  January 
reached  and  bivouacked  in  a  position  only  a  mile  and  a  half  to  the 
eastward  of  the  Isandlwana  camp.  The  former  military  necessity 
was  ignored,  and  the  process  of  disintegration  pursued  with  a  reck- 
lessness that  seems  simply  astounding,  when  Lord  Chelmsford  on  the 
morning  of  the  fatal  day  marched  off  a  dozen  miles  to  the  front  with 
rather  more  than  half  his  force,  leaving  the  balance  of  it  in  camp. 
Kegarding  the  safety  of  that  camp  he  appears  to  have  had  no  mis- 
givings. What  orders  for  its  protection,  such  as  they  were,  were 
given,  emanated  not  from  him,  but  from  the  staff  officer  of  Colonel 
Grlyn,  in  nominal  command  of  the  column.  Lord  Chelmsford  was 
very  wise  after  the  event.  He  wrote  in  his  despatch : — 

Had  the  force  but  taken  up  a  defensive  position,  and  utilised  the  materials  for 
a  hasty  entrenchment  which  lay  near  to  hand,  I  am  confident  that  the  whole  Zulu 
army  would  not  have  been  able  to  dislodge  them.  It  appears  that  the  oxen  were 
yoked  to  the  wagons  three  hours  before  the  attack  took  place,  so  that  there  was 
ample  time  to  construct  that  wagon-laager  which  the  Dutch  in  former  days  un- 
derstood so  well. 

Putting  on  one  side  the  considerations  that  the  force  in  the  camp 
was  certainly  taken  by  surprise,  and  that  the  teams  were  yoked  in  obedi- 
ence to  Lord  Chelmsford's  order  sent  back  by  Captain  Gardiner,  that 
the  camp  of  the  troops  he  had  out  with  him  should  be  sent  on,  one  is 
entitled  to  ask  why  Lord  Chelmsford  should  have  left  to  Colonel 
Pulleine,  in  the  throe  of  a  sudden  emergency,  the  task  that  had  been 
incumbent  on  himself,  as  the  most  obvious  and  commonest  military 
precaution,  when  deliberate  leisure  availed  for  its  adoption.  Two 
nights  had  Lord  Chelmsford  spent  in  a  defenceless  camp  which  it  be- 
hoved him  to  have  made  defensible  when  taken  up,  in  face  of  the 
enemy  as  it  was.  It  was  not  subsequently  to  the  catastrophe  that 
Lord  Chelmsford  first  acquired  his  knowledge  of  that  t  wagon-laager 


1880.  LORD   CBELMSFORD  AND   THE  ZULU  WAR.      223 

•which  the  Dutch  understood  so  well ; '  and  if  it  were  poor  Pulleine's 
duty  to  have  essayed  its  construction  under  the  brunt  of  an  attack, 
how  much  more  had  it  been  Lord  Chelmsford's  duty  to  have  so  disposed 
his  wagons  in  the  abundant  cold-blood  leisure  at  his  command  ?  There 
is  no  need  to  lift  further  the  bloody  shroud  of  Isandlwana ;  on  the 
mere  hem  of  it  is  bordered  the  stern  legend  of  Lord  Chelmsford's  re- 
sponsibility, in  that  he  yet  further  disintegrated  his  already  unduly 
subdivided  force,  and  in  that  he  violated  the  most  rudimentary 
principle  of  warfare,  by  omitting  to  make  a  camp  defensible  that 
was  located  in  an  essentially  vicious  position  and  in  face  of  an  enemy 
in  force. 

The  situation,  then,  at  the  close  of  this  first  period  of  the  war  is 
accurately  set  forth  in  the  following  true  and  trenchant  quotation : — 

In  ten  days  from  the  commencement  of  operations,  the  whole  plan  of  campaign 
has  fallen  through  ;  the  commander-in-chief  has  been  surprised  and  defeated,  and 
lias  lost  the  whole  of  his  reserve  ammunition,  arms,  clothing,  and  food ;  Colonel 
Wood  is  completely  isolated  and  en  Vair ;  Colonel  Pearson's  fate  quivers  in  the 
balance.  For  these  disasters  Lord  Chelmsford  is  responsible. 

The  second  period  of  the  operation  extended  from  Isandlwana  to 
the  commencement  of  the  final  invasion.  The  early  days  of  this 
period  were  spent  in  aimless  despondency  ;  in  an  effort  to  fix. 
on  Colonel  Glyn  the  responsibility  for  Isandlwana,  on  the  ground 
that  Lord  Chelmsford  was  but  a  visitor  with  that  officer's  column — 
an  attempt  which  was  frustrated  by  the  wary  prevision  of  Major 
Clery,  Colonel  Grlyn's  staff-officer,  and  whose  futility  stands  exposed 
by  the  tenor  of  Lord  Chelmsford's  own  despatches  ;  and  in  the  in- 
stitution of  the  Court  of  Inquiry,  which  did  not  inquire  into  the 
circumstances  of  the  '  disastrous  affair  of  Isandlwana.'  This  tribunal 
was  a  solemn  mockery.  It  took  the  evidence,  in  some  cases  not 
even  orally,  in  all  without  cross-examination,  of  eight  witnesses. 
Neither  Lord  Chelmsford,  nor  any  members  of  his  staff,  surely  most 
significant  witnesses,  were  examined.  One  of  the  members  of  the  court, 
Colonel  Harness,  stood  in  common  decency  precluded  from  that  posi- 
tion, in  virtue  of  being  the  repository  of  most  relevant  evidence, 
which  his  appointment  shut  out.  Major  Grossett  and  Captain  Lons- 
dale,  whose  evidence  would  have  been  of  the  utmost  value,  re- 
mained un examined,  as  did  numerous  other  available  witnesses, 
such  as  Colonel  Pulleine's  interpreter,  whose  important  testimony, 
shown  to  me  by  Bishop  Colenso,  subsequently,  I  understand,  found 
its  way  into  the  Standard.  Lord  Chelmsford  himself  was  fain 
to  express  his  sense  of  the  perfunctoriness  of  the  inquiry.  '  I  regret,' 
he  wrote  in  the  despatch  covering  the  proceedings,  '  that  more  evi- 
dence has  not  been  taken,  and  I  have  given  instructions  that  all 
who  escaped,  and  who  are  able  to  throw  any  light  whatever  on  the 
occurrences  of  the  day,  should  be  at  once  called  on  for  a  statement  of 


224  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.          February 

what  they  saw.'  What  has  been  the  outcome  of  these  instructions, 
then  ?  Not  a  scrap  of  supplement  to  the  admittedly  imperfect  evi- 
dence has  ever  been  published,  and  the  'public  has  languidly  con- 
tented itself  with  the  handful  of  dust  thrown  in  its  eyes. 

The  lesson  of  misfortune  was  clear.  Wood,  reinforced  by  the  80th, 
was  available  for  invasive  purposes  on  the  line  originally  assigned 
him.  Pearson  at  Etshowe  was  well  on  towards  Ulundi.  The  line  that 
had  been  marked  out  for  the  3rd  column,  inherently  vicious,  had 
been  branded  by  disaster.  Reinforcements  were  arriving,  and  were  on 
the  way.  The  policy  of  a  direct  advance  in  concentrated  force,  along 
the  Lower  Tugela-Etshowe-Kwamagwasa  line,  from  the  outset  the 
simplest,  easiest,  and  best,  recommended  itself  now  more  strongly 
than  ever.  Every  argument  was  in  favour  of  its  adoption — proximity 
to  the  base,  shortest  distance  to  the  objective,  a  point  d'appui 
already  existing  at  Etshowe,  accessibility  from  the  landing-place  at 
Port  Durnford,  which  was  as  available  then  as  it  was  later.  If 
transport  difficulties  threatened  some  delay,  there  was  no  stress  of 
urgency  to  be  stirring.  Pearson  was  quite  safe  behind  his  entrench- 
ments at  Etshowe,  and  in  no  overwhelming  straits,  either  in  regard 
to  supplies  or  to  health.  The  Times'  correspondent  accompanying 
the  relieving  force  testifies  of  its  garrison,  that  he  found  the  soldiers 
in  full  rations  of  beef  and  coffee — '  they  have  never  wanted  for  plain 
food,'  he  says.  Pearson  from  Etshowe  had  given  his  advice  so  early 
as  the  2nd  of  February.  *  Now  that  we  are  here,'  wrote  that  officer, 
*  it  would  be  a  fatal  mistake  to  abandon  the  post,  which  will  be 
required  as  a  forepost  when  you  are  ready  to  advance  again.' 

It  would  be  a  waste  of  time  seriously  to  comment  on  the  feeble 
and  incoherent  missives  which  Lord  Chelmsford  sent  and  caused  to  be 
sent  to  Pearson,  during  the  period  of  the  latter's  isolation.  He  expressed 
his  trust  that  '  any  attack  made  by  the  Zulus  on  Etshowe  and  Roorke's 
Drift  may  be  simultaneous,'  as  if  that  were  likely.  On  the  6th  of 
February,  Colonel  Crealock,  Lord  Chelmsford's  military  secretary,  en- 
joins Pearson,  in  the  advised  reduction  of  his  garrison,  to  'bring  the 
sick  back  in  empty  wagons  ; '  on  the  8th  he  inculcates  on  him  that 
he  is  to  '  bring  no  wheeled  vehicles.'  These  be  thy  gods,  0  Israel ! 

Lord  Chelmsford  found  himself  ready  to  'advance  again'  on  the 
29th  of  March,  at  the  head  of  3,300  European  troops.  Pearson's 
contingent  would  have  furnished  1 ,000  more ;  making  up  a  stronger 
force  than  won  the  battle  of  Ulundi.  But,  alas !  the  advance  was  not 
to  be  on  Ulundi,  but  only  to  Etshowe.  He  carried  a  month's  supplies 
for  a  '  new  garrison '  of  1,200  men,  and  ten  days'  supplies  for  the 
marching  column.  Concentrated  effort  on  the  Lower  Tugela  base 
would  have  furnished  him — I  say  this  on  the  best  authority — with  a 
month's  transport  and  supplies  for  the  whole  force  at  his  disposal,  in- 
cluding Pearson's.  Reinforcements  were  steadily  arriving,  available 
for  strengthening  the  posts  in  the  rear  of  his  advance.,  Supplies  and 


1880.  LORD  CHELMSFORD  AND  THE  ZULU   WAR.       225 

transport  were  gathering,  so  that  no  apprehension  need  have  existed 
as  to  a  current  of  means  of  subsistence.  Not  much  bracing  of  that 
nervous  system  which  Lord  Chelmsford  had  confessed  was  enfeebled, 
was  needed  to  stir  him  to  the  emprise  of  retrieving,  by  a  prompt,  not 
rash,  stroke  at  the  heart  of  his  enemy.  But  having  chosen  instead 
the  weaker  part  of  simply  exchanging  the  garrison  of  Etshowe,  he 
finally  fell  away  from  that  half-hearted  resolve,  and  that  too  after  his 
success  at  Gingihlovo,  in  that  he  determined  to  abandon  the  position 
altogether,  and  take  another  fifteen  miles  further  back,  for  the  curious 
reason  that  the  road  to  Etshowe  was  not  so  good  as  he  had  expected  ! 
Lord  Chelmsford  remained  obtuse  to  encouragements  that  would 
have  surely  stimulated  most  men  to  enterprise.  On  the  28th  of  March, 
Wood,  at  Kambula,  had  defeated  and  dispersed,  with  great  slaughter,  a 
Zulu  force,  estimated  at  over  20,000  strong.  On  the  2nd  of  April,  Lord 
Chelmsford  himself  had  the  good  fortune  to  inflict  a  crushing  repulse 
on  some  12,000  Zulus  who  assailed  his  laager  at  Gingihlovo.  Ever 
in  war  the  defeat  of  the  vanquished  is  the  opportunity  of  the  victor, 
if  he  but  like  to  grasp  it ;  but  the  axiom  is  especially  applicable 
when  the  vanquished  are  savages,  lacking  the  elasticity  and  morale  of 
more  regular  troops.  The  two  blows  together  could  not  well  have  borne 
less  heavily  on  the  Zulus  for  the  time  being,  than  did  their  final  dis- 
comfiture at  Ulundi.  Had  Lord  Chelmsford  started  from  Etshowe  on 
the  4th  of  April,  with  three  thousand  men,  with  bare  necessaries  for  a 
month,  he  could  have  reached  Ulundi  in  a  week  by  forced  marches,  and 
once  there,  he  would  have  been  master  of  the  situation,  and  could 
have  been  reinforced  and  re-provisioned  from  behind  as  occasion 
demanded.  But  Lord  Chelmsford  preferred  the  abandonment  of 
Etshowe,  the  establishment  of  a  futile  post  at  Gingihlovo,  and  the 
postponement  of  further  operations  in  the  enemy's  country  for  two 
months  longer. 

The  third  period  extends  from  the  relief  of  Etshowe  till  the  combat 
of  Ulundi.  On  the  20th  of  April,  Lord  Chelmsford  had  over  20,000 
men  under  him  in  the  field,  of  whom  about  14,000  were  white  men. 
Of  these,  6,500  men,  comprising  the  1st  Division  under  General  Crea- 
lock,  Lord  Chelmsford,  according  to  his  own  statement,  deliberately 
pigeon-holed  on  and  about  the  Lower  Tugela,  restrained  from  dis- 
cretional offensive,  and  inoperative,  from  its  position,  for  the  defence 
of  the  long  frontier  line.  This  strange  disposal  of  a  whole  division 
of  British  soldiers  can  be  proved  out  of  Lord  Chelmsford's  own  mouth. 
In  his  despatch  on  the  relief  of  Etshowe  he  says  : — 


Every  advantage,  from  a  military  point  of  view,  in  our  present  intention  of 
destroying  the  Mangevane  and  Undine  kraals,  can  be  gained  equally  ly  occupying 
a  strong  post  on  the  coast  road.  This  -will  be  done,  and  the  future  operations  on 
this  head  -will  be  entrusted  to  Major-General  Crealock,  who  will  receive  special 


226  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  February 

instructions  from  me  in  regard  to  the  future  operations  of  what  is  now  the  1st 
Division  of  the  South  African  field  force. 

What  were  these  instructions  ?  If  there  were  indeed  any,  it 
devolves  on  General  Crealock,  in  the  interest  of  his  own  reputation, 
to  take  steps  that  they  be  produced.  For  three  months  General 
Crealock  remained  stationary,  inspecting  latrines,  cultivating  lay- 
ing poultry,  and  clamouring  for  pepper ;  were  such,  then,  his 
instructions  ?  That  Lord  Chelmsford  wished  to  have  it  believed  that 
they  were  not  essentially  of  a  more  active  character  may  be  gathered 
from  his  Lordship's  statement  at  Cape  Town  after  the  campaign. 

I  have  seen  it  stated  (he  then  said)  that  I  had  always  reckoned  on  receiving- 
direct  assistance  from  the  coast  column,  and  that  the  advance  on  Ulundi  was 
therefore  a  desperate  undertaking,  against  the  express  wish  of  Sir  Garnet  Wolseley. 
The  difficulties  of  an  advance  on  Ulundi  by  the  coast  line  had  been  brought  to  my 
notice  soon  after  my  arrival  in  Natal  by  those  who  knew  them  well.  I  therefore 
never  calculated  that  the  upper  column  would  receive  more  than  indirect  support 
from  the  troops  on  that  line,  and  I  felt  quite  satisfied  that  the  former  would  be 
strong  enough  to  carry  out  the  task  which  lay  before  it. 

If  Lord  Chelmsford  had  indeed  this  conviction,  then  he  merits  cen- 
sure in  its  strongest  form,  for  requisitioning  from  home  a  division  for 
which  he  could  find  no  other  sphere  than  sickening  around  the  Tugela 
mouth  while  its  chief  badgered  the  commissariat  for  pepper.  The 
difficulties  Lord  Chelmsford  speaks  of  may  be  estimated  by  the  facts 
that  he  himself  advanced  in  five  marches  from  the  Tugela  to  Etshowe, 
and  retired  from  Etonganeni  to  Etshowe  on  his  homeward  route  in  the 
same  number  of  marches  ;  while  Clarke's  brigade,  marching  from 
Port  Durnford,  reached  Etonganeni  without  difficulty  in  a  few  days. 

But  I  venture  respectfully  to  question  Lord  Chelmsford's  expression 
of  his  deliberate  intention  to  dispense  with  the  co-operation  of  his  first 
division  in  offensive  operations.  I  do  so  on  two  grounds.  First, 
Lord  Chelmsford  himself  told  me  in  Durban,  before  he  set  out  for 
the  front,  that  it  was  quite  on  the  cards  Crealock  might  reach 
Ulundi  in  advance  of  himself;  and  I  have  information  from  a 
source  entitled  to  implicit  credence  that  Lord  Chelmsford  '  left  the 
1st  Division  entirely  to  the  independent  direction  of  its  general.' 
Secondly,  I  affirm  that  for  some  time  previous  to  the  afternoon 
of  the  16th  of  June,  while  he  lay  in  camp  at  the  Upoko  river, 
it  was  Lord  Chelmsford's  intention,  instead  of  marching  direct 
on  Ulundi,  to  strike  away  to  the  south-eastward  on  Kwamagwasa, 
there  to  give  the  hand  to  Crealock,  and  thence  to  advance  on 
Ulundi  in  co-operation  with  him.  It  may  be  interesting  to 
narrate  how  this  intention  was  frustrated.  It  had  come  to  the 
knowledge  of  an  unofficial  person  accompanying  the  2nd  Division 
that  this  faineant  intention  had  been  conceived.  Burning  with 
anxiety  that  it  should  not  be  carried  out,  and  casting  about  for  a 
means  to  upset  it,  the  individual  in  question  rode  back  to  Fort 


1880.  LORD   CHELMSFORD  AND   THE  ZULU  WAR.      227 

Newdigate,  to  meet  an  officer  in  high  command,  coming  up  with  the 
escort  of  the  great  supply  column.  To  that  gallant  officer  he  ven- 
tured to  address  himself,  with  all  but  despairing  entreaty  that  he 
'  would  take  his  Lordship  hard  by  the  head  and  cram  him  at  the 
fence.'  He  undertook  the  enterprise,  and  succeeded  in  it  the  same 
afternoon,  strenuously  supported  by  .another,  who,  as  he  rode  away 
from  the  headquarter  camp,  remarked  quaintly  that  Crealock  '  should 
be  told  that  either  he  must  advance,  or  that  his  health  would  be  im- 
proved by  a  sea  voyage  in  the  direction  of  home.'  When  Lord 
Chelmsford  speaks  of  certain  persons  as  his  i  detractors,'  he  is  not 
aware  that  to  one  of  these  persons  he  primarily  owes  it  that  he,  and 
not  his  successor,  commanded  in  the  combat  of  Ulundi. 

There  remains,  then,  but  to  dismiss  the  1st  Division  as  a  non- 
efficient  factor,  intentionally  or  unintentionally  so  on  Lord  Chelms- 
ford's  part,  in  the  scheme  and  execution  of  the  campaign.  What  one 
authoritative  critic  thought  of  its  inertness — and  the  Field-Marshal 
comman  ding-in-chief  has  read  a  paraphrase  of  the  outspoken  con- 
demnation— may  be  gathered  from  the  following  quotation  : — 

If  I  Had  had  General  Crealock'a  division,  I  would  have  now  (June  6th)  been  as 
far  as  Lord  Chelmsford  would  have  let  me  go  into  Zululand,  and  ready  at  a  moment's 
notice  to  rush  forward  to  the  king's  kraal.  The  delay  at  the  Lower  Tugela  has 
teen  as  ruinous  to  our  troops,  to  our  transport,  and  to  our  supplies,  as  it  has  been 
shameful  and  unnecessary. 

I  do  not  propose  to  occupy  space  by  detailing  the  fleeting 
phases  of  vacillation  that  characterised  the  period  between  the 
rendezvous  at  Dundee,  and  the  final  concentration  at  Koppie  Allein 
previous  to  the  crossing  of  the  frontier.  To  those  who  were  on  the  spot, 
this  period  must  now  be  like  a  bad  dream.  The  intention  to  con- 
stitute Conference  Hill  the  advanced  base,  the  choppings  and  chang- 
ings,  the  futile  conveyance  of  convoys  to  Conference  Hill  finally  to 
reach  Koppie  Allein  after  being  dragged  futilely  round  the  two  long' 
sides  of  an  isosceles  triangle,  the  feeble  shams  of  reconnaissances,  the 
drifting,  the  chaos  and  the  friction — to  have  lived  through  all  this 
grim  burlesque  on  military  operations,  was  ordeal  sore  enough, 
Heaven  knows  !  for  once  in  a  lifetime,  without  recalling  in  detail  the 
damnable  iteration  of  vague  vacillation.  It  may  be,  however,  that  I 
am  in  error  in  using  this  latter  word.  I  once  ventured  on  it  in  con- 
versation with  a  leading  member  of  Lord  Chelmsford's  staff,  under  the 
invitation  to  speak,  given  by  the  question  how  I  thought  affairs  were 
proceeding.  He  triumphantly  corrected  me,  and  explained,  that  the 
rapid  and  perplexing  changes  of  intention  on  his  Lordship's  part, 
which  rendered  nothing  certain  within  his  command  for  a  quarter  of  an 
hour  at  a  time,  sprang  not  from  vacillation  and  inability  to  make  up 
his  mind,  but  from  very  exceptional  promptitude  in  doing  so.  At 
first  sight  it  would  appear  that  the  results  are  much  the  same,  whether 


228  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  February 

a  commander  cannot  firmly  make  up  his  mind  at  all,  or  whether  he  is 
addicted  to  making  snap  shots  at  hasty  decisions  which  are  no  sooner 
made  than  they  have  to  be  revoked  and  altered  ;  but  in  reality  this  is 
not  so.  The  man  whose  mental  tissue  is  so  flaccid  that  it  but  tardily 
braces  itself  to  decisions,  at  least  does  not  expose  himself.  If  he  can 
only  look  moderately  sagacious  and  keep  his  own  counsel,  he  may  get 
credit  for  profound  wisdom  and  for  having  within  him  schemes  of 
ultimate  brilliancy  and  conclusive  efficiency.  But  the  man  who 
spasmodically  jumps  into  decisions  which  he  is  fain  to  alter  with 
equally  spasmodic  speed,  fatally  lays  open  his  weakness,  and  indeed 
performs  in  himself,  in  public  view,  the  operation  of  mental  vivisec- 
tion in  every  decision  he  snaps  at,  and  in  any  order  emanating  from 
that  decision. 

Deliberately  ignoring  alike  the  lesson  of  the  past,  the  dictates  of 
common  sense,  and  the  emphatic  protests  of  the  higher  officers  who 
had  come  out  with  the  reinforcements,  Lord  Chelmsford,  having  put  his 
1st  Division  to  bed,  obstinately  clung  to  the  policy,  or  rather  impolicy, 
of  invading  Zululand  from  round  the  corner.  With  a  force  strong 
enough  now  for  the  double  duty  of  defence  and  of  invasion,  he 
shunned  the  former  almost  entirely,  and  having  disposed  of  Crealock's 
force  as  has  been  described,  he  applied  himself  to  the  concentration  of 
his  2nd  Division,  under  General  Newdigate,  at  a  place  called  Dundee, 
almost  in  front  of  the  extreme  south-western  angle  of  Zululand. 
The  peculiarity  of  this  angle  is,  from  the  strategic  point  of  view, 
that,  being  more  than  two  hundred  miles  from  the  sea-base  at 
Durban,  it  is  the  point  of  all  Zululand  most  remote  from  Ulundi. 
What  would  be  thought  of  the  man  who,  standing  at  the  Duke  of 
York's  monument,  and  having  for  his  object  to  reach  Stafford  House 
as  speedily  as  might  be,  should  consider  he  was  best  accomplishing 
his  purpose  by  fetching  a  compass  round  by  the  Horse  Guards,  Storey's 
Gate,  Birdcage  Walk,  and  Buckingham  Palace  ?  Lord  Chelmsford's 
4  advance '  from  Durban  on  Ulundi  via  Dundee  and  Landman's  Drift 
was  no  whit  a  less  needlessly  circuitous  pilgrimage  than  would  be 
this  fatuous  tramp.  It  was,  indeed,  even  less  distinguished  by 
purposeful  wisdom.  The  circumambulator  of  the  Green  Park  would 
have  but  himself  to  carry.  But  Lord  Chelmsford  had  to  convey  every 
ounce  of  supplies  from  his  sea-base,  along  rough  and  cruel  roads,  with 
transport  scarce  and  costly,  and  time  infinitely  precious.  It  befell 
him  then,  by  his  own  act,  that,  the  last  of  his  reinforcements  having 
been  landed  at  Port  Durban  by  the  middle  of  April,  he  was  not  able 
to  give  the  word  to  his  2nd  Division  to  cross  the  frontier  until  the 
first  day  of  June,  and  even  then  with  so  serious  a  deficiency  in  the 
quantity  of  supplies  which  he  regarded  as  necessary,  that  a  halt  of 
some  ten  days  was  enforced  when  as  yet  it  had  made  but  four  short 
marches  into  the  enemy's  country. 

I  have  alluded  to  Lord  Chelmsford's  staff.     Its  inadequacy  was 


1880.  LORD   CHELMSFORD  AND   THE  ZULU   WAR.      229 

flagrant.  He  commanded  what  was  virtually  an  army  corps,  and 
an  army  corps,  too,  in  detachments,  and  therefore  demanding  the 
services  of  an  exceptionally  efficient  staff.  Modern  warfare  has  made 
apparent  the  inestimable  value,  to  a  general  in  command,  of  a  good 
chief  of  the  staff.  But  Lord  Chelmsford  would  have  no  chief  of  the 
staff.  He  had  indeed  a  military  secretary,  a  man  of  proved  capacity — 
in  originating,  stimulating,  and  perpetuating  friction.  His  Adjutant- 
General  was  respectable,  and  it  may  have  facilitated  the  despatch  of 
business  that  throughout  the  campaign  he  and  the  Military  Secretary 
were  not  on  speaking  terms.  Until  the  eve  of  the  invasion,  Lord 
Chelmsford  had  no  functionary  discharging  the  duties  of  Quarter- 
master-General,  and  when  at  length  an  able  officer  was  nominated  ad 
interim  to  that  appointment,  he  had  no  adequate  or  stated  assistance, 
and  had  to  content  himself  with  such  casual  service  as  was  rendered 
by  the  poor  lad  who  fell  at  the  Ityotosi  river  and  the  man  who  left 
him  to  his  fate.  His  intelligence  officer  was  a  man  who  palpably, 
and  indeed  confessedly,  knew  nothing  of  the  region  through  which 
lay  the  line  of  invasion.  It  was  not  until  a  day  or  two  before  the 
march  from  Landman's  Drift  that  Lord  Chelmsford  thought  proper  to 
brigade  General  Newdigate's  division,  and  he  saw  nothing  incongruous 
in  leaving  later  one  of  the  brigadiers  whom  he  then  nominated,  in 
command  of  a  wayside  post  garrisoned  by  a  few  companies.  But 
indeed  Lord  Chelmsford  not  only  was  the  Commander-in- Chief,  but 
essayed  to  be  his  own  chief  of  the  staff,  his  own  division  general,  his 
own  brigadier,  his  own  sergeant-major,  his  own  road-mender,  his  own 
ox-driver,  his  own  mealiecob-collector.  A  Nasmyth  hammer  is  a 
wonderful  instrument :  it  will  punch  a  hole  through  an  armour- 
plate,  and  it  will  fashion  a  pin.  But  it  is  of  no  account,  and 
children  may  mock  it,  when  the  motive  power  is  lacking. 

Had  the  direct  line  of  invasion  from  the  Lower  Tugela  been 
chosen,  there  would  have  been  ample  troops  for  that  enterprise,  for 
disposition  along  the  Tugela  to  cover  the  colony,  and  for  furnishing 
Wood  with  reinforcements  that  would  have  so  strengthened  him  as  to 
have  enabled  him  with  confidence  to  follow  his  original  line 
athwart  the  north-western  region  of  Zululand  upon  Ulundi.  The 
advantages  of  that  line  have  been  already  set  forth.  But  as  it  was, 
Wood  had  to  converge  on  Newdigate  for  purposes  of  mutual  support, 
looking  to  their  common  weakness  when  divided  ;  and  this  enforced 
convergence  on  Wood's  part  signified  the  final  abandonment  of  what 
\vus  the  only  good  strategical  feature  in  Lord  Chelmsford 's  original 
dispositions  at  the  opening  of  the  campaign.  Thenceforth  Wood's 
undeniable  attributes  in  quasi-independent  command  were  merged 
into  the  mediocrity  of  his  superior  officer.  But  this  was  not  all  harm  ; 
Wood  had  his  uses  in  his  new  sphere. 

With  an  efficient  staff,  and  a  clear  perception  of  the  task  that  lay 
before  him,  Lord  Chelmsford,  having  committed  himself  to  an  ads'ance 
VOL.  VI L— No.  36.  K 


230  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  February 

from  the  Dundee  base,  might  have  been  a  long  way  into  the  heart  of 
Zululand,  while  he  was  himself  wasting  time  at  Utrecht,  and  while 
Newdigate's  division  was  supinely  producing  noxious  effluvia  in  its 
standing  camp  at  Landman's  Drift.  It  will  be  remembered,  that  his 
infantry  reinforcements,  landing  earlier  than  his  cavalry,  were 
available  considerably  sooner.  Let  me  put  the  alternative  procedure 
open  to  him  in  the  words,  written  at  the  time,  of  one  who  knows  war 
well,  and  contributed  by  arduous  labour  not  a  little  to  such  success 
as  was  attained  by  the  invading  columns. 

My  watchword  would  have  been,  '  Advance !  advance  !  advance ! '  Yes, 
advance,  if  only  for  a  few  miles,  into  the  enemy's  country  ;  advance  our  infantry 
to  posts  safely  established  on  Zulu  soil.  If  Lord  Chelmsford  ivould  have  his  three 
months'  supply,  only  a  burden  and  an  injury  to  him,  he  ought  to  have  sent  in  his 
infantry  weeks  ago,  as  it  came  up,  while  his  cavalry  and  heavy  supplies  were  on 
the  road.  He  should  have  sent  that  infantry  on  with  small  convoys  of  Divisional 
Transport  (lying  idle)  with  strong  escorts  into  Zululand,  forming  depots  as  they 
pushed  on.  One  would  then  have  felt  that  we  were  doing  something,  that  we  were 
not  eating  up  weeks  and  weeks  of  stores,  brought  out  at  enormous  cost  from 
England,  and  that  we  were  not  wasting  money  on  transport,  by  massing  on  one 
spot  vast  supplies  that,  when  massed,  would  require  an  enormous  transport,  got 
together  regardless  of  expense,  system,  and  organisation,  to  move  this  mass  of  stores 
into  Zululand  to  impede  our  movements  there.  We  should  not  be  the  laughing- 
stock of  Europe  :  our  men  would  feel  that  they  were  being  made  of  good  use,  and 
be  training  themselves  by  daily  practice  in  convoy,  camping,  and  patrol  duties. 
Then,  when  the  cavalry  came  up,  all  would  be  ready  for  a  move  forward  at  once. 

At  Fort  Marshall  on  the  1 8th  of  June,  the  2nd  Division,  having  been 
marching  most  of  the  time  since  leaving  Landman's  Drift  with  its 
face  set  towards  its  base  at  Durban,  on  a  directer  line  than  that  by 
which  it  had  marched  up  through  the  colony,  and  having  traversed 
some  fifty  miles,  found  itself  within  twenty-five  miles  of  Koorke's 
Drift,   a  point    considerably  nearer  that  base  than  was   Landman's 
Drift.     Thus  it  had  taken  a  wide  circuit  with  no  other  result  than 
the  production  of  wholly  needless  delay.     Nor  must  it  be  forgotten 
that  the  road  from  Eoorke's  Drift  to  Fort  Marshall  had  already  in 
January  been  improved  by  several  days'  hard  work,  as  far  as  Isandlwana. 
But  the  extraordinary  peculiarity  of  the  circuitous  mode  of  invasion 
became  still  more  eccentrically  apparent  a  few  days  later,  when  the 
division  reached  the '  Jackal's  Neck '  camp  on  the  27th  of  June.     From 
the  elevation  above  it  men,  looking  due  south,  saw  at  a  distance  of 
some  twenty-five  miles  the  flats  of  Etshowe.     Lord  Chelmsford,  then, 
from  his  Durban  base  had  journeyed  close  on  300  miles  to  find  himself, 
on  the  27th  of  June,  five-and-twenty  miles  nearer  Ulundi  than  he 
had  been  on  the  4th  of  April.     Barring  these  five-and-twenty  miles, 
he  had  completed  such  a  circle  as  we  read  of  men  making  who  have 
lost  their  way  in  the  bush  or  in  the  wilderness.     And  pray  think,  not 
alone  of  the  waste  of  valuable  time,  but  the  reckless  cost  and  waste 
of  thus  futilely  marching  a  division  with  its  huge  supplies  round 


1880.  LORD   CHELMSFORD   AND   THE  ZULU   WAR.       231 

eleven-twelfths  of  a  circle  of  such  a  circumference !  Shade  of 
Wellington !  to  think  that  a  man  should  have  ventured  to  invoke 
that  name,  who  has  such  a  fiasco  of  perverse  pedestrianism  on  his 
military  conscience,  scarcely,  surely,  to  be  deadened  by  postprandial 
plaudits  !  From  that  height,  too,  was  visible  the  sea,  hard  by  where 
at  Fort  Durnford,  some  five  marches  off,  stores  were  being  landed  that 
might  have  been  even  more  easily  landed  two  months  previously,  thus 
rendering  still  more  grimly  ludicrous  the  wandering  in  the  desert,  not 
indeed  of  forty  years,  but  for  two  useless  months. 

But  Pisgah  was  at  length  attained,  and  the  promised  land,  from 
whose  milk  and  honey  we  were  precipitately  to  run  away,  lay  at 
length  before  us,  across  the  Jordan  of  the  White  Umvaloosi.  Lord 
Chelmsford  had  great  good  fortune  there.  It  has  never  been  explained 
why,  having  departed  for  a  good  reason  from  the  original  intention  of 
sending  Wood  across  the  river  on  the  afternoon  of  the  1st  of  July,  to 
occupy  the  Kopje  and  cover  the  crossing  place,  cramped  and  dominated 
as  it  was,  he  abstained  from  carrying  out  that  intention  altogether,  to 
the  manifest  risk  when  advancing  on  Ulundi  of  being  taken  at  a  dis- 
advantage on  the  rough  ground  between  the  river  and  the  Ulambo- 
Bogemma  Kraal,  where  first  the  nature  of  the  ground  allowed  the 
square  formation,  in  which  alone  safety  lay,  to  be  taken  up.  Ulundi 
was  a  soldier's,  not  a  general's  fight ;  but  while  it  lasted  Lord  Chelms- 
ford was  every  inch  a  soldier.  Out  of  the  splendid  brigade  of  British 
cavalry  Lord  Chelmsford  had  so  urgently  requisitioned,  three  weak 
squadrons  took  part  in  it :  the  remainder  he  had  frittered  away  along 
a  frontier  the  safety  of  which  was  no  longer  threatened. 

The  fourth  period  under  consideration  dates  from  the  combat  at 
Ulundi,  until  Sir  Grarnet  Wolseley's  acceptance  of  Lord  Chelmsford's 
resignation  and  the  retirement  of  the  latter  from  the  army  in  the  field. 
A  simple  statement  of  facts  will  demonstrate  that,  while  up  to  the 
commencement  of  this  period  Lord  Chelmsford's  conduct  of  the  ope- 
rations had  been  erroneous,  weak,  and  capricious,  the  manner  in  which 
he  acted  after  the  battle  of  Ulundi  involves  him  in  a  yet  graver  cul- 
pability— a  culpability  that  threw  to  the  wind  the  results  of  the 
victory  of  Ulundi,  devolved  on  another  the  work  of  finishing  the 
campaign,  and  involved  the  country  in  a  needless  expenditure. 

On  the  afternoon  of  the  combat  of  Ulundi,  Lord  Chelmsford 
retired  his  force  into  the  laager  on  the  Umvaloosi ;  on  the  next  day 
he  set  forth  on  his  return  march.  From  Etonganeni  he  led  the  flying 
column  back  on  St.  Paul's  over  Kwamagwasa,  which  he  reached  on 
the  llth  of  July.  Newdigate's  division  he  sent  back  towards  the 
frontier  by  the  line  along  which  he  had  advanced.  He  made  a  clean 
evacuation  of  the  whole  theatre  of  his  late  operations  beyond  Fort 
Evelyn,  in  which  he  left  his  furthest  advanced  garrison  ;  Fort  Evelyn 
being  some  thirty-five  miles  short  of  Ulundi. 

B  2 


232  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  February 

A  critic  is  not  called  upon  to  guess  at  the  solution  of  a  conundrum, 
and  we  are  entitled  to  look  for  the  key  to  conduct  on  the  face  of  it  so 
singular  in  such  explanations  as  Lord  Chelmsford  has  thought  proper 
to  tender.  In  his  Ulundi  despatch  he  writes  :  <  As  I  have  fully 
accomplished  the  object  for  which  I  advanced.  I  consider  I  shall  now 
best  be  carrying  out  Sir  Garnet  Wolseley's  instructions  by  moving  at 
once  to  Etonganeni  and  thence  to  Kwamagwasa.'  He  writes  to  Sir 
Garnet  Wolseley  on  the  6th  of  July  : — 

I  Lave  returned  to  Etonganeni,  as,  the  Zulus  having  dispersed  in  all  directions, 
it  is  not  possible  to  strike  another  blow  at  them  for  the  present.  I  was  also 
anxious  to  get  the  men  under  canvas  again.  The  best  grass  lands  are  in  this  part 
of  Zululand,  but  they  are  beginning  to  fail. 

He  had  previously  announced  to  Wolseley  that  the  state  of  his 
supplies  would  not  permit  him  to  remain  at  Ulundi  beyond  the  10th 
of  July.  And  finally  in  his  Cape  Town  speech  he  stated  (before  the 
capture  of  Cetchwayo) : — 

After  the  crushing  defeat  inflicted  at  Ulundi,  there  would  have  been  no 
advantage  gained  in  endeavouring  to  penetrate  the  difficult  country  to  the  north  of 
the  king's  kraal,  even  had  the  state  of  the  supplies  permitted  it. 

We  have  thus  on  Lord  Chelmsford's  part  certain  explicit  statements 
in  justification  of  his  retreat.  He  had  accomplished  his  object: 'in 
retiring  he  was  carrying  out  his  instructions ;  the  condition  of  his 
supplies  rendered  his  retreat  compulsory ;  grass  was  beginning  to 
fail  him.  Each  and  all  of  these  averments  are  erroneous. 

Ulundi  was  but  a  means  to  an  end ;  that  end  was  the  determina- 
tion of  the  Zulu  trouble  by  a  satisfactory  peace,  the  capture,  the 
surrender,  or  the  expatriation  of  Cetchwayo.  None  of  these  things 
Ulundi  had  achieved.  If  20,000  Zulus  attacked  Lord  Chelms- 
ford at  Ulundi,  and  if  2,000  of  them  were  put  hors  de  combat, 
manifestly  18,000  remained  available  for  further  mischief  at  the  bid- 
ding of  the  monarch  who  obstinately  refused  to  take  or  ask  for  terms. 
Suppose  that  Wolseley  had  not  pushed  up  Clarke  on  the  enterprise 
which  in  Lord  Chelmsford's  estimation  was  at  once  impossible  and 
offered  no  advantage,  Cetchwayo  would  have  been  still  loose,  the 
Swazis  would  have  assumed  we  had  been  beaten,  and  the  Zulus  would 
probably  have  gained  heart  to  stand  the  fortune  of  another  campaign. 
I  venture  to  think  that  Lord  Chelmsford,  if  he  still  has  the  hardihood 
to  retain  it,  is  absolutely  alone  in  his  belief  that  on  the  evening 
of  Ulundi  he  had  '  fully  accomplished  the  purpose  for  which  he 
advanced.' 

If  Lord  Chelmsford  had  ordered  his  tents  up  from  Etonganeni,  he 
would  have  got  his  troops  under  canvas  again  with  no  less  certainty 
than  he  attained  that  object  by  falling  back  on  Etonganeni.  An 
army  and  its  tents  do  not  occupy  the  relative  attitudes  of  Mahomet 
and  the  mountain.  Whether  the  grass  was  failing,  as  he  reported,  may 


1880.  LORD   CHELMSFORD  AND   THE  ZULU   WAR.      233 

be  judged  of  from  the  following  extract  of  a  letter  from  the  highest 
authority,  written  in  September  last : — '  The  valley  of  Ulundi,  where 
we  were  encamped  for  nearly  four  weeks,  was  a  vast  meadow  of  grass, 
and  the  kraals  were  stored  with  grain.  A  cavalry  brigade  might  have 
remained  there  for  months,  and  their  horses  got  fat  and  sleek  as  ours 
did.'  As  to  a  dearth  of  supplies,  Lord  Chelmsford  conclusively  dis- 
proved that  by  arriving  at  St.  Paul's  on  his  return  march  '  with  more 
than  a  fortnight's  supplies.'  The  truth  is,  he  was  lavishly  rationed. 
When  he  left  the  Upoko  river  on  the  18th  of  June,  both  columns 
carried  six  weeks'  full  rations  ;  a  mass  of  food  was  left  behind  at  Fort 
Newdigate,  within  easily  accessible  distance ;  Marshall  was  hustling 
proviant  columns  up  along  the  line  of  communications ;  and  stores 
were  being  landed,  virtually  ad  libitum,  at  Port  Durnford,  some  six 
marches  distant. 

There  remains  Lord  Chelmsford's  avowal  of  his  belief  that  he  was 
best  carrying  out  Sir  Grarnet  Wolseley's  instructions,  by  imitating  the 
dirty  little  boy  who  chalked  an  opprobrious  epithet  on  the  shutter, 
and  then  ran  away.  Strong  as  is  public  apathy  in  regard  to  '  bygones,'  I 
do  think  that,  if  the  communications  which  at  this  time  passed  between 
his  Lordship  and  his  superior  officer  were  now  in  the  hands  of  the 
public,  Lord  Chelmsford,  instead  of  swaggering  about  success,  would 
probably  be  somewhat  nervous  lest  the  vox  populi  should  compel  his 
official  friends  to  put  him  on  his  defence  under  military  law.  There 
can  be  no  valid  pretext  for  withholding  these  documents,  and  I  trust 
that  they  will  be  moved  for  when  Parliament  reassembles.  Without 
the  light  they  throw  on  events,  this  phase  of  the  campaign  remains 
a  discreditable  enigma. 

Immediately  on  reaching  the  colony,  Sir  Grarnet  Wolseley  tele- 
graphed to  Lord  Chelmsford  instructions  to  send  him  full  informa- 
tion, to  report  daily  what  he  was  doing,  and  to  concentrate  his  forces  ; 
there  was  no  limitation  of  his  freedom  of  action.  Lord  Chelmsford's 
tardy  response  on  the  30th  of  June  was  to  the  effect  that  he  was  negotia- 
ting, that  his  supplies  would  not  enable  him  to  keep  the  front  beyond 
the  10th  of  July,  and  that  he  wanted  to  know  '  Where  is  Crealock  ? ' 
Wolseley's  reply  contained  the  incidental  instruction  that,  '  if  forced 
to  retreat,'  he  was  to  fall  back  on  Crealock  by  way  of  St.  Paul's ; 
obviously  a  simple  detail  of  precautionary  injunction,  in  the  con- 
tingency of  untoward  events.  Now,  the  simple  question  that 
every  soldier  has  to  ask  himself,  is  whether  Lord  Chelmsford 
could  consider  himself  '  forced  to  retreat '  immediately  after  having 
won  a  victory,  the  fruits  of  which  lay  to  his  hand  if  he  would 
only  stretch  it  out,  and  while  still  so  well  rationed  that  more 
than  a  week  later  he  reached  St.  Paul's  carrying  a  fortnight's 
supply,  and  while  large  reserves  were  within  easy  reach.  It  was 
a  time,  most  men  will  hold,  that  might  encourage  a  chief  to 
harden  his  heart  and  ask  his  soldiers,  if  need  were — and  such  need 


234  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  February 

would  hardly  have  occurred — to  submit  to  some  stinting  of  the  full 
ration,  to  do  without  lime-juice  for  instance,  and  go  without  pepper 
while  beef  held  out,  to  try  mealie  meal  for  a  change  if  fresh  bread 
were  not  to  be  compassed.  Writing  of  the  winter  campaign  in 
Bulgaria,  Lieutenant  Grreene  says  of  the  Kussian  soldiers  who 
marched  under  Grourko  and  Skobeleff  from  Plevna  to  Tchatalda: 
'  As  for  the  luxuries  of  the  ration — such  as  tea,  sugar,  spirits, 
vinegar,  soap,  cabbage,  &c. — the  men  had  simply  to  do  without 
them.  The  campaign  was  made  on  a  precarious  ration  of  a  pound  of 
hard  bread  and  a  pound  [and  a  half  of  tough,  stringy  beef  driven 
along  the  road.  Yet,  in  face  of  these  hardships  and  privations,  there 
was  not  a  single  case  of  insubordination  ;  the  men  were  usually  in 
good  spirits,  and  the  number  of  stragglers  inconsiderable.'  We  need 
only  recall  the  Peninsula  and  the  Crimea  for  proofs  that  the  British 
soldier  can  thole  as  well  as  can  the  Russian  soldier ;  and  Lord 
Ghelmsford  might  have  kept  the  field  without  requiring  of  his  troops 
any  privations  of  a  serious  kind. 

Immediately  on  receiving  a  telegram  from  me  on  the  evening  of 
the  6th  of  July,  detailing  the  combat  of  the  4th,  Sir  Garnet  Wolseley, 
-without  waiting  for  further  information,  despatched  to  Lord  Chelms- 
fbrd  an  urgent  demand,  that  he  should  maintain  an  advanced  po- 
sition in  the  heart  of  the  country  into  which  he  had  penetrated, 
sending  also  hearty  congratulations  on  the  success  of  Ulundi.  It  is 
for  Lord  Chelmsford  to  explain  why  he  refrained  from  making  any 
apparent  effort  to  fulfil  that  injunction,  and  why  lie  disregarded 
the  representations  made  to  him  on  the  spot  in  favour  of  leaving 
Sir  Evelyn  Wood's  column  behind,  with  the  ultimate  rdle  before  it 
of  cutting  Zululand  in  two  by  marching  back  towards  Utrecht  along 
the  White  Umvaloosi.  Temper,  as  a  token  of  weakness,  is  a  mis- 
take; but  its  indulgence,  when  the  outcome  is  detriment  to  the 
public  weal,  becomes  a  crime.  It  remains,  as  it  is,  that  Lord 
Chelmsford  attained  a  final  climax  of  incapacity  by  nullifying  his 
success  at  Uiundi,  in  relinquishing  its  fruits  when  they  were  within 
his  grasp ;  and  that  his  needless  and  precipitate  retreat  involved  our 
arms  in  what,  save  in  actual  fighting,  was,  to  all  intents  and  pur- 
poses, another  campaign.  And  it  remains,  further,  for  his  Lordship, 
410  longer  to  quote  irrelevant  Shakespeare  in  abortive  disparagement 
of  those  whom  he  considers  his  '  detractors,'  but  to  find  a  coherent 
reply,  if  there  be  such  a  weapon  within  his  reach,  to  the  strictures  of 
his  critic. 

AECHIBALD  FORBES. 


1880.  235 


THE 
PRESENT  CONDITIONS   OF  AR7.1 


IN  a  recent  article  in  this  Eeview  the  question  was  asked,  '  Is  a  great 
school  of  art  possible  in  the  present  day  ? '  In  other  words,  are  our 
modern  conditions  such  that  not  only  individual  genius  can  exist — 
genius  which  overrides  all  outside  influences  and  creates  distinguished 
work  under  any  conditions — but  are  they  such  as  would  encourage  and 
create  a  school,  a  group  of  painters,  sculptors,  and  architects,  whose 
work  collectively  would  have  a  force  marking  the  age  in  which  they 
live,  becoming  part  of  the  history  of  the  country  to  which  they  belong, 
and  existing  in  the  future  as  a  lasting  monument  of  the  best  feelings 
and  thoughts  of  the  present  time  ?  Will  the  people,  say,  of  the 
twenty-third  century  be  able  to  read  what  is  best  in  our  English 
history  of  the  nineteenth  century,  its  highest  feeling,  its  purest  and 
subtlest  thought,  by  the  light  of  those  monuments  of  art  now  being 
produced  or  capable  of  being  produced,  as  we  read  the  history  of 
Egypt,  Greece,  and  Italy  in  the  legacies  of  art  those  countries  have 
left  for  us  ? 

The  question  is,  do  modern  conditions  create  or  destroy  the  pos- 
sibility of  such  a  school  ?  It  is  to  be  feared  that  only  on  the  ground 
that  all  things  are  possible  is  a  great  school  of  art  possible. 

It  must  be  distinctly  understood  that  a  great  school  is  spoken  of 
and  intended.  The  position  of  individual  artists,  or  the  claims  of 
individual  artists,  are  not  for  a  moment  questioned. 

It  is  certainly  probable  that  in  purely  artistic  qualities  we  can  never 
again  rival  the  productions  of  the  men  so  highly  gifted,  so  fortunately 
surrounded,  and  so  earnest  in  their  way  of  working,  as  were  the  great 
painters,  sculptors,  and  architects  of  past  ages.  It  is  not  necessary 
to  take  into  consideration  the  gifts  of  these  great  men.  There  are 
men  in  all  times  who  are  gifted ;  but  the  nature  of  conditions  will 
direct  the  stream  of  thought,  and  develope  or  repress  peculiarities  of 
intellectual  activity.  A  great  school  cannot  exist  unless  beauty  is 
cared  for  for  its  own  sake,  and  this  is  not  a  consequence  of  modern 
civilisation,  certainly  not  in  England. 

All  modern  conditions  are  nearly  as  unfavourable  to  art  as  they  can 

1  Written  last  summer,  and  referring  to  an  article  in  the  Nineteenth  Century 
of  April  1879. 


236  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.          February 

be.  It  is  not  uncommon  for  the  hard-headed  practical  man  to  pride 
himself  upon  his  insensibility  to  beauty  with  regard  to  material  forms, 
even  when  he  accepts  poetry  as  a  legitimate  utterance.  We  do  not 
want  beauty  for  its  own  sake  and  because  it  is  a  good  thing  in 
itself ;  we  may  tolerate  it  when  we  have  leisure,  and  even  desire  it 
as  a  proof  of  prosperity ;  but  the  active  mind,  or  that  condition  of 
society  which  represents  progress,  cannot  lend  itself  to  such  trifled 
Trifles — which  have  been  the  vital  spark  that  has  rendered  the 
resuscitation  of  apparently  dead  nations  possible  ! 

Our  modern  art,  in  spite  of  the  money  given  for  pictures  and  the 
crowds  that  throng  to  the  many  exhibitions,  enters  into  no  natural 
life  of  the  time.  This  is  proved  by  the  utter  ignoring  of  it  in  all 
4  serious  matters.'  When  the  question  of  what  belongs  to  the  class 
of  sensations  appertaining  to  beauty  comes  into  competition  with  the 
smallest  amount  of  money  interest,  it  is  seldom  a  matter  of  a  moment's 
consideration  whicli  shall  be  sacrificed.  Few  people  hesitate  to  cut 
down  a  tree  or  grub  up  a  hedgerow  if  twenty  shillings  a  year  will  be 
gained  by  so  doing.  Moreover,  utility  and  charm  appear  to  be  inten- 
tionally disconnected.  To  some  one  speculating  upon  what  a  mediaeval 
designer  would  have  made  of  a  steam-engine,  and  lamenting  that  no 
attempt  was  made  to  take  advantage  of  its  suggestiveness,  the  answer 
given  (by  a  man  of  refinement  and  collector  of  works  of  art)  was, 
*  Oh  !  we  don't  want  beauty  in  a  steam-engine  or  an  ironclad  ' — which 
meant :  '  We  only  want  beauty  in  playthings,  as  so  many  of  us  only 
want  religion  for  Sundays.'  The  untiring  interest,  the  pains,  the  love 
bestowed  formerly  upon  the  perfecting  and  decorating  of  almost  all 
objects  of  daily  use,  even  when  the  service  required  was  most  material, 
is  one  of  the  most  striking  points  of  difference  between  ancient  or 
mediaeval  and  modern  life.  Armour  is  an  example.  In  unaffected, 
unconscious  artistic  excellence  of  invention,  approaching  more  nearly 
to  the  strange  beauty  of  nature,  especially  as  presented  to  us  in 
vegetation,  mediaeval  armour  perhaps  surpasses  any  other  effort  of 
human  ingenuity. 

Our  confirmed  habit  of  regarding  art  and  all  that  belongs  to  it, 
all  the  delights  that  come  to  us  through  the  mediiim  of  the  noblest 
of  all  our  organs,  as  necessarily  separated  from  the  serious  business  of 
life,  must  be  fatal  to  art.  The  necessity  for,  and  instinctive  delight  in, 
beauty  must  be  felt  before  we  can  hope  to  see  great  art  flourishing 
healthily.  The  eye  must  appreciate  noble  form  and  beautiful  colour 
before  the  jar  consequent  at  the  sight  of  ugliness  is  felt  which  would 
as  a  rule  prevent  its  existence.  In  our  modern  life  the  cultiva- 
tion of  the  eye  is  sacrificed  to  all  kinds  of  meaner  considera- 
tions. Other  organs  of  taste  are  respectfully  treated.  Few  people 
lightly  value  the  importance  of  the  cook's  preparations.  The  well- 
dressed  dinner  is  not  put  off  till  Sunday  ;  to  be  indifferent  to  bad 
smells  would  be  to  confess  defective  organisation.  Sounds  are  serious 


1880.        THE  PRESENT  CONDITIONS  OF  ART.  237 

matters.  We  make  efforts  to  escape  discordant  noise,  or  submit  with 
grumbling.  But  with  regard  to  the  eye  we  submit  habitually  to 
conditions  which  are  equivalent  to  tearing  raw  meat  with  our  fingers 
and  teeth,  living  in  the  midst  of  vile  odours,  and  complacently  enduring 
abominable  discords. 

Sight  and  hearing  are  the  two  senses  which  the  natural  man,  in 
common  with  the  lower  animals,  possesses  in  great  perfection,  and  it  is 
evident  that,  in  addition  to  its  usefulness  to  him  as  a  mere  animal, 
the  eye  affords  him  interest  and  delight  long  before  his  other  senses 
become  intellectually  developed.  In  the  very  earliest  stages  of  his 
existence  we  have  proof  in  scratched  outlines  of  animals  that  he 
observes  with  curiosity  and  pleasure  the  varieties  of  animal  form 
which  surround  him.  In  his  progress  towards  modern  civilisation  he 
rejoices  in  beautiful  combinations  of  line  and  gorgeous  arrangements  of 
colour.  All  through  the  long  ages  till  the  seventeenth  century  this 
is  distinctly  visible,  but  growing  fainter  from  the  sixteenth,  and  it  is 
when  modern  discoveries  and  appliances  in  the  nineteenth  have  placed 
almost  unlimited  means  in  his  power  of  gratifying  this  instinct  that 
it  disappears  altogether.  Costume  vanishes,  utensils  and  weapons 
cease  to  be  ornamented,  or  are  ornamented  with  a  conscious  effort 
instead  of  natural  impulse,  beauty  of  form  and  colour  no  longer  has 
any  charm,  and  the  eye  becomes  indifferent.  The  ugliness  of  most 
things  connected  with  our  ordinary  habits  is  most  remarkable.  A 
well-dressed  gentleman  ready  for  dinner  or  attired  for  any  ceremony 
is  a  pitiable  example — his  vesture  nearly  formless  and  quite  foldless 
if  he  can  have  his  will.  His  legs,  unshapen  props — his  shirt  front, 
a  void — his  dress  coat,  an  unspeakable  piece  of  ignobleness.  Put 
it  into  sculpture,  and  see  the  result.  The  genius  of  Pheidias  might 
be  defied  to  produce  anything  satisfactory.  We  see  without  disap- 
proval ugly,  shapeless,  ignoble  forms,  and  it  must  be  remembered  that 
these  form  the  language  in  which  the  artist  has  to  speak.  The  human 
form,  the  noblest  and  most  interesting  study  for  the  artist,  is  dis- 
torted in  the  case  of  men's  dress  by  such  monstrous  garments,  and 
in  the  case  of  women's  dress  by  extravagant  arrangements  which 
impede  all  simple  nobility  and  refined  grace  of  movement. 

If  in  our  public  schools  any  attention  were  bestowed  upon  the 
cultivation  of  the  sense  of  beauty,  the  educated  gentleman  would  not 
encourage  by  his  admiration  the  vagaries  of  feminine  fashions,  not 
because  of  its  changes — '  variety  is  charming ' — but  because  all  the 
changes  revolve  round  a  centre  of  radically  bad  taste,  formed  by  two 
fixed  ideas,  viz.  that  the  waist  and  the  foot  cannot  be  too  small. 
Amid  all  the  changes  there  is  no  being  rid  of  the  stiff  contracted 
waist,  really  ugly,  always  so  low  down  as  to  suggest  the  positive 
deformity  of  short  lower  limbs,  and  cruelly  destructive  to  health, 
nor  of  the  straight  compressed  shoes,  destroying  the  form  of  the  foot, 
and  turning  the  beautiful  structure  into  a  crippled  bunch  of  bunions. 


238  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY.  February 

To  the  eyes  of  Plato  or  any  ancient  Greek  accustomed  to  see 
the  human  form  and  to  understand  its  excellence  and  .beauty,  an 
Eton  boy  would  be  a  thing  to  wonder  at.  To  admiring  mammas 
the  ridiculous  get-up  is  perfectly  lovely,  and  the  boy  himself  values 
it  beyond  measure.  A  thoughtful  mother  says,  in  one  of  Dumaurier's 
pictures  published  in  Punch, '  Remember  it  is  not  the  coat  that  makes 
the  gentleman.'  '  Oh,  I  know  that,'  replies  the  boy  ;  '  it's  the  hat.' 
This  is  really  not  a  caricature.  The  traditions  of  the  boy  stick  to 
the  man,  who  would  rather  be  smitten  with  leprosy  than  commit  a 
sin  against  the  sacred  laws  of  society.  Accustomed  to  the  ignoble 
arrangement  which  has  been  a  glory  in  his  eyes  since  he  was  old 
enough  to  envy  his  elder  brother,  he  cannot  know  how  far  he  has 
departed  from  a  sense  of  the  natural ;  it  is  pure  perversion  of  taste,  for 
which  convenience  cannot  be  pleaded.  The  Eton  boy  does  not  play 
cricket  in  his  tall  hat,  nor  does  the  member  of  Parliament  choose  his 
ordinary  costume  for  tramping  over  the  moors,  or  for  lawn  tennis.  The 
Eton  boy  grows  into  the  man,  dispensing  judgments  and  influ- 
encing events.  What  can  be  expected  from  his  habits  of  mind  in 
matters  of  taste  ?  He  will  perpetuate  the  pot-hat  and  the  shapeless 
costume  his  second  nature  has  taught  him  to  believe  in,  and  all  that 
is  unusual  or  the  least  grateful  to  the  eye  in  colour  or  shape  will  be 
regarded  as  '  bad  form;  Yet  it  is  from  him  as  an  educated  gentle- 
man that  encouragement  to  art  should  be  expected.  Under  such 
conditions  taste  must  suffer,  and  no  great  art  can  have  a  natural 
spring.  One  side  of  national  character  will  be  arid  without  art,  for 
that  absence  implies  the  absence  of  sense  of  beauty,  and  of  enjoyment 
in  natural  loveliness.  The  greatest  purity  in  morals,  and  the  highest 
attainable  intellectual  elevation,  will  still  leave  wanting  much  that  is 
essential  to  a  nation's  greatness  and  happiness.  Philosophers  in  future 
time  may  come  to  contend  that  among  the  objects  of  wise  government 
should  be  the  .developing  of  contentment,  not  alone  by  encouraging 
the  arts  of  becoming  rich,  but  also  by  providing  as  much  as  possible 
for  natural  enjoyments.  Even  the  poorest,  accustomed  to  take  pleasure 
in  what  is  gratifying  to  the  natural  sense  of  beauty,  would,  if  beauti- 
ful objects  were  among  them,  as  they  were  in  the  Middle  Ages, 
find  moments  of  relief  infinitely  grateful  to  them  in  their  habitual 
weariness.  The  plea  for  art  rests  on  much  wider  and  more  solid 
foundations  than  mere  amusement  for  moments  of  leisure.  In  the 
economy  of  civilisation  its  place  must  be  beside  poetry,  a  place 
that  should  be  recognised  by  those  who  write  upon  it.  Nothing  is  so 
likely  to  cure  the  wide  spread  of  habits  of  intemperance  that  disgrace 
the  nation  as  taste  for  art  and  music  generally  developed.  Probably 
nothing  but  the  general  practice  of  the  latter  can  now  effect  any- 
thing in  that  direction.  The  taste  and  practice  were  common 
in  England  in  the  Middle  Ages :  and  the  artistic  sensibility 
was  not  wanting.  This  is  proved  by  old  songs  and  habits  now 


1880.          THE  PRESENT  CONDITIONS  OF  ART.  239 

becoming  obsolete  and  discouraged.  Pleasure  in  natural  beauty  is 
distinctly  indicated  by  constant  allusion  to  objects  agreeable  to  the 
sight,  and  the  carrying  about  of  flowers  on  May  Day,  &c.  No  such 
habits  could  grow  up  naturally  now.  While  still  in  possession  of 
these  sensibilities,  the  miserable  condition  of  the  peasant  was  to 
him  more  bearable  than  it  is  now.  Never  perhaps  in  the  history  of 
mankind  has  the  peasantry  been  so  unoppressed,  but  the  divergence 
between  the  landlord  and  the  agricultural  population  is  rapidly 
increasing.  The  somewhat  morbid  sensibility  which  would  abolish 
field-sports  and  the  change  that  has  taken  place  in  their  character 
will  tend  to  place  the  landlord  and  tenant  more  and  more  in 
opposition,  by  destroying  a  connecting  link  of  great  value,  and 
this  will  probably  be  felt  at  no  very  distant  time.  Most  of  us  have 
seen  how  willingly  the  mounted  farmer  allowed  his  fields  to  be  ridden 
over,  and  the  keen  enjoyment  of  the  farm  labourer  as  he  followed  on 
foot  for  half  a  mile,  marking  the  vicissitudes  of  the  chase,  layi  ng  in  a 
stock  of  enjoyment  for  the  next  three  days.  Civilisation  looks  coldly 
on  mere  animal  enjoyments,  often  seeming  to  forget  that  man  is  after 
all  an  animal.  It  may  be  right  in  its  direction,  but  while  it  represses 
on  the  objectionable  side,  it  should  be  even  more  active  to  develope  a 
counterpoise. 

The  tendency  to  discourage  our  natural  safety-valves  for  super- 
abundant national  energy  will  only  leave  open  the  fields  of  manu- 
facturing and  commercial  enterprise,  neither  in  these  days  favourable 
to  gaiety — one,  manufacturing  by  machinery,  most  unfavourable — 
and  the  nation  must  become  more  and  .more  a  prey  to  gloom  and 
sullenness,  more  and  more  seeking  refuge  in  the  intemperance  that 
so  disgraces  us,  more  and  more  distracted  and  disaffected.  People 
dissatisfied  with  daily  home  life  cannot  be  satisfied  with  any  possible 
government.  As  our  foreign  policy  must  in  a  great  measure  be 
governed  by  the  action  of  the  foreign  Powers  we  are  brought  into 
relation  or  collision  with,  and  therefore  cannot,  beyond  the .  esta- 
blishment of  certain  principles,  be  wholly  under  our  control,  it  might 
be  wiser  to  consider  home  legislation  for  the  moment  as  more  impor- 
tant, and  by  earnest  endeavour,  among  other  means  of  improvement, 
to  infuse  more  pleasure  into  the  daily  life  of  the  community  at 
large,  to  increase  or  preserve  a  .healthy  state  of  mind  among  the 
wretched  many  whose  voices  in  reality  do,  and  must  more  and 
more  govern —  to  which  end  art  and  music  are  efficient  agents. 
What  cannot  be  achieved  in  this  direction  by  the  State,  might  be 
in  a  great  measure  brought  about  by  widely  spread  and  judicious 
co-operation  of  those  who  have  leisure  and  other  means  at  their 
disposal;  and  art,  pressed  into  the  service  of  general  education,  as 
once  it  was  into  that  of  religion,  might  again  be  great,  and  become 
a  vital  power. 

The  dying  out  of  the  natural  sense  of  pleasure  derived  from  sight 


240  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  February 

of  beauty  cannot  be  wholly  accounted  for  by  the  activity  of  modern  life 
and  its  want  of  leisure.  In  highly  civilised  Europe  there  is  always 
a  large  and  cultivated  class  that  finds  a  difficulty  in  getting  rid  of  its 
time.  Is  it  indeed  a  law  that  gain  and  loss  should  always  be  balanced  ? 
If,  with  increased  acuteness  in  some  directions,  sense  of  beauty  is  pass- 
ing away  as  a  natural  possession  (and  the  ugliness  of  modern  life 
points  to  it),  art  must  die  in  spite  of  every  conscious  effort  that  can 
be  made.  Yet  at  no  time  in  known  history  has  it  been  regarded  as 
a  pursuit  with  so  much  approval ;  it  is  the  fashion  for  youth  of  good 
education  and  family  to  take  up  art  as  a  profession,  a  thing  unknown 
till  now.  Plutarch,  looking  at  the  incomparable  work  of  Pheidias, 
and  rightly  estimating  these  most  perfect  productions,  then  to  be 
seen  in  all  their  perfection,  and  speaking  of  them  in  the  highest  terms 
and  praising  the  effect  as  it  deserved  to  be  praised,  goes  on  to  say 
that,  beautiful  and  noble  as  they  were,  it  was  not  desirable  that 
ingenuous  youth  should  devote  its  time  to  such  occupation.  There 
spoke  the  mind  of  antiquity,  ruling  that  intellect  should  be 
devoted  either  to  abstract  philosophy  or  the  business  of  government, 
whose  only  notion  of  governing  was  through  law  or  arms,  setting 
aside  the  emotional  element  in  human  nature,  and  to  which  the 
'  tender  grace '  of  the  worship  of  the  Virgin  would  have  been  incom- 
prehensible. 

It  must  be  remembered  that  the  artist,  no  less  than  the  poet,  should 
speak  the  language  of  his  time,  not  only  because  he  can  only  natu- 
rally find  expression  in  it,  but  because  of  the  direct  appeal  it  makes 
to  those  whom  he  addresses.  To  compel  him  to  invent  his  material 
language  is  like  asking  the  poet  to  write  in  Hebrew  or  Greek,  yet 
the  alternative  to  the  artist  in  these  times  is  analogous  to  restricting 
the  poet  to  slang  or  words  of  one  syllable.  If  the  visible  language  by 
which  alone  an  artist  can  make  his  thought  intelligible  is  out  of  tune 
with  beauty,  the  painter  or  sculptor,  who  is  prompted  by  aspirations 
outside  material  life,  is  forced  to  invent  his  language  or  imitate  what 
has  been  done  in,  for  art,  happier  times,  for  he  cannot  press  into  his 
service  what  is  around  him. 

The  poet  has  an  immense  advantage  over  the  modern  artist,  using 
in  every-day  life  a  noble  and  nervous  language  in  which  his  best 
thoughts  can  find  ready  expression.  But  modern  civilisation  has 
sadly  distorted  that  aspect  of  life  which  is  the  painter's  language. 
Nature,  as  the  poet  deals  with  her,  remains  not  fundamentally  changed 
by  time,  but  in  these  days  great  poetic  ideas  belonging  to  the  past, 
present,  and  future,  must  either  be  expressed  by  the  painter  as  a 
Greek  or  Italian  would  have  rendered  them,  or  he  must  invent  a 
new  method,  or  he  must  take  what  will  suggest  no  noble  effect 
whatever — modern  costume  and  custom.  It  is  too  much  to  expect 
that  he  should  tax  his  powers  to  overcome  difficulties  that  do  not 
legitimately  belong  to  his  art.  Joachim  can  play  admirably  on  one 


1880.          THE  PRESENT  CONDITIONS  OF  ART.  241 

string,  and  that  perhaps  a  bad  one,  doing  infinitely  more  than  an 
ordinary  fiddler  can  with  four  ;  but  we  cannot  therefore  say  that 
the  other  three  are  not  necessary,  or  that  a  great  composition  can  be 
done  justice  to  if  played  on  a  penny  whistle;  great  effects  demand 
proportionate  means,  though  extraordinary  ones  can  be  produced 
with  small. 

We  do  not  ask  from  the  poet  linguistic  feats,  difficulties  overcome. 
We  expect  to  be  delighted,  entranced,  even  inspired,  so  that  we  also, 
his  readers,  feel  for  a  time  that  we  too  are  of  the  prophets.     In  each 
mind  lie  enchained  or  sleeping  '  tricksy  Ariels,'  spirits  of  the  imagi- 
nation.    The  poet  is  the  magician  who,  liberating  them,  imprisoned 
by  ignorance  or  choked  by  the  dust  of  daily  life,  leaves  these  delicate 
spirits  free  for  a  while   to  rise  into  purer  atmospheres.     With  the 
language  of  beauty  in  full  resonance  around  him,  art  was  not  difficult 
to  the  painter  and  sculptor  of  old  as  it  is  with  us.     No  anatomical 
study  will  do  for  the  modern  artist  what  habitual  acquaintance  with 
the  human  form  did  for  Pheidias.     No  Venetian  painted  a  horse  with 
the  truth  and  certainty  of  Horace  Vernet,  who  knew  the  animal  by 
heart,  rode  him,  groomed  him,  and  had  him  constantly  in  his  studio. 
Every  artist  must  paint  what  he  sees,  rather  every  artist  must  paint 
what  is  around  him,  can  produce  no  great  work  unless  he  impress  the 
character  of  his  age  upon  his  production,  not  necessarily  taking  his 
subjects  from  it  (better  if  he  can),  but  taking  the  impress  of  its  life. 
The  great  art  of  Pheidias  did  not  deal  with  the  history  of  his  time, 
but  compressed  into  its  form  the  qualities  of  the  most  intellectual 
period  the  world  has  seen  ;  nor  were  any  materials  to  be  invented  or 
borrowed,  he  had  them  all  at  hand,  expressing  himself  in  a  natural 
language  derived  from  familiarity  with  natural  objects.     Beauty  is 
the  language  of  art,  and  with  this  at  command  thoughts  as  they  arise 
take  visible  form  perhaps  almost  without  effort,  or  (certain  technical 
difficulties  overcome)  with  little  more  than  is  required  in  writing — 
this  not  absolving  the  artist  or  the  poet  from  earnest  thought  andsevere 
study.     In  many  respects  the  present  age  is  far  more  advanced  than 
preceding  times,  incomparably  more  full  of  knowledge ;  but  the  lan- 
guage of  great  art  is  dead,  for  general,  noble  beauty,  pervades  life  no 
more.    The  artist  is  obliged  to  return  to  extinct  forms  of  speech  if  he 
would  speak  as  the  great  ones  have  spoken.     Nc thing  beautiful  is  seen 
around  him,  excepting  always  sky  and  trees  and  sea  ;  these,  as  he  is 
mainly  a  dweller  in  cities,  he  cannot  live  enough  with.     But  it  is, 
perhaps,  in  the  real  estimation  in  which  Art  is  held  that  we  shall  find 
the  reason  for  failure.     If  the  world  cared  for  her  language,  Art  could 
not  help  speaking,  the  utterance  being,  perhaps,  simply  beautiful. 
But  even  in  these  days  when  we  have  ceased  to  prize  this,  if  it  were 
demanded  that  art  should  take  its  place  beside  the  great  intellectual 
outflow  of  the  time,  the  response  would  hardly  be  doubtful. 

As  grace  of  speech  is   incompatible  with  slang  and  vulgar  pro- 


242  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  February 

nunciation,   so  grace  of  manner  is   shorn  of  its  effect  by  ignoble 
costume.     The  dignified  reserve  of  the  Eastern  potentate  or  Venetian 
senator  looks  like  chilling  want  of  sympathy  or  empty  supercilious- 
ness in  the   dress-coat  and   chimney-pot  hat.     Social  habits  have 
become  too  level  and  regular  to   have  any  interests,  pictorial  sugges- 
tions, or  picturesque  surprises.     Any  approach  to  splendour  on  the 
part  of  the  wealthy  or  illustrious  in  position  is  eschewed  as  in  bad 
taste ;  it  is  l  better  form '  for  a  nobleman  to  go  about  in  a  cab,  and 
dress  like  his  own  tailor,  than  to   display  any  magnificence.     There 
are  some  good  reasons  for  this ;  display  of  fortune's  advantages  might 
seem  to  be  a  sort  of  insult  to  those  less  fortunate,  and  simplicity  has 
always  a  charm  of  its  own ;  and  if  this  simplicity  be  real,  and  carried 
out  in  the  spirit  of  Christian  meekness  or  philosophic  serenity,  it  is 
a  good  exchange  for  magnificence.     But  if  the  high  principle  be  not 
carried  through,  there  is  some  loss  sustained ;  the  poetic  side  of  life 
suffers,  some  industries  are  discouraged,  the  world  is  rendered  un- 
necessarily  grey,  the  unconscious  hypocrisy  is  so  much  loss  to  its 
dignity.     The  result  on  art  is  serious.     Portraiture,  now  its  most 
real  expression,  is  deprived  (speaking  of  masculine  portraits)  of  nearly 
all  that  from  an  artistic  point  of  view  can  render  it  valuable  to 
posterity.     It  will  not  do  to  say  that  a  portrait  picture  cannot  be 
made  a  good  and  interesting  piece  of  work,  but  a  man's  portrait  can 
scarcely  be  made  as  a  picture  beautiful,  or  be  cared  for  in  the  future 
as  we  now  care  for  a  Venetian  or  Vandyke  portrait,  without  knowing 
anything  about  the  original.    With  all  these  opposing  conditions  how 
is  a  great  school  of  art,  standing  by  the  side  of  great  literature,  pos- 
sible ?     It  is  the  more  a  pity,  for  the  age  has  become  so  hysterical 
that  every  gracious  relief  to  the  work-worn  soul,  every  natural  source 
of  tender  and  ennobling  pleasure  in  a  climate  so  unfavourable  as  ours 
to  enjoyment  in  mere  existence,  is  priceless.     Poetry  and  literature 
have  with  us  always  well  sustained  their  parts,  and  it  is  a  habit  to 
expect  they  should  do  so :  it  should  be  an  acknowledged  habit  to 
expect  as  much  from  art. 

It  can  hardly  be  affirmed  that  supply  always  equals  demand,  but 
man  can  obtain  nothing  assuredly,  excepting  what  he  has  in  common 
with  the  inferior  animals,  that  he  does  not  ask  for.  What  he  really 
wants  and  really  demands  he  gets,  whether  it  be  of  good  or  evil. 
But  the  present  Englishman  neither  wants  nor  demands  what  is 
noble  in  art,  and  consequently  he  rarely  gets  it.  In  Cenini's  quaint 
book  on  learning  to  draw  and  to  paint,  he  gives  the  receipt  for  pro- 
ducing pictures.  Before  beginning  one,  go  down  on  your  knees  and 
implore  the  aid  of  the  Virgin.  In  those  days  of  unquestioning  faith 
that  was,  probably,  the  actual  habit  of  the  workman ;  in  these  days, 
when  everything  is  questioned,  this  is  not  to  be  expected.  What  ought 
to  be  demanded  is  that  the  artist  should  throw  his  whole  being  into  his 
work,  that  the  religious  fervour  he  may  not  give  to  the  creed  that 


1880.         THE  PRESENT  CONDITIONS  OF  ART.  243 

saints  and  angels  take  visible  interest  in  what  he  is  about,  he  should 
bring  to  bear  upon  what  he  ought  really  to  believe — namely,  that  he 
is  practising  a  noble  and  beautiful  art  that  is  worthy  of  all  his  heart's 
love  and  devotion,  to  be  thought  of  first  when  he  rises  in  the  morning 
and  last  when  he  closes  his  eyes  at  night.     If  this  is  not  so,  let  him 
never  hope  to  stand  with  those  who  are  identified  with  all  that  is 
worthiest  in  the  history  of  nations.     It  is  hardly  too  much  to  claim 
for  art  that  to  it  modern  Greece  chiefly  owes  that  she  is  more  than  a 
name — a  place  of  tombs  like  Babylon  and  Nineveh — and  that  even 
more  than  to  her  literature  she  owes  to  her  art  the  preservation  of  her 
vitality,  so  preserved  as  to  be  capable,  perhaps,  of  reawakening  ;  nor 
that  to  it  Kome,  though   still  the  centre  from  which  the  pulse  of 
the  Christian  Church   beats,  owes  scarcely  less  of  her  present  ex- 
istence.    It   is   to   be   lamented  that   a   nation  which   has    distin- 
guished itself  as   England  has,   in  arms,  in  adventure,  in  science, 
in    poetry,   in   philosophy,    in  philanthropy,   and    in    all   else  that 
relates  to  progress,  should  have  no  art  that  can  fairly  be  placed  on 
the  same  level.     There  must  be  some  reason  for  this,  and  it  may 
be  possible  to  find  it.     Art  is  poetry  manifested  by  science.     We  are 
second  to  none  in  poetry  or  science  :  why  in  the  necessary  combina- 
tion ?     It  is  probably  because  the  earnest  endeavour  recommended  by 
Cenini  is  not  called  for  by  earnest  interest  in  its  doing  on  the  part  of 
the  nation ;  its  soul  is  not  really  felt,  nor  its  presence  desired ;  it  is 
not  regarded  as  the  companion  of  serious  moments,  or  as  having  any" 
thing  to  do  with  our  material  welfare,  that  welfare  which  has  become 
so  engrossing  a  religion  in  modern  life.     Art  is  treated  as  a  plaything, 
nothing  more.     While  this  is  the  case,  artists  will  employ  themselves 
in  making  toys,  and  the  annual  exhibition  will  be  cared  for  by  the 
nation  pretty  much  as  a  Christmas  tree  is,  not  so  important  an  insti- 
tution by  half  as  the  Maypole  formerly  was. 

Now  it  might  be  well  to  ask  whether  great  art  is  really  a  ne- 
cessity in  the  development  of  a  nation's  history — if  it  be  a  necessary 
constituent  in  general  social  perfection.  We  cannot  question  the 
progress  of  civilisation,  for  it  is  easy  to  point  to  conquest  over  inferior 
races,  impatience  of  injustice  and  extension  of  sympathy ;  but  it  is  a 
melancholy  truth  that  progress  is  not  all  clear  gain.  It  destroys  as 
well  as  constructs.  Decay  follows  up  behind  advance,  and  many  things 
hourly  drop  out  of  existence  which  humanity  can  ill  spare,  though  at 
the  moment  it  may  set  little  store  by  them.  Modern  habits  of  inves- 
tigation have  sapped  unquestioning  faith,  and  have  not  supplied 
anything  more  consoling.  Material  prosperity  has  become  our  real 
god,  but  we  are  surprised  to  find  that  the  worship  of  this  visible  deity 
does  not  make  us  happy,  and  more  than  begin  to  suspect  that  we 
cannot,  by  any  earnestness  of  sacrifice,  bind  him  to  us.  The  one 
thing  which  is  more  than  ever  clearly  perceived  is  the  density  of  the 
veil  that  covers  the  mystery  of  our  being,  at  all  times  impenetrable 


244  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  February 

and  to  be  impenetrable,  in  spite  of  which  conviction  we  ever  passion- 
ately yearn  to  pierce  it.  This  yearning  finds  its  natural  expression  in 
poetry,  in  art,  and  in  music.  These  are  ministers  of  the  most  divine 
part  of  our  natures.  Materialism  may  sneer  at  imperfect  utter- 
ance, but  through  the  incoherence  will  often  thrill  that  note  which 
awakens  a  responsive  chord  in  the  best  side  of  humanity.  Among 
the  best  gifts  bestowed  upon  us  is  the  sense  (in  the  widest  accepta- 
tion of  the  term)  of  beauty,  and  first  among  the  servants  of  beauty  is 
art.  As  before  said,  in  an  age  so  given  to  look  only  for  material,  in- 
dustrial, and  self-evident  advantages  as  the  present, all  elements  that  are 
not  immediately  concerned  in  the  production  of  material  advantages 
are  too  commonly  set  aside,  as  belonging  to  the  fanciful  and  unpracti- 
cal, only  to  be  thought  of  in  intervals  of  breathing-time,  rarely  per- 
mitted in  the  real  struggle  of  life.  Yet  that  possible  state  of  social 
harmony,  of  well-being  of  humanity,  which  even  common  philosophy  is 
beginning  to  have  a  glimpse  of,  can  only  be  attained  by  the  activity  of 
all  the  intellectual  faculties  working  harmoniously  together.  The 
importance  of  demands  upon  activity  which  provide  occupations  and 
consequently  means  of  sustenance  for  different  classes  of  hand-workers 
is  obvious,  and  they  are  naturally  estimated  at  their  worth  ;  but  it 
is  less  clearly  seen  that  the  promotion  of  social  sympathies  is  of  not 
less  importance,  that  the  activity  which  secures  the  satisfaction  of  the 
physical  requirements  alone  will  by  no  means  secure  the  happiness  of 
the  individual,  still  less  of  a  family,  least  of  all  of  the  widely  ex- 
tended social  correspondence  to  which  progress  points  as  its  object 
and  end. 

From  a  sufficiently  elevated  point  of  view,  the  eye  of  the  philo- 
sopher may  perceive  that  all  things  are  tending  to  bring  about 
the  social  brotherhood  which  shall  eradicate  purely  personal  and 
selfish  interests,  when  each  shall  understand  the  necessity  to  do  or 
suffer  for  public  good,  when  each  shall  realise  himself  to  be  part  of 
a  whole,  not  merely  of  a  family,  of  a  state,  or  even  of  a  world,  but  of 
the  great  scheme  of  creation,  dust  or  oil  helping  to  retard  or  impel 
the  grand  machine.  The  present  warfare  may  be  left  to  burn  itself 
out,  and  optimists  are  perhaps  right  in  feeling  confidence  that  all  will 
end  well ;  but,  except  materially,  the  present  age  is  rather  destruc- 
tive than  constructive,  and,  unless  counteracting  influences  can  be 
brought  to  bear,  England  may  be  found  left,  when  the  time  for  more 
enlightened  cravings  shall  come,  without  a  tree  or  a  hedgerow — a 
mass  of  unsightly  shells  of  uninhabited  houses,  a  hideous  network  of 
unused  railways  ;  and,  as  we  now  lament  the  destructive  work  of 
the  Puritans,  we  may  in  a  future  day  lament  too  late,  as  Eachel 
weeping  for  her  children,  the  things  that  are  not — the  beauty  nature 
gave  and  materialism  ruthlessly  destroyed,  blindly  refusing  to  see 
her  wholesome  use. 

The  age  is  analytical  and  unsatisfied.     Childlike  enjoyment  in 


1880.          THE  PRESENT  CONDITIONS  OF  ART.  215 

anything  for  its  own  sake  has  almost  departed,  giving  place  in  art  at 
least  to  querulous  questioning  or  frantic  admiration.  The  fever  of  the 
grear  Revolution  still  infects  the  blood  of  Europe,  and  still  through  the 
dread  malaise  there  is  an  ever-gathering  sense  of  what  man  owes  to 
man,  a  feeling  little  recognised  and  wholly  undirected  as  a  governing 
principle  in  the  Middle  Ages  ;  and  it  is  this  consciousness  which  is 
perhaps  the  great  characteristic  of  modern  time.  Pointed  to  dis- 
tinctly in  the  scheme  of  Christianity,  it  formed  a  very  slight  part  of 
the  dogmas  of  the  Church,  and  its  development  later  is  due  rather 
to  philosophical  culture  than  to  the  teaching  of  theologians. 
This,  in  thinking  minds,  has  created  a  suspicion  of  claims  to  divine 
inspiration — a  feeling  that,  if  so  large  a  truth  has  been  left  to  natural 
religion  to  develope,  there  is  something  outside  and  beyond  the 
Church,  or  that  the  Church  has  neglected  her  work.  Peace  and  good 
will — these  were  the  first  and  new  principles  announced  by  the 
tidings,  and  should  have  been,  and  should  be,  the  first  principles 
carried  out  by  the  Christian  Church.  The  success  of  all  Church 
teaching  has  been  in  proportion  to  appeals  made  to  the  imagination 
in  one  of  two  directions,  dread  of  punishment  or  sympathy  with 
fellow-men — Dominic  or  Francis.  The  first  is  most  active,  and 
has  shaped  the  course  of  events  since  the  abolition  of  paganism,  but 
the  second  has  the  most  real  root ;  the  noblest  natures  will  always 
secretly  doubt  or  openly  defy  the  first,  the  second  will  have  every 
shade  of  opinion  going  with  it.  Intellect  will  acknowledge  its 
divinity ;  ignorance,  if  not  absolutely  brutal,  will  feel  its  natural  truth. 

Beautiful  as  was  the  groundwork  of  her  institution,  and  mighty 
as  are  her  claims  upon  the  gratitude  of  mankind,  it  is  to  be  lamented 
that  the  Church  of  Rome  too  often  ignored  the  mainspring  of  her 
mission.  The  deadly  penalties  of  excommunication  rigorously  en- 
forced in  the  eleventh  century  to  crush  out  the  domestic  life  of  the 
virtuous  Robert  and  Berthe  of  France,  to  avenge  a  probably  unpre- 
meditated slight,  were  soon  in  the  same  century  sutfered  to  fall  into 
abeyance  when  the  great  seigneurs  found  the  treve  de  Dieu  incon- 
venient ;  though  this  treve  was  one  of  the  most  holy  efforts  made  by 
the  Church  during  those  long  cruel  centuries  in  the  direction  of  the 
general  good,  of  humanity,  and  of  Christian  principles. 

Had  the  Church  known  the  source  of  her  real  power,  and  relied 
more  upon  this  deep  root  of  tender  sympathy,  it  is  probable  that 
most  of  the  evident  success  of  the  theological  revolutions  would 
have  been  avoided.  '  How  these  Christians  love  one  another,' 
should  have  been  extended  into  '  How  those  Christians  love 
humanity.'  The  noble  principle  of  love  of  Grod,  taught  to  natures 
spiritually  uncultured,  was  sure  to  become  in  practice  obscured 
by  fantastic  dogmas,  whereas  the  simple  principle  of  love  of  their 
fellow-men,  going  straight  to  every  heart,  and  using  every  natural 
and  beautiful  human  instinct  in  its  service,  becoming  habitual 
VOL.  VI L— No.  36.  S 


246  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  February 

from  habitual  teaching,  would  have  harmonised  their  thoughts 
and  lives  with  inspiration,  and  led  up  to  the  highest  without  any 
shock  to  intellectual  independence  or  vanity.  Upon  such  founda- 
tions the  Church  might  have  defied  any  irruption  of  opinion  and 
assertions  of  freedom  of  investigation.  Although  it  is  true  the 
greater  contains  the  less,  it  is  no  less  true  that  man  only  arrives  at 
what  is  of  practical  and  permanent  value  by  upward  steps  from  the 
lowest  ground.  Imagination  may  first  sweep  the  range  and  take  in 
the  sublime  principle,  but  all  that  is  most  solid  is  ever  built  of  the 
simplest  material  and  upon  the  level  ground.  Human  sympathy, 
though  the  simplest  and  most  distinct  principle  of  Christianity,  has 
been  far  more  insisted  upon  by  philosophers  and  lay  writers  than  by 
theologians. 

The  invention  of  printing  having  given  to  the  world  the  rich  har- 
vest of  accumulated  thought,  this  comparative  neglect  of  the  first  prin- 
ciples has  become  apparent,  and  distrust  and  opposition  have  been  the 
consequence.  Natural  religion  has  become  antagonistic  to  revealed 
religion,  which  never  need  have  been.  This  antagonism  has  had  the 
fatal  result  of  developing  a  materialistic  tendency  which  does  not 
make  life  more  satisfactory,  and  which  seems  to  have  sapped  all 
chivalry  and  beauty  out  of  modern  social  habits  ;  daily  social  life 
losing,  with  its  former  ceremoniousness,  almost  all  dignity  and  grace, 
and  with  its  various  superstitions,  almost  all  fancy.  Art  of  the 
highest  kind  is  deprived  of  its  very  breath,  and  must  die.  Chivalry 
was  infinitely  gracious,  not  unpractical,  nor  in  any  way  inimical  to 
any  consoling  or  Christian  faith,  nor,  if  widely  practised,  to  any  just 
worldly  interests.  Had  it  been  encouraged  to  pervade  all  ranks  in 
the  army  of  life,  many  of  our  greatest  social  difficulties  might  never 
have  arisen.  Most  certain  is  it  that,  for  the  good  of  modern  society, 
all  the  refining  influences  and  elevation  of  feeling  which  the  highest 
thought  of  the  time  can  give  should  be  encouraged  to  battle  success- 
fully against  the  selfishness,  brutality,  and  dishonesty,  which  the 
worship  of  the  false  god,  the  Golden  Calf,  has  created. 

John  Albert  de  Mandelso  visited  Japan  and  China,  A.D.  1639.  Of 
the  former  he  says  :  '  They  are  so  ambitious  and  highly  conceited  of 
themselves,  that  it  is  seldom  seen  a  Japanese  does  anything  where- 
with he  might  be  reproached.  But,  on  the  contrary,  they  would 
rather  lose  their  lives  than  betray  their  honour.'  What  have  they  to 
gain  from  modern  European  civilisation  ? 

The  development  of  social  sympathies  can  alone  restrain  the 
fierce  struggle  for  personal  interest  natural  to  man.  This  might 
be  overcome,  in  the  course  of  time,  by  the  inevitable  action  and 
reaction  of  consequences ;  but  poetry  and  the  fine  arts,  with  their 
softening  and  ennobling  influence,  are  necessary,  more  than  ever 
necessary,  during  the  war  of  master  interest,  to  keep  awake  the  holy 
fire  of  loftier  impulse  which,  if  lost,  would  be  difficult  to  rekindle. 


1880.          THE  PRESENT  CONDITIONS  OF  ART.  247 

It  should  be  felt  that  for  a  nation  there  is  no  surer  road,  no  other 
safe  road,  than  trustworthiness  and  honour.  For  this  end  the 
whole  community  should  become  convinced  that  what  is  possessed  of 
intellect,  of  dignity  of  position,  of  acquirement,  of  wealth,  and  of 
strength  should  be  held  in  trust,  and  used  for  general  benefit  and 
advantage,  by  no  means  implying  that  it  should  not  also  be  used  for 
personal  and  present  enjoyment.  Life  should,  by  all  possible  right 
means,  be  made  enjoyable  and  beautiful  to  every  one.  To  make  the 
hand-worker  take  interest  in  his  work,  it  is  necessary  to  give  him  as 
much  pleasure  as  possible ;  each  should  encourage  each  not  to  outwit 
but  to  do  better  than  others,  the  handworker  to  be  afraid  not  of  doing 
too  much  work,  but  of  not  doing  it  well  enough.  Such  trades- 
unionism  would  not  drive  away  trade  from  British  shores,  an  ideal 
perhaps  impossible,  but  at  least  not  impossible  of  aim. 

It  is. probable  we  shall  no  longer  be  able  successfully  to  compete 
with  some  nations  in  material  conditions ;  therefore,  if  we  would  not 
be  beaten  in  the  great  battle  of  life,  we  must  shift  the  contest  to  higher 
ground,  where  pre-eminence  will  be  still  more  glorious.  Could  we 
but  have  c  Japanese  conceit,'  governed  by  the  principles  Christian 
peoples  profess,  and  directed  by  the  spirit  of  chivalry,  the  hand- 
worker cheered  by  sympathetic  appreciation  of  his  labour  and  help 
in  his  need,  and  those  placed  above  such  struggle  for  life  alive  to 
the  duties  of  their  advantages,  actively  instigated  by  the  sense  that 
what  is  possessed  by  the  strong  should  be  held  in  trust,  a  possible 
Utopia  is  discerned.  How  often  must  our  sense  of  the  perfectibility 
of  things  sigh  over  improbable  possibility !  To  such  as  are  placed 
high  the  speech  of  Sarpedon  to  Glaucus  should  never  be  forgotten, 
and  the  friends  of  the  people,  still  teaching  to  the  people  what  is 
owing  to  them,  should,  at  the  same  time,  teach  what  they  owe  to 
themselves,  their  country,  and  to  human  nature. 

All  this  is  trite  enough,  and  may  seem  to  be  out  of  place  in  an 
article  upon  art,  but,  in  the  widest  sense,  it  is  not,  as  it  is  claimed 
for  art  by  elevation  of  character  to  be  in  harmony  with  the  most 
extended  views,  and  it  is  especially  contended  that  such  harmony 
should  be  expected  and  demanded. 

Even  the  most  hardened  materialist  has  some  latent  instinct  of 
poetry  and  beauty,  and  should  feel  that  these  elements  in  life  help  on 
his  '  serious  work,'  as  music  is  necessary  to  lighten  physical  labour, 
the  spirit-stirring  march  renewing  energy  in  the  weary  soldier  as  he 
struggles  exhausted  and  foot-sore  to  his  camping  ground.  Certainly 
the  influence  of  poetry  and  the  fine  arts  is  more  than  ever  valuable ; 
but,  to  have  any  worthy  influence,  they  clearly  must  not  be  trivial. 
It  is  desirable  that  heroic  art,  noble  and  beautiful  in  thought  and 
execution,  should  be  demanded,  fostered,  and  seriously  treated,  cer- 
tainly not  exempted  from  criticism,  but  in  this,  as  in  other  respects, 
placed  by  the  side  of  the  highest  literature.  It  should  be  expected 

s2 


248  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY.  February 

from  the  artist  that  the  sentiments,  requirements,  and  aspirations  of 
his  country  and  age  should  find  worthy  expression  in  the  character  of 
his  work. 

One  of  the  unfavourable  conditions  in  modern  life  which  hinders 
the  production  of  such  art  is  undoubtedly  the  manner  in  which  art 
is  criticised.  Criticism  in  modern  times  has  become  a  profession,  and 
should  be  exercised  with  the  regard  due  to  the  dignity  of  a  profession ; 
from  the  moment  a  standing  army  is  organised,  there  should  be  no 
marauding  free  lances.  No  real  artist  will  object  to  manly  honest 
criticism,  however  severe.  If  he  rather  wishes  to  do  well  than  be 
thought  to  do  well,  he  will  value  help  from  any  quarter.  He  wishes 
to  stand  on  a  level  with  the  great  thinkers  and  producers  of  his  coun- 
try, and  any  who  will  help  him  to  achieve  this  he  will  regard  as  bene- 
factors ;  but  he  will  expect  to  be  judged  by  principles  and  not  by 
individual  opinion,  by  reflection  and  not  hasty  conclusion.  Sir  Joshua 
Reynolds  confesses  that  he  was  at  first  quite  unable  to  appreciate  the 
cartoons  of  Raphael,  and  if  he  had  at  the  time  given  his  opinion  to 
the  world  after  the  manner  of  ordinary  critics,  it  would  have  con- 
demned them  utterly.  There  are  many  who  would  still  do  so,  and  from 
their  point  of  view  they  would  be  right.  There  is  in  them  no  more 
appeal  to  our  sympathies  through  a  realistic  channel  than  there  is  in 
Spenser,  nor  any  appeal  made  through  our  knowledge  of  historical 
probability. 

Payne  Knight  condemned  the  Parthenon  fragments.  It  is  not  to 
be  supposed  he  was  in  reality  incapable  of  perceiving,  at  least  in  some 
degree,  their  excellence,  if  time  had  been  given  to  unlearn  and  outgrow 
preconceived  notions :  but  they  were  presented  to  him  in  a  cellar,  and 
were  unlike  what  he  had  expected.  Obvious  qualities  were  absent. 
Missing  the  evident  anatomical  combination  of  cords  and  pulleys,  and 
the  hard  geometrical  marking  of  the  Roman-Greek  workmanship,  the 
fine  distinctions  between  bone  and  muscle  and  sinew — to  eyes  unaccus- 
tomed to  such  delicacy — looked  like  want  of  precision.  With  the  critic's 
(we  will  not  say  arrogance,  but)  haste,  he  flared  and  sputtered,  and  if 
Pheidias  could  have  been  put  down  by  the  critic,  there  was  an  end  to 
him  ;  nay,  there  very  nearly  was  an  end  of  him  as  far  as  our  possession 
of  these  immortal  works  is  concerned.  (Much  influence  have  they 
had  in  art !)  All  honour  to  Haydon,  who  dashed  like  a  Paladin  to 
the  rescue  and  put  the  critic  out  for  ever.  But  both  in  the  case  of  the 
cartoons  and  the  Parthenon  fragments,  the  public  has  had  the  oppor- 
tunity of  maturing  its  judgment. 

The  modern  habit  of  gathering  immense  numbers  of  pictures 
together,  to  be  hastily  viewed  and  dismissed,  cannot  but  be  very 
injurious. 

It  is  not  with  the  artist  as  with  the  poet,  who  writes  with  a 
consciousness  that  his  work  may  have  an  appeal  to  posterity.  The 
painter's  works  are  not  in  the  hands  of  the  public,  revisited  and 


1880.          THE  PRESENT  CONDITIONS   OF  ART.  249 

reconsidered  till  opinion  is  sifted  and  judgment  matured.  He  is 
expected  to  make  the  same  sudden  effect  that  is  expected  from  an 
actor,  and  even  the  actor  is  not  approved  or  condemned  after  five 
minutes'  attention.  His  pictures  are  not  seen  after  exhibition,  and 
the  injury  done  to  him  is  permanent,  at  least  for  a  year.  A  picture 
published  in  one  of  these  exhibitions  and  condemned  is  done  for  ;  it 
finds  no  purchaser,  and  the  public,  seeing  it  no  more,  never  has  an 
opportunity  of  reconsidering  its  verdict.  It  is  not  contended  that 
unfavourable  criticism  must  necessarily  be  wrong ;  it  is  only  re- 
quired that,  considering  the  amount  of  injury  that  may  be  done,  it 
should  be  remembered  how  often  opinion  has  been  at  fault.  Had  it 
been  possible  to  destroy  Wordsworth  and  Keats,  the  early  criticism  on 
their  work  would  have  certainly  annihilated  them.  Sartor  Resartus 
was  so  unpopular,  that  many  subscribers  to  the  magazine  in  which  it 
was  published  withdrew  their  names.  The  critic  may  be  right ;  all 
that  is  asked  is,  that  he  should  have  the  good  sense,  good  taste,  and 
good  feeling  to  admit,  while  disapproving,  that  there  are  difficulties 
in  the  way  of  judgment,  and  that  possibly  a  longer  acquaintance 
might  induce  some  change  of  opinion.  The  artist  has  no  right  to 
quarrel  with  criticism,  however  hard  it  may  hit  him,  provided  it  be 
honest  and  sufficiently  thoughtful,  but  he  has  a  right  to  feel  dissatisfied 
with  crude  opinion  expressed  with  an  assurance  that  nothing  but  the 
most  consummate  taste  and  real  knowledge  could  justify.  The  artist 
does  not  produce  for  artists  only  or  mainly,  and  the  claim  of  all  culti- 
vated intellect  to  sit  in  judgment  must  be  allowed ;  nay,  the  artist 
will  often  profit  by  the  opinion  of  the  uncultivated.  The  ordinary 
critic  points  out,  for  the  admiration  of  the  ignorant,  and  as  if 
possessing  the  highest  importance,  those  things  which  the  ignorant 
can  admire  without  teaching.  He  constantly  asks  for  one  set  of  pro- 
babilities likely  to  be  the  result  of  a  condition  the  artist  is  notv 
dealing  with,  and  altogether  forgets  others  really  important.  He  is 
impatient  of  anything  like  reticence  in  form  and  colour,  and  thinks 
the  same  manner  of  work  equally  good  for  any  subject.  Much  as 
we  admire  their  genius,  we  should  not  wish  Hogarth  to  illustrate 
the  Book  of  Job,  or  Dickens  to  translate  Dante ;  but  many  an  art 
critic  writes  as  if  he  could  confidently  undertake  to  illustrate  the 
Pentateuch  and  rush  in  where  angels  fear  to  tread.  The  only  thing 
the  ordinary  critic  can  really  judge  of  in  his  hasty  view  is  exhibi- 
tion force,  and  this  he  naturally  applauds,  till  the  one  great  object  of 
the  modern  exhibitor  is  to  make  his  work  telling  amdng  new  frames 
and  crude  colours.  This,  however  much  praise  may  be  justly  given 
to  force,  is  hardly  the  way  to  call  out  the  higher  qualities  of  the 
painter.  Surely  firmness,  precision,  and  loudness,  however  valuable 
in  instrumentation,  would  hardly  be  insisted  on  by  musicians  to  the 
almost  entire  ignoring  of  time  and  tune  ;  still  less  would  such  qualities 
influence  the  great  composer  in  the  combination  of  his  score.  What 


250  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  February 

will  become  of  poetry  and  literature  generally  when  vigour  of  expression 
comes  to  be  almost  exclusively  valued  ?  In  olden  times  the  picture 
was  painted  for  a  church  or  public  building  to  be  constantly  in  view 
of  the  public,  or,  if  painted  for  a  king  or  a  great  noble,  hung  amidst 
surroundings  which  had  their  influence  upon  the  artist.  In  each 
case  the  artist's  best  self  was  imported  into  his  work  consciously  or 
unconsciously.  Now,  consciously  or  unconsciously,  he  feels  that  he 
is  working  for  an  immediate  and  transient  effect,  that  his  work  will 
stand  a  peculiar  competition,  that  it  will  be  criticised,  hastily  at 
best,  and  will  have,  as  far  as  the  public  is  concerned,  no. .future 
beyond  the  exhibition  in  which  it  appears. 

Till  art  is  regarded  from  the  same  kind  of  standpoint  as  literature 
we  can  have  no  great  art  in  England ;  and  till  the  same  feelings 
are  enlisted  in  the  matter  as  have  nerved  our  courage  for  adven- 
ture, steadied  it  to  bear  and  prompted  it  to  resolve — till  our  pride 
as  a  people,  the  sentiment  that  made  us  great,  and,  ceasing,  will 
leave  us  indeed  a  nation  of  shopkeepers — till  the  exaggerated  patriot- 
ism that  the  philosopher  may  smile  at  and  the  cosmopolitan  condemn, 
but  which  no  great  people  have  ever  been  without,  is  brought  to  bear 
on  the  subject  of  art,  there  can  be  none  to  stand  by  the  side  of  our 
literature.     When  art  is  the  subject  of  discussion,  we  at  once  drop 
upon  a  lower  level.     It  is  rather  understood  to  have  reference  to  a 
collection  of  pictures  exhibited  during   what  is  called  the  season. 
Applause  is  bestowed  upon  superficial  excellence,  and  the  painter 
is   encouraged  to   depend   upon   it.      The    highest   qualities  of  art 
appeal  to  the  finest  powers  of  judgment,  the  most  difficult  to  ex- 
ercise under  the  conditions  presented  by  modern   exhibitions.     An 
Academy  Exhibition  room  is  no  place  for  a  grave  deliberate  work 
of  art.     It  is  seen  to  no  advantage  there,  being  out  of  place.     An 
after-dinner  speech  must  not  be  an  essay,  still  less  an  epic.     "We  are 
elated  by  champagne  and  light  buzz  of  talk,  the  room  is  hot,  and 
the  smell  of  mixed  viands  confounding  to  our  senses.     We  must  have 
something  light,  epigrammatic,  not  too  long,  or  we  shall  be  bored  to 
death.     Imagine  the  bard  or  historian  giving  out  his  inspirations 
under  these  conditions  and  restricted  to  them,  what  would  be  the 
result?     Yet  it  is  art  that  corresponds  to   the  highest  literature, 
both  in  intention  and  effect,  which  must  be  demanded  of  our  artists, 
poems  painted  on  canvas,  judged  and  criticised  as  are  the  poems 
written  on  paper,  which  the  public  caring  for  art  ought  to  call  for 
and  encourage.     The  work  which  has  in  it  all  the  heart  and  brain 
and  serious  life  of  the  artist  who  does  it,  is  at  least   worthy   for 
these  reasons  of  very  serious  consideration,  and  under  the  conditions 
of   heterogeneous    exhibition  just   judgment   would   be   impossible 
even  if  sufficient  time  were  given. 

A  glance  backwards  at  the  history  of  art-students  will  show  us  one 
man  after  another   starting  with   high   resolve,   to  sink  exhausted 


1880.         THE  PRESENT  CONDITIONS  OF  ART.  251 

for  want  of  encouragement  and  be  known  no  more,  or  subside  into 
popularity  by  responding  to  popular  expectation.  Modern  public 
exhibitions  are  most  unfavourable,  it  may  be  said  disastrous,  to  the  best 
interests  of  art — good  perhaps  for  industry,  but  injurious  to  art  as  art. 

The  analytical  intricate  mode  in  which  modern  thought  works 
has  perhaps  something  to  dc.  with  the  real  want  of  interest  in  serious 
art.  Art  can  never  be  an  appeal  to  our  reason,  it  cannot  even  be  an 
appeal  to  our  knowledge  of  complex  human  nature ;  therefore  the 
working  out  of  intricate  emotions  and  conflicting  passions  must  be 
beyond  it.  Again,  subjects  for  the  painter  are  not  those  that  appeal 
to  the  memory,  however  connected  with  noble  events,  but  those 
appealing  to  the  finest  sensibilities  and  loftiest  emotions.  Ordinary 
historical  pictures,  which  are  little  but  costume  pieces,  make  a  call 
upon  the  memory,  religious  subjects  upon  the  emotional  side  of  the 
mind.  The  phrase  *  religious '  must  be  understood  to  mean  all  sub- 
jects that  can  make  this  appeal.  The  treatment  of  such  subjects  will 
often  involve,  to  the  purely  analytical  mind,  ludicrous  combinations, 
such  as  wings  growing  where  they  are  quite  impossible,  material 
drapery  upon  beings  altogether  of  another  element,  and'many  other 
such-like  things.  But  these  considerations  may  be  put  aside  if  the 
result  be  majestic  and  beautiful,  capable  of  enlisting  the  imagina- 
tion and  making  a  poet  of  the  spectator.  This  indeed  should  be  the 
test,  alike  in  pure  poetry  and  poetic  art — that  the  mind  of  the  reader 
or  spectator  should  be  so  drawn  up  and  tuned  as  to  respond  to  and 
carry  on  the  strain. 

All  intellectual  works,  whether  dealing  with  words  or  forms, 
literary  or  artistic,  are  to  be  valued  in  proportion  as  they  supply 
us  with  ideas,  or  delight  by  beauty  ;  for  the  literature  that  does 
not  add  something  to  our  intellectual  store,  the  poetry  that  does 
not  make  us  feel,  while  we  are  under  its  influence,  like  poets, 
the  picture  that  does  not  fan  into  a  glow  our  sense  of  beauty, 
whether  as  connected  with  charm  or  glory,  has  no  sufficient  reason 
for  existence.  This  is  said  with  reference  chiefly  to  serious  efforts  ; 
light  amusing  writing  and  playful  art  are  not  undervalued,  these 
being  often  admirable,  and  having  a  very  wholesome  influence 
not  to  be  spared  in  a  hard-working  world.  In  an  ordinary  his- 
torical picture,  the  recollection  of  the  spectator  is  awakened  and 
carries  on  the  story ;  in  the  intellectual  and  poetic  work,  the  mind 
carries  on  the  poetic  idea;  and  this  is  high  art,  and  this  alone.  The 
subject  may  be  a  dog  leaning  his  head  on  his  old  master's  coffin,  or 
the  creation  of  Adam.  A  subject  of  comparatively  slight  interest 
may  be  easily  turned  into  one  adapted  to  let  loose  a  flood  of  thoughts. 
The  man  with  the  iron  mask  in  his  cell  would  make  an  ordinary  pot- 
boiler, but  the  figure  laid  out  in  death,  with  Louis  the  Fourteenth,  the 
mask  in  hand,  looking  at  the  dead  man's  face,  perhaps  for  the  first  time, 
certainly  for  the  last,  would  be  suggestive  of  a  host  of  ideas — not  cut 


252  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY.  February 

and  dried  by  the  historian,  but  springing  spontaneously  out  of  the  sub- 
ject. It  may  be  too  much  to  say  that  art  has  no  right  to  exist  unless 
it  is  beautiful,  but  it  is  not  too  much  to  say  there  is,  in  that  case,  no 
use  in  it.  A  squalid  subject  treated  in  an  ugly  manner,  or  a  terrible 
one  in  a  brutal  manner,  whatever  may  be  its  power,  will  never  take  a 
first  place  ;  it  will  be  a  brawler  outside  the  temple  of  Fame.  As  far 
as  regards  the  highest  art  and  poetry,  the  atmosphere  of  that  temple  is 
serene  and  untroubled.  It  will  not  do  to  say  that  the  goddess  shuts  her 
gates  upon  all  violence ;  on  the  contrary,  atrocious  deeds  do  often  shape 
events  which  fill  the  world  with  calamity  and  clamour,  violence  ever 
to  be  renewed,  the  means  defeating  the  end.  These  are  remembered  but 
too  well,  become  only  too  famous.  But  art  affects  impressions  only,  and 
does  not  create  facts,  and  it  is  instinctively  felt  that  the  real  province 
of  art  is  to  deal  with  what  is  beautiful  and  ennobling.  It  may  not 
do  to  insist  too  strictly  on  such  limits,  especially  in  times  when  the 
material  conditions  the  artist  must  use  are  not  beautiful  or  noble  ;  but 
if  what  he  has  to  represent  fails  in  this  respect,  it  cannot  be  less 
imperative  that  he  should  get  what  beauty  he  can  into  his  produc- 
tion as  a  piece  of  hand-work.  Perfect  workmanship  should  always 
be  required.  This  unfortunately  ceased  with  Vandyke,2  though  vigor- 
ous and  almost  always  noble  workmanship  is  to  be  found  in  the  works 
of  Eeynolds,  and  dexterous  workmanship  in  Gainsborough,  but  for 
pure  beauty  it  will  be  necessary  to  go  back  to  Lippi,  Van  Eyck, 
Bellini  and  his  school.  The  clear  edge,  the  purity  of  colour,  the 
serene  precision  of  the  touch  disappear  even  in  the  later  works  of 
Titian,  supreme  as  they  are ;  in  the  arrogance  of  power  the  serene 
perfection  that  can  accompany  humility  only  retires  from  the  turmoil 
of  splendour.  The  power  of  Titian  and  Tintoret  might  console 
perhaps  for  the  loss  of  the  more  exquisite  workmanship,  but  till  that 
is  possessed  the  painter  should  hold  by  the  latter,  which  the  critic 
should  ever  insist  upon.  The  notion  of  power  is  a  baneful  idea  to 
get  into  a  painter's  head.  It  is  an  effective  quality,  but  one  to  which 
too  much  should  not  be  sacrificed.  The  sustained  power  that  gives 
one  the  idea  of  reticence  is  the  quality  that  retains  a  permanent  hold 
upon  the  spectator. 

Setting  aside  the  wider  and  more  generous  question  of  universal 
importance,  the  natural  interest  of  family  and  country  should  create 
a  regret  that  the  nation  so  distinguished,  materially,  intellectually, 
and  morally,  as  the  English  nation  may  fairly  claim  to  be,  has  created 
no  art  of  the  highest  poetic  reach  that  can  be  placed  on  a  level  with 
its  other  achievements.  England  has  realised  a  position  unparalleled 
in  the  history  of  nations ;  her  race,  language,  and  institutions  are 
spread  over  the  whole  habitable  world.  Let  us  be  proud,  but  proud 
with  anxious  sense  of  responsibilities  that  make  demand  for  the  active 

*  It  must  be  understood  that  these  remarks,  and  all  remarks  of  a  critical  nature, 
are  intended  to  have  only  a  most  general  application  to  contemporary  art. 


1880.          THE  PRESENT  CONDITIONS  OF  ART.  253 

exercise  of  all  the  highest  qualities  of  human  nature.  Proud  of 
being  Englishmen  we  may  justly  be,  for  the  position  we  hold  implies 
that,  with  all  our  faults,  we  possess  many  of  the  greatest  endowments. 
One  of  the  greatest  proofs — as  great  a  proof  probably  as  can  reasonably 
be  looked  for — of  innate  worth  to  explain  great  success,  is  to  be  found 
in  the  fact  that  Englishmen  applaud  well-earned  victory  over  them- 
selves. A  Frenchman  wins  the  Derby,  a  Canadian  the  scullers'  race  ; 
Australians  win  in  the  cricket-field  amid  deafening  cheers.  (All  these 
victories,  it  must  be  remembered,  are  in  things  which  the  Englishman 
thinks  are  his  special  property.)  This,  it  may  be  asserted  without 
much  likelihood  of  contradiction,  would  be  found  nowhere  else  in  the 
world,  and  is  true  nobility,  the  nobility  of  feeling  that  prefers  worth 
to  self. 

Fortunate  accidents  may  place  an  unworthy  individual  above  his 
fellows  on  the  pinnacle  of  greatness,  and  he  may  die  before  Nemesis 
overtakes  him.  The  life  of  man  is  but  short  at  the  longest,  but  the 
life  of  a  nation  is  long  enough  to  permit  the  halting  goddess  to  come 
up.  That  great  qualities  have  been  the  source  of  our  influence  can- 
not be  doubted,  but  it  will  require  greater  to  preserve  it — greater  in 
the  greatest  sense,  courage  and  honour,  truth  and  widespread  sym- 
pathy. The  highest  patriotism  is  to  perceive  what  constitutes  the 
real  greatness  of  the  nation,  how  far  its  grasp  and  influence  are  bene- 
ficial to  humanity  and  in  accordance  with  true  progress — courage 
to  hold,  greater  courage  to  let  go  her  hold  when  justice  demands,  or 
nobler  hands  can  take  the  guidance.  These  things  are  more  or  less 
widely,  more  or  less  dimly  felt,  and  we  should  be  encouraged  to  feel 
just  pride  in  taking  the  lead  in  material  social  progress,  that  we 
may  understand  and  desire  a  just  pride  in  taking  the  lead  in  higher 
developments.  No  one  will  dispute  in  theory  that  the  fine  arts 
belong  as  much  as  science  and  literature  to  these  higher  develop- 
ments, but  practically,  as  has  before  been  said,  that  application  of  art 
which  alone  can  claim  this  power  is  not  demanded,  and  therefore  is 
most  rarely  produced.  It  is  not  contended  that  it  is  desirable  to 
encourage  specially  any  particular  direction  of  art  genius  :  that  may 
be  left  to  national  character  and  the  age  to  determine,  but  it  is 
necessary  that  the  qualities  that  have  made  us  great  in  other  mani- 
festations of  mind  and  character  should  be  demanded,  else  it  is 
useless  to  expect  that  art  can  maintain  a  first  place  in  the  world's 
serious  interests. 

We  have  had  a  great  and  eventful  history,  but,  better  than  that, 
we  still  have,  with  all  our  faults,  as  a  people,  earnest  and  even  noble 
aspiration.  The  national  heart  beats  right,  we  are  uneasy  under  a 
sense  of  wrong-doing,  and  feel  strong  desires  to  act  justly.  Such 
qualities  do  inspire  our  literature,  and  should  inspire  our  art.  Mat- 
thew Arnold,  in  a  recent  criticism  on  Wordsworth,  says  :  '  Poetry  is 
nothing  less  than  the  most  perfect  speech  of  man,  that  in  which  he 


254  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.          February 

comes  nearest  being  able  to  utter  the  truth.  .  .  .  Noble  and  pro- 
found application  of  ideas  to  life  is  the  most  essential  part  of  poetic 
greatness ; '  and,  quoting  from  Voltaire,  he  continues  :  '  No  nation  has 
treated  in  poetry  moral  ideas  with  more  energy  than  the  English 
nation.'  To  assert  that  art  is  able  to  make  such  application  dis- 
tinctly would  be  foolish,  but  the  noblest  art  can  and  does  maintain 
the  elevation  poetry  has  lifted  the  mind  into,  and  is  therefore  an 
agent  of  almost  equal  value,  and  it  is  this  energy  and  depth  Voltaire 
speaks  of  that  it  is  so  desirable  to  cultivate  in  the  pursuit  of  art.  "We 
should  expect  it  and  demand  it,  or  art  cannot  become  serious,  and  to 
obtain  this  effect  upon  us  heroic  art  must  be  noble  in  its  treatment 
of  the  means  at  its  disposition,  line,  colour,  and  texture,  and  must 
have  a  correspondingly  noble  subject,  though  subject  has  perhaps 
less  to  do  with  it  than  character  of  utterance.  The  San  Sisto 
Madonna  at  Dresden  may  be  cited  as  the  highest  example  of  art,  but 
the  same  subject  treated  011  a  Dutch  tile  would  hardly  belong  to  the 
same  category.  A  great  work  of  high  art  is  a  noble  theme  treated 
in  a  noble  manner,  awakening  our  best  and  most  reverential  feel- 
ings, touching  our  generosity,  our  tenderness,  or  disposing  us 
generally  to  seriousness — a  subject  of  human  endurance,  of  human 
justice,  of  human  aspiration  and  hope,  depicted  worthily  by  the  special 
means  art  has  in  her  power  to  use.  In  Michael  Angelo  and  Eaphael 
we  have  high  art,  in  Titian  we  have  high  art,  in  Turner  we  have  high 
art.  The  first  appeals  to  our  highest  sensibilities  by  majesty  of  line, 
the  second  mainly  by  dignified  serenity,  the  third  by  splendour  especi- 
ally, the  Englishman  by  a  combination  of  these  qualities,  but,  lacking 
the  directly  human  appeal  to  human  sympathies,  his  work  must  be 
put  on  a  lower  level. 

In  discussing  high  art  it  is  well  to  compare  it  with  literature  of 
the  same  kind,  for  this  has  a  language  much  more  generally  under- 
stood in  modern  times  than  the  language  of  art.  Also,  in  estimating 
the  different  positions  which  literature  and  the  arts  take,  we  must  put 
written  poetry  first.  Art  and  music  touch  it  with  the  spear  of  Ithuriel. 
Art  approximates  nearest  to  poetry  or  music  according  to  its  subject 
and  treatment.  The  Bridge  of  Sighs  and  Luck  of  Roaring  Camp 
belong  to  high  art  in  poetry  because  they  touch  profoundly  the  highest 
and  deepest  feeling,  though  grotesque  in  style.  The  work  of  Hogarth 
is  an  almost  identical  example  in  painting.  But  all  these  belong  to 
high  art  in  spite  of,  not  because  of,  their  grotesqueness.  Bret  Harte 
and  Hogarth  are  not  greater  masters  of  their  art  because  they  make 
their  attack  upon  our  feelings  by  surprise  rather  than  by  solemn  order 
of  battle.  The  conquest  may  be  as  complete,  but  the  victory  is  not 
greater  because  it  takes  us  unprepared.  For  it  must  be  owned  our 
natural  sense  of  propriety  makes  some  demands.  Diogenes  unwashed 
and  unkempt  cannot  sit  beside  Alexander  splendid  from  conquest  with- 
out some  shock  to  our  feelings.  Hence  it  is  that  the  highest  subjects 


1880.          THE  PRESENT  CONDITIONS  OF  ART.  255 

demand  the  noblest  treatment ;  otherwise  there  results  some  shock  to 
our  sense  of  congmity.  The  highest  art  in  intention  and  most  admir- 
able embodiment  is  to  be  found  in  Hogarth ;  but  because  the  material 
conditions  did  not  permit  of  an  appeal  to  a  sense  of  nobility,  no 
appreciation,  no  loudly  expressed  opinion  of  his  just  claims  by  the  best 
writers  will  ever  be  able  to  place  him  by  the  side  of  the  greatest  painters. 
Though  he  was  in  reality  greater  than  most,  he  was  forced  to  speak 
in  a  dialect,  and  cannot  therefore  compete  with  those  poets  who  had 
the  command  of  all  the  treasures  of  language.  In  Cruikshank  the 
same  will  be  found.  The  '  Bottle  '  should  make  a  stronger  appeal  to 
our  hearts  than  the  San  Sisto  Madonna  at  Dresden,  but  it  lacks 
nobility  and  dignity  of  character,  and  does  not  fulfil  one  of  the  first 
requirements  of  great  art.  But  though  the  first  and  greatest,  the 
characteristics  of  epic  utterance  cannot  be  popular.  This  is  but 
natural.  The  Luck  of  Roaring  Camp  touches  one's  sympathies  more 
than  the  Iliad.  The  Wreck  of  the  Hesperus  is  more  affecting  than 
the  death  of  Dido.  Measured  by  popularity,  the  highest  dramatic 
composition  we  know  of  cannot  be  compared  with  Our  Boys.  Yet,  as 
long  as  humanity  is  humanity,  man  will  yearn  to  ascend  the  heights 
human  footsteps  may  not  tread,  and  long  to  lift  the  veil  that  shrouds 
the  enigma  of  being,  and  he  will  most  prize  the  echo  of  this  longing 
in  even  the  incoherent  expression  of  literature,  music,  and  art. 

Gr.  F.  WATTS. 


256  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  February 


PAGANISM  IN  PARIS. 


THE  religious  question,  whatever  may  be  said  or  done,  is  the  reigning 
question  of  our  epoch.  It  is  true  we  hear  numerous  voices  demanding 
the  separation  of  politics  and  religion,  of  Church  and  State,  and,  in 
the  actual  age  of  the  world,  I  have  no  objection  to  the  demand.  I 
will  merely  remark  that  the  only  country  in  Europe  which,  without 
having  realised  that  separation,  has  at  least  approached  to  the  ideal 
of  it — namely,  Belgium — is  the  very  country  where  religion  and 
politics  are  confounded  more  than  anywhere  else,  and  where,  so  to 
speak,  they  contaminate  each  other. 

As  regards  France  and  the  Kepublic — and  I  do  not  separate  the 
Republic  from  France,  for,  in  the  situation  in  which  they  are  placed, 
they  have  no  other  alternative  than  to  live  or  die  together — as 
regards  France,  then,  and  the  Kepublic,  it  is  more  and  more  evident 
to  any  one  who  has  the  slightest  perspicacity  that  the  question  they 
have  to  solve  under  penalty  of  death — and  of  a  death  not  far  distant — 
is  precisely  the  religious  question. 

I  will  not,  therefore,  separate  what  is  united  in  the  public  mind 
as  in  public  events,  and  I  shall  here  study  the  religious  struggle  not 
only  in  the  public  conscience,  but  also  in  society. 

Let  us  go  back,  first  of  all,  sixteen  hundred  years — about  the  year 
250  of  our  era.  Paris  was  then  Lutetia.  It  had  originally  been  a  small 
town  built  by  Gallic  seamen  upon  what  we  call  to-day  the  Island  of  the 
City.  Later,  after  the  conquest  of  Caesar,  it  became  a  Koman  city 
and  an  important  centre  of  the  administration  of  the  Empire  in  these 
regions.  The  situation  was  admirably  chosen  in  the  midst  of  the 
Gauls,  with  an  aspect  rather  to  the  north  than  to  the  south,  in  a  topo- 
graphical position  both  advantageous  and  charming,  just  below  the 
confluence  of  the  Marne  and  the  Seine,  and  above  the  meeting  of  the 
Seine  and  the  Oise,  in  the  midst  of  graceful  and  fertile  meadows 
bordering  the  river.  It  was  by  its  situation  admirably  disposed  for 
maritime  commerce,  and,  in  fact,  history  tells  us  that  that  com- 
merce soon  extended  to  the  distant  countries  of  Syria.  Everything 
foretold  that  a  great  future  was  in  store  for  Lutetia.  And  yet  history 


1880.  PAGANISM  IN  PARIS.  257 

was  to  surpass  all  expectations  by  making  it — I  will  not  say,  with 
more  conceit  than  truth,  the  capital  of  the  world,  but  the  capital  of 
France  and  the  Latin  Occident.  That  is  sufficient  for  its  glory,  and 
also  for  its  responsibility.  Such  was  Lutetia. 

As  I  have  indicated,  the  Eoman  Empire  had  its  magistrates  and 
its  jurisconsults  there,  and  it  was  one  of  the  centres  of  its  administra- 
tion ;  but  we  are  occupied  not  with  these,  but  with  the  religious 
question,  and  I  must  therefore  add  that  it  was  one  of  the  religious 
centres  of  the  Empire. 

Christianity  had  reached  some  of  the  southern  cities  of  Gaul, 
and  in  particular  the  metropolitan  city  of  Lyons,  the  city  of  Pothinus 
and  Irenaeus ;  but  it  had  not  yet  invaded  Lutetia  and  the  north. 
Paganism  reigned  there  uncontested.  But  what  paganism  ?  That 
of  Rome.  And,  I  if  mistake  not,  it  was  one  of  the  most  perfect  of 
paganisms  the  world  has  ever  seen,  and,  as  such,  one  of  the  most 
powerful. 

I  am  well  aware  of  what  has  been  said  of  the  barrenness  of  the 
Roman  genius  in  particular,  and  of  the  Italian  genius  in  general — of 
their  native  inability  to  produce  a  great  religious  and  national  epic, 
or  to  create  a  powerful  native  mythology ;  but  I  also  know — and  it 
is  Cicero  who  tells  us — that,  in  the  time  of  the  Tarquins,  it  was  not 
a  small  drop,  but  a  large  torrent,  of  Hellenic  civilisation  which  flooded 
Rome. 

Greece  had  sent  thither  her  mythology,  the  most  brilliant  and 
most  perfect  of  all  mythologies  ;  and  with  this  precious  foreign 
heritage  Rome  possessed  by  birthright  that  energy,  solidity,  and 
dominating  power  which  belonged  to  the  character  of  the  Romans. 

It  was  therefore  a  mythology  remarkable  and  perfect  in  itself; 
it  was  moreover  a  cosmopolitan  religion.  While  continuing  to  be 
the  paganism  of  Rome,  it  had  opened  her  temples  to  all  the 
vanquished  gods  as  it  had  opened  the  Forum  to  all  vanquished 
heroes.  Rome  had  no  doubt  preserved  her  political  domination  as  well 
as  her  religious  domination ;  she  was  still  Rome,  but  she  was  not 
exclusive  ;  she  opened  her  Pantheon  to  all  the  religions  of  the  world, 
thus  realising  a  reconciliation  more  difficult  than  that  of  peoples — 
the  reconciliation  of  the  gods.  It  was  a  cosmopolitan,  in  fact  I  may 
say  a  human,  paganism. 

In  the  same  way  as  it  embraced  all  races  in  humanity,  it  em- 
braced all  faculties  in  the  individual.  It  was  an  elastic  paganism ; 
it  had  no  dogma  or  morality  of  its  own  :  it  was,  as  has  often  been 
said,  simply  composed  of  myths  and  rites — myths  and  rites  which 
had  nothing  to  do  with  reason,  and  still  less  with  the  conscience,  and 
which  were  entirely  confined  to  the  imagination  and  fingers — rituft 
ad  solos  diyitos  pertinentes.  But  this  very  infirmity  of  the  Roman 
paganism,  this  vague  character  of  its  doctrine,  or  rather  this  absence 
of  doctrine  and  morality,  rendered  it  eminently  supple  and  corn- 


258  THE  NINETEENTH.    CENTURY.  February 

prehensive ;  it  responded,  on  the  one  hand,  to  the  most  vulgar  wants 
of  popular  superstition,  and,  on  the  other,  to  the  most  elevated 
interpretations  of  reason  and  philosophy. 

It  was  thus  that,  while  it  satisfied  religious  sensualism,  which  is 
to  be  found  in  the  masses  and  even  in  the  cultivated  classes — while 
it  satisfied  them  by  its  most  absurd  and  most  impure  myths,  extend- 
ing, as  it  did,  to  sacred  prostitution — it  accommodated  itself  also  to  the 
dogmatic  principles  of  the  school  of  Alexandria  and  the  austere 
precepts  of  the  Portico.  At  the  very  epoch  of  which  I  am  speaking 
— in  the  middle  of  the  third  century — a  school  of  philosophy,  per- 
haps the  highest  and  noblest  under  the  sun  next  to  Christianity,  was 
founded  at  Alexandria ;  and  this  school  comprised  such  men  as 
Plotinus,  Proclus,  Julian,  and  Porphyry.  Without  going  beyond  the 
sphere  of  the  official  religion,  in  which  it  had  large  latitude,  it 
transformed  all  her  myths  into  the  prismatic  ideas  of  Plato ;  it 
imparted  to  them  a  sublime  signification ;  and  the  Julian  whom  I  have 
just  mentioned — the  Emperor  Julian,  whom  our  fathers  called  the 
Apostate — dreamed  of  making  this  philosophy,  which  was  both 
rational  and  mystic,  the  almost  miraculous  remedy  which  was  to 
restore  life  to  the  imperial  and  pagan  Beast  which  was  wounded  unto 
death  by  Christianity ;  and  while  the  philosophy  of  Plato  and  his 
descendants  accommodated  itself  so  well  to  the  rites  and  fables  of 
paganism,  the  same  thing  must  be  said  of  the  morality  of  Zeno.  The 
Stoical  school  was  a  moral  school,  and  reckoned  among  its  members 
men  like  Zeno,  its  founder,  like  the  admirable  Epictetus  (whose 
moral  writings  St.  Charles  Borromeo,  Archbishop  of  Milan,  read 
with  respect  and  profit),  like  Seneca,  Cato,  and  finally,  as  I  have 
mentioned,  the  Emperor  Julian  among  the  Platonists.  I  will 
also  mention  Marcus  Aurelius  among  the  Stoics,  as  the  type  of 
the  philosopher  and  prince  without  the  pale  of  Christianity — he 
who  realised  during  one  pacific  and  benevolent  hour  the  dream 
of  Plato.  '  The  people,'  said  Plato,  c  will  never  be  happy  until 
they  are  governed  by  philosophers.'  Thus  we  see  that  the  austerity 
of  the  precepts  of  the  Portico,  of  Zeno,  and  Epictetus,  all  equally 
accommodated  themselves  to  paganism,  and  to  that  human  paganism 
which  embraced  the  whole  of  man  by  his  baser  nature  as  by  his 
sublimer  being — in  short,  religious  and  social  paganism. 

Our  ideal  to-day  is,  if  not  the  immediate  separation  of  Church 
and  State,  at  least  to  limit  in  a  more  and  more  precise  manner  the 
frontiers  of  temporal  society,  which  is  the  State,  and  those  of 
spiritual  society,  which  is  the  Church.  And  we  are  right.  Every- 
thing commands  it — the  liberty  of  conscience,  the  independence  of  the 
temporal  power,  whether  it  be  in  the  hands  of  a  monarch  oj  those  of  a 
people,  and  finally  the  very  dignity  of  the  spiritual  power,  which  is 
never  greater  than  when  it  commands  in  the  name  of  liberty  without 
appealing  to  force.  And  though  we  may  not  claim  a  complete  and 


1880.  PAGANISM  IN  PARIS.  259 

entire  separation  of  Church  and  State,  we  should  demand  rigorous 
distinctions. 

We  must  not  forget  what  history  teaches  us,  that  Church  and 
State,  religion  and  society,  whether  of  the  Jews,  pagans,  or  Christians, 
were  never  on  a  more  regular  and  stronger  footing  than  when  firmly 
upholding  each  other.  Now  that  is  just  what  Eoman  paganism  did ; 
it  had  become,  if  I  may  be  allowed  the  expression,  incarnate — flesh 
of  the  flesh,  and  bone  of  the  bone,  of  the  Empire.  The  Empire  was 
one  vast  democracy.  Ah !  we  in  France  are  now  striving  in  our  turn 
to  realise  a  truly  liberal  democracy,  and  we  have  a  right  to  do  so.  But 
history  shows  us  that  Caesarism  was  the  most  powerful  and  lasting 
form  of  democracy  in  the  past.  The  Koman  Kepublic  was  autocratic 
— it  perished  with  Pompey.  Eoman  democracy  was  imperial — it 
rose  with  Caesar,  who  was  made  at  the  same  time  a  pontiff  and  a  deity ! 
Statues  of  him  extant  in  Rome  still  bear  the  inscription  summits 
pontifex.  How  strange  !  Julius  Caesar,  the  depraved  and  immoral, 
he  who  scoffed  at  the  gods  in  private  and  at  virtue  in  public,  was 
proclaimed  by  the  Roman  Senate,  in  his  lifetime,  first  a  demigod, 
and  ultimately  a  god. 

Thus  empire  and  religion  were  one ;  and,  as  if  to  have  deified 
Cagsar  was  not  yet  enough,  the  Senate  and  people  themselves  were 
deified.  The  goddess  Rome,  dea  Roma,  was  not  only  the  Eternal 
City,  with  Jupiter  absolute  at  the  Capitol,  or  Caesar  reigning  at  the 
Palatine  ;  she  embodied  also — authentic  records  are  there  to  testify 
to  it — the  worship  of  the  Roman  Senate  and  people.  The  Empire 
itself  was  deified.  • 

Never,  I  repeat,  had  the  sun  risen  on  such  a  mighty  empire. 
That  is  what  existed  at  Rome,  while  a  more  humble  reflection 
of  it  obtained  in  Gaul,  in  Paris  ;  and  this  it  is  which  a  handful  of 
obscure  men,  all  of  whose  names  have  not  even  come  down  to  us 
through  history,  came  to  battle  with,  A.D.  250.  St.  Denis,  our  first 
bishop,  St.  Rusticus,  St.  Eleutherus,  and  a  few  more  unnamed — they 
were  obscure  Christians  sent  by  the  bishop  of  Rome.  The  Papacy  did 
not  then  reign  in  Rome,  though  it  taught  the  primacy  of  the  early 
ages,  the  humble  and  edifying  primacy  of  the  Apostolic  Church.  It 
was  St.  Fabian  of  Rome  who  sent  hither  the  man  who  was  to  become 
St.  Denis.  But  what  social  force,  what  human  allies,  could  be  relied 
on  in  the  battle  against  such  a  power,  against  that  paganism  he 
was  to  encounter  in  Gaul  ?  There  were  three  forces :  I  have  just 
mentioned  one — Rome.  The  Christians  were  its  loyal  subjects — true 
Christians  have  ever  been  the  faithful  subjects  of  established  autho- 
rity— and  at  that  time  Rome  was  relatively  a  beneficent  power. 
They  were  the  subjects  of  Rome  and  at  the  same  time  its  heroic 
victims — victims  sacredly  rebellious  in  their  conscience.  There  was 
no  dependence  upon  political  Rome  to  fight  religious  Rome,  for  they 
were  one. 


260  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY.  February 

Apart  from  Rome,  the  old  Celtic  vindications  and  the  young 
Germanic  invasion  had  to  be  taken  into  account.  And  what  were  the 
old  Celtic  vindications  ?  Ah  !  men  were  dreamers  in  those  days,  and 
as  they  dreamed  they  strove  by  fire  and  sword  for  the  restoration  of  a 
Gallic  nationality,  or  rather  the  founding  of  a  Celtic  empire  in  oppo- 
sition to  the  cosmopolitan  empire  of  Rome,  that  should  comprise 
alike  Gaul,  Spain,  and  Great  Britain.  There  were  men  among  the 
emperors  of  Gaul — men  such  as  Posthumus,  Victorian,  and  Tetricus ; 
there  were  heroic  struggles,  but  the  apostles  of  Paris,  the  apostles  of 
the  Gauls,  soaring  high  above  all  parties  in  the  regions  of  conscience 
and  eternity,  sought  not  their  strength  in  Gallic  vindications. 

But  on  the  other  side  of  the  Rhine,  five  or  ten  years  before  the 
advent  of  our  apostles,  there  was  being  formed  the  first  League  of  the 
Franks,  a  barbarous  but  high-minded  people,  destined  to  bring  to  us 
a  few  drops  of  their  warm  blood  to  mix  with  that  of  the  Celts,  our 
ancestors,  and  with  that  of  the  Romans,  our  civilisers — a  barbarous 
but  generous  race  whose  name,  we  glory  in,  has  clung  to  us  ;  for  that 
name  is  synonymous  with  frankness,  the  foe  of  deceit,  and  liberty,  the 
enemy  of  servitude.  The  Frankish  league  and  the  Germanic  inva- 
sions were  already  beginning  to  disturb  the  land  of  Gaul ;  but  the 
apostles  of  Paris,  the  apostles  of  the  northern  region,  did  not  trust  to 
the  Franks  any  more  than  they  did  to  the  Celts.  Upon  whom,  then, 
did  they  rely  ?  What  forces  did  they  summon  to  the  aid  of  their 
apostolate  ?  Were  they  themselves  possessed  of  any  strength  ap- 
preciable in  a  human  sense  ?  I  am  not  declaiming,  but  relating 
history  ;  I  am  not  putting  forth  a  verbose  apology  on  behalf  of 
Christianity,  but  exposing  facts  for  candid  appreciation.  The  Chris- 
tian apostles  in  that  golden  age  of  Christianity,  and  more  particul- 
arly the  apostles  of  Lutetia,  brought  with  them  to  the  struggle  with 
paganism  no  appreciable  human  force.  They  certainly  had  not 
recourse  to  the  force  of  arms.  At  a  later  period  this  force  did  soil 
and  dishonour  the  hands  of  Christians,  for  it  was  by  the  force  of  arms 
that  Christianity  was  spread  in  Northern  Europe,  and  we  Frenchmen 
are  forced  to  remember  Charlemagne  and  Witikind  and  the  com- 
pulsory and  sanguinary  baptism  of  the  Saxons.  I  need  quote  no 
other  examples.  Were  I  to  run  through  the  annals  of  the  history  of 
the  Catholics  as  well  as  of  the  Protestants  in  the  middle  ages  and 
during  the  sixteenth  century,  I  should  encounter  everywhere  the 
sight  or  smell  of  blood.  But  in  those  early  times  the  hands  of  the 
Church  were  clean  :  she  had  not  yet  grasped  the  sword  by  the  hilt — 
nay,  it  was  its  point  that  was  buried  in  the  breast  of  her  martyrs. 
Therefore  it  was  not  the  force  of  arms. 

Was  it  the  power  of  gold  ?  Bishops  and  priests  of  those  days  were 
not  paid  by  the  State ;  and  they  had  not  yet  invented  that  other 
source  of  revenue,  which  I  shall  not  perhaps  call  siinoniacal,  but  which 
nevertheless  is  not  edifying — viz.,  fees,  fixed  by  tariff,  on  prayers,  on 


1880.  PAGANISM  IN  PARIS.  261 

the   sacraments,   on   the   means  of  grace,  and  therefore,   one   may 
say  almost,  on  the  blood  of  Christ. 

Sceptical  conservatives  were  not  wanting  in  those  days,  any  more 
than  in  ours,  but  they  at  least  offered  the  insult  of  munificent  alms- 
giving, prompted,  it  is  true,  not  by  faith,  but  by  interested  motives, 
and  intended  to  extract  from  religion  immunity  if  not  influence ; 
and  they  laid  their  largess  on  other  altars  than  that  of  the  true  and 
living  God ;  they  gave  to  other  priests  than  those  of  Jesus  Christ. 
Those  early  Christians  counted  no  more,  therefore,  on  the  power  of  gold 
than  on  that  of  the  sword.  What  then  was  that  strange  power  which 
served  them  in  their  warfare  ?  Was  it  that  of  science  or  of  eloquence? 
History  brings  down  to  us  no  mention  of  these ;  and  if  we  consult 
Paul  the  apostle,  the  master  and  model  of  them  all,  we  find  him  say- 
ing to  the  Christian  communities  of  his  day : — '  Look  well  around 
ye,  my  brethren,  and  behold,  there  are  not  many  rich  or  noble  among 
you,  nor  many  learned  according  to  the  world.  I  myself,'  adds  the 
apostle,  '  have  not  come  with  the  eloquent  words  of  human  wisdom ; 
but  because  the  world  would  not  know  God  by  the  wisdom  of  God 
himself,  God  has  resolved  to  save  the  world  by  the  foolishness  of 
preaching.'  This  is  what  they  brought  with  them,  the  madness  of 
their  preaching,  the  heroism  of  their  martyrs ;  and  they  hid  them- 
selves in  subterranean  chambers,  for  thev  dared  not  appear  in  Paris 
in  the  light  of  day — the  intolerance  of  the  times  would  not  have 
suffered  it.  So  they  descended  into  crypts  and  vaults,  and  there,  they 
founded,  there  they  erected,  those  two  monuments,  so  humble  yet  so 
sublime — the  pulpit  and  the  altar.  A  pulpit  from  whence  they 
taught  not  human  science,  but  the  divine  law ;  an  altar  whereon  they 
realised  not  social  justice,  but  infinite  love.  In  Rome,  human  science 
and  social  justice  were  pre-eminent,  and  yet  they  sufficed  not  to  save 
her.  All  science  that  had  been  acquired  down  to  that  epoch,  Rome 
possessed,  and  we  laugh  at  her  to-day,  as  they  will  laugh  at  our 
infantine  science  of  to-day  in  two  or  three  centuries  hence.  But 
as  we  look  back  and  smile  at  the  science  of  Rome,  we  should  be 
respectful,  remembering  that  it  was  illustrated  by  philosophers, 
literary  men,  and  artists.  But,  then  as  now,  science  was  not  enough 
for  the  world.  There  was  justice,  and  it  was  given  to  Rome  to 
commence  here  below  the  building  up  of  social  justice  ;  and  even  to- 
day, at  the  close  of  the  nineteenth  century,  I  am  not  afraid  to  render 
homage  to  Roman  law,  which  has  helped  us  to  live  so  long,  with 
which  we  shall  continue  to  exist  for  a  long  time  to  come,  and  of 
which  the  great  St.  Augustine  said  :  '  As  supernatural  wisdom  came 
from  God  through  the  mouth  of  the  prophets,  so  also  natural  wisdom, 
social  j  ustice,  came  from  the  same  God  through  the  mouth  of  the 
Roman  legislators  (leges  Romanorum  divinitus  per  ora  principum 
emanarunf)."1 

No !  Justice  and  wisdom  were  not  sufficient ;  faith  was  necessary, 
VOL.  VII.-  No.  30.  T 


262  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY.  February 

love  was  required.  Faith,  that  is  to  say,  that  enlightenment  which 
does  not  contradict  reason,  but  sees  beyond  it ;  that  divine  flame 
which  lights  up  the  midnight  of  internal  darkness — sin — as  well  as 
the  all-pervading  shadow  of  Heaven — misericordia  ;  that  flame  which 
renders  evident  to  man  the  corruption  dwelling  unknown  within  him, 
and  which  shows  him  the  mercy  of  God  bending  down  and  extending 
over  him. 

What  was  necessary  then  for  this  conquest  of  Gaul  ?  Simply 
this — the  folly  of  their  preaching;  the  story  of  this  Man,  Son  of 
a  virgin,  risen  from  the  dead ;  but  above  all  that  story  between  the 
virgin  and  the  sepulchre — the  gibbet — was  necessary :  this  Man,  Son  of 
man  and  Son  of  God  ;  this  Man  in  whom  the  human  and  the  divine 
natures  were  united,  blended  together,  ascending  the  cross  in  order 
to  save  the  consciences  of  all  from  the  yoke  of  sin  and  all  societies 
from  the  yoke  of  slavery.  Therein  lies  the  madness,  the  scandal,  the 
preaching  of  the  cross. 

And  by  the  side  of  this  long  pulpit  an  altar  was  wanted,  that  the 
toiler  in  the  town  and  the  toiler  in  the  field  might  offer  up  the  pro- 
duce of  their  labour,  the  bread  and  wine  of  creation,  the  two  sub- 
stances watered  by  the  rains  of  heaven,  bathed  by  the  rays  of  the  sun, 
and  bedewed  by  the  holy  sweat  of  the  toiler's  brow.  The  two  sub- 
stances which  sustain  our  life — bread  which  is  strength,  wine  which 
is  joy — the  two  royal  and  sacerdotal  substances  must  be  brought  to 
this  altar,  and  by  means  of  a  mystery  entirely  spiritual  and  yet 
quite  real,  by  a  mystery  which  concedes  nothing  to  the  senses,  but 
gives  everything  to  the  soul,  are  to  become  the  body  and  the  blood 
of  the  immortal  Martyr,  realising  the  living  union,  the  direct  union, 
the  immediate  union  of  man  with  his  God,  and  of  man  with  his 
fellow-man,  of  whatever  caste  or  race  or  nation  he  may  be ;  for,  as 
St.  Paul  had  said,  'there  are  no  longer  amongst  you  either  Jews 
or  Gentiles ;  there  is  no  longer  a  people  of  the  narrow  and  selfish 
revelation ;  there  are  no  longer  peoples  of  vainglorious  and  corrupt 
civilisation ;  there  are  no  more  Greeks  and  barbarians  ;  there  are  no 
more  rich  and  slaves ;  there  are  no  more  men  and  women,  and  you 
are  all  one  in  Christ  Jesus.'  That  is  how  paganism  was  vanquished 
here  in  Paris — the  word  of  faith  in  the  pulpit  of  St.  Denis,  the 
mystery  of  love  on  the  altar  of  St.  Denis. 

And — I  will  not  say  a  few  centuries,  but  only  a  series  of  years 
had  "passed,  and  the  Seine,  as  it  embraced  the  point  of  the  island 
where  now  rises  the  majestic  facade  of  Notre-Dame,  and  where  then 
stood  a  temple  to  the  Roman  and  Gallic  gods,  saluted,  as  it  murmured 
past  among  the  sweeping  meadows,  the  first  but  definitive  trophies 
of  the  victories  of  Christ — the  victories  of  the  Gospel  and  of  Christian 
civilisation. 

As  we  approach  and  touch  the  actualities  of  our  own  time,  I  feel 
the  lines  of  justice  stronger  and  straighter.  But  within  these  lines 


1880.  PAGANISM  IN  PARIS.  263 

and  with  the  actualities  of  to-day  we  breathe,  thank  Heaven,  the 
beneficent  atmosphere  of  liberty.  I  shall  therefore  speak  my  mind 
freely,  recounting  what  I  see  in  the  region  of  free-thought,  as  it  is 
called.  But  the  word  is  badly  chosen.  We  Christians  also,  we 
desire  and  we  are  bound  to  think  freely.  We  are  between  two 
parties — I  should  say  armies — that  of  .Rationalism  and  that  of  Ultra - 
montanism.  I  respect  them  both.  I  respect  the  Roman  Catholics, 
because  they  are  especially  my  brethren ;  I  shared  for  a  long  time 
their  delusions,  and  I  still  share  their  faith,  as  expressed  in  the 
Nicene  Creed.  I  am  and  intend  to  remain  Catholic.  I  also  respect 
the  free-thinkers.  I  know  how  sincere  a  great  number  of  them 
are,  and  moreover  I  feel  myself  moved  by  a  painful  and  respectful 
sympathy  for  the  sufferings  which  it  has  been  my  lot  to  discover  in 
many  of  their  consciences.  And  far  be  it  from  me  to  willingly 
wound — I  will  not  say  any  conscience — but  any  person,  and,  if  I 
unwittingly  do  so,  I  retract  beforehand. 

Returning  to  my  subject — we  will  pass  from  the  third  to  the 
nineteenth  century.  I  will  not  say  that  in  the  interval  of  these 
sixteen  hundred  years  Christianity  has  perished:  on  the  contrary, 
I  think  that  in  more  than  one  sense  it  has  more  life  than  ever 
in  the  world,  and  that,  too,  in  Paris.  What  I  will  say  is  that  the 
official  and  divine  institution  which  is  represented  among  us  by  the 
Catholic  Church  has  been  shaken.  Twice  in  the  history  of  these 
centuries  the  see  of  St.  Denis  has  abdicated,  and  twice  it  has  abdi- 
cated before  two  rival  paganisms,  mortal  enemies  each  of  the  other, 
and  yet  leagued  together  against  the  Grospel — against  the  pure  and 
entire  Grospel.  Such  is  my  thesis.  I  will  now  deal  with  the 
facts. 

Let  us  begin  by  speaking  of  the  first  of  these  two  paganisms — of 
that  which  I  will  call  the  intellectual  paganism,  or  rather  the  irre- 
ligious, I  should  almost  say  the  impious,  paganism — for  it  is  that 
which  suppresses  religion.  The  other  paganism  is  the  superstitious 
paganism,  which  distorts  religion.  In  speaking  of  the  first  of  these 
paganisms — first  chronologically,  but  not  in  power — I  can  repeat 
what  we  have  learned  from  Leibnitz,  and  what  experience  has  con- 
firmed, that  each  new  affirmation  of  superstition  or  fanaticism  is  met 
by  a  negation  .of  incredulity  and  irreligion,  and  that  each  new  mani- 
festation of  incredulity  encounters  a  new  affirmation  of  superstition. 
Extremes  meet — nay,  they  do  more — they  unite  and  propagate ;  and 
this  is  precisely  the  tragic,  the  formidable  aspect  of  the  situation. 

To  deal  with  the  paganism  of  incredulity,  of  irreligion,  we  must 
go  back  to  the  troubled  dawn  of  our  French  Revolution. 

It  was  before  an  assembly  which  had  had  its  days  of  glory,  but 
which,  at  the  time  I  am  speaking  of,  was  not  worthy  of  France — the 
National  Convention.  At  its  bar  appeared  the  successor  of  St. 

T2 


264  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  February 

Denis,  he  who,  invested  with  the  episcopal  tiara,  occupied  the  see  of 
Paris — the  constitutional  bishop,  Gobel.  On  his  brow,  which  had 
borne  the  mitre  (mysterious  symbol  of  the  august  and  pacific  power 
which  comes  from  Jesus  Christ),  he  had  placed  the  red  Phrygian 
cap — emblem  of  the  bloody  demagogy.  He  appeared  before  that 
assembly  without  having  been  called,  and,  in  base,  despicable 
language,  said :  '  The  will  of  the  people  has  always  been  my  first 
thought,  and  my  first  duty  is  to  obey  it.'  But  the  cowardly  apostate 
confounded  the  respect  of  the  people  with  the  fear  of  the  scaffold,  as 
he  confounded  the  respect  of  God  with  the  terror  of  hell.  Tormented 
by  day  by  the  vision  of  the  guillotine,  tortured  at  night  by  infernal 
visions,  actuated  by  the  basest  cowardice,  and  possessing  no  religion, 
neither  that  of  the  Stoics  nor  that  of  Christians,  he  had  come  there, 
surrounded  by  the  meanest  of  his  priests,  to  abjure  at  one  and  the 
same  time  his  Christian  faith  and  his  episcopacy.  '  Citizens,'  said  the 
president  of  the  Convention  to  them,  '  in  laying  on  the  altar  of  the 
Republic  these  Gothic  baubles,  you  have  deserved  well  of  the  nation.' 

Frantic  applause  burst  forth  from  most  of  the  benches,  while 
Robespierre,  isolated  in  his  disgust,  meditated  the  sentence  which  a 
few  days  later  was  to  send  Gobel  to  wash  out,  if  he  could,  his  shame 
by  the  guillotine. 

This  was  the  first  abdication  of  the  pulpit  of  the  see  of  St.  Denis. 

This  abdication  was  not  made,  however,  into  the  hands  of  paganism  : 
the  Convention  was  not  pagan,  it  was  deist.  Robespierre  proclaimed 
it  in  language  which  was  perhaps  strange  and  ridiculous,  but  which 
has  also  its  sublime  aspect — he  proclaimed  the  official  belief  of  the 
French  people  in  the  Supreme  Being  and  in  the  immortality  of  the 
soul.  Would  that  all  the  Republicans  of  to-day  had  preserved  the 
orthodoxy  of  the  National  Convention ! 

The  Convention  was  deist,  but  it  was  already  outstripped  by 
atheism.  Robespierre  was  classed  among  the  champions  of  the  old 
regime.  The  Supreme  Being  was  a  myth  to  be  banished  with 
.Jehovah  and  Jesus.  The  Commune  of  Paris  was  in  the  van  of  pro- 
gress, and  the  procurator — ringleader — of  that  Commune,  Chaumette, 
stood  in  front  of  the  altar  of  Notre-Dame  to  inaugurate  the  most  dis- 
graceful of  all  paganisms — the  religion  of  atheism.  On  the  altar  of 
Jesus  stood  a  courtesan  ;  she  personified  in  her  barren  and  corrupting 
flesh  the  profaned  reason  of  man.  A  shameless  woman,  a  reason  pro- 
faned— this  was  the  goddess  of  Reason ;  and  to  her  were  offered  adora- 
tions which  we  are  willing  to  forget  on  the  condition  that  we  are  not 
forced  to  remember  them. 

It  was  therefore  a  new  paganism  which  arose ;  but,  to  the  glory 
of  the  French  people,  I  can  say  that  the  goddess  of  Reason  threw  off 
her  vile  trappings  and  cleansed  herself  of  the  mire  into  which  she 
had  fallen.  And  yet,  alas !  to  be  faithful  to  truth,  I  am  forced  to  say 


1880.  PAGANISM  IN  PARIS.  265 

that  the  goddess  Eeason  is  still  standing  erect,  and  that  her  throne  is 
neither  in  Berlin  nor  London — at  Berlin,  in  the  German  universities, 
where  there  are  no  doubt  powerful  lucubrations  of  rationalism  and 
irreligion  ;  in  England,  where  flourishes  to-day  the  most  radically 
sceptical  school  in  the  world — but  the  irradiating  and  powerful  focus 
is  Paris. 

Not  only  is  the  goddess  Eeason  still  living  in  our  midst,  and  not 
only  are  we  living  witnesses,  but  we  are  living  actors  in  a  veritable 
paganism. 

Paganism  is  vast — it  stretches  from  the  African  fetishism  to  the 
pantheism  of  the  Brahmins  and  the  atheism  of  the  Buddhists,  for 
atheism  itself  has  its  religion.  There  are  those  to  be  found  in  our 
day  who  imagine  that  religion  can  be  uprooted  from  the  human  soil 
and  a  great  people  made  to  live  without  adoring.  But  religion 
is  a  thing  so  great,  so  subtle,  so  deep-rooted  in  man,  that  even  when 
the  very  idea  of  God  has  disappeared,  as  in  Buddhism  (which  con- 
temporaneous savants  affirm,  although  I  myself  doubt  it),  there 
still  remains  a  religion,  the  most  powerful  and  sometimes  the  most 
fanatic.  Thus,  from  the  fetishism  of  the  Africans  to  the  atheism  of 
the  Buddhists  and  the  pantheism  of  the  Brahmins,  there  are  all  the 
degrees  and  shades  of  polytheism.  But  these  numerous  forms,  opposed 
to  one  another,  all  enter  into  the  great  sphere  of  paganism.  We 
must  not,  however,  confound  paganism  with  any  of  these  forms,  and 
if  we  wish  to  obtain  an  exact  definition,  we  must  go  to  the  essence  of 
it.  What  then  is  the  essence  of  paganism  or  idolatry  ?  Bossuet  has 
told  us  in  a  single  word :  everything  is  God  except  God  Himself. 
Paganism  consists  essentially  in  the  substitution  of  the  relative  for 
the  absolute,  of  the  finite  for  the  infinite,  of  man  for  God.  I  say 
'  man '  rather  than  nature,  for  in  modern  times  we  do  not  adore  nature, 
especially  exterior  nature,  for  we  know  it  better  than  our  ancestors  ; 
we  have  analysed  it  by  our  science,  we  have  conquered  it  by  our 
industry ;  we  simply  make  it  our  slave.  But  when  God  has  dis- 
appeared— when  the  Living  Infinite  and  the  Personal  Absolute  have 
gone — when,  as  Hamilton  says,  we  have  succeeded  in  exorcising  the 
spectre  of  the  absolute,  we  find  ourselves  before  another  spectre — man  : 
man  beholding  only  himself,  man  adoring  himself,  sometimes  with 
the  calculating  designs  of  a  cold  egotism,  sometimes  with  the  sudden 
passions  of  voluptuousness,  ambition,  or  pride  ;  but  it  is  always  man 
that  adores  himself.  If  he  adores  himself  in  his  individual  person,  it 
is  egotism  ;  if  he  adores  himself  in  the  person  of  some  or  all  of  his 
kind,  it  is  what  is  called  to-day,  in  rather  barbarous  French,  Valtruisme 
(other-selfism)  ;  or  when,  finally,  withdrawing  himself  from  individuals 
or  from  his  own  person,  he  adores  himself  under  the  ideal  of  humanity, 
and  when  man  adores  himself  in  humanity,  as  Auguste  Comte,  a  man 
of  great  talent,  almost  of  genius,  said, '  in  the  continuity  of  convergent 


266  THE  NINETEENTH    CENTURY.  February 

beings,'  it  is  still  man  adoring  himself.  And,  I  would  ask,  did  not 
Auguste  Comte  himself,  while  summing  up  and  crowning  a  scientific 
life  by  mystic  conceptions,  pass  from  pure  philosophy  to  religion,  and 
inaugurate  in  Paris,  at  No.  10,  Eue  Monsieur  le  Prince — it  still 
exists — what  he  called  '  the  sanctuary  of  the  religion  of  humanity,' 
of  which  he  was  the  first  high-priest,  and  for  which  he  created  a 
calendar  and  sacraments  ?  These  are  living  facts  of  to-day. 

Do  not  overlook  the  fact  that,  while  pointing  out  what  I  call  the 
paganism  of  the  Positivists'  school,  the  adoration  of  man,  I  render  to 
it  the  homage  which  it  deserves.  I  have  spoken  of  its  founder :  what 
should  I  not  have  to  say  of  him  who  has  been^cw  excellence  the  con- 
tinuator  of  the  system  of  the  founder  of  Positivism,  whose  conscience 
is  as  upright  as  his  intelligence  is  penetrating,  of  whom  it  has  been 
said  that  he  is  c  a  saint  who  does  not  believe  in  God,'  and  who  is  such 
an  eminent  representative  of  modern  science  and  of  French  patriot- 
ism— Littre  ? 

There  are  at  this  moment  in  France  two  schools,  distinct,  though 
having  a  certain  connection,  and  which  carry  all  before  them — the 
Positivist  school  and  the  Materialist  school.  I  shall  certainly  not 
say  that  they  resume  in  themselves  the  whole  of  French  mind.  There 
are  in  France  a  great  many  Christians  in  the  Eoman  Church,  for 
Eoman  Catholics  are  very  often  far  better  than  the  Ultramontane 
system  that  holds  and  binds  them.  There  are  great  numbers  of 
Christians  among  the  Protestant  confessions ;  and  then  everything 
beyond  the  pale  of  Christianity  is  not  pagan.  Two  religions  possess 
the  free  and  open  right  of  profession  in  France  :  Judaism,  which 
proclaims  Jehovah,  the  personal  and  living  God ;  and  Islamism  (for 
Algeria  is  a  part  of  France),  proclaiming  in  a  no  less  earnest  and 
passionate  •  manner  a  personal  and  living  God,  Allah !  Therefore 
everything  is  not  pagan  on  the  soil  of  France.  And  in  the  realm  of 
philosophy,  in  the  different  spiritualistic  schools  which  still  uphold 
the  banner  of  God,  of  the  human  soul,  of  hope,  or  rather  of  ever- 
lasting truth — the  banner  of  spiritual  philosophy — all  these  in  France 
comprise  Christianity,  Judaism,  Islamism,  and  the  spiritualistic 
school.  But  it  must  be  confessed  that  they  do  not  all  bask  in  the 
sunshine  of  success  and  popular  favour.  The  two  schools  which 
nowadays  hold  sway  over  the  scientific  realm,  and  would  fain  attract 
within  their  grasp  all  methods  of  teaching,  and  encroach  on  private 
and  social  life,  are  the  sciences  of  Materialism  and  Positivism. 

But  I  will  not  hesitate  to  tell  these  schools  that  they,  in  fact,  are 
the  embodiment  of  paganism  in  the  sense  of  the  substitution  of 
man  for  God.  It  is  true  that  it  is  a  very  pure  paganism,  for  indeed 
there  could  be  no  other  within  a  Christian  society.  Jesus  Christ  has 
spoken  of  worship  in  spirit  and  in  truth.  I  say  that  it  is  idolatry  in 
spirit  and  in  truth.  It  is  the  creature  usurping  the  place  of  the 


1880.  PAGANISM  IN  PARIS.  267 

Creator ;  the  constant  substitution  of  the  finite  for  the  infinite,  of 
man  for  the  personal  and  living  God.  That  is  paganism ;  and  we 
find  it  in  the  three  orders  of  human  life — knowledge,  ethics,  and 
society. 

In  the  order  of  knowledge,  it  is  reason  severing  itself  not  only 
from  Christian  revelation — that  would  be  already  too  much,  for  human 
reason  has  need  of  .the  Gospel  of  Jesus  Christ — but  extinguishing 
on  the  very  heights  it  occupies  the  effulgent  rays  of  dawn,  the  breath 
of  the  early  day  about  to  break.  It  is  reason  forgetting  all  meta- 
physics as  well  as  all  religion ;  restraining,  crippling  itself  in  the 
order  of  outer  and  material  observation,  and  in  the  order  of  inner  and 
psychological  observation.  '  There  is  but  nothingness  beyond  obser- 
vation and  facts,'  says  the  Materialist ;  nothing  but  hypothesis,  says 
the  Positivist.  But  this  is  the  mutilated  reason  of  man,  the  science 
of  observation  set  in  the  place  of  the  natural  sense,  of  the  rational 
intuition  of  things  spiritual  and  eternal.  Such  is  the  first  charac- 
teristic of  paganism. 

If  we  enter  into  conscience,  we  find  an  absence  of  the  absolute 
elements,  because  God  is  no  longer  there  :  God  is  nothing,  or  at  least 
an  hypothesis.  The  human  conscience,  bereft  of  its  absolute  elements, 
is  necessarily  bereft  of  all  divine  elements.  What  then  remains  ? 
Three  laws,  from  which  a  man  may  choose  according  to  his  taste  or 
fancy,  according  as  his  mind  is  of  an  austere  or  a  depraved  character — 
the  law  of  conscience,  but  of  a  conscience  wholly  relative  and  con- 
tingent, a  conscience  based  on  self,  which  is  but  self  communing 
with  self  in  its  own  dignity ;  the  law  of  duty,  a  beautiful  law,  inas- 
much as  it  sometimes  gives  rise  to  real  virtues,  admirable  self- 
sacrifice  in  inconsistent  men,  who  are  better  than  their  systems.  And 
yet  this  is  but  a  relative,  contingent  conscience,  devoid  of  all  value 
but  that  of  human  self.  By  the  side  of  the  law  of  conscience  there 
is  the  law  of  the  heart,  with  its  fervid  enthusiasm,  its  beautiful  ideal 
of  the  imagination  as  well  as  of  sentiment.  Need  I  add  that  under- 
neath conscience  and  heart  lies  what  has  been  called  '  the  law  of 
physical  members,'  as  expounded  by  that  great  Saint-Simonian  school 
which  taught  the  rehabilitation  of  the  flesh. 

If  conscience  be  not  an  element  superior  to  man,  and  law  not  a 
Light  existing  within  him,  but  coming  to  him  from  above,  it  is  left 
to  man  to  choose,  to  calculate  in  his  wisdom  the  measure  of  his  con- 
science which  bids  him  sacrifice  himself,  the  measure  of  his  heart 
which  bids  him  love,  and  the  measure  of  his  flesh  which  counsels  his 
enjoyment.  That  is  logic.  Man  may  be  better  than  logic,  but 
nevertheless  this  is  logic.  It  is  man,  principle  and  end  of  morality, 
as  it  is  man,  the  principle  and  end  of  conscience. 

In  the  social  order  we  have  democracy,  a  most  noble  form,  and 
perhaps  the  definitive  form  of  human  societies.  Let  us  use  no 


268  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  February 

ambiguities  here.  The  democracy  which  I  admit  is  that  of  Jean- 
Jacques  Kousseau,  the  initiator  of  contemporary  democracy ;  and 
though  often  a  false  prophet,  he  was  true  and  sublime  when  he 
qualified  democracy  as  '  God's  people  governing  itself,'  i.e.  the 
sovereignty  of  the  people  acting  only  as  agent  of  the  superior 
sovereignty  of  reason  and  j  ustice.  But  the  democracy  of  human  affairs 
which  ignores  Grod  and  His  divine  law  in  all  things  is  a  democracy 
which  renders  nugatory  all  laws  it  can  make  itself,  and  powerless  all 
human  action.  If  the  value  of  laws,  of  political  constitutions,  of 
the  constitution  of  society  itself — if  the  value  of  property  and  of  the 
family  tie  are  not  founded  on  absolute  reason,  but  are  merely  the  arbi- 
trary result  of  the  popular  will ; — if  man,  the  majority  of  the  people — 
for  it  is  a  majority,  never  a  whole  people,  that  speaks — declares  that 
such  and  such  a  law  is  a  true  or  just  one  because  it  has  so  willed  it, 
and  such  and  such  a  constitution  wrong  or  bad  because  it  will  have 
no  more  of  it — I  maintain  that  such  a  democracy  is  but  tyranny 
under  a  new  form.  It  matters  little  to  me  that  I  am  governed  by 
one  man  or  millions  of  men.  As  a  man  I  owe  obedience  direct  only 
to  reason  and  divine  justice,  indirectly  to  the  social  agent  established 
in  the  name  of  this  reason  and  of  this  justice.  In  a  traditionally 
monarchical  society  this  agent  is  the  prince,  and  I  acknowledge  the 
monarch.  But,  I  repeat,  behind  and  above  the  monarch  I  bow 
only  to  divine  crder  and  supreme  law,  whose  agent  he,  the  king  or 
the  emperor,  is  held  to  be.  In  a  democratic  society  it  is  the 
people — I  should  say  the  majority  of  the  people,  since  we  must  be 
arraigned  before  that  law  of  numbers  which  is  becoming  the  consti- 
tuted agent  of  justice  and  law.  I  accept  willingly  the  majority  of  the 
people  ;  but  that  majority  can  claim  my  allegiance  only  so  long  as  it 
shall  represent  the  principle  of  a  higher  order,  the  principle  of 
absolute  justice — Grod.  Thus,  in  the  social  as  well  as  in  the  moral 
and  intellectual  order,  it  is  ever  man  arraigned  before  his  fellow-man. 
In  other  words,  it  is  paganism. 

We  will  now  turn  our  attention  to  the  second  form  of  paganism — 
superstition.  I  will  not  go  back  so  far  as  1 793,  but  will  approach  much 
nearer  to  us,  to  1870  ;  and  not  now  amidst  the  great  parliament  of 
the  nation,  but  amidst  the  grand  assembly  of  the  Church  of  Rome. 
In  my  mind's  eye  I  stand  within  the  Council  of  the  Vatican.  A  man 
is  there  whom  we  have  loved,  whose  memory  is  still  cherished 
and  venerated  throughout  the  French  people — ay,  throughout  the 
world — the  then  Archbishop  Darboy.  During  the  strife  of  that 
troubled  session  he  wrote  to  me — for  I  will  say  that,  without  en- 
couraging me  in  the  line  my  conscience  had  marked  out  for  itself, 
he  never  withdrew  from  me  his  esteem  and  his  affection — he  wrote 
to  me,  who  had  protested  against  the  Council  before  ever  it  was 
holden,  in  these  words  :  '  Victory  is  but  too  often  on  the  side  of  the 


1880.  PAGANISM  IN  PARIS.  269 

heaviest  battalions.'  Well,  he  fought  through  that  deplorable  battle, 
and  soon  after,  in  another  revolt,  opposed  not  his  convictions,  not 
even  his  faith,  but  his  breast,  his  life,  like  the  hero  that  lie  was,  like 
a  martyr ;  and,  like  a  saint,  he  gave  his  blessing  to  the  murderous 
bullets  of  the  impious  Commune,  where  he  was  already  opposing  his 
eloquence  and  conscience  to  the  moral  and,  in  one  sense,  no  less 
terrible  onslaught  of  Ultramontane  fanaticism. 

I  must  now  speak  of  another  bishop  whom  I  respect  because  his 
private  life  is  spotless,  and  his  personal  character  worthy  of  respect, 
but  I  claim  the  right  to  judge  him  by  his  acts.  The  present  Arch- 
bishop of  Paris  was  likewise  present  at  the  Council,  and  he  in  advance 
abdicated  the  episcopate  of  St.  Denis.  True,  he  did  not  give  up 
Christian  faith,  but  he  surrendered  the  creed  of  the  Gallican  Church. 
He  was  persuaded  to  throw  off  his  episcopal  character  derived 
from  God  by  consecration,  and  which,  too,  came,  at  least  in  former 
times,  from  the  people  through  the  election  of  the  magistracy, 
which  in  itself  embodies  alike  divine  and  popular  rights.  He  con- 
sented to  divest  himself  of  his  Catholic  character  in  advance,  that  he 
might  introduce  into  Paris  the  new  episcopate,  a  mere  lieutenancy  of 
the  Pope  ;  and  from  that  see  he  brought  and  introduced  a  new  dogma 
— and  what  a  dogma ! — into  our  catechism.  Ah !  let  us  not  pass 
this  over  inconsiderately.  The  catechism  is  the  most  important  of 
books,  for  in  the  teaching  of  our  children  it  is  as  the  maternal  breast, 
either  overflowing  with  pure  and  life-giving  nourishment,  or  full  of 
insidious  poison.  The  archbishop  has  introduced  into  the  Paris 
catechism,  hitherto  unsullied  by  this  error,  the  antichristian  dogma 
which  suppresses  the  Church — that  is  to  say,  the  faith  of  all — and 
substituted  for  it  the  Pope,  or  the  will  of  one  man.  That  ancient 
primate,  Gregory  the  Great,  said  boldly :  '  He  who  shall  ever  pro- 
claim himself  universal  bishop  will  become,  through  his  arrogance, 
the  precursor  of  Antichrist.'  He  further  said  that  '  should  the 
universal  bishop  fall  the  whole  fabric  of  the  Church  will  fall  with 
him.'  Well,  the  universal,  the  infallible  and  absolute  bishop,  the 
man  before  whom  all  consciences  sink  into  error  and  perdition — the 
infallible  Pope — is  written  in  this  catechism.  And  this  is  not  all ;  for 
the  doors  of  our  temple,  so  long  closed  against  the  Koman  liturgy, 
have  at  last  opened.  The  voice  of  the  old  and  sound  traditions  has 
become  mute  ;  and  fables,  unworthy  of  reason,  and  but  too  often  un- 
worthy of  conscience,  are  celebrated  before  God.  A  Catholic  mythology 
— it  is  no  longer  Catholic  faith — has  arisen,  in  aid  of  superstition  on 
the  one  hand,  and  of  spiritual  tyranny  on  the  other.  This  has  come  to 
pass  in  our  day. 

Paganism  is  still  alive  in  our  midst,  and  as  if  in  response  to  a  law 
of  human  nature,  a  law  to  be  discerned  in  all  mythologies,  paganism 
has  become  incarnate,  has  taken  the  form  of  two  idols,  one  male, 


270  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  February 

the  other  female ;  the  male  idol  is  the  Pope,  the  female  idol  the 
Virgin  Mary.  No  one  could  venerate  the  Pope  more  than  I  do,  so 
long  as  he  remains  what  he  was  originally — the  living  symbol  of  the 
unity  of  all  Christians.  No  one  could  have  more  respect  for  the  Holy 
Virgin,  the  Virgin  of  the  Gospel,  the  august  mother  of  the  Son 
of  God,  the  model  for  all  women,  maidens  and  mothers,  the  humble 
but  sublime  Jewess  who  emancipated  her  oppressed  and  humiliated 
sex,  and  who  has  done  more  for  civilisation  than  all  philosophers 
and  legislators ;  and  I  do  not  hesitate  to  say  that  in  profaning 
both  Pope  and  Virgin  they  have  made  idols  of  them.  The  death- 
bed words  of  M.  de  Montalembert,  an  ardent  Catholic,  concerning 
the  Pope,  will  never  perish — *  the  idol  they  have  set  up  for 
themselves  at  the  Vatican.'  Acting  in  the  name  of  the  speaking 
idol  of  the  Vatican,  the  present  Archbishop  of  Paris  went  up  unto 
the  dumb  idol  which  people  worship  at  La  Salette,  and  on  the  brow 
of  that  statue,  which  the  Gospel  repudiates,  he  set  a  crown  of  gold.  I 
love  and  venerate  the  mother  of  our  blessed  Lord  as  the  first  among  all 
the  saints,  but  this  pretended  Virgin — this  false  mother  who  appears 
to  a  poor  deluded  fanatic  giving  divine  commandments  in  the  worst  of 
provincialisms  (affreux  patois] — I  will  none  of.  No  :  there  is  no 
possible  reason  to  believe  that  the  Holy  Virgin  is  permitted  to  come 
to  this  earth  in  diverse  ways  and  places  as  a  second  Saviour  claiming 
adoration  that  can  only  be  given  to  her  Divine  Son.  This  Mariolatry  is 
idolatry.  And — we  blush  as  we  say  it — there  were  bishops  present, 
the  successors  of  the  apostles  of  Jesus,  Christians  who  worship  in 
spirit  and  in  truth,  and  thousands  of  French  people.  This  ceremony 
occurred  in  one  of  our  most  enlightened  provinces,  and  but  a  few 
months  ago,  in  the  year  1879!  What  else  is  this  but  Paganism  ? 
and  is  it  strange  that  I  speak  with  deep  and  holy  indignation 
at  seeing  my  country  rent  in  twain,  one  half  given  up  to  that 
abstract  idol  called  human  reason — which  simply  means  science 
separated  from  absolute  truth,  progress  isolated  from  its  divine 
principle — and  the  other  half  given  up  to  new-fangled  and  strange 
fetish,  which  is  offered  to  its  worshippers  in  the  name  of  the  Gospel? 
This  is  paganism,  and  its  end  has  not  yet  come.  Nor  is  it  inactive. 
What  spectacle  meets  our  gaze  on  the  heights  of  Montmartre,  rising- 
out  of  and  overlooking  Paris — en  the  very  spot  which  St.  Denis  and 
his  companions  watered  with  their  blood  ?  A  church  is  being  built 
there  ;  but  to  whom  ?  To  Jehovah  ?  To  Christ,  His  Son  and  our 
Redeemer?  To  Him  of  whom  John  the  Evangelist  said:  'The 
Word,  everlasting  light  of  the  Father,  was  in  the  beginning ;  the 
Word  was  with  God,  and  the  Word  was  God ;  and  the  Word  was 
made  flesh  and  dwelt  among  us,  and  we  have  beheld  His  glory'? 
Ah !  He  is  veritably  the  God  become  manifest  in  the  flesh,  the 
God  whose  fulness  has  dwelt  among  men,  has  lived  and  lives 


1880.  PAGANISM  IN  PARIS.  271 

eternally  in  Christ.  With  clasped  hands,  on  bended  knees  do  I 
worship  Him.  I  can  truly  say  that  I  am  second  to  no  Christian,  by 
whatever  name  he  may  be  called,  in  my  passionate  adoration  of  Him : 
but  He,  the  Christ,  is  not  the  God  of  Montmartre.  The  God  of 
Montmartre  is  the  one  who  appeared,  so  it  is  said,  to  Marie  Alacoque 
during  hallucination.  It  is  he  who,  in  these  visions,  himself  ordained 
that  the  Jesuits  should  be  the  apostles  of  the  new  dispensation.  And, 
indeed,  it  is  the  Jesuits  who,  in  the  last  century,  overawed  the 
Gallican  episcopacy  in  spite  of  their  protestations,  and  Eome  itself 
in  spite  of  its  wise  misgivings.  It  is  they  v>'ho,  in  an  unguarded 
moment,  wrung  from  the  Assembly  that  pretended  national  offering 
to  the  Sacred  Heart  of  Jesus.  And  who  is  this  new  apparition,  this 
strange  figure  presented  for  our  adoration  ?  Instead  of  the  Word,  the 
Aoyos,  made  man,  we  have  a  youth  of  insipid  beauty,  sensual  and 
mystic,  appearing  to  a  deluded  nun  and  exhibiting  to  her  eyes  a 
lacerated  viscus — a  heart  dripping  with  blood,  and  surrounded  by  a  red 
flame.  These  misguided  Christians  have,  in  their  audacious  fanati- 
cism, done  what  it  was  not  permitted  the  cruel  executioners  of 
Calvary  to  do :  they  have  broken  His  sacred  body,  they  Lave  torn 
out  His  holy  heart,  and  parade  it  about  the  world  on  banner,  cross, 
and  halberd  !  Ah !  is  it  not  true  that  paganism  is  still  in  our  midstj 
And  I  dare  assert  that  the  day  when  Catholic  France  shall  go  up  to 
the  shrine  of  Montmartre — should  she  ever  do  so — that  day  will 
witness  the  definitive  victory  of  Jesuitism.  Paris,  conquered  by  the 
Prussians  and  burnt  by  the  Communists,  will  be  trampled  under  foot 
by  the  triumphant  Jesuits. 

But  little  space  is  left  for  me  to  explain  minutely,  as  I  have 
done  in  the  case  of  irreligious  nationalism,  the  character  of  Ultra- 
montanism.  However,  I  will  sum  it  up  in  one  word,  in  its  relation 
to  knowledge,  morality,  and  society. 

In  the  order  of  knowledge  it  is  still  man  substituting  himself  for 
(rod.  Is  it  the  Bible,  that  supernatural  word  of  God  to  the  world  ?  Is 
it  reason,  natural  light  of  God  to  man  ?  No  :  now  the  Bible  is  closed  ; 
reason  is  abased.  While  the  pious  and  learned  Fenelon,  Archbishop 
of  Cambrai,  was  pursuing  those  philosophical  studies  of  his  to  which 
we  are  indebted  for  the  treatise  on  the  Existence  of  God,  he  suddenly 
recoiled  on  his  own  reason,  the  reason  of  man,  and  viewing  in  it  not  the 
faculty,  born  shallow  and  defective,  but  the  object  which  illuminates 
it,  the  absolute  ideas  which  people  it  as  with  a  starry  firmament,  and 
the  eternal  laws  which  govern  it  in  its  contingent  evolutions, '  Reason ! 
Reason ! '  suddenly  exclaimed  the  great  Christian  thinker,  f  could  it 
be  that  thou  art  he  whom  I  seek  ?  '  Yes  ;  in  its  object  reason  is  God, 
not  in  itself,  but  in  its  object ;  and  long  before  Fenelon,  St.  John  had 
said, '  That  word  is  the  true  light  which  lighteth  every  man  that  cometh 
into  the  world.'  Well !  reason  is  in  bondage,  the  Bible  is  closed  :  these 


272  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  February 

two  communions — the  one  natural,  the  other  supernatural,  but  both 
direct — of  man  with  God  are  interrupted.  What  then  remains  ?  Man 
— man  of  the  same  flesh  and  blood  as  we  are,  who  is  often  full  of  good 
intentions — it  is  the  case  of  the  present  Pope,  it  was  the  same  with  his 
predecessor,  but  to  the  goodness  of  intentions  Leo  the  Thirteenth  joins 
a  wisdom  relatively  considerable  in  idea  and  action — a  man  who  may 
be  virtuous,  but  who  also  may  be  (history  bears  proof  of  it)  reckoned 
among  the  weak,  sometimes  even  among  the  wicked.  And  yet  it  is 
on  his  lips  that  the  permanent  and  lying  miracle  of  infallibility  is 
made  to  dwell.  This  man,  placed  between  his  equals  and  (rod,  will 
henceforth  be  the  alpha  and  omega  of  moral  and  religious  certitude. 
Has  not  the  leader  of  this  party,  or  rather  sect,  dared  to  write, 
1  There  is  only  one  man  in  the  world  who  knows  anything,  and  he  is 
the  Pope ' ? ! 

Such  is  the  intellectual  paganism.  The  moral  paganism  is  that 
which  also  places  a  man  between  conscience  and  God.  I  do  not  wish 
to  say  any  harm  of  Catholic  confession  ;  when  it  is  freely  and  morally 
practised,  when  it  proceeds  from  a  conscience  which  opens  itself  in 
the  full  possession  of  its  liberty,  dignity,  and  modesty,  and  when  it  is 
received  by  a  man  of  enlightened  religion  and  disinterested  devotion, 
who  does  not  wish  to  dominate  over  souls,  but  to  serve  them,  who  does 
not  seek  to  supplant  God,  but  to  prepare  the  ways  to  Him — then  the 
confessional  is  a  blessing,  a  real  blessing,  and  I  would  not  for  my  part 
diminish  the  respect  or  the  practice  of  it.  But  this  is  not  the 
Jesuitical  confession.  The  Jesuitical  confession  implies  the  abdica- 
tion of  personal  will,  of  individual  responsibility.  Man  in  the  hands 
of  a  confessor  must  be — these  are  the  very  words  of  the  book — *  like 
a  corpse  which  can  be  moved  about  in  all  ways,  without  a  resistance, 
like  a  staff  in  the  hands  of  an  old  man.'  Not  only  obedience,  but 
blind  obedience,  must  be  practised.  This  is  what  I  call  an  immo- 
rality— the  faculty  which  ought  to  enlighten  man  blinding  itself,  the 
moral  agent  discharging  itself  of  its  terrible  but  glorious  responsi- 
bility on  to  a  stranger.  Even  supposing  this  strange  abdication,  this 
monstrous  substitution,  took  place  in  behalf  of  all  virtues,  it  never- 
theless constitutes  a  fundamental  immorality. 

There  are  certain  things  which  are  heavy  for  man  to  bear  : 
among  them  we  may  class  the  weight  of  truth  in  his  reason  and  the 
weight  of  justice  in  his  conscience.  It  is  most  convenient  to  say,  '  I 
will  think  no  more,  I  will  not  even  believe  any  more,  but  I  will  submit 
myself ; '  and  it  is  also  convenient  to  say,  '  I  will  struggle  no 
longer  for  justice;  I  will  listen  no  more,  according  to  the  words  of 
St.  Paul,  to  my  thoughts  which  accuse  and  defend  me  in  turns;  I 
will  read  no  more  with  the  lamp  of  vigilance  and  sometimes  of 
anguish  that  written  law,  of  which  St.  Paul  says  "  Everybody  is  to 

1  L' Illusion  Lib f rak,  by  M.  Louis  Ycuillot. 


1880.  PAGANISM  IN  PARIS.  273 

himself  his  own  law,  everybody  will  be  judged  by  the  law  which  he 
bears  in  his  heart ; "  and  I  abdicate  my  conscience  into  the  hands  of 
a  confessor.' 

This  is  paganism — man  substituted  for  God,  man  intercepting 
with  his  fatal  shadow  the  light  which  comes  from  above.  It  is  pre- 
tended that  all  this  is  done  in  the  name  of  the  Church.  As  regards 
myself,  I  shall  always  distinguish  the  Church,  not  only  the  Catholic 
Church  which  is  more  vast  than  Home,  but  the  Koman  Church  itself 
in  its  generous  elements — I  shall  always  separate  them  from  what  M. 
de  Montalembert  called  in  a  letter  to  myself  '  the  odious  sect  which 
dominates  and  traffics  on  the  Catholicism  of  our  days.'  The  sect 
which  dominates  and  trades  on  the  Catholicism  of  our  days,  the  sect 
which  has  attached  itself  to  the  Church  like  an  ivy  which  exhausts  it, 
like  a  cancer  which  devours  it,  some  think  is  an  absolute  enemy  of  the 
Republic.  It  is  a  mistake.  What  it  is  the  enemy  of,  is  political 
and  social  autonomy — the  communication  of  the  conscience  of  citi- 
zens and  magistrates  with  justice  and  superior  reason,  directly, 
immediately,  face  to  face,  a  people  of  God  governing  themselves. 
But  if  it  can  find  anywhere —  and  such  things  have  been  seen  in  South 
America  and  elsewhere — if  it  can  find  a  Republican  or  Caesarean 
democracy,  no  matter  which,  that  will  consent  to  place  above 
justice,  above  the  rights  of  one  and  all,  and  consequently  above 
God,  the  canonical  Ultramontane  right — that  is  to  say,  the  arbitrary 
will  of  the  Pope — that  sect  will  be  contented  with  it,  it  will  acclaim 
it,  it  will  sprinkle  holy  water  on  liberty-trees,  and  even,  if  neces- 
sary, on  red  Phrygian  caps.  All  it  desires  of  man  is  one  thing :  to 
abdicate  direct  relations,  in  the  social  order  as  in  the  moral  and  in- 
tellectual order,  with  supreme  reason,  with  absolute  justice,  with  God, 
and  to  place  between  earth  and  heaven  a  priest — that  Italian  priest 
who  is  called  the  Pope. 

Such  are  the  two  paganisms  which  I  point  out  to  my  contemporaries, 
and  in  concluding  this  very  imperfect  article  I  ask  of  them  :  Now,  what 
do  you  desire  ?  Will  you  choose  between  them,  or  will  you  reject  them 
both  ?  Will  you  be  Ultramontane,  kneeling  before  the  Pope,  or  will 
you  be  sceptic,  straying  in  the  midst  of  your  dreams,  tottering  in  the 
midst  of  your  doubts  ?  You  feel  that  a  choice  must  be  made,  and  you 
know  not  how  to  make  it.  In  your  hours  of  religious  sentimentalisin 
you  incline  towards  Ultramontanism  ;  in  your  hours  of  philosophical 
independence  you  incline  towards  negation,  or  at  least  towards  doubt. 
You  know  not  how  to  say  yes  or  no  decisively.  Weak  souls, 
powerless  reasons,  the  majority  hesitate,  till  on  the  point  of  death, 
between  the  affirmation  of  their  cradle,  whose  echo  awakens  in  their 
tomb,  and  the  negation  of  their  youth  or  the  doubt  of  their  manhood. 
You  divide  yourselves  in  your  own  conscience  between  two  extremes 
which  are  equally  impossible,  without  being  able  to  discover  the 


274  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY.  February 

luminous  and  pacific  medium.  You  divide  yourselves  in  your  homes, 
where  you  place  superstition  and  incredulity  side  by  side.  You  send 
your  wives  and  daughters  to  the  school  of  a  superstitious  religion 
which  teaches  them  to  think  no  longer.  You  go  with  your  sons  to  a 
school  of  a  heartless  science  which  renders  prayer  and  love  impossible. 
France  will  be  the  loser  if  this  schism  continues.  Eepublic  or 
Monarchy,  she  will  descend  into  the  byways  of  decadence,  and 
perhapt  into  the  abyss  of  catastrophes. 

What  we  must  do,  and  I  continue  to  appeal  to  my  dear  fellow- 
citizens,  my  dear  co-religionists — for,  after  all,  we  are  all  Christians, 
and  when  we  go  to  the  bottom  of  our  souls  we  all  feel  Christianity 
there — we  must,  amid  all  these  errors,  raise  aloft  the  banner  of 
the  Gospel.  Instead  of  isolating  ourselves,  instead  of  firing  on  one 
another  in  this  civil  war,  in  this  criminal  and  mad  war,  we  must 
unite  together.  We  must  labour  in  that  work  of  which  Mr.  Glad- 
stone, one  of  those  statesmen  who  do  not  blush  to  be  real  Christians, 
remarked  to  me  one  day  that  the  greatest  idea  of  this  century  was 
Catholic  reform  and  the  unity  of  the  Church.  Above  Protestantism  and 
ts  divisions,  above  Roman  Catholicism  and  its  oppression,  above  Greek 
Catholicism  and  its  somnolence  or  isolation,  let  us  endeavour  to  arouse 
a  great  organic  and  living  Christianity,  a  vast  superior  and  integral 
Catholicism,  a  free  and  strong  federation  of  churches  and  consciences ; 
and  let  us  oppose  to  the  two  enemies — to  the  one  who  says  to  man, 
'  Thou  hast  no  soul  or  immortality,  and  consequently  thou  art  only 
an  ephemeral  and  suffering  animal ; '  and  to  the  other  who  says  to 
him,  *  Give  me  thy  soul,  leave  to  me  thy  conscience,  I  alone  can  save 
them  from  Satan  and  lead  them  to  God ' — to  these  two  paganisms 
let  us  reply  with  a  restored  Christianity.  Ah !  this  is  what  must 
be  done.  Will  you  do  it  ?  I  am  asked.  Are  you  a  St.  Denis  ? 
No,  I  am  not  a  St.  Denis,  but  I  am  one  of  his  disciples.  Nor  am  I 
alone,  for  there  are  legions  of  his  disciples  hidden  away  throughout 
my  beloved  country,  hidden  and  timid  from  this  long  reign  of  terror 
to  conscience.  But  when  help  and  liberty  are  assured,  they  will 
come  forth  strong  in  the  strength  of  the  Lord,  and  we  shall  fight  the 
good  fight  together — the  peaceful  battle  of  Christ's  love.  Yes,  we 
can  do  this,  we  can  and  we  ought.  And  if  they  do  not,  and  if  I  fall 
and  die  enveloped  in  my  solitary  flag,  I  shall  not  die  alone  dis- 
couraged. No,  because  I  shall  have  fought  for  the  truth,  believing 
that  the  future  will  sooner  or  later  realise  what  the  present  is  not 
worthy  of  accomplishing.  No — and  my  friends  will  allow  me  to 
speak  thus  personally  of  the  course  in  which  all  my  life  and  being 
are  engaged — no,  I  shall  never  be  discouraged  by  the  opposition  or 
the  indifference  of  men,  by  the  delays  of  time  and  God.  I  shall  not 
be  like  those  who  seek  only  immediate  success.  I  shall  not  be  like 
those  who  stop  before  duty  and  sacrifice,  saying  to  themselves,  '  If  I 


1880.  PAGANISM  IN  PARIS.  275 

go  further,  I  shall  not  be  followed.'  There  are  disciples  of  Christ 
who,  alas !  speak  thus  in  our  days.  I  shall  march  alone  if  I  am  to 
be  alone.  I  shall  say,  like  the  poet  philosopher,  '  I  am  a  citizen  of 
the  centuries  to  come ; '  or  rather  I  shall  say,  as  the  symbol  of  OUT 
faith  :  '  I  believe  in  the  resurrection  of  the  dead,'  in  the  resurrection 
of  dead  consciences,  till  that  of  dead  bodies  shall  have  taken  place. 
I  believe  in  the  rejuvenation  of  worn-out  institutions,  but  which  must 
revive  because  they  are  necessary ;  in  the  triumph  of  vanquished 
principles,  of  truths  obscured  by  those  who  combat  them,  and  often 
by  those  who  defend  them.  I  believe  in  the  final  victory  of  truth 
and  justice,  and  in  the  reign  of  God  for  ever  on  this  earth. 

HYACINTHE  LOYSON. 


276  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  February 


AN  EYE-WITNESS   OF  JOHN  KEMBLE. 

IN  May,  1817,  Ludwig  Tieck,  critic,  dramatist,  and  poet,  visited 
England.  He  was  then  forty-four  years  old ;  his  powers  of  mind  and 
body  at  their  best.  Shakespeare  was  the  one  great  object  of  his 
worship  ;  and  he  justly  regarded  a  personal  acquaintance  with  the 
country  and  countrymen  of  the  poet  as  indispensable  for  the  system- 
atic study  of  his  works,  and  those  of  his  contemporary  dramatists, 
in  which  he  was  then  engaged.  Probably  no  Englishman,  then 
living,  was  more  conversant  with  the  history  of  the  English  stage 
than  Tieck.  Of  Burbage  and  Shakespeare's  other  fellow- actors,  of 
Betterton,  Booth,  Quin,  Macklin,  Barry,  Garrick,  through  whom  its 
early  traditions  had  passed,  he  knew  all  that  the  scanty  records  of  our 
theatre  had  preserved ;  and  he  came  to  England  with  the  natural 
hope  that  some  traces  of  what  their  genius  had  done  for  the  illus- 
tration of  the  supreme  poet  might  be  found  in  the  great  theatres 
with  which  their  names  were  identified.  It  was  hard — and  it  might 
well  be  so — for  a  German  enthusiast  for  the  drama  to  believe  that 
the  great  histrionic  power  in  the  actors  of  his  own  time,  on  which 
Shakespeare  had  relied  to  interpret  his  works  to  his  countrymen, 
unaided  by  the  splendour  of  scenic  appointments,  should  not  have 
left  its  mark  upon  their  successors.  In  any  case  he  might  hope  to 
see  such  of  the  poet's  works  as  kept  their  hold  upon  the  stage 
treated  with  the  sympathetic  reverence,  which  the  loudly  proclaimed 
admiration  by  the  English  for  their  greatest  poet  led  him  to  expect, 
and  which  he  had  been  accustomed  to  see  applied  to  the  acting 
of  Shakespeare  on  the  stages  of  Hamburg,  Berlin,  Dresden,  and 
Vienna. 

Tieck's  first  inquiry  on  reaching  London  was,  whether  the  two 
great  theatres  of  Covent  Garden  and  Drury  Lane  were  still  open. 
It  was  late  in  the  season,  but,  fortunately  for  his  purpose,  he  was  not 
only  in  time,  but  had  come  just  as  John  Kemble  was  playing  a  series 
of  his  Shakespearean  characters  at  Covent  Garden,  previous  to  taking 
his  final  leave  of  the  stage.  The  great  actor  had  begun  these  fare- 
well performances  on  the  22nd  of  April,  and  had  been  playing  on 
alternate  nights  up  to  the  30th  of  May,  when  Tieck  first  saw  him. 
Never  a  very  strong  man,  his  health  for  some  years  had  been  a  good 


1880.        AN  EYE-WITNESS  OF  JOHN  KEMBLE.  277 

deal  broken.  A  succession  of  thirty  performances,  within  less  than 
two  months,  which  included  King  John,  the  Stranger,  Coriolanus, 
Brutus  in  Julius  Ccesar,  Pen  ruddock  in  The  Wheel  of  Fortune, 
Hotspur,  Cato,  Hamlet,  Zanga,  Cardinal  Wolsey,  and  Octavian  in 
The  Mountaineers,  was  enough  to  have  exhausted  the  forces  of  a 
much  younger  man.  Tieck,  therefore,  saw  him  at  great  disadvan- 
tage ;  and  in  reading  the  German  critic's  remarks,  this  circumstance 
must,  injustice  to  Kemble,  be  kept  steadily  in  view.  Much  of  the 
languor  and  slowness,  which  he  found  in  the  great  actor,  was  due  not 
so  much  to  his  habitual  style,  as  to  the  constitutional  asthma  and 
physical  weakness,  which  compelled  him  to  husband  his  resources. 
The  passages  in  his  impersonations,  which,  as  we  shall  see,  wrung 
from  Tieck  a  reluctant  admission  of  their  splendour,  would  be 
sufficient  evidence  of  this,  had  we  not  known  it  from  the  lips  and 
writings  of  others,  who  had  the  good  fortune  to  be  familiar  with  what 
Kemble  had  been,  and  to  know  him  as  he  then  was. 

Tieck,  whose  own  reading  of  Shakespeare  subsequently  became 
famous,  had  studied  the  actor's  art  in  the  critical  school  of  which 
Lessing  was  the  founder.  He  had,  moreover,  seen  all  the  best  acting 
of  the  German  stage  at  a  period  rich  in  actors  and  actresses  of  great 
gifts  and  accomplishments.  He  had  a  right,  therefore,  to  speak 
with  authority ;  and  before  turning  to  what  he  has  to  say  of  the 
English  stage  it  may  not  be  amiss  to  illustrate,  by  his  account  of 
the  great  German  actor,  Fleck,1  the  high  standard  of  excellence 
to  which  he  could  refer  in  judging  of  the  leaders  of  the  English 
school. 

Fleck  was  slender,  not  tall,  but  of  the  finest  proportions ;  he  had  brown  eyes, 
whose  fire  was  softened  by  gentleness,  finely  pencilled  brows,  a  noble  forehead  and 
nose,  and  in  youth  his  head  resembled  that  of  the  Apollo.  In  the  parts  of  Essex, 
Tancred,  Ethelwolf,  he  was  fascinating,  especially  so  as  the  Infanta  Don  Pedro  in 
Inez  de  Castro,  a  part  written,  like  the  whole  piece,  very  feebly  and  vulgarly,  but 
every  word  of  which  as  spoken  by  him  rang  like  the  inspiration  of  a  great  poet. 
His  voice  had  the  purity  of  a  bell  and  was  rich  in  full  clear  tones,  high  as  well  as 
low,  beyond  what  any  one  could  believe  who  had  not  heard  them  ;  for  in  passages 
of  tenderness,  entreaty,  or  devotion,  he  had  a  flute-like  softness  at  command.  And, 
without  ever  falling  into  the  grating  bass,  which  often  strikes  so  unpleasantly  on 
our  ear,  his  deep  tones  rang  like  metal,  with  a  roll  like  thunder  in  suppressed  rage, 
and  a  roar  as  of  a  lion  in  the  unchecked  tempest  of  passion.  The  tragedian  for 
whom  Shakespeare  wrote,  must,  in  my  opinion,  have  possessed  many  of  the  qualities 
of  Fleck,  for  those  marvellous  transitions,  those  interjections,  those  pauses,  followed 
by  a  tempestuous  torrent  of  words,  no  less  than  those  side  strokes  and  touches  of 

1  Johanu  Friedrich  Fleck  was  born  in  1757,  appeared  on  the  stage  in  1777,  rose 
rapidly  to  the  first  rank  in  his  profession,  and  retained  it  till  his  death  in  1801. 
He  had  the  qualities  of  a  fine  figure,  eyes,  and  voice,  and  of  an  expressive  face,, 
without  which  no  actor  of  the  poetic  drama  can  be  great.  Humour,  that  other 
essential  of  the  great  actor,  he  seems  also  to  have  possessed  in  an  eminent  degree. 
His  distinction  among  the  actors  of  his  time  was  the  thoroughness  of  everything  he 
did.  He  was  not  fine  in  passages,  but  left  upon  his  audience  the  impression  of  a 
great  whole,  of  characters,  true  and  consistent  as  life  itself. 

VOL.  VII.— No.  36.  U 


278  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  February 

nature,  spontaneous,  naive,  nay  sometimes  verging  on  the  comic,  which  he  threw 
into  his  performance,  were  given  with  such  natural  truth,  as  to  make  us  understand 
for  the  first  time  all  the  subtlety  and  peculiarity  of  the  poet's  pathos.  When  he 
appeared  in  any  of  his  great  impersonations,  there  was  a  halo  of  something  super- 
natural about  him,  an  impalpable  horror  went  with  him,  and  every  tone,  every 
look  went  through  our  heart.  In  the  part  of  Lear  I  preferred  him  to  the  great 
Schroder,  for  he  dealt  with  it  more  poetically  and  more  truly  to  the  poet,  inasmuch 
as  he  laboured  less  visibly  at  the  indications  of  coming  madness,  although  when  it 
came  he  exhibited  it  in  all  its  appalling  sublimity.  To  have  seen  his  Othello  was  a 
great  experience.  In  Macbeth  Schroder  may  have  surpassed  him,  for  he  gave  the 
first  Act  without  sufficient  significance,  and  the  second  A  ct  feebly,  and  with  a  want 
of  decision,  but  from  the  third  onwards  he  was  incomparable,  and  in  the  fifth 
grand.  His  Shylock  was  full  of  a  weird  horror,  never  commonplace,  but  on  the 
contrary  noble  throughout.  Many  of  Schiller's  characters  were  quite  written  for 
him :  but  the  triumph  of  his  greatness,  however  great  he  might  be  in  many 
of  them,  was  the  Robber  Moor.  To  this  Titan-like  creation  of  a  young  and  daring 
imagination  he  gave  a  terrible  reality,  a  noble  elevation ;  the  ferocity  was  mingled 
with  tenderness  so  touching,  that  the  poet,  when  he  saw  it,  must  unquestionably 
have  been  struck  with  wonder  at  his  own  creation.  .  .  .  Even  the  so-called 
character  parts  in  the  drama  of  everyday  life  Fleck  played  with  distinction  and 
spirit,  infusing  a  humour  into  them,  which  made  them  most  attractive. 

For  the  sake  of  dramatic  history,  as  well  as  of  Kemble's  reputation, 
it  is  a  pity  that  so  competent  a  critic  as  Tieck  should  not  have  seen 
the  actor  at  his  best.  His  report  might  then  have  claimed  the  same 
authority  as  the  admirable  account  of  Grarrick  in  the  last  year  of  his 
public  life,  which  is  to  be  found  in  the  German  philosopher  and 
critic  Lichtenberg's  letters  from  London  to  his  friend  Boye.  Still, 
after  making  every  allowance,  there  is  '  much  matter  to  be  heard 
and  learned '  about  Kemble  and  his  contemporaries  from  the  sketches, 
composed  in  a  great  measure  from  his  London  letters,  which  Tieck 
published  in  his  Dramaturgische  Blatter  in  1826,  but  which  have 
not  hitherto  been  made  known  to  English  readers. 

Barren  although  our  stage  unhappily  is,  for  the  time,  of  the 
powers,  natural  and  acquired,  which  can  alone  do  justice  to  the 
Shakespearean  drama,  Tieck's  account  of  what  he  saw  is  not  wholly 
without  consolation  for  us.  All  was  not  so  perfect  in  those  so-called 
palmy  days  of  the  stage  as  some  would  have  us  believe.  Bad  acting 
was  not  uncommon  then  any  ?more  than  now — as  indeed,  how  can  it 
ever  be  otherwise  than  common — the  art  being  so  difficult  as  it  is  ? 
And  although  there  were  actors  of  great  natural  gifts,  and  who,  by  a 
lifetime  of  study  and  observation,  had  trained  themselves  to  grapple 
with  the  great  characters  of  the  poetic  drama,  and  to  portray  the 
'  high  actions  and  ^high  passions '  by  which  they  lifted  delighted 
audiences  into  that  ideal  world,  which  after  all  seems  to  be  the  only 
real  one,  the  stage  of  that  period  was  far  behind  our  own  in  this — 
that  liberties  of  excision  and  addition  were  taken  with  the  text  of 
;Shakespeare  which  would  now  be  impossible,  and  that  those  accessories 
which  give  life  and  variety  to  the  action  of  the  scene  were  neglected 
to  an  extent  as  culpable  in  one  way,  as  the  excess  in  scenic  splendour 


1880.        AN  EYE-WITNESS  OF  JOHN  KEMBLE.  279 

and  elaboration  of  costume   to  which   we  have  of  late  years  been 
accustomed,  is  objectionable  in  another. 

The  first  play  which  Tieck  saw  at  Covent  Garden  (May  30)  was 
Cymbeline,  which  he  justly  calls  '  the  most  charming  of  the  poet's 
dramas.' 

I  was  prepared  to  find  (he  says),  owing  to  the  length  of  the  piece,  and  want  of 
capacity  in  the  actors  who  could  not  fill  all  the  parts,  much  less  fill  them  all  well, 
that  I  should  not  see  the  whole  play,  and  that  much  of  what  I  should  see  would 
be  performed  in  a  mediocre  style,  for  we  are  accustomed  to  this  sort  of  thing,  even 
in  the  case  of  weaker  plays ;  but  that  there  should  be  an  absolute  want  of  connec- 
tion, and  of  illusion  in  many  of  the  finest  scenes,  nay,  that  not  so  much  as  an 
attempt  at  this  should  be  made — for  this,  I  confess,  I  was  not  prepared.  The 
whole  was  treated  as  a  series  of  declamations,  in  which  some  things  were  spoken 
admirably,  many  gracefully,  and  much,  very  much,  as  stupidly  as  could  be,  without 
regard  to  the  poet's  meaning,  or  even  to  the  elementary  rules  of  elocution. 

It  frequently  struck  me  as  strange  and  ludicrous,  that  the  performers  should 
have  adopted  any  costume,  as  they  seemed  in  truth  to  ignore  the  fact  that  they 
were  acting  altogether.  I  felt  this  chiefly  in  those  scenes,  assuredly  among  the 
finest  which  even  Shakespeare  has  written — I  mean,  those  of  that  marvellous 
solitude,  in  which  old  Belarius,  and  the  king's  two  stolen  sons,  Guiderius  and 
Arviragus,  appear.  All  the  more  that  the  poet  has  given  peculiar  richness  of 
colour,  and  a  glorious  freshness  to  these  scenes,  did  one  feel  outraged  by  seeing  these 
youths  deport  themselves  like  two  young  Englishmen,  who  had  dropped  into  the 
theatre  for  their  amusement  from  the  nearest  tavern.  This  revolting  kind  of 
commonplace  made  havoc  of  these  scenes,  but  the  audience  appeared  to  be  un- 
conscious of  anything  amiss. 

The  curtailments  and  alterations  in  the  arrangement  of  this  play  for  the  stage 
have  been  made  in  the  most  reckless  way,  according  to  a  prevailing  usage  with  the 
English  in  such  matters  ;  for  since  adaptations  of  their  poet  (like  Dryden's  of  the 
Tempest,  and  Shadwell's  of  Timon  of  Athens)  are  no  longer  represented,  they  are 
content  with  arbitrary  abridgments,  in  which  the  play  often  becomes  unintelligible, 
and  the  meaning  of  the  poet  is  always  sure  to  suffer.  A  general  knowledge  of  the 
work  is  assumed  ;  the  most  celebrated  passages  are  allowed  to  stand ;  undue  promi- 
nence is  often  given  to  the  leading  actors ;  unimportant  scenes  and  speeches  are 
taken  from  their  place,  and  given  to  some  favourite.  One  scene  is  lengthened  out, 
by  interpolations  or  dumb  show,  to  very  weariness,  while  other  scenes  are  shortened 
or  wholly  omitted,  although  they  are  to  carry  on  the  action — in  short,  such 
violence  is  done  to  the  author,  that  an  unprejudiced  observer  finds  it  hard  to 
reconcile  this  tyranny  with  the  reverence  and  homage  which  the  English  seem  to 
pay  to  their  great  poet  whenever  they  can. 

Those  whose  studies  have  not' shown  them,  how  deeply  the  vice 
here  denounced  by  Tieck  had  penetrated  into  our  acted  Shakespearean 
drama,  will  read  his  statements  with  amazement.  It  was  not, 
indeed,  until  long  afterwards,  when  his  management  of  Covent 
Garden,  and  subsequently  of  Drury  Lane,  enabled  Mr.  Macready  to 
introduce  a  thorough  system  of  reform,  that  the  scandal  was  effec- 
tively abated.  When,  among  other  revivals,  Cymbeline  was  produced 
by  him,  the  play  was  probably,  for  the  first  time,  seen  upon  the 
stage  in  something  like  its  true  proportions.  Local  colour  and 
correct  costumes  were  introduced,  with  a  skilful  reserve,  to  set  off  the 
fine  acting  of  his  powerful  company.  How  reverently  and  beautifully 

u2 


280  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  February 

the  forest  scene,  alluded  to  by  Tieck,  with  the  two  young  men  of 
royal  breed,  was  handled,  must  still  be  a  delight  to  many  to  remember. 
But  to  return  to  our  chronicler. 

On  his  first  entrance  John  Kemble  reminded  me  by  his  noble  presence,  his 
stature,  and  speaking  expressive  face  of  our  excellent  Heinrich  Jacobi.  .  .  .  The 
English  themselves  admit  that,  even  when  he  was  young,  the  part  of  Posthumus 
was  one  of  his  weakest ;  how  much  more  now  !  His  voice  is  weak  and  tremulous, 
but  full  of  expression,  and  there  is  a  ring  of  feeling  and  intelligence  in  every  word, 
only  much  too  strongly  marked,  and  between  every  second  and  third  word  there 
comes  a  pause,  and  most  of  the  verses  or  speeches  end  in  a  high  key.  ...  In 
consequence  of  this  tedious  style  of  delivery  the  piece,  even  though  probably  one 
half  of  it  was  cut  out,  lasted  an  unusual  time.  This,  so  to  speak,  musical  declamation 
was  incompatible  with  all  real  acting,  nay,  in  a  certain  degree  made  it  impossible ; 
for  when  everything  is  made  to  depend  on  little  nuances  of  speaking,  and  every 
monologue  and  every  single  passage  is  sought  to  be  rounded  off  into  an  artistic 
•whole,  any  delineation  of  character,  of  the  ebb  and  flow  of  passion  and  feeling,  is 
out  of  the  question.  Here  and  there  one  saw  the  great  master ;  for  example,  in  the 
second  Act,  when  lachimo  after  his  return  tells  how  he  has  succeeded  ;  the  despair, 
mingled  with  rage,  the  kindling  of  fresh  hope,  and  the  falling  back  into  comfortless 
anguish,  were  admirably  given,  and  one  could  see  clearly  that  if  Kemble  had  not 
succumbed  to  mannerism,  and  a  one-sided  school,  he  would  have  been  a  truly  great 
actor. 

The  lachimo  of  the  evening  was  Young,  who  threw,  says  Tieck, 
no  character  into  the  part.  He  was  probably  not  actor  enough  to 
be  a  villain  of  a  stamp  so  abhorrent  to  his  own  honourable  nature. 
Miss  Foote  was  the  Imogen.  '  She  was  graceful,'  is  Tieck's  criticism, 
'  in  the  boy's  dress  ;  but  she  was  not  really  equal  to  the  part.'  How 
could  she  be  ?  she,  the  airy,  graceful,  fine  lady  of  comedy,  how  was 
she  to  depict  all  the  pathos,  the  passion,  the  ineffable  mixture  of 
womanly  grace  and  power  and  dignity  of  this  paragon  of  Shake- 
speare's women  ? 

Liston?s  Cloten,  we  are  told,  c  was  the  part  played  with  the  most 
spirit  and  intelligence.  His  stuttering  bullying  manner  was  full  of 
meaning,  and  the  uncoutlmess  of  his  nature  was  extremely  well 
expressed.'  But  there  follows  a  qualification  of  a  very  serious  kind. 
'  The  actor  fell  into  the  mistake  of  not  letting  the  somewhat  heroic 
side  of  the  Prince  peep  out  through  his  boorishness.  He  was  all 
through  too  thoroughly  the  clodpole.  Thus,'  continues  Tieck, 

my  longing  to  see  a  play  of  the  great  national  poet  performed  in  London  has 
been  at  length  fulfilled,  but  not  satisfied.  Schroder  and  Fleck,  and  their  brother 
performers,  did  much  more  towards  adequately  representing  the  poet ;  and,  fallen 
though  at  the  present  moment  the  German  stage  is,  were  Cymbeline  to  be  attempted 
there,  there  are  xmdoubtedly  many  places  where  a  more  complete  performance 
would  be  aimed  at,  and  this  wondrous  poem  would  not  be  so  mercilessly  mangled. 
If  Shakespeare  must  be  abridged  and  cut  to  pieces,  let  those  who  set  about  the 
task  remember  what  Brutus  says  of  Caesar : — 

'  Let  us  be  sacrificers,  but  no  butchers,  Caius  ! 
Let's  carve  him  as  a  dish  fit  for  the  gods, 
Xot  hew  him  as  a  carcase  fit  for  hounds.' 


1880.        AN  EYE-WITNESS  OF  JOHN  KEMBLE.  281 

The  next  night  Tieck  saw  John  Kemble  in  Brutus. 

As  iny  anticipations  (he  says)  were  no  longer  vague,  so  was  my  enjoyment  greater. 
The  play  itself,  too,  being  narrower  in  its  range,  and  more  easily  understood,  was 
altogether  better  given.  Brutus,  it  is  true,  was  not  acted,  but  only  declaimed  with 
intelligence.  The  celebrated  quarrel  scene  between  him  and  Cassius  (Mr.  Young) 
produced  but  little  impression  ;  for  scenes  of  this  kind  Kemble's  voice  is  much  too 
weak.  The  orations  were  well  spoken.  Charles  Kemble,  brother  of  the  famous 
actor,  delivered  his  speech  as  Antony  with  great  energy,  only  there  was  too 
much  malignant  bitterness  in  his  laugh  at  its  close,  when  he  saw  the  people  roused, 
showing  a  false  interpretation  of  the  poet's  purpose !  Here  was  an  instance  of 
what  we  often  see — that  an  inferior  talent  infuses  too  much  of  itself  into  the  poet, 
and  thereby  drags  him  down  to  a  lower  level.  Much  may  be  introduced  well  and 
properly  in  the  plays  of  other  writers,  which  is  quite  out  of  place  where  Shakespeare 
is  concerned. 

The  scene  of  the  mob,  with  its  rising  turbulence  and  its  calming  down  again, 
was  very  well  given.  On  this  occasion,  too,  the  costumes  were  satisfactory. 

Tieck  had  found  great  fault  with  the  costumes  in  Cymbeline,  which 
appear  from  his  description  to  have  been  ludicrously  inappropriate. 
He  also  objects  strongly  to  the  vastness  of  the  stage,  which  seemed 
to  him  to  make  the  effective  arrangement  of  groups  upon  it  almost 
impossible.  And  certainly  he  had  good  reason  for  this  complaint,  if 
no  more  skill  was  shown  in  grappling  with  this  difficulty,  than  in 
the  scene  of  Caesar's  assassination,  as  he  describes  it : — 

The  stage  was  deep,  and  Caesar  sat  upon  a  chair  in  the  extreme  background. 
When  the  petition  was  presented,  and  rejected  by  him,  the  conspirators  arranged 
themselves  in  a  well-defined  pyramid,  of  which  Caesar  formed  the  apex,  wliile 
Brutus  stood  well  forward  in  the  proscenium  to  the  left.  Casca  is  the  first  to  stab 
him ;  then  Csesar  turns  to  the  right  and  receives  a  second  blow  from  the  second  of 
his  enemies ;  again  he  staggers  in  affright  to  the  left,  a  few  steps  forward,  and 
receives  a  fresh  wound,  then  the  same  to  the  right :  now  the  free  space  on  the 
stage  grows  larger,  and  this  strange  movement  of  the  mortally  wounded  man 
becomes  more  extraordinary  and  unnatural,  but  he  still  goes  on  staggering  across 
the  stage  five  or  six  times,  so  as  to  be  stabbed  by  the  conspirators,  who  remain 
quietly  standing,  until  he  receives  his  death-blow  from  Brutus,  and  falls  forward, 
exclaiming  :  '  Et  tu,  Brute  ! '  This  scene,  arranged  like  the  most  formal  ballet, 
lost  all  dignity ;  and  it  was  rendered  outrageous  by  its  pretentious  solemnity.  It 
was  even  impossible  to  laugh  at  it.  ...  To  what  will  not  men  become  accus- 
tomed !  I  believe,  of  all  the  native  audience  there  was  not  one  who  was  disturbed 
by  this  grotesque  piece  of  stage  business. 

The  First  Part  of  Henry  V.  was  the  next  play  in  which  Tieck  saw 
John  Kemble,  and  his  disappointment  breaks  out  in  the  following 
prelude  to  his  criticism  of  the  great  actor's  treatment  of  Hotspur. 

Again  I  let  myself  be  deluded  with  the  hope  that  I  should  see  real  acting,  real 
impersonation,  penetrating  truth,  and  grasp  of  character,  that  infusion  into  noble 
poetry  of  life  and  action,  which  by  exalting  all  our  faculties  and  rousing  them  into 
harmonious  exercise,  offers  to  us  perhaps  the  highest  enjoyment  which  man  is 
capable  of  receiving  from  art.  But  all  I  got  for  my  pains  was  to  hear  some 
passages  finely  spoken,  with  a  total  breakdown  and  failure,  as  a  rule,  in  all  that  is 
most  essential.  .  .  .  Where  was  the  humour  of  Hotspur,  the  young  fiery  hero,  who 


282  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  February 

is  as  brave  as  lie  is  unmannerly,  who  out  of  vanity  hates  vanity  in  others  ;  who, 
himself  the  head  of  the  conspiracy,  with  the  best  resources  in  his  hands,  has  so 
little  self-command  that  he  scares  away  the  most  powerful  of  his  confederates,  and 
who,  as  general,  as  husband,  and  as  friend,  by  his  fiery  temper  and  good-humour, 
shows  characteristics  so  marked  and  peculiar  that  the  most  careless  reader  never 
fails  to  have  them  vividly  stamped  upon  his  fancy  ?  John  Kemble  declaimed 
leisurely,  intelligently ;  making  frequent  efforts  at  the  humour  of  the  part,  but 
never  grasping  it.  Here,  too,  he  spoke  quite  as  slowly  as  in  the  parts  I  had  pre- 
viously seen,  made  two  or  three  considerable  pauses,  now  drawled  (klagte),  now 
emphasised  every  second  or  third  word,  one  could  not  say  why,  and  then  ended  so 
frequently  in  a  sort  of  sing-song  in  all,  that  I  thought  I  was  again  listening  to 
one  of  those  Protestant  preachers  whom  one  used  to  hear  twenty  years  ago  in 
provincial  places  indulging  in  this  wailing,  tedious  tempo.  Percy's  first  long  story 
to  the  king  Kemble  seemed  to  take  as  serious  earnest,  only  exaggerated  by  youth- 
ful violence.  To  this  solemn,  almost  torturing  slowness  the  ear  became  so  accus- 
tomed, that  when  Percy  came  to  the  passage — 

'  In  Richard's  time — what  do  you  call  the  place  ? 
A  plague  upon  't ! — it  is  in  Gloucestershire — 
'Twas  where  the  madcap  Duke  his  uncle  kept,'  &c., 

and  he  all  at  once  spoke  it  with  a  quick,  sharp  utterance,  like  a  man  who  suddenly 
cannot  call  a  name  to  mind,  and  seeks  for  it  with  impatience,  the  whole  house 
broke  out  into  vehement  applause  at  the  sudden  drop  of  the  voice  and  alteration 
of  the  tempo.  It  is  something  noticeable  when  a  thing  of  this  kind,  which  is  a 
mere  matter  of  course,  and  which  can  be  easily  hit  off  by  the  mediocre  actor,  is 
received  by  the  public  with  such  marked  admiration.  This  mannerism,  which 
often  shows  itself  in  Kemble,  as  in  other  actors,  capriciously  and  without  cause, 
reminds  one  of  the  tragic  recitation  of  the  French,  who  in  every  scene  fling  out 
some  verses  at  a  galloping  pace  in  succession  to  passages  spoken  with  measured  and 
exaggerated  emphasis. 

Tieck,  however,  in  summing  up  his  criticism,  is  compelled  to 
admit  that  Kemble  '  gave  a  noble  and  manly  portraiture  of  the  young' 
and  impetuous  Prince  ;  although  without  the  attractiveness,  and  the 
gaiety  of  spirit,  which  the  poet  has  assigned  to  his  hero.'  In  judging 
of  this  criticism,  one  must  keep  in  view,  that  if  the  critic  had  seen 
Kemble  in  his  best  days,  or  even  on  some  other  night,  when  he  was 
less  fatigued,  or  less  out  of  health,  he  might  have  found  in  his  per- 
formance the  very  life,  the  vivacity,  the  wayward  charm,  which  he 
missed  on  the  evening  in  question.  Actors  are  but  mortals,  and,  the 
finer  their  sensibilities,  the  more  apt  are  they  to  be  at  times  unstrung. 
Kemble,  it  is  well  known,  during  these  last  performances,  taxed 
his  powers  unfairly.  In  Mr.  Macready's  autobiography,  an  account 
is  given  of  the  performance  of  Macbeth,  two  nights  after  Tieck  saw 
him  in  Hotspur,  where  the  same  flatness  through  much  of  the  play 
was  obviously  due  to  this  cause.  It  was  contrary  to  Kemble's  prin- 
ciples as  an  artist,  as  it  was  to  those  of  his  great  sister,2  to  slur  any 

2  'You  never,'  are  Charles  Young's  words,  'caught  her  slumbering  through  some 
scenes,  in  order  to  produce,  by  contrast,  an  exaggerated  effect  in  others.  She 
neglected  nothing.  From  the  first  moment  to  the  last  she  was,  according  to 
theatrical  parlance,  in  the  character.  .  .  .  There  were  no  pauses  protracted  until 


1880.        AN  EYE-WITNESS  OF  JOHN  KEMBLE.  283 

part  of  his  work.  Had  he  been  himself,  he  would  never  have  lan- 
guished through  the  first  four  acts  of  trie  play,  as  we  learn  from 
Mr.  Macready  he  did,  that  he  might  electrify  his  audience  in  the 
fifth. 

Through  the  whole  first  four  acts  the  play  moved  heavily  on:  Kemble  correct, 
tame,  and  ineffective ;  but  in  the  fifth,  when  the  news  was  brought,  '  The  Queen, 
my  lord,  is  dead  ! '  he  seemed  struck  to  the  heart ;  gradually  collecting  himself 
he  sighed  out,  '  She  should  have  died  hereafter ! '  then,  as  if  with  the  inspiration 
of  despair,  he  hurried  out,  distinctly  and  pathetically,  the  lines : — 

'  To-morrow,  and  to-morrow,  and  to-morrow,'  &c. 

rising  to  a  climax  of  desperation  that  brought  down  the  enthusiastic  cheers  of  the 
closely  packed  theatre.  All  at  once  he  seemed  carried  away  by  the  genius  of  the 
scejie.  At  the  tidings  of  '  the  wood  of  Birnam  moving,'  he  staggered,  as  if  the 
shock  had  struck  the  very  seat  of  life,  and  in  the  bewilderment  of  fear  and  rage 
could  just  ejaculate  the  words, '  Liar  and  slave ! '  then,  lashing  himself  into  a  state- 
of  frantic  rage,  ended  the  scene  in  perfect  triumph.  His  shrinking  from  Macduff 
when  the  charm  on  which  his  life  hung  was  broken  by  the  declaration  that  his 
antagonist  was  '  not  of  woman  born,'  was  a  masterly  stroke  of  art ;  his  subsequent 
defiance  was  most  heroic ;  and,  at  his  death,  Charles  Kemble  received  him  in  his 
arms,  and  laid  him  gently  on  the  ground,  his  physical  powers  being  unequal  to 
further  effort. 

The  performance  in  which  Tieck  saw  Kemble  as  Hotspur  was  for 
the  benefit  of  Charles  Young,  who,  following  a  bad  habit,  which  used 
to  prevail  on  such  occasions,  of  playing  a  part  that  in  an  ordinary 
way  the  Mneficiaire  never  would  have  played,  or  been  allowed  to 
play,  undertook  the  character  of  Falstaff,  which  belonged  to  Fawcett 
as  the  leading  comedian  of  the  theatre. 

Little  did  Young  imagine,  that  among  the  audience  was  one  of 
the  most  accomplished  critics  in  Europe,  who  disposed  of  him,  no  • 
doubt  with  entire  justice,  in  a  contemptuous  Sentence.  'Young 
made  a  dry  jester,  who  laughed  at  himself  at  every  third  word  of 
Falstaff,  the  indescribable,  the  wonderful,  the  never-sufnciently-to-be- 
admired  Falstaff.' 

When  a  few  nights  afterwards  (June  17),  Tieck  saw  Kemble  in 
Henry  VIII.,  he  was  compelled  to  acknowledge  that  the  genuine 
power  of  the  actor  threw  the  defects  of  his  somewhat  too  measured 
and  grandiose  style  into  the  shade. 

In  the  performance  on  this  occasion  (he  writes),  there  was  far  more  to  praise 
than  to  blame,  and  John  Kemble  as  Wolsey  was  admirable.  My  ear  had  at  last 
become  somewhat  habituated  to  his  inordinately  slow,  wailing  mode  of  speaking, 
and  as  most  of  the  performers  spoke  more  rapidly  than  usual,  especially  the  king, 
one  grew  more  readily  reconciled  to  the  solemn  tones  of  the  old  cardinal ;  and 
thus  the  play  made  the  right  impression  as  a  whole.  Kemble  showed  himself 


they  became  unintelligible.  What  was  passing  in  her  mind  was  read  in  her 
changing  countenance.  Each  character  became  a  perfect  picture,  in  which, 
through  all  the  changes  of  passion,  a  harmony  was  perceived.'— Campbell's  Life  of 
Mrs.  Siddons,  vol.  ii.  p.  383. 


284  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.          February 

to  be  a  truly  great  artist,  especially  after  his  fall,  when  the  nobles,  gathering 
round  him,  rejoice  at  his  misfortune,  and  he,  in  the  pride  of  his  grief,  but  stately 
to  the  last,  gives  full  vent  to  his  emotions.  The  majesty  in  profound  sorrow,  the 
heart  which  is  already  broken,  but  gathers  itself  together  once  again  in  all  its 
power  to  confront  its  malignant  adversaries,  the  trembling  of  the  voice,  which, 
after  a  severe  struggle,  regains  its  firm,  manly  tone,  all  this  was  incomparably  fine, 
and  of  the  most  consummate  excellence.  And  then,  when  the  old  man  is  left 
alone  with  Cromwell,  and  takes  leave  of  this  faithful  servant,  he  breaks  down,  and 
pours  out  as  friend  to  friend  the  grief  which  now,  despite  his  efforts,  overmasters 
him,  and  afterwards  gives  voice  to  the  lessons  and  warnings  of  experience  with  a 
father-like  earnestness,  consoling  himself  in  a  grand  way,  and  bidding  adieu  with 
genuine  greatness  and  composure  to  the  stage,  where  among  statesmen  he  had 
played  the  foremost  part.  These  fine  scenes  were  performed  throughout  in  a  way 
that  left  nothing  to  be  desired,  that  satisfied  the  imagination  to  the  full,  and 
revealed  to  those  who  were  most  familiar  with  the  poet  new  beauties  in  nearly 
every  verse.  It  is  difficult  to  express  the  delight  one  feels,  when  a  great  poet  and 
a  great  actor  come  together  in  this  way. 

It  is  difficult  indeed,  for  the  pleasure  is  the  most  intense,  the 
most  satisfying  that  art  can  give.  But  all  the  more  is  our  gratitude 
due  to  the  tine  observation  and  the  skilful  pen  which  has  preserved 
such  a  picture  for  us  as  this  of  the  great  actor  in  one  of  his  most 
impressive  parts. 

The  mature  years  of  Kemble  (he  was  then  sixty),  which  were 
suitable  to  Wolsey,  necessarily  told  against  him  in  Hamlet,  the  next 
part  in  which  Tieck  saw  him. 

It  was  obvious  (are  his  words)  that  the  artist  must  have  played  this  part  in 
his  youth  with  very  different  power,  but  no  doubt  he  played  it  then  upon  the 
same  lines.  It  would  hardly  be  possible  for  any  man  of  talent  altogether  to  fail 
in  this  infinitely  suggestive  character,  which  reveals  almost  every  aspect  of 
humanity,  and  gives  expression  to  the  most  diversified  emotions  in  scenes  of  such 
various  interest.  What  Kemble  brought  prominently  out  was  the  sad,  the 
melancholy,  the  nobly  suffering  aspect  of  the  character.  He  gave  way  to  tears 
much  too  often,  spoke  many  of  the  scenes — that  with  the  players,  for  instance — 
admirably,  and  moved  and  bore  himself  like  a  man  of  high  blood  and  breeding. 
But,  as  usual,  there  was  almost  no  distinction  between  the  lighter  and  heavier 
parts  of  the  play ;  and  then,  again,  the  distinction  between  prose  and  verse  was 
nowhere  marked.  The  great  passionate  scenes  passed  off  almost  flatly  ; 3  at  least, 
that  where  the  ghost  appears  was  quite  ineffective.  In  such  passages  as  the  opening 
of  the  first  monologue — 

'  Oh,  that  this  too  solid  flesh  would  melt ! ' 

Kemble  lingers  for  some  seconds  on  the  '  Oh  ! '  with  a  strongly  tremulous  cadence. 
When  Hamlet,  speaking  of  the  rugged  Pyrrhus,  says : 

'*  If  it  live  in  your  memory,  begin  at  this  line ;  let  me  see,  let  me  see  ! 

The  rugged  Pyrrhus,  like  the  Hyrcanian  beast — 
'Tis  not  so  ;  it  begins  with  Pyrrhus ' 

there  was  a  general  burst  of  applause  throughout  the  house,  because  this  forgetful- 
ness,  this  seeking  after  the  beginning  of  the  verse,  was  expressed  in  such  a  natural 

3  This,  again,  was  manifestly  due  to  the  state  of  the  actor's  strength.  These 
scenes  had  never  been  accused  of  want  of  vigour,  when  he  was  in  full  possession  of 
his  powers. 


1880.       AN  EYE-WITNESS  OF  JOHN  KEMBLE.  285 

way.  And,  indeed,  when  one  has  been  listening  for  a  length  of  time  to  a  slow, 
measured,  wailing  rhythm,  regularly  interrupted  by  considerable  pauses,  and  by  a 
succession  of  highly  pitched  inflections,  one  is  quite  taken  by  surprise  on  hearing 
once  more  the  tones  of  nature,  and  the  manner  of  everyday  conversation. 

I  have  seen  nothing  new  in  this  impersonation,  neither  have  I  learned  anything 
except  that  Hamlet,  after  he  has  stabbed  the  king,  while  saying — 

'  Here,  thou  incestuous,  murd'rous,  damned  Dane, 
Drink  off  this  potion  !     Is  thy  union  here  ?  ' 

thrusts  the  poisoned  chalice  to  the  king's  mouth,  and  forces  him,  as  he  dies,  to 
drink  it,  which  I  take  to  be  the  right  thing.  A  good  effect,  too,  was  produced  in 
this  scene  by  the  king  being  seated  some  steps  above  the  stage.  These  words,  so 
explained  and  acted,  brought  vividly  to  my  mind  Macbeth's  imagery  in  the  mono- 
logue of  the  last  scene  of  the  first  Act: 

'  This  even-handed  justice 

Commends  the  ingredients  of  our  poison'd  chalice 
To  our  own  lips.' 

The  Ophelia  of  the  evening  was  Miss  Stephens,  in  accordance 
with  the  absurd  stage  usage,  which  continued  for  long  afterwards,  of 
giving  to  the  singing  lady  of  the  theatre  a  part,  for  which  a  sensitive 
imagination  and  the  most  subtle  delicacy  of  treatment  are  indispen- 
sable. Most  of  us  will  echo  Tieck's  words  :  '  I  have  never  seen  this 
part  played  as  the  poet  conceived  it,  instinct  with  life,  movement, 
and  charm  even  in  her  madness.'  Ophelia  is  very  far  from  being  the 
colourless  insipid  personage,  which  our  modern  stage  generally 
presents,  and  which  critics  are  ready  to  accept  as  the  embodiment  of 
that  type  of  clinging  virginal  sweetness,  '  blasted  with  ecstasy.' 

When,  two  nights  afterwards,  Mr.  Kemble  appeared  for  the  last 
time  upon  the  stage,  Tieck  could  not  be  expected  to  share  the  enthu- 
siasm and  the  excitement,  with  which  the  public  watched  every 
gesture  and  intonation  of  the  favourite  to  whom  they  owed  so  much. 
The  event  excited  so  much  interest  that  it  found  a  record  in  an 
elaborate  brochure  well  known  to  bibliophiles,  in  which  all  the 
incidents  of  the  evening,  and  of  the  public  dinner  given  to  Mr. 
Kemble  a  fortnight  afterwards,  are  preserved  in  full  detail.  Some 
words  from  a  criticism  by  Hazlitt  in  the  Times  (June  25,  1817)  give 
vivid  expression  to  the  prevailing  sentiment. 

There  is  something  in  these  partings  with  old  public  favourites  exceedingly 
affecting.  They  teach  us  the  shortness  of  human  life,  and  the  vanity  of  human 
pleasures.  Our  associations  of  admiration  and  delight  with  theatrical  performers, 
are  amongst  our  earliest  recollections — among  our  last  regrets.  .  .  .  It  is  near 
twenty  years  ago  since  we  first  saw  Mr.  Kemble  in  the  same  character — yet  how 
short  the  interval  seems !  the  impression  appears  as  distinct  as  if  it  were  of  yester- 
day. .  .  .  The  petty  and  personal,  that  which  appeals  to  our  senses  and  our 
interests,  is  by  degrees  forgotten,  and  fades  away  into  the  distant  obscurity  of  the 
past.  The  grand  and  the  ideal,  that  which  appeals  to  the  imagination,  can  only 
perish  with  it,  and  remains  with  us,  unimpaired  in  its  lofty  abstraction,  from  youth 
to  age  ;  as,  wherever  we  go,  we  still  see  the  same  heavenly  bodies  shining  over  our 
heads  !  We  forget  numberless  things  that  have  happened  to  ourselves,  .  .  .  but 
not  the  first  time  of  our  seeing  Mr.  Kemble,  nor  shall  we  easily  forget  the  last ! 


286  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  February 

The  Times  crfEic  found  in  the  Coriolanus  of  that  evening  no 
falling  away  of  Mr.  Kemble's  powers,  no  diminution  of  fire  or  force. 
'  He  played  the  part,'  he  says,  4  as  well  as  ever  he  did — with  as  much 
freshness  and  vigour.  There  was  no  abatement  of  spirit  or  energy — 
none  of  grace  and  dignity  ;  his  look,  his  action,  his  expression  of  the 
character,  were  the  same  as  they  ever  were.  They  could  not  be  finer.' 
The  "colder  judgment  of  Tieck,  while  making  some  deductions  for 
occasional  feebleness,  was  compelled  to  bow  before  the  indisputable 
genius  of  the  great  artist. 

On  the  23rd  of  June  (he  writes)  Kemble  appeared  upon  the  stage  for  the  last 
time,  and  took  leave  for  ever  of  the  public,  which  held  him  in  the  highest  honour, 
in  his  most  celebrated  part,  the  Coriolanus  of  Shakespeare.  The  house  was  fuller 
than  ever,  for  no  friend  of  the  artist  would  have  missed  this  evening.  Again  I 
must  express  my  regret,  that  the  piece  was  so  unmercifully  mangled,  and  its  finest 
passages  cut  out ;  a  proceeding  the  more  childish,  seeing  that  they  had  interpolated 
a  superfluous  pageant  for  the  hero's  triumphal  entry,  in  the  shape  of  a  procession  with 
trophies  and  eagles,  which,  entering  at  the  back  of  the  stage,  and  extending  over  its 
whole  expanse,  consumed  a  great  deal  of  time.4  If  I  cannot  agree  in  regarding  the 
performance  as  the  artist's  masterpiece,  as  his  admirers  here  do,  his  Wolsey  in  my 
opinion  being  quite  as  fine,  still  it  is  past  all  question,  that  Kemble  proved  himself 
once  more  a  great  actor  in  many  of  the  scenes.  Nobler  or  more  marked  expression 
could  not  be  given  to  the  proud  nature  of  Coriolanus,  and  figure,  look,  and  voice 
here  stood  the  artist  in  excellent  stead.  His  heroic  wrath,  indeed,  seemed  too  feeble, 
and  his  fury  failed  altogether,  because  his  organ  was  too  weak  for  these  supreme 
efforts,  and  the  actor  had  to  economise  it  for  the  most  important  passages.  Greatest 
and  most  exciting  of  all  was  the  close ;  without  exaggeration  it  might  be  pro- 
nounced sublime. 

When  Coriolanus  exclaims,  '  Hear'st  thou,  Mars  ?  '  and  Aufidius 
says,  c  Name  not  the  God,  thou  boy  of  tears ! '  the  exclamation 
1  Ha  ! '  to  which  Coriolanus  gives  vent  in  the  height  of  his  rage  was 

4  This  was  in  the  second  scene  of  the  second  Act,  after  the  victory  at  Corioli, 
No  fewer  than  240  supernumeraries  were  introduced  into  the  pageant.  It  was 
regarded  at  the  time  as  a  marvel  of  scenic  splendour.  When  Mrs.  Siddons  was  the 
Volumnia,  she  illustrated  that  power,  which  only  the  greatest  actors  possess,  of 
'  filling  the  stage  with  her  presence,'  with  an  effect  of  which  the  following  eloquent 
description  by  the  Rev.  J.  C.  Young  in  the  memoirs  of  his  father  (2nd  ed.,  p.  40) 
enables  us  to  form  some  conception.  '  In  this  procession,  and  as  one  of  the  central 
figures  in  it,  Mrs.  Siddons  had  to  walk.  Had  she  been  content  to  follow  in  the 
beaten  track  of  her  predecessors  in  the  part,  she  woiild  have  marched  across  the 
stage,  from  right  to  left,  with  the  solemn,  stately,  almost  funeral,  step  conventional. 
But  at  the  time,  as  she  often  did,  she  forgot  her  own  identity.  She  was  no  longer 
Sarah  Siddons,  tied  down  to  the  directions  of  the  prompter's  book,  or  trammelled 
by  old  traditions.  She  was  Volumnia,  the  proud  mother  of  a  proud  son  and  conquer- 
ing hero.  So  that,  when  it  was  time  for  her  to  come  on,  instead  of  dropping  each 
foot  at  equi-distance  in  its  place,  with  mechanical  exactitude,  and  in  cadence 
subservient  to  the  orchestra,  deaf  to  the  guidance  of  her  woman's  ear,  but  sensitive 
to  the  throbbings  of  her  haughty  mother's  heart,  with  flashing  eye,  and  proudest  smile, 
and  head  erect,  and  hands  pressed  firmly  on  her  bosom,  as  if  to  repress  by  manual 
force  its  triumphant  swellings,  she  towered  above  all  around,  and  rolled,  and  almost 
reeled  across  the  stage,  her  very  soul,  as  it  were,  dilating  and  rioting  in  its  exultation, 
until  her  action  lost  all  grace,  and  yet  became  so  true  to  nature,  so  picturesque, 
and  so  descriptive,  that  pit  and  gallery  sprang  to  their  feet  electrified  by, the  tran- 
scendent execution  of  an  original  conception.' 


1880.       AN  EYE-WITNESS  OF  JOHN  KEMBLE.  287 

terrible.  The  power  and  the  tones  of  the  following  speech,  as  well  as 
the  look  and  bearing,  were  indescribable : — 

Measureless  liar,  thou  hast  made  my  heart 

Too  great  for  what  contains  it.    Boy !  oh  slave  ! 

*  .  *  *  * 

Cut  me  to  pieces,  Volsces !     Men  and  lads, 
Stain  all  your  edges  on  me  !    Boy !    False  hound ! 
If  you  have  writ  your  annals  true,  'tis  there, 
That,  like  an  eagle  in  a  dove-cot,  I 
Fluttered  your  Volsces  in  Corioli. 
Alone  I  did  it!     Boy! 

4  This  is  the  grand  feature  in  the  art  of  the  stage,'  the  critic  goes 
on  to  say — and  who,  that  has  ever  had  his  heart  stirred  and  his 
imagination  kindled  and  enriched  by  the  genius  of  a  great  actor 
or  actress,  will  not  feel  the  justice  of  his  words  ? — 

that  it  can  bring  out,  nay,  can  create  effects  so  vast,  that  for  the  moment  our 
remembrance  of  every  other  pleasure  that  art  can  give  seems  feeble,  and  but  a  shadow 
of  what  the  stage  can  do.  True  it  is,  that  its  manifestations  also  fleet  away  like  a 
shadow,  leaving  no  trace  behind  ;  and  an  unsatisfying  remembrance  of  the  great 
moments  of  delight  and  rapture  fills  us  with  sadness,  for  no  memorial  can  restore 
these  fleeting  phenomena  for  those  who  have  hung  upon  them  with  transport, 
because  all  that  language  or  the  painter's  skill  can  do  are  inadequate  to  portray  what 
the  rapt  spectator  has  seen  and  heard.  Therefore  it  is  only  fair  that  the  artist 
should  in  any  case  be  requited,  however  poorly,  by  the  loudest  applause  directly 
face  to  face,  for  he  is  powerless  to  preserve  even  for  an  instant  the  product  of  his 
genius  to  tell  to  a  future  generation  of  what  quality  it  was. 

Such  were  the  plaudits,  the  cheers,  the  shouts  of  rapture  and  tears  of  emotion 
given  to  the  noble  veteran,  the  honoured  favourite,  whom  the  public  were  never  to 
see  again.  The  loudest  outburst  of  applause  I  had  ever  heard,  even  in  Italy,  was 
but  feeble,  compared  to  the  indescribable  din,  which,  after  the  curtain  fell,  arose  on 
every  side.  There  were  thousands  present,  packed  closely  together,  and  the  huge 
area  of  the  house  was  changed  as  if  into  one  vast  machine,  which  produced  a  super- 
natural clangour  and  jubilation,  men  and  women  shouting,  clapping,  smiting  the 
sides  of  the  boxes  might  and  main,  with  fans  and  with  sticks,  while,  to  add  to  the 
tumult,  everybody  was  making  what  noise  he  could  with  his  feet. 

After  this  unheard-of  din  had  lasted  for  some  time  Kemble,  deeply  moved  and 
in  tears,  again  came  forward.  What  seemed  impossible  nevertheless  took  place, 
the  clamour  grew  louder  and  louder,  until  the  tumult  of  sound  aroused  the  feeling 
of  something  awful  and  sublime.5  Kemble  bowed,  and  attempted  more  than  once 
to  give  utterance  to  a  few  words  of  parting ;  at  length  he  regained  his  composure, 
but  was  frequently  interrupted  by  his  emotion.  Not  a  sound  was  heard,  save  from 
many  points  a  suppressed  low  sob.  And,  when  he  finished,  the  storm  broke  forth 
again  with  all  its  force. 

The  great  body  of  the  audience  demanded  (as  they  had  done  on 
(rarrick's  farewell  night)  that  the  after-piece,  which  had  been 
announced,  should  not  be  proceeded  with,  but,  a  noisy  minority 

5  On  Mr.  Kemble 's  reappearance,  the  critic  of  the  Sun  newspaper  wrote  next  day  > 
'  The  acclamations  were  resumed,  but  in  a  manner  that  we  never  witnessed  before, 
in  all  the  long  course  of  our  theatrical  experience.  It  seemed  as  if  all  hands  struck 
in  unison  by  a  resistless  instinct,  and  certainly  never  were  military  movements 
executed  with  more  precision.  It  is  impossible  to  describe  the  effect.' 


288  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.          February 

having  resisted  this,  they  were  left  in  possession  of  the  field,  and  it 
was  gone  through  by  the  performers  amid  an  uproar,  which  turned 
their  acting  into  'inexplicable  dumb  show.' 

Tieck  had  been  unable  to  secure  a  place  for  Kemble's  last 
appearance  as  Macbeth  (June  5),  when  Mrs.  Siddons  left  her 
retirement  to  appear  for  the  benefit  of  her  brother,  Charles  Kemble, 
as  Lady  Macbeth.  It  was  most  fortunate  that  he  was  prevented 
from  seeing  the  great  actress  in  her  decay.  How  bad  must  the 
performance  have  been,  when  Mr.  Macready,  whose  admiration  of  Mrs. 
Siddons  was  almost  idolatrous,  could  write  of  it  thus  : — '  It  was  not  a 
performance,  but  a  mere  repetition  of  the  poet's  text — no  flash,  no  sign 
of  her  all-subduing  genius ! '  Tieck  was  already,  as  we  have  seen, 
too  much  disposed  to  attribute  to  a  radical  vice  of  style  the  short- 
comings in  the  only  great  representative  of  the  Kemble  school  whom 
he  had  seen,  which  were  in  a  great  measure  the  result  of  fatigue  and 
physical  suffering.  The  spectacle  of  Mrs.  Siddons,  as  Macready 
describes  her,  would  probably  have  confirmed  him  in  his  prejudice. 
Still,  startled  though  he  was  by  a  treatment  of  Shakespeare's  great 
characters  in  a  way  to  which  he  had  hitherto  been  unaccustomed, 
Tieck  could  not  blind  himself  to  the  dignity  and  breadth  of  concep- 
tion, and  to  the  sublime  effect  of  that  stateliness  of  manner,  that 
'  large  utterance,'  and  rhythmical  cadence,  the  echoes  of  a  great  and 
poetic  soul,  which  won  for  Kemble  so  strong  a  hold  upon  the  imagi- 
nation of  his  countrymen.  Had  Kemble's  impersonations  been  so 
wanting  in  life  and  variety  and  truth  to  nature,  as  Tieck  would  have 
us  think,  had  he  been  a  declaimer  merely,  and  not  an  actor,  he  would 
never  have  taken  the  position,  which  he  held  to  the  last  not  merely 
with  the  public,  but  with  the  great  critics  of  his  day.  As  a  set-off 
to  Tieck's  denunciations  of  his  languor  and  slowness,  let  us  turn  to 
what  was  said  of  him  by  the  Times  critic,  already  quoted,  speaking 
from  a  twenty  years'  knowledge  of  his  efforts  in  the  poetical  drama. 

The  distinguishing  excellence  of  Mr.  Kemble's  acting  may  be  summed  up  in  one 
word — intensity ;  in  the  seizing  upon  some  one  feeling  or  idea,  in  insisting  upon 
it,  in  never  letting  it  go,  and  in  working  it  up,  with  a  certain  graceful  consistency 
and  conscious  grandeur  of  conception,  to  a  very  high  degree  of  pathos  or  sublimity. 
Tf  he  had  not  the  unexpected  bursts  of  nature  and  genius,  he  had  all  the  regularity 
of  art ;  if  he  did  not  display  the  tumult  and  conflict  of  opposite  passions  in  the  soul, 
he  gave  the  deepest  and  most  permanent  interest  to  the  uninterrupted  progress  of 
individual  feeling ;  and  in  embodying  a  high  idea  of  certain  characters,  which  belong 
rather  to  sentiment  than  passion,  to  energy  of  will  rather  than  to  loftiness  or  to 
originality  of  imagination,  he  was  the  most  excellent  actor  of  his  time. 

It  is  useful  to  turn  back  to  these  records,  which  remind  us  that,  on 
our  stage,  as  elsewhere  in  our  history,  '  great  men  have  been  among 
us,  greater  none,'  and  to  see  in  what  manner  they  grappled  with  the 
characters  of  Shakespeare,  before  which  all  others  shrink  into  insigni- 
ficance as  tests  of  an  actor's  powers.  By  studying  these  records,  we 
keep  up  to  a  fitting  level  the  standard  by  which  to  estimate  the 


1880.      AN  EYE-WITNESS  OF  JOHN  KEMBLE.  289 

dramatic  artists  of  our  own  time.  Fashions  change  upon  the  stage, 
as  they  do  in  the  greater  world,  of  which  it  is  the  mirror.  The 
manner  of  one  period  will  seem  pedantic  to  another,  its  passion 
overcharged,  its  humour  forced  or  vulgar.  A  John  Kemble  of  the  pre- 
sent day  would  be  very  different  from  the  John  Kemble  of  the  past. 
The  elements  of  his  greatness  would  find  a  mode  of  expression  less 
artificial  perhaps,  and  more  in  harmony  with  the  freer  and  more 
varied  play  of  expression,  which  is  demanded  by  the  best  culture  of  the 
present  time.  But,  in  reading  such  criticisms  as  those  above  cited, 
who  can  fail  to  wish,  that  we  had  upon  our  stage  at  this  moment  some- 
thing of  the  high  tone  and  breeding,  the  sinewy  vigour,  the  articulate 
and  beautiful  utterance  of  which  they  tell  us  ? 

It  was  the  possession  of  these  qualities,  vivified  by  cultivated 
intelligence  and  fine  sensibility,  rather  than  the  fire  of  genius,  which 
gave  the  charm  to  the  acting  of  Charles  Young.  Tieck  saw  him  play 
Othello,  but  says  the  performance  was  by  no  means  to  his  mind. 
Why,  he  does  not  mention,  further  than  that,  handsome  though 
Young  was,  he  did  not  look  well  in  his  Oriental  costume.  His  treat- 
ment of  the  part  must,  however,  have  been  marked  by  high  qualities 
when  even  Kean,  who  in  Othello  was  pre-eminent,  dreaded  to  have  his 
performance  brought  into  immediate  contrast  with  it.  They  were  to 
have  alternated  the  parts  of  lago  and  Othello  at  Drury  Lane  in  1822. 
They  had  never  acted  together  before.  Kean  first  played  Othello, 
but  he  was  so  deeply  impressed  by  Young's  lago,  that  he  sent  the 
manager  to  Young  after  the  play  to  beg  that  he  would  not  insist  on 
his  right  to  play  Othello,  and  to  say  that  he  would  regard  his  consent 
as  a  personal  obligation.6  Young,  with  characteristic  courtesy,  com- 
plied with  the  request,  and  he  could  afford  to  do  so,  for  his  lago  was 
in  its  way  quite  as  fine  as  Kean's  Othello.  It  had  none  of  the  faults 
which  Tieck  describes  in  the  lago  of  Booth,  faidts  which  long  after- 
wards continued  to  infect  the  stage  conceptions  of  the  character. 

Charles  Kemble  (says  Tieck)  played  Oassio  admirably,  and  with  a  certain 
lightness  of  touch ;  but  far  too  much  effort  and  false  study  were  wasted  upon  the 
lago,  just  as  they  always  are  in  Germany.  This  emphasis  of  accentuation,  this 

6  The  Rev.  Julian  Young,  from  whose  memoirs  of  his  father  we  learn  this  fact, 
mentions  an  interesting  circumstance  with  reference  to  Young's  early  impersonation 
of  Othello.  Speaking  one  day  of  the  importance  of  the  actor's  possessing  the 
abstract  power  of  realising  character,  Young  mentioned  that,  '  in  his  early  theatrical 
career,  while  playing  Othello,  the  struggle  in  his  mind  between  his  love  for  his  wife 
and  the  sense  of  wrong  she  had  done  him  so  overwhelmed  him  with  conflicting 
emotions,  that,  after  he  had  smothered  her,  he  was  in  such  an  ecstasy  of  remorse  and 
misery  at  his  crime,  that  he  flung  himself  wildly  on  her  bed,  burst  into  a  paroxysm 
of  tears,  and  was  only  recalled  to  the  fact  of  his  having  merely  represented  a  murder, 
instead  of  having  committed  one,  by  the  rapturous  applause  of  the  audience.'  This 
power  of  'forcing  the  soul  to  its  own  conceit'  is  indispensable  to  a  great  actor;  the 
personal  agony  and  the  suffering  has  to  be  gone  through,  but  this  should  be  done  in 
the  study  of  the  character,  and  not  allowed  to  dominate  the  artist  in  embodying  his 
conception. 


290  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.          February 

perpetual  working  of  the  features,  this  lowering  of  the  brows,  and  leering  and 
winking  of  the  eyes,  simply  defeat  and  destroy  the  effect  they  are  intended  to 
produce.  Except  in  some  few  passages,  lago  cannot  be  played  too  simply  and 
plainly,  with  that  air  of  frank  honesty  and  true-heartedness  which  everybody  has 
known  in  fellows  of  his  stamp,  who  under  this  habitual  mask  are  often  able  for  a 
time  to  mislead  even  the  most  acute.  How  much  more,  then,  the  impetuous 
Othello,  who  only  discovers  what  his  heart  and  true  nature  are,  when  they  have 
wrought  his  ruin  ? 

On  the  same  occasion  Liston,  the  play-bills  of  the  day  tell  us, 
was  the  Roderigo.  '  To  my  surprise,'  says  Tieck, '  Roderigo  was  played 
as  a  clown.  The  same  clever  actor,  who  had  performed  Cloten  in 
Cymbeline  so  creditably  on  the  whole,  performed  this  young,  elegant, 
love-sick  Venetian  in  quite  the  same  blunder-headed  way,  and  with 
the  same  peculiar  gait  and  ungainly  gestures,  causing  numbers  of  the 
spectators  to  laugh  heartily  whenever  he  appeared.  It  would  scarcely 
be  possible  to  push  misconception  further.  Yet  this  misrepresenta- 
tion of  the  poet  seemed  to  cause  no  dissatisfaction,  probably  because 
people  had  by  long  habit  grown  accustomed  to  it.' 

But  everything  was  made  right — nay,  more  than  compensated — by  the  glorious 
style  in  which  Miss  O'Neill  played  Desdeinona.  This  part  is  considered  an  easy  one, 
that  almost  acts  itself ;  at  least,  that  it  would  not  be  easy  to  spoil  it  altogether,  or 
not  to  awaken  some  interest  in  it.  But  the  large,  simple,  innocent,  noble  nature 
which  was  so  touchingly  and  impressively  brought  out  in  this  performance  I  have 
never  seen  presented  in  such  perfection,  nor  any  performance,  in  which  profound 
feeling  was  combined  throughout  with  so  much  grace.  Although  I  know  the  play 
by  heart,  yet  every  verse  became  new  to  me,  and  disclosed  to 'me  an  inner  signifi- 
cance which  I  had  not  before  surmised.  Miss  O'Neill's  figure  is  fine,  her  face  a 
pure  oval,  speaking  in  every  line,  her  voice  strong  and  clear,  of  a  full  penetrating 
quality.  Once  again  I  heard  that  pure,  gentle,  womanly  cadence,  which  alone 
touches  the  heart,  not  that  deep  guttural  ring,  which  is  supposed  to  signify  passion 
and  grandeur.  This  lovely  woman  frequently  reminded  me  of  an  actress  whom  I 
had  often  seen  in  Italy ;  who  was  not,  indeed,  so  beautiful,  but  resembled  her  in 
the  essential  points,  and  who  also  had  the  same  clear,  full-toned  voice,  and  played 
incomparably  in  Goldoni's  comedies,  and  also  with  superb  pathos  in  Werther's 
Charlotte. 

Tieck  saw  Miss  O'Neill  again  as  Florinda  in  Shiel's  play,  The 
Apostate,  which  was  produced  on  May  3,  1817,  with  a  cast  which 
included  Charles  Kemble,  Charles  Young,  and  Macready.  It  was  a 
success,  as  successes  were  regarded  in  those  days,  and  was  played 
twelve  times  that  season.7  This  was  one  of  the  cases,  where  the  play- 
wright owes  his  best  fame  to  the  actor's  skill.  The  drama  was 
intrinsically  worthless. 

It  is  (writes  Tieck)  a  Moorish  story,  in  which  a  noble  maiden,  who  is  deeply 
in  love,  is  compelled  to  marry  a  villain  (Pascara)  in  order  to  save  her  lover's  life. 

7  Such  runs  as  we  are  familiar  with,  fatal  to  actors,  and  to  public  taste,  were 
happily  then  unknown.  Milman's  Fazio,  produced  in  February  1818,  was  acted  only 
fifteen  times  ;  Shiel's  Evadnc  (February  1819)  thirty  times  ;  while  Pocock's  Rob  Roy 
(March  1818)  was  acted  no  fewer  than  thirty-four  times  that  season — a  run  quite 
unusual. 


1880.      AN  EYE-WITNESS  OF  JOHN  KEMBLE.  291 

Her  lover  arrives  to  free  her  from  the  shameful  union,  but  it  is  too  late.  All 
used-up  incidents,  and  stale  tragic  exaggerations !  The  performance  of  the  actress, 
however,  so  completely  ennobled  the  poverty  of  the  text,  that  the  enjoyment  of 
this  evening  will  take  its  place  among  my  most  pleasurable  recollections.  The 
scene  in  which,  being  already  married,  she  hears  the  trumpets  of  her  approaching 
lover,  the  cry  of  exultation,  the  wild  laugh  in  the  extremity  of  her  anguish,  and 
her  subsequent  collapse,  were  of  the  very  highest  tragic  power.  People  no  doubt 
say  that  this  adventurous  stroke  of  the  actor's  art,  which  lies  upon  the  very  verge 
of  what  is  possible  and  beautiful,  is  too  often  introduced ;  that  this  hysterical 
laughter  in  despair,  and  these  convulsive  movements  and  spasmodic  jerkings,  recur 
too  often  and  too  capriciously,  frequently  in  passages  where  they  rend  the  spec- 
tator's heart,  and  when  they  had  better  be  omitted,  so  as  not  to  degrade  this 
appalling  effect  to  a  vulgar  stage  trick.  If  this  be  really  the  case,  then  it  is  to  be 
regretted  that  a  lady  whose  excellence  is  so  exceptional  should  not  do  more  justice 
to  herself  than  to  present  anything  but  what  is  altogether  worthy  of  a  true 
artist. 

A  certain  physical  facility  in  presenting  the  external  signs  of 
grief,  it  is  well  known,  frequently  gave  to  Miss  O'Neill's  perform- 
ances a  semblance  of  profound  pathos,  which  did  not  spring  from 
depth  of  emotion.  It  naturally  tempted  her  to  abuse,  in  the  direction 
indicated  by  Tieck,  a  power  which  stirred,  with  so  little  trouble  to 
herself,  4  the  sacred  source  of  sympathetic  tears.'  Edmund  Kean  fell 
into  the  same  vice,  till  by  repetition  the  trick  made  itself  felt,  and 
people  became  callous  even  to  the  hysterical  sob,  which  used  to  make 
Byron  weep,  and  sensitive  women  faint.  One  night,  as  the  Eev. 
Julian  Young  records,  on  the  authority  of  the  elder  Mathews,  when 
Kean  had  been  trying  something  of  the  kind  upon  the  audience, 
and  got  hissed,  he  whispered,  as  he  left  the  stage,  to  a  brother  actor 
(Wewitzer),  '  By  Jove,  old  fellow,  they've  found  me  out.  It  won't  do 
any  more.  I  must  drop  my  hysterics.' 

It  was  his  performance  of  Pescara  in  The  Apostate  which 
made  Tieck  recognise  in  Macready  the  promise  of  a  fine  actor.  And 
yet  Macready  in  his  Reminiscences  (vol.  i.  p.  145)  mentions,  that 
when  the  part  was  given  him,  after  the  reading  of  the  play  to  the 
actors,  he  received  it  'mournfully  and  despondingly.'  'Why, 
William,'  said  Charles  Kemble,  with  his  wonted  kindliness  and  good 
sense,  '  it  is  no  doubt  a  disagreeable  part,  but  there  is  passion  in  it.' 
And  this  was  just  what  Macready  could  turn  to  account,  and  he 
did  it  so  effectively,  that  Tieck  says  of  him  :  '  The  villain,  Mr. 
Macready,  was  so  admirably  acted,  so  impetuous,  true,  and  powerful, 
that  (what  never  happened  to  me  in  England  before)  I  felt  myself 
reminded  of  the  best  periods  of  the  actor's  art  in  Germany.  If  the 
young  man  [Macready  was  then  24]  follows  the  lines  on  which  he  is 
now  working,  he  is  sure  to  make  himself  a  name.' 

At  this  time,  Kean  was  in  the  full  blaze  of  his  popularity.  It 
was  his  third  season  in  London.  He  had  got  rid  of  some  of  his 
earlier  faults  of  unevenness  and  want  of  finish,  and  was  in  full 
possession  of  the  fine  physical  qualities  of  eye,  and  voice,  and 


292  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  February 

figure,  to  which  his  reckless  habits  afterwards  brought  premature 
ruin. 

He  is  the  stage  hero  of  the  present  day  (writes  Tieck) .  Those  who  are  ready 
enough  to  join  in  the  censure  of  Kemble,  and  the  mannerism  of  his  school,  start 
with  the  assumption  that  the  favourite  of  their  idolatry  is  far  above  criticism. 
Kean  is  a  little,  slightly  built  man,  quick  in  his  movements,  and  with  brown, 
clever,  expressive  eyes.  Many  who  remember  Garrick  maintain  that  Kean  is  like 
him ;  even  Garrick's  widow,  who  is  still  alive,  is  said  to  concur  in  this  opinion  ; 
but  she  will  hardly  agree  with  the  many  admirers  of  Kean,  who  hold  that  he  acts 
in  Garrick's  manner,  and  even  surpasses  him  in  many  of  his  parts. 

The  town  was  then  talking  of  Kean's  Hamlet,  which  he  had 
played  for  the  first  time  in  London,  shortly  before  (March  14,  1816). 
Like  all  his  performances,  it  had  fine  moments ;  but  in  the  opinion 
of  the  best  judges,  Hazlitt  included,  it  failed  to  impress  the  spectator 
with  the  pensiveness,  the  refinement,  '  the  weakness,  and  the  melan- 
choly,' the  humour  playing  with  a  lambent  light  over  the  profound 
pathos,  and  the  fitful  but  short-lived  passion,  without  which  they 
could  not  recognise  the  Hamlet  of  Shakespeare.  The  conflict  of  criti- 
cism which  raged  on  every  side,  explains  the  anxiety  which  Tieck 
says  he  felt  to  see  the  new  Hamlet. 

All  the  playful,  humorous  speeches,  all  the  bitter  cutting  passages,  were  given 
in  the  best  style  of  comedy.  But  he  could  not  touch  the  tragic  side  of  the 
character.  His  mode  of  delivery  is  the  very  opposite  of  Kemble 's.  He  speaks 
quickly,  often  with  a  rapidity  that  injures  the  effect  of  what  he  has  to  say.  His 
pauses  and  excess  of  emphasis  are  even  more  capricious  and  violent  than  Kemble's, 
added  to  which,  by  dumb  show,  or  sudden  stops,  and  such  like  artifices,  he 
frequently  imports  into  the  verse  a  meaning,  which,  in  a  general  way,  is  not  to  be 
found  in  it.  He  stares,  starts,  wheels  round,  drops  his  voice,  and  then  raises  it 
suddenly  to  the  highest  pitch,  goes  off  hurriedly,  then  comes  back  slowly,  when 
one  does  not  expect  him ;  by  all  these  epigrammatic  surprises,  crowding  his 
impersonation  with  movement,  showing  an  inexhaustible  invention,  breaking  up  his 
part  into  a  thousand  little  frequent  bons  mots,  tragical  or  comic,  as  it  may  happen ; 
and  it  is  by  this  clever  way  of,  as  it  were,  entirely  recasting  the  characters  allotted 
to  him,  that  he  has  won  the  favour  of  the  general  public,  especially  of  the  women. 
If  he  does  not  weary  the  attention,  as  Kemble  does,  one  is  being  constantly  cir- 
cumvented by  him,  and  defrauded  as  by  a  skilful  juggler  of  the  impression,  the 
emotion,  which  we  have  a  right  to  expect.  Now,  on  the  artist's  part  all  this  is 
done  in  mere  caprice,  with  the  deliberate  purpose  of  giving  a  great  variety  of  light 
and  shade  to  his  speeches,  and  of  introducing  turns  and  sudden  alternations,  of 
which  neither  the  part  nor  the  author  has  for  the  most  part  afforded  the  most 
remote  suggestion.  This  is,  therefore,  playing  with  playing,  and  more  violence  is 
done  to  an  author,  especially  if  that  author  be  Shakespeare,  by  this  mode  of  treat- 
ment than  by  the  declamatory  manner  of  the  Kembles. 

This  criticism,  in  all  essential  points,  agrees  with  that  of  Hazlitt 
(Criticisms  and  Dramatic  Essays,  2nd  ed.  p.  178),  who  thought 
Kean's  general  delineation  of  the  character  wrong. 

It  was  (he  writes)  too  strong  and  pointed.  There  was  often  a  severity,  ap- 
proaching to  virulence,  in  the  common  observations  and  answers.  There  is  nothing 
of  this  in  Hamlet.  He  is,  as  it  were,  wrapped  up  in  the  cloud  of  his  reflections, 


1880.         AN  EYE-WITNESS  OF  JOHN  KEMELE.  293 

amd  only  thinks  aloud.  There  should,  therefore,  be  no  attempt  to  impress  what  he 
.*ays  upon  others  by  any  exaggeration  of  emphasis  or  manner ;  no  talking  at  his 
hearers.  There  should  be  as  much  of  the  gentleman  and  scholar  as  possible  infused 
into  the  part,  and  as  little  of  the  actor.  .  .  .  Hamlet  should  be  the  most  amiable 
of  misanthropes.  There  is  no  one  line  in  the  play,  which  should  be  spoken  like 
any  one  line  in  Richard ;  yet  Mr.  Kean  did  not  appear  to  us  to  keep  the  two 
characters  always  distinct. 

Hazlitt  admits  that  in  the  great  scene  with  Ophelia  the  genius 
of  the  actor  made  itself  felt  even  through  his  faults. 

If  there  had  been  less  vehemence  of  effort,  it  would  not  have  lost  any  of  its 
effect.  But  whatever  minor  faults  might  be  found  in  this  scene,  they  were  amply 
redeemed  by  the  manner  of  his  coming  back  after  he  has  gone  to  the  extremity  of 
the  stage,  from  a  pang  of  parting  tenderness,  to  press  his  lips  to  Ophelia's  hand.  It 
bad  an  electrical  effect  on  the  house.  It  was  the  finest  commentary  that  was 
ever  made  on  Shakespeare.  It  explained  the  character  at  once  (as  he  meant  it),  as 
one  of  disappointed  hope,  of  bitter  regret,  of  affection  suspended  and  not  obliterated 
by  the  distractions  of  the  scene  around  him. 

Tieck  does  not  seem  to  have  been  impressed  to  the  same  extent 
by  this  fine  and  then  novel  interpretation  of  a  scene  of  crucial  diffi- 
culty ;  but  he  thought  it  at  all  events  worthy  of  the  following  minute 
description. 

In  the  interview  with  Ophelia,  after  the  famous  monologue,  overheard  by  the  king 
and  Polonius,  Kean  does  not  fall  into  the  error  of  so  many  actors,  who  give  this 
scene  an  entirely  tender  and  sentimental  colouring.  He,  on  the  other  hand,  is 
perhaps  too  bitter  and  severe.  The  words,  '  To  a  nunnery  !  Go  ! '  which  he  has  to 
speak  a  second  time  after  a  long  intermediate  speech,  having  previously  given  the 
game  counsel  to  Ophelia  twice  in  different  words,  were  accentuated  by  him  with 
fin  ascending  emphasis,  till  it  took  the  tone  of  a  vehement  menace  and  command, 
rising  almost  to  a  scream,  with  au  expression  of  marked  severity  (GrctusctmJccit)  in 
voice,  look,  and  action,  after  which  he  retires  hurriedly,  and  has  already  grasped 
the  handle  of  the  door,  when  he  stops,  turns  round,  and  casting  back  the  saddest, 
almost  tearful  look,  stands  lingering  for  some  time,  and  then,  with  a  slow,  almost 
gliding  step,  comes  back,  seizes  Ophelia's  hand,  imprints  a  lingering  kiss  upon  it 
with  a  deep-drawn  sigh,  and  straightway  dashes  more  impetuously  than  before  out 
at  the  door,  which  he  slams  violently  behind  him.  Peals  of  applause  from  all  parts 
•of  the  house  rewarded  this  well-studied  specimen  of  the  favourite's  art.' 

Those  who  remember  the  Hamlet  of  Charles  Kean  in  his  best 
days  will  recognise  in  this  vivid  description  the  original  of  what 
made  one  of  the  most  effective  features  of  that  performance. 

The  conflicting  judgments  of  theatrical  critics  are  a  source  of  con- 
stant perplexity  to  those  who  cannot  judge  for  themselves.  But  it  is 
hardly  possible  to  imagine  how  two  men,  like  Hazlitt  and  Tieck, 
should  come  to  such  diametrically  opposite  opinions,  as  they  have 
recorded  of  the  performance  of  the  Ghost  by  a  Mr.  Redmond.  '  We 
cannot  speak  too  highly  of  it,'  says  Hazlitt.  '  It  glided  across  the 
stage  with  the  preternatural  grandeur  of  a  spirit.'  His  speaking,  he 
.admits,  was  not  equally  excellent.  '  A  spirit  should  not  whine  or  shed 
tears.'  Contrast  this  with  Tieck's  commentary  on  the  deportment  of 
this  '  poor  ghost.' 

VOL.  VII.— No.  36.  X 


294  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  February 

Although  with  us  in  Germany,  especially  in  the  smaller  theatres,  the  Ghost 
may  not  always  be  "what  it  should  be,  still  he  is  never  seen  tottering  across  the 
stage  so  absolutely  without  dignity  and  grace  as  here,  without  a  trace  in  his 
appearance  either  of  anguish  or  of  majesty.  If  Hamlet  is  at  a  loss  for  words  to 
blacken  the  King,  after  what  epithets  must  he  strive  in  order  to  portray  a  Ghost, 
that  neither  stands  nor  walks,  and  who  carries  himself  as  though  he  had  just 
reeled  from  the  nearest  tavern,  a  Ghost  that  speaks  with  such  absence  of  emphasis 
and  meaning  ?  .  .  .  Worst  of  all  is  its  appearance  in  the  Queen  Mother's  chamber, 
when  the  Ghost  with  great  complacency  enters  by  one  door,  totters  across  the 
stage,  and,  not  looking  particularly  either  at  Hamlet  or  the  Queen,  goes  off  through 
the  opposite  door,  which  closes  behind  him,  while  Hamlet,  inaptly  enough,  hurries 
after  him,  and  is  only  kept  back  by  the  door  slamming  in  his  face.  At  this 
passage  it  is  difficult  not  to  laugh.  Quite  lately  a  friend  of  mine  in  the  pit  could  not 
contain  himself  when  Kemble  played  the  part  in  the  same  way  and  with  the  same 
absurd  effect ;  but  the  English,  who,  although  they  do  not  believe  in  ghosts,  do  not 
like  to  have  them  laughed  at,  took  his  conduct  much  amiss.  They  are,  however, 
mistaken  if  they  really  believe  that  ghostly  apparitions  at  no  time  have  inspired  awe, 
and  we  can  assure  them  that  even  now  they  would  thrill  with  terror  were  they  to 
see  Schroder  in  this  part,  on  which  he  has  bestowed  long  and  most  careful  study. 

Up  to  a  comparatively  recent  period  the  absurdities  to  which 
Tieck  here  calls  attention  kept  their  place  upon  our  stage.  They 
would  not  now  be  endured.  But  when  will  an  English  actor,  of  the 
first  rank,  like  Schroder  show  his  audience  in  the  Ghost,  or  indeed 
in  any  subordinate  part,  that  Shakespeare  has  put  qualities  into  all 
his  characters,  which  only  an  artist  can  thoroughly  develope  ? 

Tieck  formed  a  very  poor  opinion  of  Kean's  Macbeth.  He  found 
it  a  great  deal  feebler  than  his  Hamlet.  '  He  has  not,'  Tieck  writes, 
'  the  gifts  of  mind  nor  the  physique  to  produce  a  harmonious  whole, 
but  vibrates  from  one  extreme  to  another,  from  want  of  imaginative 
grasp.  Besides  all  the  defects  in  his  style,  to  which  I  have  already 
adverted,  he  tears  whole  scenes  to  pieces  in  the  manner  of  the  French 
tragedians  by  speaking  almost  every  word  at  the  highest  pitch  of  his 
voice,  and  with  the  strongest  emphasis.'  Even  Hazlitt,  with  all  his 
admiration  for  Kean,  admits  that  he  missed  the  poetry  of  Macbeth's 
character.  He  finds  nothing  to  praise  in  it  but  his  acting  of  the 
scene  after  the  murder.  '  The  hesitation,  the  bewildered  look,  the 
coming  to  himself  when  he  sees  his  hands  bloody ;  the  manner  in 
which  his  voice  clung  to  his  throat,  and  choked  his  utterance  ;  his 
agony  and  tears,  the  force  of  nature  overcome  by  passion,  beggared 
description.'  But  Tieck  loved  and  understood  Shakespeare  too  well 
to  be  reconciled,  by  occasional  striking  passages  in  a  performance, 
to  a  fundamental  misconception  of  a  character,  or  physical  unfitness 
for  it.  Besides,  he  was  irritated — as  what  Shakespearean  scholar  has 
not  been  ? — by  the  introduction  of  Locke's  Witch  Music  into  the  play, 
with  its  motley  horde  of  fantastically  arranged  chorus  singers,  and  by 
other  arrangements  of  the  scene,  which  he  discusses  at  great  length, 
and  denounces,  not  without  cause,  as  tending  '  to  pervert  the  poet's 
grand  conceptions,  and  to  make  them  ridiculous.' 

He  was  thus  not  in  a  mood  to  see  such  merits  in  Kean's  perform- 


1880.          AN  XVBE+WITNJstSS  OF  JOHN  KEMBLE.  295 

ance  as  it  probably  had.  His  judgment  of  that  great  actor's 
Eichard  III.  was  probably  warped  from  the  same  cause.  Instead  of 
Shakespeare's  play,  he  was  presented  with  Gibber's  perversion  of 
it.  He  had  some  nights  before  seen  Booth,  an  actor  of  shortlived 
reputation,  who  played  the  part  in  Kean's  manner,  but  without  his 
genius,  and  was  shocked  by  the  '  unwarrantable  omissions,'  no  less 
than  by  '  the  pitiful  additions,'  which  in  his  eyes  robbed  the  play  of 
its  distinctive  excellence.  The  character  of  Richard  was  stripped  of 
its  heroic  proportions ;  and  he  asks,  with  just  indignation,  what  can 
be  said  of  a  play  from  which  the  impressive  Cassandra -like  figure  of 
Queen  Margaret  has  been  omitted  ? 

Kean's  scene  in  the  tent,  when  he  wakes  up  from  his  ghost- 
haunted  sleep,  was  regarded  by  his  admirers  as  one  of  his  greatest 
achievements.  Our  own  boyish  recollections  enable  us  to  vouch  for 
the  accuracy  of  the  following  description  of  it  by  Tieck.  The  best 
critics  of  the  present  day  will  probably  agree  that  the  German  was 
not  far  wrong  in  thinking  that  true  art  was  lost  sight  of  in  the  at- 
tempt to  produce  a  claptrap  effect. 

As  the  ghosts  disappeared,  Richard  sprang  up  from  his  sleep.  But  how  ?  lie 
had  a  naked  sword  by  his  side,  and,  leaning  upon  this,  he  staggered  forward,  sank 
on  one  knee,  then  started  back  as  if  he  "wished  to  rise,  holding  high  in  the  air  his 
other  arm,  which  shook  violently  even  to  the  finger-tips  ;  then  trembling,  staring 
with  wide-open  eyes,  he  advanced  in  silent  anguish  on  his  knees  with  violent 
gesticulations,  and  yet  slowly,  into  the  proscenium,  still  shaking  with  fright,  and 
staring  at  the  audience  with  wide-set  eyes.  I  cannot  say  how  long  this  idiotic 
dumb  show  lasted,  which  seemed  to  me  a  mere  mountebank's  trick ;  but  when, 
after  a  long  interval,  he  wanted  to  proceed  with  the  monologue,  he  had  to  wait 
almost  as  long,  on  account  of  the  extravagant  peals  of  applause,  before  he  could  begin. 

The  great  defect  which  Tieck  found  in  the  English  stage  was  its 
want  of  completeness  and  ensemble.  This  was  due,  not  as  now  to 
the  way  such  good  actors  as  exist  are  scattered  up  and  clown  the 
theatres  of  tlie  metropolis,  and  to  the  disappearance  of  permanent 
companies  from  the  great  provincial  cities,  but  to  the  habit  which 
prevailed  of  not  regarding  plays  as  a  whole  from  a  commanding- 
central  point,  but  '  thinking  only  of  this  or  that  character,  of  special 
scenes,  and  so  forth.'  We  may  fitly  conclude  this  paper  with 
some  general  remarks  by  Tieck  upon  what  English  acting  was  as  he 
saw  it,  and  what  it  ought  to  be,  to  bring  it  back  to  what  it  must  have 
been,  when  it  had  no  splendour  of  scenic  accessories  to  rest  upon, 
but  was  compelled  to  trust  to  its  power  of  impressing  the  imagina- 
tion of  the  audience  by  speech  and  gesture,  and  truth  to  nature, 
wisely  tempered  by  art.  They  are  not  without  significance  at  the 
present  day. 

I  have  found  that  the  performance  of  English  tragedy  is  not  nowadays  essen- 
tially different  from  the  French,  and  that  the  two  stages  approximate  each  other  in 
points  where  both  are  most  strikingly  wrong.  In  point  of  fact,  we  in  Germany 
follow  the  same  track,  and  consequently  it  must  be  owned  that  the  French  school 

\  2 


296  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  February 

and  manner  are  the  Lest  and  finest  of  the  three,  for  in  France  they  have  earned  to 
the  ripeness  of  perfection  what  toth  English  and  Germans  are  still  struggling  to 
attain  in  a  tentative  and  hesitating  way.  We  must,  however,  not  forget  that  the 
English  had  for  a  great  length  of  time  been  in  possession  of  a  fully  developed  stage, 
when  the  French  had  scarcely  made  their  first  quite  insignificant  essays  in  tragedy, 
which  did  not  assume  a  national  character  among  them  till  a  much  later  period. 
So  in  like  manner  the  acting  of  English  tragedians  was  completely  formed,  and  of  a 
marked  individuality,  before  the  other  countries  in  Europe  had  anything  similar  to 
show.  This  histrionic  art,  as  we  know  from  authentic  records,  and  may  with  the 
greatest  certainty  conclude  from  its  effects,  was  so  perfect  that  the  finest  perform- 
ances of  later  times  can  have  been  at  best  only  an  approximation  to  it. 

The  enscmbtc  in  those  days  must  have  been  no  less  excellent,  because  otherwise 
these  great  plays  at  their  first  appearance  must  have  gone  off  as  lamely  as  they  do 
now,  or  rather  they  would  never  have  come  into  existence  at  all.  The  acting  of  that 
time,  however,  I  imagine,  was  very  diS'erent  in  kind  from  that  now  employed  by 
the  French  in  their  tragedies  ;  true,  simple,  more  or  less  coloured  and  interpene- 
trated by  whim  and  irony,  the  very  antipodes  to  all  declamation  and  false  emphasis — 
no  rhythmic  chaunting,  no  unnecessary  pauses  and  falsetto  accents.  This  spirited, 
living,  natural  style  of  acting,  this  just  and  simple  manner  of  speaking,  which  alone 
gives  scope  for  and  makes  every  delicacy  of  gradation  possible,  sustained  and 
elevated  the  productions  of  Shakespeare  and  his  contemporaries ;  it  was  in  this 
style  that  Burbage  and  Alleyne  were  great ;  as  Betterton  was  in  later  days,  and  so 
on  down  to  Garrick.  Therefore  it  is  not  to  be  wondered  at,  if  with  that  mono- 
tonous and  inflated  voice  and  action,  which  approach  to  the  French  mannerism, 
together  with  the  exaggeration,  which  is  due  simply  to  the  want  of  imagination 
and  creative  power,  the  works  of  Shakespeare  in  these  days  of  ours  often  make  but 
little  impression.  .  .  . 

In  the  matter  of  acting,  Schroder's  universal  talent  laid  the  foundation  of  a 
genuine  German  school,  which  of  necessity  was  akin  to  that  old  English  one,  to 
which  I  have  just  alluded.  A  firm  reliance  upon  truth  and  nature,  delight  in  a 
high  tone  of  comedy,  a  freedom  of  opinion  which  stoops  to  no  conventions,  an 
enlightened  emotional  nature,  which  is  not  to  be  dazzled  by  bombast — all  this,  with 
an  earnest  striving  after  genuine  and  profound  art,  is,  if  we  take  the  high  point  of 
view,  our  real  German  nature.  And  therefore  Shakespeare,  the  incomparable,  suits 
us  better  than  any  other  poet.  .  .  .  True  help  is  only  to  be  found  in  that  uniquely 
great  poet,  of  whose  creative  power  his  country  unquestionably  still  shows  that  it 
has  glimpses,  although  often  feeble  glimpses  only. 

Tieck  then  refers  to  the  salutary  influence  of  Goethe  in  restoring 
a  true  dramatic  style  to  the  German  drama,  and  of  Schroder,  Fleck, 
Keinicke,  Scholz,  and  others  in  giving  to  his  country  a  national 
stage.  He  then  makes  a  remark,  which  the  English,  in  their  exag- 
gerated estimate  of  the  merits  of  foreign  actors,  would  do  well  to 
remember.  Let  them  think,  for  example,  of  what  a  French  or 
Italian  actress  would  make  of  Juliet,  Imogen,  Constance,  Queen 
Katherine,  Lady  Macbeth,  Isabella,  Desdemona,  Beatrice,  Kosalind, 
and  they  will  then  appreciate  the  force  of  the  following  words.  *  To 
rise  to  supreme  excellence  as  a  German '  (let  us  add,  or  English) 
'  actor  is,  no  doubt,  infinitely  more  difficult  than  to  become  a  great 
French  tragedian  ;  just  as  it  is  a  much  higher  feat  to  write  a  play 
in  the  sense  in  which  Shakespeare's  or  Goethe's  are  plays,  than  to 
write  a  tragedy  on  the  narrow  conventional  model.' 

THEODORE  MARTIN. 


1880.  297 


FREE  LAND 
AND  PEASANT  PROPRIETORSHIP. 

WE  are  on  the  threshold,  as  I  believe  and  hope,  of  great  changes  in 
agriculture.  The  labourer  is  urging  his  claim  for  increased,  or  at  least 
for  undiminished  wages  ;  the  farmer  is  embarrassed,  and,  in  the  corn- 
growing  districts,  is  pinched  by  this  pressure  on  the  part  of  labour 
and  by  the  low  price  of  corn  ;  the  landlord,  often  with  only  a  narrow 
margin  of  income  after  satisfying  the  incumbering  charges  upon  his 
inalienable  patrimony,  is  at  his  wits'  end  how  to  deal  with  entreaties' 
for  reduction  of  rent  at  a  time  when  the  cost  of  fashionable  existence 
shows  no  sign  of  abatement.  The  agricultural  labourer  withholds 
his  strength.  An  employer  writes  :  '  I  have  known  labourers  decline 
to  hoe  turnips  on  piece-work,  by  which  they  might  earn  4s.  a  day, 
preferring  to  receive  2s.  Qd.  per  day,  and  to  limit  the  amount  of 
work  done.'  The  farmer  is  less  careful  in  his  cultivation.  A  farmer 
has  stated  that  weeds  have  been  allowed  to  get  such  hold  upon  the 
land  that  an  outlay  of  10,000,000^.  would  not  suffice  to  bring  back 
the  higher  cultivation  which  existed  three  or  four  years  ago ;  and 
another,  also  in  a  letter  to  the  Times,  dealing  with  the  same  subject — 
the  increasing  impoverishment  of  corn  land — declares  that  '  it  is  well 
known  among  farmers  and  agricultural  valuers  that  there  are  hundreds 
of  thousands  of  acres  of  land  in  this  country  which,  even  if  prices  and 
seasons  were  favourable,  are  not  worth  so  much  for  occupation  by  fifty 
per  cent,  as  they  were  a  few  years  ago,  because  labour  has  been 
stinted.'  The  landlord,  too,  has  not  been  backward  in  contributing 
to  the  decline  of  British  agriculture.  He  has  in  all  directions  given 
permission  for  the  conversion  of  arable  land  into  grass,  involving  in 
the  large  majority  of  cases  a  certain  diminution  from  the  attainable 
production  of  meat. 

The  President  of  the  Local  Government  Board  has  felt  called  upon 
to  speak  '  with  reference  to  the  present  depression  in  the  agricultural 
districts.'  I  refer  to  his  remarks  because  Mr.  Sclater-Booth  is 
the  official  representative  of  all  the  Poor-law  guardians  of  England 
and  Wales,  and  the  Boards  of  Guardians  include  a  majority  of  the 
landed  gentry  and  a  great  number  of  farmers.  Mr.  Sclater-Booth  is, 


298  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  February 

moreover,  an  authority  among  County  Members,  who,  when  agricul- 
tural distress  is  prevalent,  are  especially  concerned  in  searching 
for  the  cause  and  in  pointing  out  the  remedy.  What  did  Mr. 
Sclater-Booth  say  ?  He  intimated  that  the  depression  was  only  of  a 
temporary  character,  and  he  said  '  it  should  be  remembered  that  the 
manufacturing  interest  had  suffered  from  the  effect  of  over-produc- 
tion, and  that  where  one  interest  was  affected  all  must  suffer.'  Why 
should  depression  be  temporary?  The  hay-crop  of  1878  'was 
magnificent ;  the  harvest  was,  in  Mr.  Caird's  opinion,  the  best  we 
have  had  for  some  years.  The  Times  says  (November  3,  1879) 
there  has  been  no  such  wheat  harvest  since  1870.  Why  should  de- 
pression be  temporary  ?  Mr.  Sclater-Booth  believes  we  have  '  peace 
with  honour  ; '  that  European  Turkey,  sprinkled  with  blood  during 
his  administration,  is  now  to  be  waving  with  corn  ;  that  all  Turkey 
in  Asia,  under  the  beneficent  protection  of  England,  is  to  produce 
abundance  ;  he  knows,  or  ought  to  know,  [that  water-carriage  and 
land-carriage  in  America  are  everywhere  being  improved  ;  that  the 
Mississippi  has  been  dredged  and  deepened  so  that  corn-laden  vessels 
-can  now  pass  direct  from  the  Western  States  to  the  London  Docks  ; 
that  the  completion  of  the  Indus  Valley  Railway  will  draw  still 
larger  supplies  of  grain  from  Northern  India.  These  things  lie  on 
the  surface  of  the  question,  and  they  forbid  the  supposition  that  the 
price  of  corn  will  tend  to  increase. 

Why  should  the  depression  be  temporary  ?  The  United  States 
sent  out  more  than  40,000,000^.  worth  of  breadstuffs  and  provisions 
in  1877,  of  which  nearly  the  whole  was  consumed  in  this  country. 
The  cost-price  of  that  food  would  be  considerably  reduced  if  there 
were,  as  many  think  there  will  be,  an  acceptance  on  the  part  of  the 
United  States  of  the  policy  of  Free-trade.  Protection  in  the  United 
•  States  has  loaded  the  railways  with  excessive  expenditure — estimated 
at  500,000^.  for  one  trunk  railroad  from  Chicago  to  the  east  coast  for 
ssteel  rails  alone — from  which  they  might  be  liberated  by  opening 
••the  Atlantic  ports  to  the  free  entry  of  British  steel.  Another 
'example  of  the  extent  to  which  carriage  is  taxed  in  America  by  that 
which  many  believe  to  be  the  transitory  policy  of  Protection,  may  be 
seen  in  the  statement  of  '  one  of  the  leading  car-builders  of  the  United 
States,'  quoted  by  Mr.  Wells  at  a  Cobden  Club  dinner,  '  that  the  cost 
of  an  ordinary  passenger  railroad  car  is  directly  augmented  by  reason 
of  tariff  taxes  on  its  equipment  and  material  to  the  extent  of  from 
$1,000  to  $1,500.'  Then  again,  there  is  not  an  implement  used  by 
the  American  farmer  the  cost  of  which  is  not  directly  or  indirectly 
raised  by  Protection,  a  policy  which  affects  in  the  same  way  the  cost 
of  their  necessary  clothing,  as  well  as  that  of  many  of  the  luxuries 
they  demand.  The  farmers  of  the  United  States  can  together  control 
the  Legislature  ;  they  have  a  deep  interest  in  promoting  Free-trade, 
and  therefore  I  ask  again,  Why  should  depression  in  British  agri- 


1880.  FREE  LAND  AND  PEASANT  PROPRIETORSHIP.  299 

culture  be  regarded  as  temporary  ?  The  Speaker  has  lent  his  great 
authority  as  a  landlord  and  a  practical  agriculturist  to  the  opinion 
that  the  depression  of  agriculture  is  of  an  exceptional  and  passing 
character,  without,  as  I  think,  sufficient  investigation. 

Why  should  agricultural  distress  be  temporary  ?  The  steam 
threshing-machine  has  gone  east  and  west ;  and  now  the  reaping- 
machine — of  which  one  can  do  the  work  of  ten  men — is  following  it 
into  all  corn-exporting  lands.  There  is  no  part  of  the  world  where 
the  steam  plough  can  be  employed  with  greater  profit  or  advantage 
than  upon  the  flat  corn  lands  of  the  Western  States  of  America.  I 
quite  agree  with  Mr.  Fordham,  who  in  the  Times  signed  himself 
4  Occupier  of  600  Acres,  and  Vice-chairman  of  the  Koyston  Board  of 
Guardians,'  that  '  the  price  of  grain  and  meat  in  this  country  in  the 
future  will  be  its  price  in  the  United  States,  with  the  cost  of  transport 
added.'  My  conviction  is  that  the  depression  in  British  agriculture 
will  not  be  of  a  temporary  character  unless  the  present  system  is 
abandoned  ;  that  it  is  not  attributable  in  any  great  degree  to  the 
distress  which  has  affected  the  trading  and  manufacturing  interests ; 
that  there  is  no  reasonable  ground  for  expectation  that  this  depres- 
sion will  pass  away  upon  the  revival  of  trade ;  in  short,  that  it  is  due 
to  faults  in  our  agriculture,  and  to  the  maintenance  of  an  obsolete 
land  system,  which  has  conspicuously  broken  down  now  that  it  has 
been  brought,  by  the  improvement  of  communication,  in  to  competition 
with  the  limitless  agriculture  of  other  countries  of  the  world.  My 
present  purpose  is  further  to  demonstrate  this  position  by  a  survey  of 
the  condition  and  prospects  of  British  agriculture,  and  once  more  to 
point,  with  the  illustration,  of  fresh  evidence,  to  the  means  by  which 
the  agriculture  of  this  country  may  be  rendered  far  more  productive, 
be  relieved  from  depression,  and  placed  in  advantageous  competition 
with  that  of  the  distant  lands  from  which  the  British  people  already 
obtain  so  very  large  a  portion  of  their  supply  of  food. 

To  enable  us  to  judge  fairly  of  the  general  condition  of  agricul- 
ture in  these  islands,  we  can  hardly  take  a  better  guide  than  the 
treatise  which  was  published  in  1 878  by  Mr.  Caird.1  There  is  through- 
out it  a  very  perceptible  optimism,  which  however  does  not  resist 
the  admission  of  defects.  His  first  sentence  contains  a  test  to  which 
I  should  be  willing  to  submit  all  the  arguments  and  propositions  I 
liave  ever  advanced  upon  this  subject.  It  is  this: — 'One  of  the  most 
important  functions  of  government  is  to  take  care  that  there  shall  be 
no  hindrance  to  the  people  supplying  themselves  with  food  and  clothing, 
which  are  the  first  necessaries  of  life.'  Mr.  Caird  states  that  in 
twenty  years  the  value  of  foreign  cereal  and  animal  food  imported  has 
risen  from  35,000,000^.  to  1 10,000,000^  '  The  greatest  proportionate 
increase  has  been  in  the  importation  of  animal  food,  living  animals, 

1  The  Landed  Interest  and  tJte  Supply  of  Food.      By  James  Caird,  C.B.,  F.R.S. 
(Cassell,  Pettcr,  Galpin,  &  Co.). 


300  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  Febnuuy 

fresh  and  salted  meat,  fish,  poultry,  eggs,  butter,  and  cheese — which 
in  that  period  has  risen  from  an  annual  value  of  seven  to  thirty-six 
millions  sterling.'  Mr.  Caird  adds  :  <  More  than  half  the  farinaceous 
articles  imported  other  than  wheat  are  used  in  the  production  of  beer 
and  spirits.'  His  summing  up  with  regard  to  the  home  and  foreign  sup- 
ply of  bread  and  meat  is  as  follows  : — '  In  the  last  ten  years  there  has 
been  a  gradual  reduction  of  the  acreage  and  produce  of  wheat  in  this 
country,  and  a  more  than  corresponding  increase  in  the  foreign 
supply ;  the  result  of  which  is  that  we  now  receive  our  bread  in  equal 
proportions  from  our  own  fields  and  those  of  the  stranger.  In  regard 
to  meat  and  other  animal  products,  ten  years  ago  the  proportion  of 
foreign  was  one-tenth  of  the  whole ;  it  has  now  risen  to  nearly  one- 
fourth.'  We  are  further  dependent  on  the  foreigner  for  all,  or  nearly 
all,  the  addition  that  may  be  required  by  increased  demand  from  the 
existing  population,  or  from  the  growth  of  population,  which  in  this 
country  is  increasing.  It  is  not  Mr.  Caird's  design  to  reproach  British 
agriculture;  indeed,  he  does  not  seem  to  think  there  is  reproach  in  the 
assertion  that  in  the  last  ten  years  there  has  been  little  increase  in  the 
home  production  of  meat.  There  has  been  a  great  rise  of  price,  but 
British  agriculture  has  completely  failed  with  regard  to  increase.  It 
is  in  his  dealing  with  this  part  of  the  subject  that  I  am  least  satisfied 
with  Mr.  Caird's  exposition.  The  matter  is  of  the  very  first  import- 
ance in  deciding  how  we  ought  to  deal  with  the  agricultural  depres- 
sion which  is  now  prevailing.  Mr.  Caird  says  (p.  6) :  '  Excluding 
good  lands  capable  of  being  rendered  fertile  by  drainage,  we  appear 
to  have  approached  a  point  in  agricultural  production  beyond  which 
capital  can  be  otherwise  more  profitably  expended  in  this  country 
than  in  further  attempting  to  force  our  poorer  class  of  soils  ; '  and 
later  (p.  143)  he  says,  with  still  greater  precision  :  '  The  production 
of  bread  and  meat  within  these  islands  appears  nearly  to  have  reached 
its  limit,'  and  as  there  has  been  little  increase  (p.  6)  in  the  last  ten 
years,  we  may  assume  that,  in  Mr.  Caird's  judgment,  the  production 
of  meat  within  these  islands  nearly  reached  its  limit  ten  years  ago. 
If  I  regarded  that  statement  as  true,  I  should  think  it  one  of  terrible 
significance.  As  it  stands,  coming  from  so  cautious  and  thoughtful 
a  man  as  Mr.  Caird,  I  think  it  by  far  the  most  important  statement 
that  has  been  made  for  a  long  time,  with  reference  to  British  agri- 
culture. I  do  not  know  that  there  is  any  personal  opinion  in  which 
I  could  find  refuge  or  comfort  against  that  of  Mr.  Caird,  and  there- 
fore I  rejoice  the  more  to  think  that  I  can  indicate  the  error  of  this 
statement  by  the  words  of  Mr.  Caird  himself.  He  admits  (p.  95} 
that  '  nature  has  given  us  a  climate  more  favourable  to  the  produc- 
tion of  meat  than  that  of  any  other  European  State.'  That  is  some- 
thing towards  the  possibility  of  a  large  increase  in  production.  It  is 
pretty  well  known  that  thirty  years  ago  only  a  very  insignificant  part 
of  the  agricultural  land  of  this  country  was  efficiently  drained. 


1880.  FREE  LAND  AND  PEASANT  PROPRIETORSHIP.  301 

Mr.  Caird  admits  (p.  83)  that  '  the  extent  of  work  still  to  "be  done  far 
exceeds  that  which  has  been  accomplished  ; '  and  he  affords  abundant 
proof  of  the  large  profit  which  attends  land  improvement  by  sum- 
marising (p.  93)  'a  return  of  forty  cases  of  outlays,  not  picked  cases, 
but  taken  as  they  happened  to  come,  with  the  increased  rentals,  sub- 
sequent to  the  improvements.  Upon  an  outlay  in  the  aggregate  of 
195,000^.  there  was  an  increased  rental  of  31,000^.  (nearly  16  per 
cent. ).  This  increase  had  been  obtained  within  seven  to  ten  years.' 
Forty  millions  sterling  would  not  suffice  for  the  drainage  of  much  more 
than  5,000,000  acres,  and  Mr.  Caird  gives  40,000,000  as  the  'acreage 
under  crops '  in  the  United  Kingdom  (p.  158).  Again,  take  what  Mr. 
Caird  says  of  Mr.  Lawes'  experiments  in  natural  and  artificial  fertility. 
'  The  average  of  the  past  twenty  years  shows  that  the  natural  produce 
(of  grass  land)  may  be  doubled  and  even  trebled,  by  the  use  of  special 
manures.'  With  regard  to  arable  land,  Mr.  Caird's  report  of  Mr. 
Lawes'  experience  is  still  more  striking.  Mr.  Lawes  finds  that  on 
one  plot  to  which  no  manure  is  applied  weeds  form  fifty  per  cent,  of 
the  produce ;  and,  as  illustrating  the  benefits  of  high  farming,  which  is 
very  far  from  general  in  England,  Mr.  Caird  gives  Mr.  Lawes'  record 
of  the  production  of  two  plots  of  land  (p.  39),  '  the  soils  exactly  simi- 
lar, and  in  the  same  field,  strong  land  on  clay  with  a  substratum  of 
chalk ;  the  management  is  the  same  in  so  far  as  culture  is  con- 
cerned ;  both  crops  are  kept  equally  clean  and  free  from  weeds  ;  the 
same  seed  is  used,  and  they  are  exposed  to  the  same  changes 
of  weather.  The  only  difference  is  that,  in  the  one  case,  nature  has 
been  unassisted  by  manure,  and  in  the  other,  the  soil  receives 
every  year  the  various  kinds  of  manure  which  have  been  found  most 
suitable  to  the  crop.'  Mr.  Caird  gives  the  result  with  tabular  pre- 
cision : — 

Corn          Straw         Total 

1.  Wheat  grown  continuously,  without  manure  730  lb«.    1120  Ibs.  1850  Ibs. 

2.  Wheat  grown  continuously,  with  special  manure   2:>42  „       4928  „     7270  Its. 

This  is  conclusive  that  the  difference  between  the  best  and 
inferior  agriculture  on  the  same  soil  may  be  more  than  treble  the 
produce.  It  must  be  remembered  that  in  this  case  the  inferior 
agriculture  is  by  no  means  the  worst  agriculture.  It  is  stated 
that  in  both  cases  the  cultivation  is  the  same ;  the  only  difference  is 
in  the  expenditure  for  manure.  If  the  land  had  been  of  the  character 
which  most  requires  drainage,  and  if,  in  addition  to  the  want  of 
manure,  the  first  plot  had  been  undrained,  the  crop  would  hardly 
have  amounted  to  one-fifth  of  that  upon  the  second  plot. 

From  what  has  been  stated  we  may  consider  Mr.  Caird  as  willing 
to  admit, —  1.  That  not  much  more  than  one-fifth  of  the  'acreage 
under  crops'  has  been  drained  ;  2.  That  not  more  than  60,000,OOOL 
have  been  expended  in  the  improvement  of  the  40,000,000  acres  '  under 
crops,'  including  the  outlay  in  the  erection  of  farmhouses  and  build- 


302  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  February 

ings  and  cottages,  in  the  last  thirty  years — an  amount  equal  to  no 
more  than  30s.  per  acre  ;  3.  That  the  capital  value  of  the  landlords' 
interest  has  increased  by  the  enormous  amount  of  321,000,000^  in 
no  more  than  twenty  years ;  4.  That,  taking  average  cases  of  land 
improvement,  the  consequent  profit  not  rarely  amounts  to  more  than 
15  per  cent. ;  and,  5.  That  the  gentleman  to  whom  British  agriculture 
is,  in  Mr.  Caird's  judgment,  more  indebted  than  to  any  other  living 
man,  has  shown  that  on  grass-land  the  produce  may  be  trebled,  and  on 
arable  land  more  than  trebled,  by  special  and  suitable  manures.  I 
submit  that  these  admissions  are  utterly  irreconcilable  with  Mr. 
Caird's  conclusion  that  l  the  production  of  bread  and  meat  within  these 
islands  appears  to  have  nearly  reached  its  limit.' 

We  may  learn  from  the  experiments  of  Mr.  Lawes  that  industrious 
cultivation,  aided  with  abundant  capital,  will,  either  upon  grass  or 
arable  land,  treble  the  produce  which  would  be  obtained  when  the 
cultivation  was  bad  and  the  working  capital  insufficient.  But  to  the 
consumer  there  is  an  essential  difference  between  the  product  of  grass 
and  of  arable  land.  What  may  the  conversion  of  an  acre  of  arable 
into  grass  imply  to  the  community  ?  I  will  place,  as  I  ought  to  place, 
their  interest  first.  The  conditions  of  management  being  the  same, 
it  may  mean  the  loss  of  at  least  one-half  of  the  productive  powers  of  the 
land.  And  it  implies  not  only  a  reduced  power  of  producing  food, 
but  also  a  diminished  demand  for  manufactured  goods — a  diminished 
purchasing  power  abroad  and  a  lessened  demand  at  home.  I  will 
call  Mr.  Caird  himself  as  a  witness  to  prove  the  case  by  some  of  his 
earlier  writings.  Mr.  Caird  has  stated,  I  think  in  his  work  on 
British  Agriculture — at  all  events  I  have  his  words  quoted  in  Mr. 
Mechi's  book  2 — that  '  it  takes  three  acres  of  good  land  in  the  Vale  of 
Aylesbury  (see  Caird)  to  keep  a  cow,  winter  and  summer,  in  proper 
condition  ; '  that  is,  three  acres  of  some  of  the  very  best  grass  land  in 
the  country  to  produce  the  milk  of  one  cow.  Perhaps  more  land,  or 
other  food  in  addition  to  the  grass,  would  be  required  to  produce  one 
fat  bullock,  yielding,  without  offal,  400  Ibs.  of  meat.  Of  wheat,  the 
iiverage  produce,  in  England,  is,  according  to  Mr.  Caird,  28  bushels 
per  acre  (p.  157).  But  if  we  take  land  equal  in  quality  and 
character  of  produce  to  the  grass  land  of  the  Vale  of  Aylesbury,  we 
must  not  assume  that  the  average  crop  will  be  less  than  40  bushels 
per  acre,  which,  at  60  Ibs.  to  the  bushel,  would  give  a  total  of 
2,400  Ibs.,  or,  for  three  acres,  of  7,200  Ibs.  In  1877  Mr.  Caird3 
put  forth  very  careful  calculations  as  to  the  quantity  of  wheat  con- 
sumed per  head  by  the  population  of  the  United  Kingdom.  He 
arrived  at  the  conclusion  that  'the  home-grown  wheat  annually 
consumed  by  each  person  is  now  158  Ibs.,  and  the  foreign  183  Ibs.,' 
making  a  total  of  341  Ibs.  for  each  person.  We  have,  then,  from 

-  lion'  to  Farm  Profitably,  p.  175. 

3  Transactions  of  the  Social  Okie  nee  Association. 


1880.  FREE  LAND  AND  PEASANT  PROPRIETORSHIP.  303 

these  figures  this  result :  that  the  three  rich  acres  which  would, 
under  grass,  produce  the  milk  of  one  cow,  would,  under  wheat,  pro- 
duce sufficient  bread  for  the  supply  of  more  than  twenty-one  persons. 
A  cow  in  'good  condition'  would  not  weigh  anything  like  400  Ibs., 
but  let  us  assume  that  the  three  acres  of  grass  would  produce  400  Ibs. 
•of  meat,  what  would  be  the  daily  ration  of  twenty-one  persons  ?  It 
would  not  be  an  ounce  per  day ;  a  man  could  send  his  share  in  a 
penny  letter  by  the  post !  Which  would  more  nourish  his  body, — a 
pound  of  wheat  made  into  good  bread,  or  half  an  ounce  of  roast 

-meat?  Of  course,  the  comparison  is  absurd.  I  have  seen  land  no 
better  than  that  in  the  Vale  of  Aylesbury,  and  in  no  higher  condition, 
producing  50  bushels  of  wheat  to  the  acre,  which  would  give  9,000  Ibs. 
for  three  acres,  and  would  afford  daily  bread  for  twenty-seven  persons. 
Now  tli at  which  arable  land  can  do  for  the  bread  of  man  it  can 
.accomplish  for  the  food  of  animals,  and  thus  we  arrive  at  a  position 
to  see  how  injurious  to  the  interests  of  the  consumer  is  the  conversion 
of  arable  land  into  grass.  Arable  land  will  certainly  be  converted 
into  grass  land  if  the  production  in  the  former  condition  is  not 
more  than  sufficient  to  pay  the  cost  of  cultivation.  It  is,  I  think, 
beyond  doubt,  that  the  production  of  wheat  in  England  is  at 
present  upon  certain  lands  unprofitable.  Taking  28  bushels  as 

•  the  average  of  England ;  knowing  that  some  land  produces  50 
bushels,  and  much  land  35  and  40  bushels  per  acre,  there  must  be  a 
wide  extent  under  wheat  which  yields  less  than  24  bushels  per  acre. 
The  cost  of  24  bushels,  or  3  qrs.,  of  wheat  of  average  quality  at 
recent  prices  is  about  61.  6s.  There  must  be  a  large  extent  of 
poor  clay  land,  undrained  and  ill-farmed,  which  does  not  produce  so 
much.  But  if  we  assume  the  rent  of  land  which  produces  3  qrs.  per 
acre  to  be  no  more  than  M.,  and  take  only  another  21.  per  acre 
for  the  cost  of  manure,  the  receipt  of  6£.  6s.  would  leave  the  farmer 
in  debt  at  least  to  the  amount  of  his  rent.  What  Mr.  Mechi  has 
termed  the  '  unescapeable  expenses '  even  of  such  miserable  farming — 
entirely  exclusive  of  any  manure  and  of  anything  like  very  careful 
cultivation — amount  to  51.  5s.  3d.  per  acre.  The  farmer  in  this  case 
would  have  the  straw  from  which  to  pay  his  rent,  to  provide  for  the 
maintenance  of  himself  and  his  family,  and  to  renew  the  exhausted 

.  fertility  of  the  land.  But  it  is  doubtful  if  he  could  sell  the  straw, 
as  farmers  are  not  seldom  bound  by  conditions  of  tenancy  to  use  all 
straw  upon  the  land. 

Now  if  I  understand  Mr.  Caird's  argument  aright,  we  are  to 
accept  the  disappearance  of  wheat  crops  upon  this  sort  of  land,  or  the 
continuance  of  such  miserable  production,  as  a  matter  due  to  economic 
laws  ;  we  are  to  accept  his  opinion  that  '  we  have  approached  a  point 
in  agricultural  production  beyond  which  capital  can  be  otherwise 
more  profitably  expended  in  this  country  than  in  further  attempting 
to  force  our  poorer  class  of  soils.'  It  would  be  a  national  calamity  if 


304  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  February 

Mr.  Caird's  view  of  this  matter  were  to  become  general.  I  should 
defer  to  his  opinion  upon  any  matter  connected  with  agriculture,  but, 
with  his  own  figures  before  me,  I  am  emboldened  to  say  that  I  do 
not  know  any  employment  for  capital  in  these  islands,  possessing 
equal  security,  which  would  yield  anything  like  so  large  a  return  as 
expenditure  upon  the  drainage  and  improvement  of  such  lands.  No- 
one  in  England  is  better  acquainted  with  land  of  this  description 
than  Mr.  Mechi,4  who  asks  himself  the  question :  '  How  are  you  to 
get  a  full  crop  on  such  soils  ?  By  drainage,  by  a  good  farm  road,  by 
deeper  cultivation,  and  by  a  quadruple  supply  of  manure.'  He  con- 
tinues :  '  But  how  is  the  latter  (the  manure) -to  be  got?  By  selling 
all  the  produce  of  the  farm  (-except  wheat)  to  your  animals.  Make 
up  your  mind  to  manufacture  51.  worth  of  fat  meat  for  every  acre  of 
land  that  you  hold,  and  I  will  promise  you  a  success  that  you  never 
dreamed  of.'  If  a  man  on  such  land  made  51.  worth  of  fat  meat  per 
acre,  his  wheat  crop  would  more  nearly  average  forty  than  twenty-four 
bushels,  and  so  the  production  of  bread  and  meat,  which  Mr.  Caird 
thinks  has  reached  its  limit,  would  be  enlarged.  Mr.  Mechi  goes  on 
to  say  to  the  farmers  of  the  undrained  clay  :  '  It  is  all  very  well  to 
say,  Where  is  the  money  to  come  from  ?  We  all  hold  too  much  land, 
and  I  see  before  me  a  man  who  lost  most  of  his  money  upon  fifty 
acres,  but  now,  keeping  the  same  amount  of  stock  upon  ten  acres,  he 
is  recovering  himself  and  paying  his  way.'  I  like  Mr.  Mechi's  view 
of  the  matter  better  than  Mr.  Caird's.  I  will  venture  to  say  it  is  a 
truer  view,  and  that  to  enlarge  immensely  our  production  of  meat 
and,  if  we  please,  of  bread,  in  England,  it  is  only  needful  that  there 
should  be  security  of  tenure,  and  much  more  abundant  capital, 
especially  upon  such  lands  as  those  to  which  we  have  been  re- 
ferring. 

Mr.  Caird  is  so  candid  that  I  have  great  confidence,  when  he  next 
addresses  the  British  people  upon  the  general  condition  of  their  agri- 
culture, he  will  confess  that  the  system  of  large  farms  in  this 
country  has  been  overdone.  The  exclusive  system  of  large  farms  was 
at  no  time  the  best  system,  either  for  landlords  or  tenants.  Where 
there  is  not  free  land,  there  will  always  be  a  tendency  to  distribution 
in  large  farms,  because  it  is  suitable  to  the  dignity  and  management 
of  large  estates.  Of  course,  it  has  been  and  is  lauded  by  land  agents. 
At  one  time,  not  many  years  ago,  when  farms  were  being  generally 
enlarged,  it  was  said  that  farms  must  be  large  because  of  the 
rapid  improvement  in  agricultural  machinery.  But,  in  fact,  the 
machinery  has  outstripped  the  farms,  and  now,  even  upon  what  are 
called  large  farms,  it  is  no  uncommon  thing  to  find  that  the  steam- 
plough,  or  the  threshing-machine,  or  the  reaping-machine,  is  hired, 
and  is  really,  just  as  is  the  case  on  peasant  farms,  the  property  of 
some  one  who  is  only  thus  indirectly  engaged  in  agriculture.  The 

4  How  to  Farm  Fmf  tally,  p.  500. 


1680.  FREE  LAND  AND  PEASANT  PROPRIETORSHIP.  305 

pressure  of  competition  from  abroad,  the  pressure  of  hired  labour 
at  home,  and  the  demand  for  the  more  costly  products  of  agri- 
culture, to  the  best  production  of  which  the  large  farm  system  is 
unsuited,  is  bringing  about  the  breakdown  of  the  agricultural 
system  of  England.  It  will  be  happy  for  this  country  if  the  real 
and  abiding  causes  of  the  depression  which  is  observed  in  agricul- 
ture are  understood  and  appreciated.  The  effect  of  foreign  com- 
petition is  plain  enough  :  it  tends  to  keep  the  price  of  wheat  down  to 
about  45s.  per  quarter;  and  but  for  that  competition  meat  would 
•certainly  be  Is.  6<:Z.  a  pound.  It  is  less  easy  to  mark  the  influence  of 
the  increasing  demand  of  the  agricultural  labourer.  But  it  must  be 
evident  to  any  one  that  the  conditions  of  superintendence  are — for 
the  interests  of  the  employer — at  the  worst  in  extensive  agriculture. 
I  have  known  the  time  when  agricultural  labourers  could  be  forced, 
owing  to  the  relation  of  supply  and  demand,  to  undertake  piece-work 
at  which,  with  the  utmost  exertion,  they  could  not  earn  more  than 
2s.  a  day.  Then,  if  a  farmer  had  a  hedge  to  trim  and  repair,  a  ditch 
to  dig,  a  road  to  mend,  manure  to  spread,  or  crops  to  hoe,  it  made 
no  great  difference  in  the  day's  work  whether  he  stood  over  the  men  or 
not.  He  saw  them  once  in  his  daily  round.  They  did  not  work  as 
men  would  labour  upon  land  of  their  own,  and  as  for  himself,  he  did, 
as  now  he  does,  no  manual  labour.  But  now  the  price  of  piece-work 
is  doubled,  although  the  price  of  wheat  is  no  higher  than  at  the 
former  period.  The  farmer  of  a  large  breadth  of  land  is  at  a  great 
disadvantage  as  compared  with  other  employers,  when  the  wages  and 
conditions  of  labour  have  become,  as  they  have  in  Great  Britain, 
much  the  same  in  town  and  country.  He  cannot  so  easily  overlook 
his  operations.  It  is  only  upon  land  of  certain  quality  and  condition — 
and  we  may  add,  of  position  also — that  a  farmer  can  now-a-days  earn 
a  considerable  percentage  upon  his  capital  in  the  shape  of  wages  of 
superintendence,  and  what  is  still  more  important  to  observe,  it  is  the 
fact  that  there  are  only  certain  men  who  can  earn  that  percentage. 
Whether  a  man  would  have  greater  proportionate  success  as  a  large 
shopkeeper  or  a  small  shopkeeper,  as  a  large  farmer  or  as  a  small 
farmer,  does  not  depend  merely  on  the  amount  of  capital  he  can 
command.  Few  unite  the  requisite  habits  of  economy  with  skill  in 
supervision ;  many  can  be  stimulated  to  great  bodily  exertion  and  to 
the^habit  of  small  economies  by  self-interest. 

There  would  be  no  depression  in  agriculture,  but  great  prosperity, 
if  in  the  spots  where  that  depression  prevails  the  laud  were  divided 
into  such  areas  as  would  quadruple  the  capital  employed,  and  would 
enable  the  farmer  to  engage  himself  most  profitably,  and  to  overlook 
with  no  loss  of  time  the  assistance  for  which  he  paid  wages.  That  is 
.a  change  which  the  increasing  strain  upon  the  British  farmer  must  in 
time  produce  ;  it  is  a  change  which  will  come  quickly  if  the  landlords 
refuse,  as  I  trust,  in  the  interests  of  production,  they  will  refuse,  to 


306  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  February 

submit  to  a  large  reduction  of  their  incomes.     The  farmers  have  two 
resources  in  these  circumstances  of  depression,  to  which  I  have  no 
doubt  they  will  resort  before  seeking  to  enlarge  their  capital   bv 
diminishing  their  holdings — the  conversion  of  arable  into  grass  land, 
and  a  reduction  of  rent.     The  first  has  been  and  will  be  made  avail- 
able.    Wages   of  superintendence  can  be  most  easily  obtained  by 
looking  after  cattle  browsing  upon  pasture.     It  may  be  that  the  land 
is  such,  in  point  of  convenience  or  quality,  that  it  would  produce 
double  the  quantity  of  meat  if  it  were  arable  ;  but  the  farmer's  capital 
is  not  sufficient  and  his  farm  is  too  large  to  admit  of  close  and  careful 
overlooking,  and  the  margin  of  his  profit  is  made  larger  by  conversion , 
into  grass.     He  can  better  leave  the  pasture  without  manure  ;  he  has 
a  quieter  time,  and  under  cover  of  the  plea  as  to  the  depression  of 
agriculture,  he  gets  permission  to  convert  the  ploughed  land  into  grass, 
or  to  sow  with  grass  seed  the  land  lately  reclaimed,  without  any  altera- 
tion as  to  rent — for  of  course,  under  ordinary  circumstances,  the  rent 
of  grass  land  is  higher  than  that  of  arable  land,  and  this  is  the  point 
at  which  the  landlord's  interest  is  opposed  to  that  of  the  consumer  of 
meat.     Grass  land  fetches,  by  what  Adam  Smith  called  '  the  higgling 
of  the  market,'  a  higher  rent,  because  labour  does  not  demand  so  large 
a  share  of  the  profits.     On  arable  land  profits  have  to  be  divided 
between  landlord,  farmer,  and  labourer ;  on  grass  land  the  labourer  is 
practically  not  in  competition  at  the  division  of  profits.     '  Such  lands,' 
says  Mr.  Caird(p.  38),  with  reference  to  the  richest  alluvial  pastures, 
*  as  they  require  neither  labour  nor  manure,  yield  the  largest  rents  to 
their  owners.'     Under  existing  circumstances  the  tendency  to  conver- 
sion must  continue ;  production  is  diminished,  and  the  recalcitrant 
labourer  is  discharged  to  make  the  dense  population  of  towns  yet 
more  overcrowded ;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  the  farmer  finds  himself 
in  easier  circumstances  as  to  capital,  and  the  landlord,  if  he  obtain  no 
increase  of  rent,  has  at  all  events  the  knowledge  that  he  has  pleased 
his  tenant  and  that  his  rent  is  more  secure. 

Mr.  Lawes  is  much  of  Mr.  Caird's  opinion  as  to  increase  of  produc- 
tion ;  but  Mr.  Caird  has  no  doubt  as  to  increase  of  demand.  *  In  ten 
years  more,'  said  Mr.  Caird,  in  1877,5  '  there  will  be  another  3,500,000 
to  be  provided  for,  if  no  check  occurs,  so  that  the  question  of  still 
larger  supplies  of  animal  food  is  a  pressing  one.  What  is  to  be  done  ? ' 
Mr.  Caird's  policy  for  the  reform  of  the  tenure  and  transfer  of 
land  is  scattered  throughout  his  treatise.  But  I  must  not  complain, 
for  if  the  production  of  bread  and  meat  cannot  be  increased,  reform 
is  a  question  of  no  great  importance  to  an  agricultural  economist.  I 
am  indeed  rather  surprised  that  Mr.  Caird  has  been  at  the  pains  to 
put  forward  so  many  distinct  propositions  if  he  believes  that  their 
enactment  would  have  no  substantial  influence  upon  production.  I 
must  say  I  prefer  Mr.  Caird's  propositions  to  his  inferences  ;  they 
4  Transactwnt  of  the  Social  Science  Association. 


1880.  FREE  LAND  AND  PEASANT  PROPRIETORSHIP.  307 

are  all  admirable,  and  coining  from  him  in  a  report,  or  at  the  tail  of 
a  report,  to  the  Royal  Agricultural  Society,  they  are  of  considerable 
importance.     In  order  to  see  these  proposals  to  the  utmost  advantage, 
we  must  take  first  Mr.  Caird's  statements  with  reference  to  the  dis- 
tribution of  land  in  this  country.     He  admits  (p.  40)  that  this  is 
'  constantly  tending  to  a  reduction  in  the  number  of  small  estates ; " 
that  '  this  tendency  is  further  promoted  by  the  law  which   permits 
entails  and  settlements,  thus  hindering  the  natural  sale  of  the  land 
so  dealt  with,  and  also  by  rights  of  primogeniture,  which  prevent 
subdivision  of  landed  property  among  the  family  in  case  of  intestacy.' 
But  he  would  have  us  learn  from  the  '  New  Domesday  Books '  that 
(p.  44)  '  every  twentieth  head  of  a  family  '  is  an  agricultural  land- 
owner.    Mr.  Caird  can  however  rjardly  expect  that  with  the  figures 
before  us  we  shall  accept  this  statement,  which  is  quite  unworthy  of 
Mr.  Caird's  reputation  for  accuracy.     He  assumes   that  all  persons 
returned  in  those  books  as  owners  of  land,  the  extent  of  which  is  not 
less  than  one  acre,  are  '  properly  agricultural  landowners,'  320,000  in 
number.     That  is  an  unwarrantable  assumption.     There  are  tens  of 
thousands  of  villas,  with  purely  ornamental  grounds  of  an  acre  or 
more,  the  proprietors  of  which  are  in  no  sense  agricultural  land- 
owners ;  there  are  thousands  of  clergy  included  in  Mr.  Caird's  mis- 
leading  roll  of  'agricultural    landowners,'  who    are  merely  official 
tenants  during  good  behaviour  of  a  parsonage  house  and  a  large 
garden;  there  are  thousands  of  Mr.  Caird's  'properly  agricultural 
landowners  '  who  are  returned  as  owners  of  an  acre  or  more  of  land  in 
a   street    covered  with   houses.      Mr.    Caird  says  (p.   44) :    '  They 
[the  tenant  farmers]  are  1,160,000  in  number,  and,  when  added  to. 
320,000  owners  of  one  acre  and  upwards,  make  1,480,000  altogether 
engaged  in  the  ownership  and  cultivation  of  the  soil.'     Mr.  Caird 
cannot  doubt  that  these  320,000  include  tens  of  thousands — I  should 
say  hundreds  of  thousands — of  urban  residents ;  and  on  p.  43  he  writes 
of '  urban  populations  having  little  other  connection  with  the  land 
than  that  of  affording  the  best  market  for  its  produce.'     He  is  wrong 
on  p.  44  and  right  on  p.  43.     What  connection  with  agricultmv 
have  the  thousands  of  proprietors  of  villas  standing  in  one  acre  and 
upwards  in  the  two  counties  of  York  and  Lancaster  ?     Mr.  Caird  is 
never  accurate  in  his  references  to  the  '  New  Domesday  Books.'     His 
are  probably  the  most  incorrect  propositions  that  have  been  drawn 
from  those  fallacious  volumes. 

When  Mr.  Caird  gets  clear  of  the  '  New  Domesday  Books,'  his  re- 
marks about  landowners  and  landowning  are  more  valuable,  and  are 
always  tending  in  the  right  direction.  For  instance,  in  dealing 
(p.  61)  with  the  '  duty  of  property,'  he  asserts  that  '  a  most  important 
part  of  that  duty  is  to  see  that  no  good  land  upon  it  is  suffered  br 
neglect  or  mismanagement  to  remain  unproductive.'  If  that  duty 
were  strictly  fulfilled,  what  would  become  of  Mr.  Caird's  statement 


308  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  February 

concerning  the  production  of  meat  and  bread  ?  I  wonder  whether 
Sir  Garnet  Wolseley  had  orders  to  repeal  the  Turkish  law  in  Cyprus 
which  decreed  that  if  any  owner  neglect  this  part  of  his  duty  for 
more  than  three  years  'without  good  excuse,'6  the  State  will  claim 
his  land.  I  am  no  advocate  of  such  a  law  for  England.  But 
if  there  were  a  law  decreeing  that  land  must,  in  a  reasonable  manner, 
l>e  subject  to  the  best  agriculture  for  the  food  supply  of  the  people, 
and  that  if  this  were  not  done  it  should  be  forfeited,  what  millions  of 
acres  in  England  would  yield  double  the  present  produce  !  If  Mr. 
Caird's  moral  code  were  carried  out,  how  unsound  his  economic  pre- 
diction would  appear  as  to  the  supply  of  bread  and  meat ! 

I  am  afraid  the  French  economists  who  have  read  Mr.  Caird's 
treatise  with  respect,  have  thought  him  somewhat  '  insular '  in  his 
reference  to  the  extent  and  value  of  agricultural  property  which 
changes  hands  annually  in  this  country.  Mr.  Caird  ?ays  that 
'  landed  property  of  the  value  of  several  millions  sterling  a  year 
changes  hands,  and  as  there  is  necessarily  a  larger  body  of  persons 
capable  of  competing  for  small  properties,  there  is  a  natural  tendency 
to  subdivision  in  sale.'  What  is  the  fact  ?  Taking  out  the  town 
houses  and  the  landed  estates  selling  for  more  than  10,000^.,  do  the 
annual  sales  of  land  in  England  amount  to  5,000,000£.  or  to 
2,000,OOOL  ?  In  France  the  annual  sales  of  real  property  reach 
80,000,000£.  Here  we  touch  one  of  the  typical  points  of  our  land 
system,  and  Mr.  Caird  whitewashed  it  so  that  the  traces  of  feudalism 
should  not  appear  among  English  '  exhibits '  at  Paris.  If  Mr. 
Caird  had  told  the  world  that  were  the  feudalistic  laws  and  customs 
laid  aside  in  this  country — without  imposing  any  form  of  compulsory 
distribution  upon  testators — the  sales  of  real  property  in  England 
would  amount  to  ten  times  their  present  sum,  which  would  then  be 
distributed  by  the  natural  law  he  speaks  of,  at  higher  values  than 
are  at  present  attained,  he  would  have  said  that  which  is  incontest- 
ably  veracious.  His  treatise  contains  not  a  few  contradictions.  On 
p.  66  Mr.  Caird  says  '  there  is  a  natural  tendency  to  subdivision  on 
sale  ; '  on  p.  67  he  says  :  '  In  short,  our  system  is  that  of  large  capi- 
talists owning  the  land.'  Elsewhere  he  displays  the  fact  that  it  is 
something  else — that  it  is  a  system  of  large  capitalists  depopulating 
the  land.  Mr.  Caird  says  (p.  51):  'It  is  worthy  of  note  that  the 
strictly  rural  parishes  of  England  exhibit  some  decline  of  population. 
And  it  is  quite  certain  that  this  continues.'  And  again,  on  p.  92  : 
'Within  the  period  between  the  census  of  1861  and  1871  there  has 
been  a  decrease  of  the  country  population  in  every  county  of  Eng- 
land except  five  ;  and  it  is  only  in  the  suburban  counties  and  in  the 
manufacturing  and  mining  districts  that  an  increase  has  taken  place.' 
1  regard  all  these  facts  as  of  the  utmost  gravity.  Against  Mr.  Caird 
1  contend  that  when  the  sales  of  land  are  thus  restricted — as  in  Eng- 
6  Times  Correspondence,  October  24,  1878. 


1880.  FREE  LAND  AND  PEASANT  PROPRIETORSHIP.  309 

land  they  are  restricted  by  entail,  settlement,  and  the  difficulties  of 
purchase — production  must  greatly  suffer,  for  it  is  absolute  truth 
that  '  whatsoever  facilitates  land  passing  into  new  hands  tends  to 
increase  its  productiveness,  and  thereby  its  usefulness,  to  the  nation 
at  large  ;  since  those  among  the  owners  who  are  least  provided  with 
skill,  enterprise,  and  capital  are  those  who  are  under  the  strongest 
inducements  to  sell  their  land.'7 

I  am  sad  when  I  think  of  the  harm  which  Mr.  Caird's  ill-judged 
opinions  have  achieved.  No  increase  of  produce  possible !  I  have 
before  me  the  particulars  of  the  result  of  a  purchase  six  years  ago  by  a 
Manchester  man  of  200  acres  of  land  that  had  been  long  settled  in  an 
embarrassed  family,  in  the  hapless  condition  of  millions  of  acres  in 
England  at  this  moment.  Fortunately  for  the  interests  of  production, 
the  male  line  in  this  noble  family  became  extinct,  and  their  Cheshire 
property  was  sold.  When  my  informant  purchased,  there  was  barely 
food  for  thirty  sheep  upon  the  impoverished  pasture,  and  there  was 
not  a  load  of  hay — indeed,  his  expression  was  '  You  could  cart  all  the 
hay  in  a  wheel  barrow.'  In  six  years,  by  the  skilful  application  of 
capital  upon  this  land,  so  happily  freed  from  that  blight  of  settlement 
which  more  or  less  injuriously  affects  probably  four-fifths  of  the 
United  Kingdom,  he  had  raised  the  produce  to  fifty  loads  of  hay, 
and  he  had  six  hundred  sheep  upon  the  land  which  under '  the  English 
system '  barely  afforded  food  for  thirty.  I  see,  too,  the  depopulation 
of  rural  England  with  deep  sorrow  and  concern.  Not  only  does  it  of 
a  certainty  imply  diminished  production  of  food,  but  also  a  reduction 
in  the  standard  of  health  and  vigour  throughout  the  whole  popula- 
tion. These  are  the  most  grave  and  menacing  features  in  the  social 
life  of  England,  and  I  hope  that  the  first  action  of  the  agricultural 
labourers  on  obtaining  the  suffrage  will  be  to  follow  bravely  and 
boldly  the  lead  of  those  who  will  seek  to  render  the  land  system  in 
accord  with  the  rational  interests  of  the  country.  Mr.  Caird  alludes 
to  the  important  matter  of  labourers'  cottages.  lie  admits  (p.  65) 
that  '  in  many  parts  of  the  country  there  is  much  room  for  improve- 
ment,' and  on  p.  89  points  to  the  difficulty  that  '  labourers'  cottages 
are  reckoned  the  least  remunerative  of  all  buildings.'  Mr.  Caird's 
remedy  is  that  '  adequate  cottages  for  the  work-people,  with  the  farm 
and  all  other  necessary  buildings,  should  be  let  to  the  farmer  at  a 
rent  which  should  include  a  fair  return  on  the  landlord's  capital,  and 
the  farmer  and  the  labourer  should  be  left  to  deal  with  each  other  on 
the  basis  of  adequate  remuneration  for  useful  service,  regulated  by 
the  ultimate  rule  of  demand  and  supply.'  I  have  seen  that  plan 
many  times  in  operation,  and  in  my  opinion  it  involves  a  step  back- 
ward in  the  direction  of  serfdom.  The  labourer's  home  is  then  at  the 
mercy  of  his  employer,  and  in  bargaining  for  his  labour  he  is  placed 
at  the  greatest  disadvantage,  because  his  home,  as  well  as  his  em- 

'  J.  S.  Mill. 

VOL.  VIL— No.  3:;.  Y 


310  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  February 

ployment,  is  at  stake.  That  this  should  be  the  only  remedy  occurring 
to  a  mind  so  fertile  as  Mr.  Caird's  displays  one  of  the  permanent 
difficulties  of  the  English  land  system.  The  agricultural  labourers 
in  England  are  badly  lodged,  and  in  some  places  overcrowded.  We 
know  that  the  Belgian  peasantry  are  less  crowded.  From  an 
official  return  made  in  1856  we  learn  that  the  number  of  families 
for  every  100  houses  in  the  rural  districts  of  East  Flanders  was  101, 
in  West  Planders  102,  and  in  the  entire  kingdom  104  ;8  and  we  know 
why  their  condition  is  in  this  matter  superior  to  that  of  the 
English. 

Mr.  Caird  is  not,  as  I  have  already  intimated,  insensible  to  those 
which  I  regard  as  abiding  causes  of  agricultural  depression.  Nor  is 
Mr.  Caird  unmindful  of  the  large  production,  in  certain  circumstances, 
of  small  farms.  On  page  19  he  admits  that  increase  of  produce  is 
obtained  where  the  agriculturist  is  free  to  follow  a  rational  system 
of  farming,  and  that  the  agriculturist  has  not  this  rational  liberty  is 
not  only  a  fact  which  is  patent  upon  the  face  of  every  county,  but  it 
may  also  be  gathered  from  Mr.  Caird's  treatise.  On  page  107  Mr. 
Caird  says  that  if  landowners  had  ready  powers  of  sale  it  would  not 
be  difficult  to  point  out  cases  in  which  sales  might  be  made  with 
immense  advantage  to  the  landowner,  the  neighbourhood,  and  the 
public.  It  is  not  for  me  to  explain  why,  if  Mr.  Caird  believes  we 
have  so  nearly  reached  the  limit  of  production  of  bread  and  meat, 
he  should  be  anxious  for  rational  leases,  for  ready  powers  of  sale,  and, 
on  page  109,  for  limiting  settlements  of  land  to  '  lives  in  being'  and 
for  '  an  improved  system  of  transfer.'  I  do  not  see  why  he  should 
denounce  '  tenancy-at-will '  (p.  148),  and  assert  that,  'with  a  year's 
notice,  however  favourable  the  conditions  of  compensation  for  unex- 
hausted improvements,  it  cannot  give  the  farmer  security  beyond  the 
year ; '  why,  above  all,  he  should  declare  that '  the  sooner  the  principle 
of  security  of  possession  for  a  definite  and  lengthened  term  becomes 
generally  recognised  in  England,  the  better  will  it  be  for  the  indivi- 
dual and  public  interest ; '  why  should  he  plead,  as  he  does  plead 
{p.  150),  for  the  extension  of  the  'Bright  Clauses  '  of  the  Irish  Land 
Act  to  England  and  Scotland  ?  I  do  not  however  complain  when  I 
see  that  Mr.  Caird's  suggestions  again  defeat  his  argument,  or  that  in 
undertaking  to  inform  the  Royal  Agricultural  Society  of  landed  gentry 
and  the  world  at  Paris  that  the  agricultural  system  of  England  scarcely 
in  point  of  production  admitted  of  improvement,  he  has  marred  his 
own  success.  Mr.  Caird  knows  too  much  for  thorough-going  optimism, 
and  those  who  read  his  treatise  with  care  and  with  knowledge  will 
find  substantial  indications  of  the  need  for  reform,  which  though,  as 
I  think,  very  insufficient,  must  yet  certainly  lead  to  such  changes  in 
British  agriculture  as  would  in  the  end  prove,  to  no  one  more  surely 
than  to  Mr.  Caird  himself,  that  the  power  of  production  of  bread  and 

8  The  Land  Nystcm  of  Belgium.     By  M.  Emile  de  Laveleye. 


1880.  FREE  LAND  AND  PEASANT  PROPRIETORSHIP.  311 

meat  at  present  prices  within  these  islands  is  far  indeed  from  having 
reached  its  limit. 

Mr.  Caird  has  again  glorified  our  land-system  by  a  comparison  of 
the  English  produce  of  wheat  with  that  of  France,  of  Germany,  of 
Hussia,  and  of  the  United  States.  It  is  an  easy  victory,  and  no 
one  knows  better  than  Mr.  Caird  how  very  little  it  is  worth.  I  am 
sure  he  must  be  aware  that  deplorable  as  is  the  starvation  of  much  of 
the  land  of  England  for  want  of  capital,  the  condition,  especially  of 
the  larger  farms  of  those  countries,  is  still  worse  in  that  respect. 
What  then  is  the  use  of  such  a  comparison  ?  I  set  no  great  value 
upon  comparisons  in  agriculture,  because  in  different  countries  there 
are  different  conditions  of  labour  and  capital.  But  I  must  say  that 
•comparison,  where  it  is  closest,  and  most  in  point,  is  dead  against 
Mr.  Caird.  If  he  seek  a  true  and  valuable  comparison,  touching 
what  might  be  the  production  of  England,  let  him  compare  some  of 
the  Duke  of  Bedford's  farms  with  those  of  the  many  embarrassed 
landed  gentry ;  and  if  with  the  closest  possible  application  he  wishes 
to  compare  the  English  land-system  with  another,  why  go  outside  the 
limits  of  the  United  Kingdom  ?  Comparison  with  the  Channel  Islands 
is  far  more  scientifically  accurate  than  with  France.  In  Jersey  there 
are  30,000  acres  of  land,  with  little  of  very  superior  quality,  subject 
to  British  rule,  but  not  to  British  laws.  I  would  rather  be  Governor 
of  Cyprus  in  summer-time  than  Governor  of  Jersey  with  orders  to 
introduce  the  English  land-system.  Just  as  much  as  the  farms  of 
Kent  are  the  farms  of  Jersey  cultivated  for  the  supply  of  produce  for 
the  London  market.  Why,  then,  do  not  the  farms  in  Jersey  grow 
large,  why  does  not  the  rural  population  decline,  why  are  not  the 
cottages  wretched,  why  is  the  farming  capital  per  acre  three  times  and 
the  price  of  land  at  least  twice  as  high  as  in  England ;  and,  lastly,  why 
are  the  crops  of  all  kinds  so  much  heavier  than  those  poor  averages 
of  England,  which  Mr.  Caird  does  not  do  well  or  wisely  to  boast?  It 
is  not  because  of  the  law  of  compulsory  subdivision ;  that  in  Jersey 
is  restricted,  and  has  practically  little  operation  ;  it  is  not  because  of 
peculiarities  of  climate  or  soil,  for  the  land  of  Jersey  is  hardly  so  well 
suited  for  general  production  as  is  the  land  in  many  parts  of  England. 
It  is  because  the  conditions  of  tenure  and  transfer  of  land  are  such 
that  the  price  of  land  forbids  aggregation,  with  all  its  evil  consequences. 
The  farms  are  small,  but  the  steam-engine  is  more  often  seen  at  work  in 
Jersey  than  in  England  ;  the  reaping-machine,  too,  is  there  ;  and  a 
Jersey  farmer  whose  crop  of  wheat  does  not  yield  on  an  average  more 
than  half  as  much  again  as  Mr.  Caird's  highest  average  for  England 
would  be  regarded  by  his  neighbours  as  one  who  was  on  the  road  to 
ruin.  An  Englishman  is  astonished  to  find  the  house  of  a  Jersey  farmer 
of  1 5  acres  generally  as  good  as  the  house  of  an  English  farmer  of 
150  acres,  and  when  his  operations  are  investigated  it  is  seen  how 

Y2 


312  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  February 

large  a  number  of  English  would  be  benefited  by  reducing   their 
holding  to  as  small  an  area. 

I  do  not  say  that  England  will  ever  be  a  country  of  small  farms, 
but  I  am  certain  that  when  we  obtain  adequate  reform,  the  time  will 
not  be  distant  when  the  largest  average  produce  in  the  island  will  be 
gathered  from  small  farms.  An  Englishman,  it  is  quite  proverbial, 
rarely  succeeds  as  a  Jersey  farmer ;  he  has  been  trained  in  a  land 
where,  as  a  rule,  the  example  of  frugality  has  never  been  before  his 
eyes.  The  Jersey  farmer,  unlike  the  British  farmer,  is  never  idle, 
and  as  a  sample  of  his  industry,  I  may  mention  that  in  the  5,000  acres 
which  in  Jersey  are  every  year  planted  with  potatoes,  there  is  not  a 
potato  put  into  the  ground  which  has  not,  after  a  careful  handling, 
been  '  sprouted '  in  boxes,  stored  one  upon  another  either  in  the 
farmer's  barn  or  in  some  out-building.  Jersey  is  prosperous  because 
the  people  have  free  land ;  because,  with  insignificant  exceptions,  the 
land  is  saleable,  because  insolvency  is  followed  by  sale,  and  the  price 
is  high  because  there  are  many  buyers.  The  cost  of  commodities  is 
generally  greater  in  Jersey  than  in  England.  But  the  soil  is  not,  as 
is  ours,  blighted  by  entail  and  settlement,  and  by  a  system  of  con- 
veyance and  mortgage  made  to  suit  entail  and  settlement.  Perhaps 
some  one  will  say  that  by  their  toil  the  Jersey  people  do  no  more  than 
employ  and  feed  the  greater  labour  which  is  devoted  to  their  land.  Let 
us  see.  The  total  area  of  Jersey  is  28,717  statute  acres.  The  culti- 
vated portion  is  20,623  acres.  The  number  of  occupiers  of  agricultural 
land  is  2,309,9  giving  an  average  of  about  9  acres  for  each  holding. 
If  we  take  each  occupier,  as  Mr.  Caird  does  (p.  44),  to  represent 
5  persons,  we  have  at  least  11,545  engaged  in  the  cultivation  of  the 
soil.  The  total  population  of  Jersey,  according  to  the  census  of  1871, 
was  56,627,  of  whom  more  than  34,000  were  resident  in  the  parish 
and  suburbs  of  St.  Helier's.  An  estimate  of  15,000  for  the  agricul- 
tural population,  including  the  labourers,  cannot  be  very  incorrect, 
because  in  each  of  the  other  eleven  parishes  there  is  some  non- 
agricultural  population.  In  addition,  the  agriculture  of  Jersey 
supports  during  the  summer  months  an  average  of  about  4,000  visitors. 
My  assertion  concerning  Jersey  is  this:  these  15,000  farming 
people  produce  a  far  greater  quantity  of  food  from  20,000  acres 
than  any  other  equal  number  of  people  upon  any  equal  and  continuous 
area  in  the  United  Kingdom,  and  with  greater  profit ;  all  of  which  is, 
I  think,  proved,  if  further  proof  be  needed,  by  the  fact  that  in  addition 
to  supplying  this  very  large  non-agricultural  population  and  visitors, 
Jersey  exports  agricultural  produce  to  the  value  of  more  than  150,000^. 
a  year. 

I  have  often  used  the  term  '  free  land,'  and  for  the  attainment  of 
free  land   I  have  put  forward  suggestions,  which  it  is  necessary  to 
repeat  because  of  the  supposition  advanced  by  Lord  Salisbury  and 
9  Parish  Returns  for  1876. 


1880.  FREE  LAND  AND  PEASANT  PROPRIETORSHIP.  313 

others  as  to  wild  proposals  for  compulsory  subdivision  of  agricultural 
lands.     The  suggestions  are  the  following  : — 

1.  The  devolution  of  real  property  in  cases  of  intestacy  in  the 
same  manner  which  the  law  directs  in  regard  to  personal  property. 

2.  The  abolition  of  copyhold  and  customary  tenures. 

3.  The  establishment  of  a  Landed  Estates  Court  for  the  com- 
pulsory sale  of  encumbered  settled  property. 

4.  Completion  of  the  Ordnance  Survey. 

5.  Eegistration  of  fee-simple  title ;  compulsory  upon  the  sale  or 
transfer  of  property  (the  registration  of  lesser  interests  to  follow  that 
of  the  freehold),  and  a  reduction  of  the  limit  for  investigation  of  title 
to  twenty  years. 

6.  Abolition  of  entail  and  settlement,  with  exception  as  to  settle- 
ment in  the  case  of  widows  and  infant  children. 

No  writer,  with  whose  work  I  am  acquainted,  has  suggested  direct 
measures,  except  the  extension  of  the  Bright  clauses  of  the  Irish  Land 
Act,  for  the  establishment  of  peasant  proprietorship  in  England. 
There  is,  however,  no  matter  connected  with  the  ownership  and 
occupation  of  the  soil  which  is  the  subject  of  more  thoughtless  dog- 
matism and  ill-considered  judgment.  If  in  any  ordinary  company 
one  were  to  express  an  opinion  favourable  to  the  results  of  peasant 
proprietorship,  there  is  a  probability  almost  amounting  to  certainty 
that  some  one,  in  a  tone  of  authority,  and  with  the  air  of  superior 
knowledge,  would  expect  the  topic  to  be  quashed  by  reference  to 
some  scarce  examples  of  small  proprietorship  carried  on  in  the  midst 
of  that  which  Lord  Ripon  has  lately  condemned  as  a  system  for 
centralising  the  ownership  of  land  in  huge  estates.  No  one,  so  far  as 
I  am  aware,  with  the  slightest  claim  to  authority,  has  ever  supposed 
or  suggested  that  a  peasant  proprietary  can  flourish  where  the  land  is 
not  free  ;  that  a  population  will  display  the  methods  and  habits  in- 
dispensable to  the  success  of  small  farming,  where  the  general  con- 
dition of  the  soil  is  the  opposite  of  freedom,  and  where,  consequently, 
peasant  proprietary  can  exist  only  in  a  few  and  isolated  cases,  always 
tending  to  decay  and  disappearance. 

Lord  Beaconsfield,  although  he  has  evidently  no  taste  for  agricul- 
tural pursuits,  has  thought  it  his  duty  as  a  landlord  and  a  county 
magnate  to  study  the  economic  laws  which  regulate  the  productive- 
ness of  agriculture.  But  is  it  not  astonishing  to  find  Lord  Beacons- 
field,  at  Aylesbury  in  September  last,  framing  an  argument  against 
peasant  proprietorship  in  this  country  from  observation  of  the  agri- 
culture of  Canada  and  the  United  States  of  America  ?  It  seems 
almost  incomprehensible  that  a  statesman  in  the  position  of  Prime 
Minister  should  on  the  one  hand  ignore  the  very  disadvantageous 
extent  to  which  we  in  this  country  are  dependent  upon  the  Continent 
of  Europe  for  fruit,  vegetables,  and  dairy  produce,  and  on  the  other 
hand  should  appear  so  unsuccessful  in  mastering  the  economics  of 


314  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY.  February 

agriculture  as  to  propound  the  obvious  fact  that  small  farms  are  not 
adopted  in  a  new  country.     Last  autumn,  upon  inquiry  in  London 
and  in  many  southern  towns,  I  found  that  a  very  large  quantity  of 
cabbages,  lettuces,  and  other  green  vegetables  were  imported  into 
this  country,  than  which  there  is  no  part  of  the  world  better  suited 
for  the  production  of  such  commodities.     In  London  a  vast  import  of 
potatoes  is  received  from  Germany.     The  German  farmers,  like  the 
Jersey  farmers,  are  more  successful  than  the  British  in  the  production 
of  potatoes.     We  have  seen  what  is  the  careful  method  of  Jersey 
husbandry  in  dealing  with  this  delicate  crop,  and  it  is  easy  to  under- 
stand how  impossible  it  is  for  equivalent  success  to  be  achieved  by 
farmers  who,  in  British  fashion,  give  nothing  but  superintendence  to 
agriculture.     In  the  production  of  vegetables,  the  minute  details  of 
husbandry  are  all-important,  and  there  can  be  no  equal   competition 
between  the  farmer  who  superintends  these  details  upon  an  area  so- 
large  that  he  can  rarely  be  upon  the  spot,  and  one  who  has  a  personal 
interest  in  the  proper  handling  of  every  plant  and  of  every  potato* 
The  people  of  England  are  paying  to  foreigners  for  fruit,  vegetables, 
and  dairy  produce,  a  heavy  sum — for  foreign  butter  alone  we  pay 
10,000,000^.  per  annum — of  which  a  great  part  is  a  tribute  to  the 
peculiar  institutions  of  this  country  affecting  the  distribution  of  the 
soil.     It  is  in  a  country  such  as  ours,  where  the  demands  are  of  this 
'kind,  that  a  peasant  proprietary— the  proper  meaning  of  which  I 
take  to  be  a  proprietary  by  whom  the  greater  part  of  the  manual  work 
of  the  farm  is  carried  on — is  much  needed.     The  conditions  of  agri- 
culture are,  almost  as  far  as  possible,  reversed  in  the  United  States 
and  in  Canada.   There  the  simplest  and  least  laborious  agriculture  wins 
the  most  reward  ;  there  the  least  perishable  crops  must  be  produced 
at  the  least  cost.     This  is  so  evident  that  it  is  indeed   surprising  to 
"find  the  Prime  Minister  expounding  the  plain  facts  of  American 
agriculture,  apparently  with   the   notion  that  he  was  refuting  the 
ideas  of  English  reformers.     Said  Lord  Beaconsfield :  '  Now,  it  is  a 
peculiar  circumstance,  but  to  be  noted,  that  the  Dominion  of  Canada 
is  not  in  favour  of  peasant  proprietorship,'  and  then  he  proceeded  te- 
state that  Canadian  farms  are  generally  160  acres  or  more  in  extent. 
Virtually,  the  principle  of  peasant  proprietary  does  obtain  in  Canada,, 
because  even  upon  those  considerable  farms  the  larger  share  of  the 
labour  is  performed  by  the  proprietor  and  his  family.     But,  of  course, 
the  agriculture  which  is  most  profitable  is  utterly  dissimilar  from 
that  which  would  win  the  greatest  profit  in  this  country. 

Lord  Salisbury,  also,  has  been  dealing  with  the  subject,  and  has 
adopted  to  the  fullest  possible  extent  the  fallacy  which  I  thought  I 
had  destroyed  by  an  article  in  an  early  number  of  the  Nineteenth 
Century,  entitled  '  The  Abuses  of  a  Landed  Gentry  ; '  the  argument 
that  the  man  who  can  afford  to  be  a  peasant  proprietor  will  prefer  to 
be  a  tenant  farmer,  and  make  five  or  ten  per  cent,  on  his  money, 


1880.  FREE  LAND  AND  PEASANT  PROPRIETORSHIP.  315 

whereas  he  could  only  make  two  per  cent,  as  an  owner.  Can  Lord 
Salisbury  really  suppose  that  the  French,  or  the  Belgian,  or  the 
Jersey  peasants,  who  give  much  higher  prices  for  land  than  are 
obtained  in  this  country,  are  blind  to  their  own  interest  ?  The  first 
cause  of  peasant  proprietorship  is  that  where  the  great  landlord  makes 
Lord  Salisbury's  two  per  cent,  by  ownership,  the  peasant  makes  ten 
per  cent,  by  security.  Lord  Salisbury  puts  the  average  price  of 
agricultural  land  in  England  at  50/.  an  acre.  I  visited  lately  every 
farm  I  could  find  for  sale  in  Jersey,  and  found  the  average  about  190Z. 
per  acre.  Lord  Salisbury  says  of  France  :  '  The  land  there  is  as  dear 
as  here.'  I  should  say  it  is  much  dearer.  Why  ?  Because  eom- 
•  petition  is  extended  to  a  class  who  can  make  so  very  much  more  out 
of  possession  than  is  possible  for  landlords  owning  upon  the  English 
system.  Let  us  turn  to  unquestionable  authority  on  this  point,  Mr. 
James  Howard's  work  on  Continental  Farming  and  Peasantry. 
1  Subdivision  in  France  is  most  notable  in  the  north-west.  M.  Hamoir, 
'  the  best  known  agriculturist  of  the  department  of  the  Nord,  states  that 
twenty-five  acres  are  considered  a  large  farm,  and  that,  as  in  Jersey, 
'ten  acres  may  be  taken  as  the  average.  M.  Hamoir  has  known 
'  agricultural  land  in  that  department  sold  to  peasant  proprietors  at 
1921.  an  acre.  As  usual  with  large  farmers,  or  great  proprietors,  he 
deprecates  such  an  outlay  ;  he  thinks  it  '  better  that  the  small  farmer 
should  not  be  a  proprietor  or  landowner  at  the  price  he  pays.'  Then 
M.  Hamoir,  in  a  paraphrase  of  Lord  Salisbury,  says :  *  The  interest  of 
his  [the  peasant's]  money  invested  in  ordinary  securities  would  per- 
mit him  to  hire,  even  at  a  high  rate,  double  the  quantity  of  land 
that  he  could  hold  as  an  owner,  but  he  does  not  enter  upon  this  path.' 
This  French  peasant,  taxed  all  over  the  world  with  morbid  thrift, 
with  unnatural  frugality,  is  told  that  he  is  reckless  in  the  outlay  of 
his  painful  savings,  and  the  M.  Hamoirs  look  upon  him  as  a  stubborn, 
contumacious  creature,  with  a  wonderful  faculty  for  existing  on  hard 
fare,  and  for  raising  the  price  of  land,  which  last  trait  is  very  dis- 
agreeable when  they  desire  to  be  purchasers.  Is  it  likely  to  be  true, 
'  is  it  reasonable  to  suppose,  that  the  people  who,  generation  after 
generation,  have  put  sou  to  sou,  and  franc  to  franc,  till  a  purse  was 
made  for  purchase — is  it  not  in  fact  silly  to  suggest  that  they  would 
be  duped  in  their  expenditure  ?  M.  Hamoir,  to  do  him  justice,  does 
not  believe  this,  though  he  professes  to  trace  such  conduct  in  part  to 
the  '  ignorance '  of  the  Continental  peasantry.  M.  Hamoir  gives,  in 
Mr.  Howard's  pages,  a  subordinate  place  to  that  which  is  obviously 
the  real  and  the  sufficient  motive.  The  purchase  is,  in  truth,  the 
result  of  prudence,  not  of  ignorance.  The  peasants  know  that  their 
unremitting  labour  will  turn  even  sand  to  gold,  and  they  know  that 
there  is  but  one  way  to  security,  that  of  ownership.  As  M.  Hamoir 
puts  it,  the  peasant  buys  because  he  fears  '  the  short  duration  of  leases 
at  the  end  of  which  he  dreads  to  be  ousted  for  some  competitor.' 


316  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  February 

There  it  is.  That  is  the  whole  story ;  the  full  and  complete  justifi- 
cation of  the  peasant's  prudence  and  judgment.  To  be  secure  he 
must  be  a  proprietor.  It  is,  I  think,  unworthy  of  Lord  Salisbury — 
if  only  because  he  was  draughtsman  of  the  Lords'  Keport  on  Agricul- 
ture in  1873 — to  meet  the  claim  for  free  land  with  the  rejected  and 
futile  plea,  that  modern  settlements  contain  a  power  of  sale.  That 
power  has  no  analogy  to  a  free  sale  of  land,  or  to  the  simple  responsi- 
bilities of  freehold  tenure.  I  am  pretty  well  acquainted  with  Lord 
Salisbury's  estate ;  I  have  walked  over  most,  if  not  all,  of  his  lord- 
ship's farms,  and  I  can  say  that  high  farming  is  not  the  '  note '  of 
Hatfield.  Yet  there  is  a  fixed  idea  in  the  minds  of  most  English 
landlords,  that  high  farming  and  large  farms  are  strictly  connected ; 
an  idea  which  was  very  conspicuous  in  Mr.  Fronde's  essay.  I  dealt  at 
the  time  of  its  appearance  with  Mr.  Froude's  essay  on  '  The  Uses  of  a 
Landed  Gentry.'  No  one  seems  to  have  thought  the  economists, 
from  Adam  Smith  to  Mill,  all  wrong  and  Mr.  Froude  all  right,  and 
the  essay  has  since  been  very  appropriately  placed  among  Short 
Studies  of  Great  Subjects. 

I  repeat  that  the  end  of  those  who  seek  the  establishment  of  free 
land  is  not  the  creation  of  a  peasant  proprietary.  But  they  regard 
the  fact  that  free  land  would  have  the  result  of  greatly  increasing  the 
number  of  proprietors  as  a  matter  of  political,  social,  and  economic 
importance.  They  know  that  the  demand  for  legislative  changes  will 
not  be  idly  made ;  that  the  people  at  large  must  be  convinced  of  the 
advantages :  first,  in  regard  to  increase  of  production,  and  second,  in 
regard  to  the  closer  association  of  a  larger  body  of  the  people  with 
the  soil.  Those  who  prophesy  terrible  things  concerning  the  future 
of  Russia  will,  I  fancy,  find  themselves  mistaken.  Perhaps  to  the 
impossibility  of  exciting  general  revolution  in  Russia  may  be  ascribed 
some  part  of  the  fanatical  violence  of  a  few  who  find  no  sympathy 
among  the  great  mass  of  the  population.  The  hold  of  the  peasantry 
upon  the  soil  of  Russia  will  probably  secure  steadiness,  though  pro- 
gress in  so  poor  a  country  must  needs  be  slow.  It  is  well  in  this 
connection  to  observe  that  which  the  military  correspondent  of  the 
Times  (October  16,  1877)  in  Bulgaria  wrote  of  the  Russian  soldier: 
'  A  popular  fallacy  in  England  is  that  the  Russian  soldier  lives  in  an 
atmosphere  of  blows — that  the  knout  and  the  stick  are  his  only  ruling 
motives.  The  fact  is  that  nowhere,  not  even  among  the  Germans,  is 
the  soldier  managed  more  entirely  by  moral  means.  A  word,  or  even 
a  look,  from  his  officer  suffices.  He  seems  to  feel  a  reproof — and  it 
is  rarely  deserved — as  much  as  an  Englishman  would  a  blow.  The 
bulk  of  the  Russian  privates  are  themselves  small  landowners,  and 
have  an  interest  and  a  stake  in  the  country  accordingly.' 

I  see  that  in  England  there  is  a  'National  Thrift  Society,'  of 
which  the  Lord  Mayor  of  London  has  lately  become  a  patron.  How 
is  it  that  we  so  grievously  need,  and  that  other  populations  have  no 


1880.  FREE  LAND  AND  PEASANT  PROPRIETORSHIP.  317 

such  need  for,  encouragement  in  carefulness  ?  Is  it  not  because  our 
people  are  debarred  from  learning  lessons  of  frugality  from  the  land, 
the  mother  of  all  thrift?  What  is  the  first  supreme  lesson  in 
economy,  which,  indeed,  is  taught  to  all  people  and  to  all  countries, 
but  least  of  all  to  the  people  of  England  ?  Is  it  not  the  dependence 
of  man  upon  the  harvest ;  is  it  not  in  the  fact  that  there  is  a  seed- 
time and  a  harvest ;  that  there  is  no  continual  harvest ;  that  store 
must  be  made  for  those  seasons  in  which  there  is  no  harvest  ?  The 
people  who  have  been  withheld  from  that  school — the  primest  and 
chief  of  all  schools — have  never  displayed,  and  never  will  display,  the 
cardinal  virtues  of  thrift  and  frugality.  In  the  subservience  of  our 
Legislature  to  the  maintenance  of  those  perishing  laws  and  practices 
which  favour  the  aggregation  of  land  in  a  comparatively  few  families, 
there  have  been  now  and  then  displayed  feeble  and  futile  efforts  to 
inculcate  carefulness.  But  it  would  be  as  easy  for  well-meaning 
philanthropists  to  push  this  island  from  its  solid  foundations  in  the 
earth  to  a  junction  with  France,  as  to  make  the  English  people 
thrifty  so  long  as  .they  are  divorced  from  the  soil.  The  true  and  the 
best  '  National  Thrift  Society  '  will  be  composed  of  those  who  are  the 
most  earnest  and  the  most  successful  in  the  demand  for  free  land. 

ARTHUR  ARNOLD. 


318  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY.  February 


RITUALISTS  AND  ANGLICANS. 


AMONGST  the  many  hotly  contested  subjects  of  discussion  which 
occupy  the  public  mind  in  the  present  day,  and  with  which  its 
current  literature  is  filled,  the  raison  d'etre,  position,  and  future  of 
Ritualism  are  not  the  least  important.  Assertion  is  confronted 
by  assertion,  argument  by  argument,  until  the  minds  of  those  who 
wish  to  comprehend  the  relative  position  of  parties  in  the  Church, 
and  the  justice  of  their  respective  claims,  are  completely  bewildered. 
-  What  then  is  Ritualism,  and  who  are  the  Ritualists  ?  The 
original  and  accurate  meaning  of  the  term  is,  the  science  of,  and  the 
proficients  in,  the  order  and  history  of  those  forms  which  have  grown 
up  round  the  public  worship  of  the  Church.  Such  a  one  was  Durandus ; 
and  from  the  extreme  care  for,  and  value  of,  stately  and  dignified 
forms  of  service  shown  by  the  advanced  party  in  the  Church,  the  name 
was  originally  given  to  them.  But  the  essence  of  Ritualism  consists,  not 
in  that  carefulness  for  the  order  of  service  which  is  its  leading  motive 
in  the  eyes  of  the  general  public,  but  in  its  implied  appeal  to  pri- 
mitive antiquity  for  Church  doctrine  and  practice.  The  Ritualists 
claim  that  their  principles  are  the  legitimate  and  logical  out- 
come of  the  revival  of  1830,  the  first  object  of  which  was  to  assert 
the  long-forgotten  truth  of  the  Catholicity  of  the  English  Church, 
and  to  clear  away  the  mists  which  Puritanism  had,  for  a  hundred 
years,  drawn  across  the  teaching  of  our  early  Reformers.  The  main 
position  of  the  Ritualists  is  that,  assuming  the  first  stand-point  of 
the  early  Tractarians,  viz.  the  Catholicism  of  the  English  Church, 
as  proved,  the  members  of  that  Church  inherit  all  privileges,  usages, 
and  rites  common  to  all  Branches  of  the  Church,  which  are  not 
specifically  forbidden  by  her  own  Canons  or  Articles.  Every  jot 
and  tittle  of  law,  doctrine,  and  ritual,  which  were  accepted  by  the 
Church  prior  to  1548,  are,  say  they,  ours  now  in  1880,  except  such 
as  have  been  definitely  rejected  by  the  united  action  of  Convocation 
and  the  proper  State  authority.  In  short,  they  claim  for  her  as  much 
right  to  the  title  and  privileges  of  Catholics,  as  the  Americans  have 
to  consider  English  history,  down  to  the  War  of  Independence,  their 
own  history. 


1880.  RITUALISTS  AND  ANGLICANS.  31  <> 

Let  us  now  see  how  this  position  is  regarded  by  the  other  so-called 
schools  of  thought  within  the  Church. 

The  Evangelical  party  meet  the  assumption  of  the  Ritualists  with 
a  flat  denial.  They  assert,  on  their  side,  that  the  work  of  the 
Eeformation  was  to  pull  down  the  existing  fabric  of  the  Church, 
overgrown  as  it  was  with  fallacious  traditions  and  practices,  and  to- 
reconstruct  a  Church  founded  on  the  teaching  of  '  the  Bible  and  the 
Bible  only.'  They  hold,  in  the  main,  that  nothing  is  binding  on  the 
clergy  of  the  English  Church  but  what  can  be  proved  to  have  been 
held  binding,  and  laid  down  afresh  as  such,  by  the  Reformers  and 
compilers  of  the  Prayer-Book.  And,  following  this  out,  they  practically 
refuse  to  accept  anything  beyond,  even  on  the  authority  of  history, 
as  binding  on  Christian  people.  They  consider  the  teaching  of  the 
Ritualists  pernicious,  and  their  work  harmful,  because  it  is  based  on 
the  principle  that  Catholic  tradition  and  teaching  are  the  heritage 
and  should  be  the  standard  of  the  English  Church,  and  because  they 
hold  that  on  the  assumption  alone  of  her  claim  to  Catholicity  can  the 
authority  of  the  Reformed  Church  be  accepted  at  all.  In  their  hearts, 
each  party,  we  believe,  respects  and  honours  the  other  for  the  earnest- 
ness, devotion,  and  practical  religion  which  both  share,  but  opponents 
they  are,  and  must,  to  all  appearance,  remain,  while  their  funda- 
mental principles  of  thought  and  action  are  so  opposed  that  union  or 
compromise  seems  to  be  impossible.  And  as,  in  political  warfare,  men 
think  and  speak  strongly,  while  yet  respecting  and  honouring  their 
opponents,  so  with  regard  to  the  two  opposite  parties  in  the  Church, 
words  run  high  and  strife  is  fomented  between  those  who  should  be 
working  side  by  side  in  the  great  work  of  reclaiming  the  populations 
of  our  large  cities  from  the  depths  of  ignorance  and  degradation. 

There  is  again  another  party  within  the  Church,  and  this  a  large 
and  influential  one,  which,  though  classed  by  the  Evangelicals  as  one 
with  the  Ritualists,  yet  looks  on  the  latter  with  much  distrust,  and 
which,  while  it  will  not  altogether  repudiate  them,  at  least  refuses  them 
its  hearty  co-operation,  standing  aloof  from  the  strife  now  going  on. 
This  is  the  '  High  Church,'  '  Anglican,'  or  '  Moderate'  party,  variously 
so  called  to  express  the  distinction  between  them  and  the  Ritualists, 
The  leaders  of  this  party  also  claim  for  their  adherents  that  they  are 
the  legitimate  descendants  of  the  Revivalists  of  1830;  and  protest 
that  they  have  adhered  to  the  basis  of  that  great  movement,  while 
the  Ritualists  have  progressed,  and,  in  progressing,  have  lost  the 
original  stand-point  which  formed  the  safeguard  of  that  revival — 
the  Prayer  Book.  They  accuse  the  advanced  party  of  disloyalty,  of 
Romanising,  of  exceeding  the  teaching  of  the  Prayer  Book,  and  of 
indulging  in  eccentricities  of  Ritual,  by  the  constituting  of  which 
as  essential  they  are  endangering  the  peace  of  the  Church.  They  are, 
say  the  Anglicans,  a  new  sect,  not  of  us,  and  the  tendencies  of  their 
teaching  are  nothing  less  than  revolutionary.  This  School,  in  fact, 


320  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  February 

-draws  an  arbitrary  line  in  the  middle  of  the  Catholic  system,  and 
refuses  to  admit  that  the  Ritualists  are  carrying  out  their  own 
premisses  to  a  logical  conclusion.  Nevertheless,  the  claims  of  the 
Anglicans  are,  in  the  main,  identical  with  those  of  the  Ritualists. 
They  insist  on  the  complete  Catholicity  of  the  English  Church,  and 
they  base  their  teaching  on  the  same  Sacramental  system.  They 
hold  that  the  form  of  government  by  Bishops  is  jure  divino,  and,  as 
regards  the  National  Church,  that  Convocation  is  the  only  appeal  of 
Churchmen  in  all  matters  lawfully  coming  under  its  jurisdiction. 

This  was  the  original  ground  taken  up  in  1830.  Since  then  the 
Prayer  Book  has  been  critically  and  exhaustively  examined,  and  every 
office  and  rubric  traced  to  its  true  source.  The  Anglican  Divines  of 
the  seventeenth  century  have  been  studied,  and  been  found  to  have 
deduced  their  arguments,  and  based  their  practice,  in  every  possible 
instance,  on  Catholic  foundations;  and  thus  the  Church  party  has, 
with  another  succeeding  generation,  advanced  its  claims  and  enlarged 
its  borders,  while  yet  accepting  to  the  full  the  position  and  work  of 
the  men  of  1830. 

Repeated  assertion,  however,  is  a  weapon  of  acknowledged  power, 
iind  by  repeated  assertion  it  has  come  to  be  an  accepted  fact  that  the 
two  great  sections  of  the  Church  party,  the  Historical  High  Church 
and  the  Ritualists,  are  radically  divided,  and  the  onus  of  the  division 
has  consequently  fallen  on  the  smaller  and  numerically  weaker  party. 

Considering,  however,  the  basis  of  agreement  which  the  two 
parties  have,  and  the  far  greater  importance  of  the  points  of  union 
than  of  those*  of  difference,  it  should  not  be  too  much  to  hope  that  in 
11  crisis  like  the  present,  where  interests  equally  vital  and  dear  to  both 
parties  are  at  stake,  they  may  arrive  at  such  mutual  comprehension 
as  may  enable  them  to  present  a  united  front  to  the  dangers  which 
threaten  both  alike.  The  points  of  issue  between  the  two  parties  may 
broadly  be  divided  into  three  :  — 

I.  The  limits  and  extent  of  episcopal  jurisdiction. 

II.  The  degree  in  which  the  English  Communion  may  claim  for 
her  own  the  doctrine  and  practice  of  the  Pre-Reformation  Church. 

III.  The  amount  of  Ritual  on  which  it  is  right  to  insist  in  the 
present  state  of  the  English  Church. 

I.  First,  then,  comes  the  question  of  the  limits  and  extent  of  epis- 
copal jurisdiction.  The  instinct  of  Englishmen  is  so  invariably  to  obey, 
even  while  indulging  in  the  proverbial  grumbling  which  is  said  to 
accompany  their  obedience,  that  any  party  resisting  an  established 
claim  of  authority  is  regarded  with  immediate  suspicion,  and  weighted 
to  the  full  with  the  burden  of  proof  of  the  justice  of  its  claim.  In 
the  present  case  such  adjectives  as  '  lawless  '  and  '  self-willed  '  have 
been  freely  used  against  the  Ritualists  by  all  classes  in  ihe  country, 
simply  because  they  have-  raised  the  question  of  the  limits  of  eccle- 
siastical obedience. 


1880.  RITUALISTS  AND  ANGLICANS.  321 

Whatever  may  be  the  difficulties  surrounding  the  new  courts  of 
ecclesiastical  jurisdiction,  there  exists  surely,  say  the  Anglicans,  the 
inalienable  jurisdiction  of  the  bishops  over  the  clergy.  Why  not 
then  resign  personal  responsibility  and  private  judgment  concerning 
the  justice  of  the  legal  decisions  which  are  causing  such  deep  anxiety 
amongst  the  clergy,  and  throw  the  burden  of  deciding  on  a  line  of 
action,  in  each  particular  case,  on  the  bishops  ?  They  are  by  ac- 
knowledgment the  divinely  appointed  pastors  and  fathers  of  the 
Church ;  why  not  yield  to  their  authority  the  full  measure  of  obe- 
dience typified  in  the  precept,  *  Whatsoever  He  saith  unto  you,  do 
it '  ?  A  clergyman  once  said  to  the  writer,  '  I  take  the  eastward  posi- 
tion, and  am  ready  to  defend  it  against  all  the  law  courts  in  the  land  ; 
but  if  my  bishop  were  to  order  me  to  do  so,  I  would  go  round  to  the 
north  side  to-morrow.'  Is  not  this,  it  may  be  said,  illustrative  of  a 
truer  Catholic  spirit  than  the  conduct  of  those  who  say,  '  We  do  not 
see  our  way  to  obeying  either  courts,  bishops,  or  any  other  existing 
authority '  ? 

This,  we  conceive,  is  one  of  the  main  questions  which  divide  the 
Church  party  at  the  present  crisis  ;  and  it  is  one  of  the  greatest  impor- 
tance, involving  as  it  does  the  whole  relations  between  the  bishops 
and  the  inferior  clergy,  from  the  acceptance  of  the  ordination  oath 
to  the  smallest  details  of  action  in  Church  discipline  and  arrange- 
ment. 

What  does  episcopal  jurisdiction  mean  ?  Does  it  imply  absolute 
or  limited  authority  ?  And  if,  as  we  propose  to  show,  it  is  only  a 
limited  authority,  by  whom  or  by  what  is  it  limited  ? 

In  answering  this  question,  all  would  agree  to  accept  the  custom 
and  opinion  of  the  undivided  Church  of  the  first  centuries  as  the 
foundation  of  our  own,  could  it  be  possible  to  arrive  at  such  with  any 
certainty.  The  first  difficulty  which  meets  us  on  inquiry  is  that 
of  realising  the  true  conditions  of  Church  government  in  those 
primitive  times.  We  are  met  indeed  with  maxims  which,  taken 
independently,  are  sufficiently  arbitrary  in  their  tone  to  suit  the 
narrowest  Episcopalians  of  our  own  day.  Such  dicta  of  the  early 
Fathers  regarding  the  duty  of  obedience  to  bishops  are  indeed 
numerous ;  but  it  is  manifestly  impossible  to  accept  such  isolated 
maxims  as  binding,  without  comprehension  of  the  system  under  which 
they  were  inculcated.  The  bishop  was,  for  the  first  four  centuries, 
in  some  true  sense,  the  shepherd  of  the  flock,  personally  acquainted, 
as  far  as  possible,  with  all  under  his  jurisdiction,  and  acknowledging  a 
personal  responsibility  for  the  welfare  of  their  souls  ;  and  only  gradu- 
ally did  the  evils  creep  in  on  the  Church,  attending  the  exaltation  of 
the  bishop  to  the  position  of  a  civil  dignitary.  Thus,  for  instance, 
such  maxims  as  the  somewhat  hackneyed  one,  '  Do  nothing  without 
the  bishop,'  presuppose  social  and  ecclesiastical  conditions  which  it 
would  now  be  impossible  to  revive,  and  imply  possibilities  of  inter- 


322  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  February 

course  which  necessarily  passed  away  with  a  more  primitive  state  of 
things.  It  is  true  that  in  the  early  ages  of  the  Church,  there  were 
bishops  who  showed  tendencies  towards  that  pride  and  lust  of  power 
which  afterwards  brought  such  terrible  evils  on  the  Church;  but 
it  is  obvious  that  this  and  like  maxims  pointed  to  a  state  of  things 
of  which  such  bishops  were  the  exception,  and  was  simply  laid  down 
as  illustrative  of  what  was  due  to  the  dignity  and  worth  which  Epi- 
scopacy confers.  There  is  in  them,  in  fact,  all  the  difference  which 
«xists  between  a  rule  and  a  maxim.  As  the  first,  it  would  be 
literally  binding ;  as  the  second,  it  merely  contains  a  truth  which  no 
churchman  would  deny,  although  it  is  conceivable  that  certain  circum- 
stances might  make  it  his  duty  to  overstep  its  verbal  limits.  It  is 
not  wholly  dissimilar  in  practical  value  to  the  expressed  belief  of  old- 
fashioned  people  of  a  past  generation,  that  one  ought  to  do  nothing 
without  consulting  one's  clergyman  ;  a  generality  which  told  greatly 
for  good  amongst  a  simple-minded  generation  living  under  conditions 
now  passed  away.  Eestore  to  the  Church  the  primitive  state,  and 
primitive  maxims  will  once  more  assume  their  pristine  value ;  but 
until  that  is  done,  it  is  both  dangerous  and  uncandid  to  force  their 
application  as  binding  upon  such  an  age  as  the  present. 

The  strength  and  the  safeguard  alike  of  early  Church  government 
lay  in  the  control  of  the  ruler  by  the  ruled.  The  saying  is  true,  in  both 
a  technical  and  a  spiritual  sense,  that  '  once  a  bishop,  always  a  bishop;' 
tut  although  the  spiritual  grace  inherent  in  the  consecration  of  a 
bishop  is  indelible,  yet,  in  the  original  order  of  Church  government,  the 
administrative  power  which  was  derived  from  the  spiritual  gift  could 
be,  and  often  was,  restrained  or  even  forfeited.  The  early  Christians 
•elected  their  presbyters,  and  the  presbyters  elected,  in  their  turn,  their 
bishops.  They  could  not  indeed  themselves,  as  inferior  clergy,  judge 
the  higher  order,  but  they  could  present  any  individual  bishop  to 
the  Metropolitan,  appealing  yet  further  to  the  Provincial  Synod, 
should  justice  not  be  done.  It  cannot  be  answered,  in  reply  to  this, 
that  the  time  has  passed  away  in  which  such  organisation  is  possible. 
The  fact  of  the  helplessness  of  the  clergy  in  the  English  Church  of  our 
age  beyond  a  certain  limited  point,  under  the  arbitrary  power  and  indi- 
vidual wills  of  the  bishops,  would  remain  were  the  present  condition 
•of  things  ever  so  apparently  unassailable.  If  any  clergyman  feels 
himself  injured  or  aggrieved  by  his  diocesan  in  a  given  case  of 
dispute,  rightly  or  wrongly,  he  surely  should  not  be  debarred  from 
that  justice  which  every  Englishman  claims — viz.  that  of  appealing  to 
have  his  cause  heard  before  a  competent  tribunal.  If  the  bishops  are 
to  have  more  than  primitive  jurisdiction,  let  them  be  subject  to  at 
least  primitive  restraints,  and  cease  to  be  irresponsible  autocrats. 

It  is,  however,  only  just  to  admit  that  it  is  far  more  the  episcopal 
party  joined  with  a  section  of  the  press,  than  the  bishops  themselves, 
which  lias  forced  on  the  Episcopate  the  extraordinary  position  it  oc- 


1880.  RITUALISTS  AND  ANGLICANS.  323 

cupie.-?.  These  are,  indeed,  our  Ultratnontanes,  who  would  surrender 
the  privileges  and  responsibilities  of  their  Order  into  the  hands  of  a 
superior  autocracy. 

If  the  bishops  are  to  be  our  rulers,  let  them  be  elected  freely 
and  fairly  by  those  over  whom  they  are  to  rule,  according  to  uni- 
versal precedent.     What,  however,  is  at  present  the  system  under 
which  the  rulers  of  the  Church  in  England  are  elected  to  their  high 
and  responsible  office  ?    When  a  bishop  dies,  the  Dean  and  Chapter 
of  his  cathedral  send  to  the  Queen  to  request  the  conge  cVellre.     This 
is  granted  formally  in  the  name  of  the  Crown  by  the  Prime  Minister^ 
accompanied   by   the   name   of    his   nominee,    whom    the    Chapter 
can   only  reject  on  pain  of  imprisonment  and  forfeiture  of  goods. 
The  Chapter  then  assembles  in  the  cathedral  for   the   purpose   of 
beseeching  the  guidance  of  God  in  the  choice  of  a  new  bishop,  and 
after   this   special   and  solemn  service   they  elect,  as  a  matter   of 
course,  the  nominee  of  the  Prime  Minister.     Besides  this  a  court 
meets   afterwards   at    St.   Mary-le-Bow,    at   which    certain    judges 
attend,  in  order  to  represent  the  sanction  of  the  laity,  necessary, 
according  to  ancient  precedent,  to  the  election  of  a  bishop.     Again  a 
solemn  Litany  is  sung  to  invoke  the  guidance  of  (rod ;  after  which 
objectors  to  the  new  bishop  are  formally  called  upon  to  come  forward, 
three  successive  times.     If  any  such  appear,  they  are  told  that  they 
cannot  be  heard  ;  and,  finally,  in  due  course,  the  new  bishop  is  pro- 
claimed to  have  been   elected,  'none   having  appeared   to   object.' 
.Surely  it  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  this  system  is  a  terrible  scandal. 
It  is  indeed  manifest  to  fair-minded  people  that,  so  long  as  the 
Church  holds  freehold  property  under  the  Crown,  she  must  be  subject 
to  it  in  respect  of  all  laws  affecting  such  property.     It  is  also  obvious 
that  ecclesiastical  jurisdiction  over  offenders,  in  cases  affecting  the 
civil  laws,  could  only  lead  to  a  repetition  of  the  abuses  which  caused 
such  power  to  be  taken  away  from  the  Church.     Keaction  in  matters 
affecting  the  order  and  government  of  the  State  is  not  what  is  asked 
for  in  the  cry  for  Church  Reform.     What  is  protested  against  is  not 
secular  jurisdiction  in  secular  matters,  but  the  assumption  on  the 
part  of  the  Crown  that  rights  which  have  in  all  ages  been  privileges 
of  the  Church  should,  by  virtue  of  the  fact  that  the  Church  is  established 
by  law,  have  lapsed  into  the  hands  of  the  ministry  of  the  day. 

Once  re-establish  the  free  election  of  bishops,  and  there  would 
also  be  no  further  need  for  that  clamour  for  the  rights  of  the  laity 
to  a  voice  in  Church  matters  of  which  we  have  heard  so  much  of  late 
years.  If  a  man  were  not  a  communicant,  he  would  have,  indeed,  no 
voice  in  Church  questions,  great  or  small :  for  full  communion  alone 
constitutes  continuity  of  Church  membership.  But  every  communi- 
cant in  the  country  would,  were  the  rights  of  the  Church,  as  a  body, 
restored,  have  a  voice  in  her  government,  from  the  election  of  her 
rulers  to  the  least  points  which  might  concern  the  laity.  The 


324  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  February 

bishops  are  the  natural  rulers  of  the  Church,  as  being  a  spiritual 
body,  and  their  decision  and  command  would  be  respected  and 
obeyed,  did  the  clergy  and  laity  feel  that  their  claims  to  obedience 
rested  on  the  unquestionable  right  of  proper  election.  Their  power 
could  not,  indeed,  even  then  be  in  any  extensive  degree  autocratic. 
In  synod  they  would  meet  together  to  decide  on  the  vexed  questions 
of  the  day,  and  the  canons  thus  propounded  would  be  as  binding  on 
themselves  as  on  the  inferior  clergy  and  the  laity,  whereas  now  it  is 
notorious  that  many  bishops  force  on  their  clergy  the  observance  of 
a  law  which  they  themselves  wholly  disregard.  Offenders  against 
these  canons  would  be  punished  canonically  ;  and  suspension,  depriva- 
tion a  sacris,  or  even  degradation,  would  be  pronounced  authorita- 
tively, according  to  received  laws,  by  those  from  whom  the  privileges 
were  derived  in  ordination,  and  not  by  the  authority  of  secular  courts. 
For,  as  was  quoted  in  an  able  letter  by  the  Eev.  F.  "W.  Puller  on  this 
subject  entitled  '  Is  the  Bishop  by  Divine  Appointment  a  Constitu- 
tional Officer  or  an  Autocratic  Monarch  ?  '- 

It  is  an  inherent,  unshaken,  unchangeable  law  that  all  sovereign  power  is 
subject  to  the  laws ;  that  they  to  whom  all  things  are  subordinate  ought  them- 
selves to  be  subordinate  to  the  laws  ;  and  that,  whatever  height  of  authority  any  one 
claims  for  himself,  the  laws  are  seated  on  a  far  more  lofty  pinnacle.  The  power  of 
the  bishop  will  still  be  supreme,  although  it  will  be  beneath  the  canons  and  beneath 
the  laws.  It  is  only  God's  will  which  is  subject  to  no  external  laws,  because  it  is 
the  law  of  laws,  the  law  of  justice,  and  justice  itself.1 

In  the  universal  Church  there  have  always  been  two  forms  of 
obedience ;  the  vow  absolute  which  a  religious  takes  to  his  superior, 
and  the  vow  conditional  which  the  priest  takes  to  obey  his  bishop 
'  in  all  things  lawful  and  honest.'  It  is  obvious  that  this  phrase 
implies  a  limited  obedience,  or,  in  other  words,  that  the  degree  in 
which  the  vow  is  binding  depends  on  the  fact  that  the  commands  of 
the  superior  are  in  accordance  with  recognised  Church  laws. 

We  must  beg  leave  to  refer  once  more  to  the  above-mentioned 
letter  which  was  published  in  the  E.  C.  U.  Gazette,  March  5,  1 878,  on  this 
portion  of  our  subject.  In  it  Mr.  Puller,  after  showing  what  a  contra- 
diction it  would  be  for  clergy  to  take  the  oath  of  canonical  obedience 
unless  the  obedience  were  really  limited  by  canon  law,  deduces  the 
conclusion  that,  under  certain  circumstances,  refusal  of  obedience  to 
individual  bishops  may  become  the  truest  loyalty  to  the  Church  by 
virtue  of  the  true  meaning  of  the  oath  itself.  And  in  support  of 
this  theory  he  quotes  Bingham  as  an  authority,  who  writes  thus  : — 

It  is  agreed  .  .  .  that  canonical  obedience  in  effect  is  no  more  than  obedience 
to  the  orders  and  canons  of  the  Church,  and  does  not  subject  men  to  any  unlimited 
power,  or  require  any  new  duty  from  them  but  such  as  the  bishops  may  require  by 
virtue  of  the.  canons." 

In  whatever  degree  the  canons  may  have   f nil  en  into  disuse,  they 

'  Thoma«sinus,  Vet.  i-t  Xur.  Disc,  dc  Bcncff.  II.  i.  xv.  2. 
2  BirigJ  am's  Fri'nch  Church's  Apifog  ',  Book  IV.  Chap.  I. 


1880.  RITUALISTS  AND  ANGLICANS.  325 

are  the  laws  of  the  Church,  nor  can  the  special  dictum  of  any  bishop 
at  a  particular  moment  supersede  them.  In  ecclesiastical  matters  the 
unrepealed  laws  of  the  Church  are  of  greater  authority  to  the  clergy 
than  any  Act  of  Parliament  passed  without  proper  Church  sanction, 
Koyal  Proclamation,  or  Episcopal  command  bearing  on  such  matters. 
The  original  position  occupied  by  the  Anglican  party  with  regard 
to  this  subject  of  the  authority  of  bishops  was,  however  much  their 
successors  may  repudiate  it,  identical  with  that  of  the  Eitualists  at 
the  present  time.  Thus  Dr.  Irons  wrote  3  in  1 847  :— 

The  unanswerable  argument  against  the  claims  of  the  Bishop  of  Rome  is  this, 
that  the  whole  body  of  laws  of  the  universal  Church  assume  from  the  beginning 
exactly  the  opposite — viz.  that  all  bishops,  not  excepting  the  Roman,  are  subject 
to  the  canons.  And  if  this  is  an  argument  against  the  assumptions  of  the  Pope,  it 
is  equally  so  against  the  theory  of  the  absolute  independence  of  bishops. 

And  again,  in  treating  of  the  practice  of  the  whole  Church  in  this 
matter,  he  says  : — 

If  jurisdiction  be  a  result  of  the  gift  of  the  Spirit,  and  if  the  gift  of  the  Spirit 
be  to  the  body  of  the  Church,  let  the  habitual  belief  and  practice  of  the  Church 
unerringly  assure  us  that  ordinary  jurisdictions  must  be  subject  to  canonical  deci- 
sions. ...  So  again  among  ourselves,  every  one  can  see  that  the  same  principle  is 
practically  maintained ;  no  bishop  is  justified  in  acting  in  court,  or  even  authorita- 
tively in  his  diocese,  in  opposition  to,  or  defiance  of,  the  Church's  laws,  even  to  the 
alteration  of  a  single  rubric  or  canon  settled  by  the  Synod  of  the  Church. 

This  is  the  position  assumed  by  a  High  Churchman  of  the  old 
school,  and  one  of  its  leaders.  It  is,  then,  not  unfair  to  say  that,  from 
the  beginning  of  the  Church  revival,  the  conditional  character  of 
episcopal  authority  has  been  accepted,  that  therefore  the  idea  is  not  the 
creation  of  their  descendants  of  this  generation,  and  consequently  that 
it  is  unfair  to  force  the  Eitualists  to  bear  the  responsibility  of  it.  It  is 
beside  the  point  to  accuse  individual  clergymen  of  indiscretion  and 
wrong-headedness  in  the  course  of  opposition  they  may  have  adopted. 
The  confusion  of  the  whole  existing  state  of  things  makes  this  an 
inevitable  result,  and  one  almost  necessarily  following  on  human 
weakness.  It  is  indeed  not  to  be  wondered  at  that  the  Ritualists, 
whose  chief  work  has  been  hard  practical  mission  work  among  the 
poor  of  our  great  cities,  and  who  have  lived  face  to  face  with  the 
sternest  realities  of  vice  and  sin,  should,  when  they  find  their  self- 
sacrificing  efforts  met  with  opposition,  instead  of  sympathy,  suspicion 
instead  of  generous  help,  and  this  on  all  sides,  turn  somewhat  demo- 
cratic in  their  cry  for  Reform.  If  the  Moderate  party  would  realise 
the  greatness  of  the  emergency  and  abstain  from  playing  into  the 
hands  of  common  enemies,  the  Church  party  would  become  consoli- 
dated, and  doctrinaire  views  would  fade  away  and  become  the  mere 
speculative  fancies  of  a  few. 

3  Lecture  on  Ecclesiastical  Jurisdiction,  p.  10.     Masters  &  Co.,  1847. 

VOL.  VII.— No.  36.  Z 


326  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  February 

We  revert  once  more  to  the  question,  '  Is  it  not  better,  since  the 
bishops  wish  to  take  the  responsibility  of  deciding  on  all  disputed 
points,  to  let  them  have  their  way  for  the  sake  of  the  peace  of  the 
Church,'  and  so  commit,  at  any  rate,  no  offence  against  ecclesiastical 
authority  ?  The  eventual  answer  to  this  must  be  in  the  negative. 
To  surrender  rights  which  one  believes  to  be  undeniable,  and  to 
succumb  to  authority  which  one  believes  to  be  overstrained,  merely 
for  the  sake  of  peace,  are  acts  of  cowardice  from  which  no  good 
can  result.  The  clergy  of  the  Roman  Church  have  followed  this 
principle  of  unreasoning  obedience  for  the  last  few  centuries,  until 
they  have  lost  all  power  of  retracing  their  steps ;  and  their  position 
now  is  not  such  as  can  be  considered  enviable.  Peace  can  never  be 
bought  without  entailing  either  degradation  or  fiercer  strife  in  the 
future.  If  the  clergy  fail  at  this  crisis  to  secure  their  proper  posi- 
tion with  the  bishops,  and  to  adhere  to  the  immemorial  rights  of 
their  Order,  they  will  cast  a  burden  on  their  brethren  of  the  next 
generation,  the  weight  of  which  they  cannot  estimate,  and  they  will 
deliberately  place  the  Episcopate  in  a  false  position,  and  one  from 
which  it  will  be  almost  impossible  for  it  to  recede.  The  bishops,  as 
we  have  said  before,  have  not  deliberately  taken  up  the  position  of 
autocrats ;  that  position  has  partly  grown  up,  and  partly  been  forced 
upon  them,  for  it  is  pretty  well  known  now  that  the  Public  Worship 
Regulation  Act  is  an  object  of  anxiety  and  dislike  to  many  of  them. 
Yet  it  is  impossible  that  the  battle  against  State  rule,  now  being 
fought  out,  can  be  brought  to  any  safe  conclusion  unless  the  clergy  as  a 
compact  body  contend  against  the  measures  which  have,  in  a  way, 
been  forced  on  the  bishops.  It  is  true  that  bishops  have  often 
opposed  the  clergy  whom  they  profess  to  represent,  and  that  lamen- 
table misunderstanding  and  distrust  have  grown  up  between  the  two 
orders  in  consequence ;  but  the  duty  which  the  clergy  owe  to  the 
Church  and  to  themselves  is  the  same,  whether  working  harmoniously 
with  the  bishops  or  not. 

II.  The  second  point  in  question  is,  How  far  may  we  claim  as  our 
own  the  teaching  and  practice  of  the  pre-Reformation  Church  ? 
Here  we  have  comparatively  broad  lines  to  follow.  To  revert  to 
primitive  doctrine  and  practice,  not  to  innovate  or  to  destroy,  was 
essentially  the  object  of  the  Reformation ;  and  although  it  is  true 
that  the  contest  eventually  turned  on  the  value  and  extent  of  the 
Sacramental  system,  yet  the  causes  which  produced  the  Reformation 
arose,  not  in  the  region  of  theology,  but  in  that  of  practical  religious 
life.  It  is  in  the  corruptions  of  the  clergy,  the  abuse  of  their  sacred 
trust  in  the  Confessional  and  at  the  Altar,  the  degrading  superstition 
which  had  followed  on  their  greed  of  money  and  power,  in  a  word,  in 
the  entire  demoralisation  of  practical  religion  throughout  the  country, 
that  we  find  the  clue  to  the  spirit  of  the  Reformation.  That  spurious 
teaching  on  certain  important  doctrines  of  the  Faith  prevailed  in  the 


1880.  RITUALISTS  AND  ANGLICANS.  327 

English  Church  in  the  sixteenth  century  no  faithful  member  of  her  com- 
munion will  now  deny  ;  but  the  extreme  care  of  our  Reformers  to  retain 
the  spirit  of  Catholic  teaching  and  practice,  and  their  evident  anxiety 
to  assert  their  oneness  with  the  rest  of  Catholic  Christendom,  as  proved 
both  in  the  original  preface  to  the  Book  of  Common  Prayer  and,  fifty 
years  later,  at  the  Hampton  Court  Conference,  demonstrate  with  suffi- 
cient clearness  their  great  desire  to  retain  the  spirit  of  Catholic  teach- 
ing and  practice.  The  reforms  which  the  English  Church  effected  at 
this  time  were  strictly  within  her  rights  as  a  national  Church,  of  which 
rights,  as  Hooker  demonstrates,4  that  of  self-government  is  '  one  of 
the  very  chiefest,'  and  one  which  in  no  degree  nullifies  her  union 
with  the  rest  of  the  Church  Catholic.  Every  one  at  all  acquainted 
with  liturgical  history  knows  that  each  individual  Church — and 
indeed  most  important  dioceses  within  national  Churches — retained 
until  comparatively  modern  times  the  right  to  use  their  own  liturgies. 
Of  such  rights  our  own  ancient  i  uses '  of  Hereford,  York,  Sarum,  and 
Exeter  are  instances.  That  these  rights  of  many  churches  in  south- 
ern Europe  ever  lapsed  is  mainly  due  to  the  undeviating  policy  of 
suppression  pursued  systematically  by  the  Eoman  Church.  In 
England  '  the  most  weighty  cause  of  the  abolishment  of  certain  cere- 
monies,' say  the  apologists  of  the  Prayer  Book,  '  was,  that  they  were 
so  far  abused  .  .  .  that  the  abuses  could  not  well  be  taken  away, 
the  thing  remaining  still.'  But  they  add :  t  In  these  our  doings 
we  condemn  no  other  nations,  nor  prescribe  anything  but  to  our 
own  people  only.'  Assuming  then  that  the  reform  of  abuses,  and  not 
such  radical  changes  of  faith  and  practice  as  would  have  involved 
severance  from  Catholic  antiquity,  was  the  basis  of  the  Reformation, 
we  may  assert  that  the  English  Church,  in  common  with  all  other 
branches  of  the  great  Catholic  body,  is  founded  on  the  Church  of  the 
first  seven  centuries,  from  which  she  draws  her  authority  to  teach, 
and  the  privileges  of  which  are  her  inalienable  inheritance.  All 
this  the  Revivalists  of  1830  recognised,  and  laboured  to  establish, 
and  the  Anglicans  of  to-day  will  admit  in  theory.  '  But,'  say  they, 
'  why  not  be  content  with  teaching  the  doctrines  of  primitive  Catho- 
licism, and  refrain  from  forcing  on  the  Church  a  Ritual,  concerning 
which  the  primitive  Councils  are  silent,  and  which,  if  not  actually 
alien  to  the  spirit  of  the  Reformation,  can  only  be  established  at 
cost  to  the  Church  of  our  own  day,  by  reason  of  its  apparent 
identity  with  modern  Roman  usages  ? ' 

To  this  it  is  answered  : — 

That  Ritual  is  the  exponent  of,  and  the  inevitable  outcome  of, 
Catholic  doctrine,  and  that  the  very  fierceness  of  the  contest,  which 
now  rages  around  it,  is  itself  a  proof  of  its  value  and  importance. 
It  is  true  that  the  question  of  Ritual  is  one  which  we  meet  with  but 

4  Bk.  iii.  ch.  14. 

z  2 


328  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  February 

seldom  in  the  decrees  of  those  early  centuries  to  which  \ve  appeal.  But 
this  cannot  fairly  be  used  as  an  argument  against  it,  and  the  answer 
of  G-regory  the  Second  to  the  Iconoclasts  concerning  a  single  detail  of 
Church  practice,  might  be  made  with  still  greater  point  to  the  op- 
ponents of  Catholic  Eitual  as  a  system.  Leo  the  Isaurian  argued  in 
his  controversy  with  the  Bishop  of  Home  that  in  the  six  (Ecumenical 
Councils  there  had  been  no  mention  of  the  use  of  images.  *  (rood 
reason ! '  exclaimed  the  Bishop  ;  '  when  did  you  ever  read  that  one  must 
eat  and  drink  in  order  to  live  ?  The  use  of  images  has  been  transmitted 
to  us  as  a  custom  not  less  natural.'  However  scanty  may  be  the  records 
of  the  Early  Church,  we  know  from  the  testimony  of  Eusebius  that, 
simultaneously  with  freedom  of  worship,  sprang  up,  at  each  period, 
within  the  intervals  of  persecution,  stately  churches  and  solemn 
Eitual.  It  would  indeed  be  impossible  to  believe  that  such  a 
magnificent  system  of  worship  as  was  established  immediately  on  the 
peace  of  Constantine  could  have  been  at  once  fabricated,  had  not  the 
traditions  and  the  materials  for  it  already  existed.  Without,  however, 
appealing  to  that  splendid  period  of  Catholic  worship  which  suc- 
ceeded to  the  age  of  persecution,  it  may  be  said,  that  so  far  as  we 
are  acquainted  with  the  worship  of  the  earlier  Christian  Church,  a 
dignified  Ritual  was  unquestionably  maintained.  Without  doubt  it 
was  in  that  it  was  an  exponent  of  the  Faith  that  its  essential  value 
then  consisted.  It  was  around  the  Sacramental  system  that  the  Ritual 
of  the  early  Church  grew  up,  and  by  the  means  of  which  it  was  found 
necessary  alike  to  teach  the  importance  of  the  doctrine,  and  to 
restrain  from  irreverence.  The  extreme  care  for  the  minutest  details 
connected  with  the  service  of  the  altar,  shown  in  the  rubrics  of  the 
oldest  Liturgies  extant,  proves  the  great  importance  which  was 
attached  to  these  matters  in  the  earliest  times  to  which  we  can  refer. 
And  although  it  may  be  answered  that  all  known  Liturgies  have 
gone  through  a  gradual  development,  yet  it  is  unquestionable  that 
in  their  main  order  they  have  been  handed  down  from  primitive 
ages.  Thus,  for  instance,  the  Ritual  of  the  '  Veils  '  or  curtains  hung 
before  the  sanctuary  (afterwards  superseded  in  the  Western  Church 
by  screens),  which  were  only  withdrawn  at  the  time  of  the  Communion 
of  the  people,  and  which  formed  such  a  central  part  of  the  ancient 
Sacramental  Office,  had  been,  we  know,  a  long-established  part  of 
Church  Ritual  in  the  time  of  St.  Chrysostom.  And  many  points  of 
Ritual  for  the  retaining  of  which  the  English  clergy  have  to  bear  the 
odium  of  reviving  Roman  practices,  such  as  the  mixed  chalice, 
unleavened  bread,  the  use  of  ornamental  lights,  and  of  costly  materials 
for  celebrating  the  Eucharistic  service,  were  expressly  ordered  by  the 
Church  of  the  second  and  third  centuries.  Neither  is  it  even  fair  to 
assert  that  the  clergy  have  created  the  demand  for  Ritual  which 
undoubtedly  exists  in  the  present  day.  Whenever,  in  the  history  of 
the  English  Church,  there  has  been  what  is  called  a  '  High  Church 


1880.  RITUALISTS  AND  ANGLICANS.  329 

movement,'  as  there  was  in  both  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  cen- 
turies, a  desire  for,  and  effort  after,  a  seemly  Eitual  in  the  service  of 
the  Sanctuary  has  gone  side  by  side  with  it.  So  also  was  it  in  the 
religious  revival  of  1830  ;  and  there  are  many  who  must  remember 
the  time  when  details  such  as  are  now  accepted  as  natural  adjuncts 
to  the  reverent  performance  of  Church  service,  e.g.  the  surplice,  the 
comely  altar  furniture,  or  the  vested  choir,  were  objects  of  the  noisiest 
contention,  and  made  the  excuse  for  attacks  on  the  clergy  as  virulent 
as  any  of  those  of  the  present  day. 

It  is  also  urged  by  the  Kitualists  that  to  call  Catholic  Ritual 
'  Roman  '  is  an  inaccuracy  as  fatal  as  that  mistake  which  confounds 
Catholic  doctrine  with  Roman  dogmas.  '  In  truth,'  says  Hooker,5  in 
answer  to  a  similar  accusation,  'the  ceremonies  which  we  have  taken 
from  such  as  were  before  us  are  not  things  that  belong  to  this  or  that 
sect,  but  they  are  the  ancient  rites  and  customs  of  the  Church  of 
Christ,  whereof  ourselves  being  a  part,  we  have  the  selfsame  interest 
in  them  which  our  fathers  before  us  had,  from  whom  the  same  are 
descended  unto  us.'  And  he  instances  the  custom  of  using  unleavened 
bread  for  the  Holy  Eucharist,  showing  the  absurdity  of  contending 
against  that  ancient  tradition  merely  'because  such  bread  the 
Church  of  Rome,  being  heretical,  useth.'  To  descend,  however,  into 
closer  details,  we  may  assume  that  it  is  in  consequence  of  the 
ceremonial  with  which  the  Ritualists  have  surrounded  our  Com- 
munion Office  that  they  are  really  supposed  to  have  justified  the 
accusations  of  Romanising.  Yet  if  the  principal  points  of  contention 
were  granted,  on  the  ground  of  universal  Catholic  usage — viz.  those 
of  a  distinctive  vestment,  the  mixed  chalice,  the  position  of  the 
celebrant,  the  seemly  altar-furniture — minuter  details  would  scarcely 
be  worth  contention  on  either  side.  Granted  that  the  Ritualists, 
in  arranging  an  harmonious  order  of  ceremony,  have  adopted  minor 
usages  of  the  Roman  Church,  should  it  not  be  borne  in  mind  that 
our  Communion  Office  was  constructed  out  of  one,  the  framework 
of  which  was  substantially  identical  with  the  Roman  Liturgy,  and 
which  it  follows  in  its  main  order  and  sequence  ? 

The  Convocation  of  Canterbury  has  recently  arrived  at  a  decision 
on  these  questions.  This  is  not  the  place  for  a  discussion  as  to  the 
advisability  of  an  unreformed  and  therefore  unrepresentative  Convo- 
cation deciding  on  a  question  of  such  importance  as  the  alteration  of 
the  Book  of  Common  Prayer.  But  it  may  be  not  altogether  out  of 
place  to  make  a  few  remarks  on  the  actual  result  of  their  labours. 

The  first  point  that  strikes  one  is  that  the  Convocations  of 
Canterbury  and  of  York  -are  not  at  one  on  the  question  of  Ritual,  and 
that  therefore,  on  this  ground  at  least,  legislation  is,  or  ought  to  be, 
impossible  for  the  present.  To  both  Convocations  was  given  the 

5  Bk.  iv.  ch.  ix. 


330  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  February 

same  task,  and  the  vote  of  the  one  should  not  be  allowed  to  override 
the  expressed  opinion  of  the  other,  especially  as  the  York  Synod  is 
the  more  representative  of  the  two  in  its  constitution. 

But  with  regard  to  the  vote  of  the  Southern  Province,  what  has 
it  shown  except  that  the  contention  of  the  Eitualists  is  right  ?  The 
Ornaments  Eubric  has  been  preserved  in  the  most  emphatic  manner ; 
and  the  explanations  of  it  given  by  the  Privy  Council  have  been 
rejected. 

If  the  amended  Prayer  Book  were  to  become  law  by  consent  of 
Parliament,  all  other  laws  to  the  contrary  notwithstanding,  the  orna- 
ments of  the  Church  and  ministers  used  under  authority  of  Parlia- 
ment in  the  second  year  of  Edward  the  Sixth  would  be  pronounced 
legal  until  further  order  be  taken  by  lawful  authority,  the 
minima  of  ornaments  for  the  minister  being  a  surplice,  stole,  and 
hood,  with  the  alternative  use  of  a  black  gown  in  preaching.  These 
vestments  being  used,  the  other  ones  shall  be  retained  and  be  in  use, 
&c.,  unless  a  bishop  gives  a  formal  monition  to  the  contrary,  which 
monition  is  a  legal  document  given  in  open  court,  and  subject,  like 
all  other  legal  sentences,  to  be  appealed  against.  But  over  and 
above  all  this  there  is  the  most  important  fact  that  the  addition  to  the 
Ornaments  Eubric  only  touches  the  ornaments  to  be  used  by  the 
minister,  and  does  not  apparently  touch  the  ornaments  of  the  church. 
Consequently  candles,  crosses  if  not  crucifixes,  wafer  bread,  incense, 
banners,  thuribles,  water  cruets  for  the  mixed  chalice,  &c.,  are  once 
more  placed  out  of  the  reach  of  legal  quibbles,  having  been  enjoined 
by  the  Eubric  beginning  '  And  here  it  is  to  be  noted,'  and  ending 
repeal  the  24th,  25th,  and  58th  of  the  Canons  of  1604,'  and  rati- 
fied by  the  Act  which  shall  enforce  this  amended  book. 

III.  The  third  question  at  issue  between  the  Anglicans  and  the  Ei- 
tualists is, '  Are  the  English  clergy  justified  in  re-establishing  an  order 
of  Eitual,  however  legal,  to  which  the  bulk  of  the  nation  is  opposed,  and 
which  exposes  the  Church  to  such  a  convulsion  as  she  is  now  passing 
through  ? '  It  is  argued  that  the  Eitualists  themselves  do  not  pretend 
to  be  able  to  bring  forward  any  universal  rule  of  Eitual  which  can 
be  considered  as  binding  on  the  Church,  and,  moreover,  that  the 
very  character  of  our  offices  and  their  divergence  from  those  of  Eome 
have  made  a  new  plan  of  Eitual  necessary.  In  answer  to  this,  the 
Eitualists  reply  that  modification  is  not  innovation.  The  offices  of 
the  English  Church  are  formed  on  the  same  framework  as  those  of 
the  rest  of  the  Catholic  Church,  her  Sacraments  are  the  same,  and 
the  order  of  administering  them  is  only  a  difference  of  detail 
between  her  and  other  Churches. 

In  regard  to  the  main  objection  that  the  pressure  of  Eitual 
on  the  Church  at  the  present  crisis  is  subversive  of  her  peace, 
its  defenders  answer  that  they  have  no  choice  as  to  their  present 
duty,  nor  any  doubt  but  that,  in  bearing  the  burden  and  heat  of 


1880.  RITUALISTS  AND  ANGLICANS.  331 

the  day,  they  are  fulfilling  their  appointed  task,  and  are  doing 
their  best  for  the  Church  of  the  next  generation.  Every  thread 
of  precedent  binds  the  tighter,  and  makes  freedom,  or  appeal  to  long- 
lapsed  rights,  the  more  difficult.  In  following  a  policy  of  com- 
promise, they  deem  that  they  would  be  binding  a  heavy  burden 
on  the  shoulders  of  the  coming  generation  who,  trained  by  them, 
will  assuredly  demand  a  Ritual  in  accordance  with  their  Catholic 
teaching;  and  that  to  postpone  the  contest  would  result,  not  in 
Reformation,  but  in  Revolution. 

In  an  able  and  interesting  article  on  Ritualism6  which  appeared 
in  this  Review  it  was  assumed  that  the  English  Church  had  ceased 
to  be  a  branch  of  the  Church  Catholic,  by  reason  of  that  supposi  Litious 
break  in  the  continuity  of  its  succession  which  the  Romans  are 
never  weary  of  asserting  to  have  taken  place.  If  this  wore  so,  if 
all  —  Anglican  and  Ritualist  alike— who  are  concerned  in  the 
battle  which  is  now  being  fought  to  the  bitter  end,  did  not  believe 
with  an  unshaken  conviction  that  the  English  Church  is,  by  virtue 
of  her  Orders  and  her  Sacraments,  as  true  a  Branch  of  the  Church 
of  Christ  as  any  other,  there  would  not  exist  the  bond  of  union, 
to  which  we  have  here  appealed,  between  these  two  great  parties 
within  the  Church.  Then  indeed  would  Ritualism  be  what  the 
Abbe  Martin  imagines  it  to  be,  a  mere  vague  yearning  after  com- 
munion with  the  true  Church  Catholic ;  then  indeed  would  the 
position  of  this  Catholicising  party  in  this  country  be  untenable  in 
reason  or  logic,  and  the  collapse,  which  the  Abbe  from  his  assumed 
ground  predicts,  imminent.  It  is  strange  that  one  who  has  so  clearly 
seen  and  boldly  testified  to  the  extraordinary  spiritual  power  of  the 
Catholic  movement  in  the  English  Church  as  to  state  emphatically 
that  '  wherever  in  the  heart  of  the  English  nation  there  is  any 
remnant  of  religious  sentiment,  it  is  drawn  towards  Ritualism,' 
should  not  have  gone  the  step  further  of  inquiring  whether  such  a 
revival,  extending  over  a  course  of  nearly  fifty  years,  could  be  a  moral 
possibility,  were  it  based  on  a  mere  fallacy.  However,  it  is  not 
within  the  scope  of  this  paper  to  deal  with  the  Abbe  Martin's  side 
of  the  Ritualistic  question  ;  and  we  must  pass  on,  thanking  him  for 
a  charity  which  stands  out  brightly  by  the  side  of  the  temper 
manifested  by  many  of  his  brethren  in  England. 

Finally,  it  is  urged  against  the  extreme  party  in  the  Church, 
that  they  are  revolutionary  in  their  theories  if  not  in  their  avowed 
objects  ;  and  that  they  wish  to  bring  about  such  an  entire  change  in 
the  government  of  the  Church  as  this  country  is  neither  prepared  for, 
nor  desirous  of.  It  may  be  that  some  of  the  prominent  members  of 
the  party  are  doctrinaires  in  the  matter  of  Reform.  Assuredly  there 
never  was  a  reformation  effected,  or  even  attempted,  since  history 

6  'A  Roman  Catholic  View  of  Ritualism.'     By  the  Abb6  Martin.     Nineteenth 
Century,  February  1878. 


332  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY.  February 

began,  without  doctrinairism  ;  and  it  is  often  the  most  high-souled 
and  self-sacrificing  members  of  a  party  who,  in  the  bitterness  of  re- 
peated disappointment,  commit  themselves  to  unpractical  and  fatal 
theories.  It  must  be  admitted,  however,  we  think,  by  candid  people, 
that  if,  for  instance,  the  disestablishment  of  the  Church  has  been  the 
object  of  the  Ritualists,  they  have  been,  as  a  party,  singularly  silent 
and  patient  for  a  long  term  of  years  under  a  form  of  government 
which  has  pressed  with  a  continuous  and  great  weight  on  them,  and 
almost  on  them  only.  But  in  fact,  although  the  Ritualists  are, 
from  the  position  which  they  have  chosen  to  occupy,  the  chief 
sufferers,  the  present  state  of  Church  legislation  is  one  which  all  true 
churchmen  must  feel  to  be  deplorable,  and  to  be  one  so  opposed  to  all  the 
instincts  of  justice-loving  Englishmen  that,  were  not  the  prejudices 
of  all  sections  arrayed  against  the  Ritualists,  reform  must  ere  now 
have  been  effected.  No  churchman  can  regard  without  great  appre- 
hension the  dispensation  of  power  granted  to  secular  judges,  who 
need  not  necessarily  be  Churchmen  or  even  Christians,  to  decide 
intricate  questions  of  Church  doctrine  and  practice. 

Nor  again  can  an  undignified  spectacle,  such  as  was  seen  a  short 
time  since,  be  regarded  without  pain,  when  a  learned  judge  felt 
compelled  to  occupy  a  considerable  portion  of  his  judgments,  by 
endeavouring  to  prove  the  authority  of  his  court  to  be  what  three 
other  learned  judges  had  decided  that  it  was  not.  And  this  too  when, 
in  the  meantime,  the  unfortunate  clergymen,  who  deem  it  to  be  their 
duty  to  refuse  acknowledgment  to  the  court  in  question  on  the  very 
ground  of  its  authority,  may  be  suffering  imprisonment  or  deprivation. 

If  indeed  it  be  true  that,  in  despair  of  justice  or  reform,  the  ad- 
vanced party  in  the  Church  would,  of  two  evils,  prefer  that  the  State 
should  exercise  its  furthest  limits  of  power,  and  deprive  the  Church  of 
her  inheritance,  is  it  to  be  wondered  at?  Radical  Reform  is  some- 
times the  only  safeguard  from  revolution,  and  may  become,  under 
certain  circumstances,  the  truest  Conservatism.  If  the  legitimate 
freedom  of  the  Catholic  Church  in  this  land  be  indeed  imperilled, 
and  her  foundations  shaken  by  continued  union  with  the  State,  the 
disaster  of  a  final  rupture  of  such  union  can  only  be  postponed — it 
cannot  be  averted. 

A,  F.  NORTHCOTE. 


1880.  333 


OUR  EGYPTIAN  PROTECTORATE. 

TKE  more  you  get  to  know  Egypt,  the  more,  so  it  seems  to  me,  you 
become  impressed  with  the  continuity  of  its  history.  After  all,  the 
Egypt  of  to-day  is  the  Egypt  of  the  Pharaohs,  just  as  in  their  days 
it  had  changed  but  little  from  the  Egypt  of  the  Shepherd  Kings. 
Dynasties  may  succeed  each  other :  empires  may  rise  and  fall :  one 
race  of  conquerors  may  be  expelled  by  a  new  tide  of  invaders  ;  but 
the  Nile  flows  on  for  ever  ;  and  the  flooded  lands  give  forth  their 
produce  year  by  year,  tilled  by  the  same  subject  race  toiling  in  the 
same  fashion.  What  has  been  in  the  past  will  be  in  the  future. 
Like  causes  must  produce  like  results  :  and  there  is  no  reason  one 
can  see  why  scores  of  centuries  hence,  when  our  times  have  become 
as  remote  as  those  of  Sesostris,  Egypt  should  not  still  remain  much 
as  we  know  her  now,  a  country  whose  history  stretches  back  into  the 
dim  infancy  of  the  world.  Should  this  conception  be  realised,  it  is 
no  fanciful  assumption  that  in  the  far-away  hereafter  the  Cham- 
pollions  of  the  future  may  out  of  obscure  records,  indited  in  forgotten 
languages,  endeavour  to  reconstruct  the  history  of  Egypt  during  the 
era  when  the  family  of  Mehemet  Ali  reigned  over  the  valley  of  the  Nile. 
Of  the  various  problems  as  to  the  attributes,  characteristics,  and  rela- 
tions of  the  different  Pharaonic  dynasties  which  nowadays  perplex 
the  brains  of  Egyptologists,  few,  I  think,  are  so  difficult  of  solution  as 
any  attempt  will  prove  on  the  part  of  their  remote  successors  to 
define  the  status,  nature,  and  reason  of  being  of  the  Government 
established  in  Egypt  upon  the  deposition  of  Ismail  Pasha. 

Very  little  light  would  be  thrown  upon  the  elucidation  of  this 
problem  by  the  perusal  of  our  Blue  Books  and  State  papers,  even  sup- 
posing them  to  be  still  accessible.  Nor  would  any  great  information  be 
obtained  from  contemporary  writings.  The  new  regime  which  has 
been  established,  or,  to  speak  more  correctly,  is  in  the  process  of  esta- 
blishment, in  Egypt,  has  excited  very  little  attention  abroad.  Yet 
within  the  last  few  months  a  new  chapter  has  been  commenced  in  Egyp- 
tian history,  a  chapter  whose  subsequent  pages  must — unless  the  ex- 
perience of  Egypt  should  prove  contrary  to  that  of  all  other  Oriental 
countries — record  the  ultimate  establishment  of  European  rule  over 
the  length  and  breadth  of  the  country.  We  are,  in  fact,  witnessing  the 
inauguration  of  a  direct  European  Protectorate  over  Egypt ;  and  as 


334  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  February 

the  part  England  has  played  in  the  establishment  of  the  new  system  of 
administration  is  very  important  now.  and  is  likely  to  be  far  more 
important  in  the  future,  it  is  worth  while  for  Englishmen  to  under- 
stand what  we  have  done  and  are  doing  in  Egypt.  To  facilitate 
such  an  understanding  is  the  object  I  have  in  view. 

In  order  to  make  the  present  position  of  Egyptian  affairs  at  all 
intelligible,  it  is  necessary  to  revert  to  the  period  which  preceded  the 
deposition  of  the  late  Viceroy.  When  I  last  wrote  on  this  subject  in 
the  pages  of  this  Eeview,  the  downfall  of  the  Wilson-De  Blignieres 
Ministry  was  imminent.  No  special  foresight  was  required  to 
prognosticate  the  coming  collapse.  The  truth  is,  the  corner-stone 
of  the  Anglo-French  Ministry  was  knocked  oat  with  the  dismissal  of 
Nubar  Pasha ;  and  the  two  Governments  practically  consented  to 
abandon  the  experiment  when  they  agreed  not  to  insist  upon  the  re- 
instatement of  the  deposed  Prime  Minister.  This  consent  no  doubt 
was  given  under  a  misapprehension.  Neither  Lord  Salisbury  nor  M. 
Waddington  intended  to  surrender  the  control  over  the  administra- 
tion of  Egypt  afforded  by  the  fact  that  the  two  chief  posts  in  the 
Ministry  were  occupied  by  nominees  of  their  respective  Governments. 
They  were,  however,  led  to  believe  that  the  Khedive  was  willing  to 
acquiesce  cordially  in  the  tutelage  exercised  by  Mr.  Wilson  and  M. 
de  Blignieres,  if  only  he  could  be  relieved  from  the  presence  of  Nubar 
Pasha,  who  was  obnoxious  to  him  on  personal  grounds.  In  conse- 
quence, the  two  Powers  contented  themselves  with  placing  formally 
on  record  the  conditions  on  which  they  were  prepared  to  allow  trhe 
Khedive  to  exercise  the  right  of  dismissing  his  own  Minister.  In  an 
official  note  addressed  to  the  Khedive,  England  and  France  insisted 
that  henceforward  their  representatives  in  the  Ministry  must  have  a 
distinct  right  of  joint  veto  on  any  measures  of  which  they  might  dis- 
approve, and  that  the  Khedive  himself  must  not  be  permitted  to  be 
present  at  the  Ministerial  councils.  It  was  impossible  to  lay  down  more 
clearly,  in  so  far  as  phrases  were  concerned,  the  absolute  ascendency  over 
the  administration  of  Egypt  which  England  and  France  considered 
themselves  entitled  to  claim.  The  Khedive  acquiesced  without  a  pro- 
test in  the  conditions  imposed  upon  him,  and  shortsighted  observers 
jumped  to  the  conclusion  that  the  attempt  of  Ismail  Pasha  to  assert 
his  independence  by  the  dismissal  of  Nubar  Pasha  had  ended  in  the 
virtual  abdication  of  his  authority  into  the  hands  of  his  English  and 
French  Ministers.  This  was  the  view  taken  by  Mr.  Vivian,  our 
Consul-General  in  Egypt,  and  impressed  by  him  upon  our  Foreign 
Office.  Unfortunately,  Orientals  attach  little  value  to  words  which 
are  not  accompanied  by  acts ;  and  Ismail  Pasha  was  in  this  respect  a 
type  of  the  Turkish  official.  The  Khedive  saw  clearly  that  the 
Powers  had  shrunk  from  any  practical  step  to  vindicate  their  ascen- 
dency, which,  as  he  was  well  aware,  had  been  imperilled  by  the  dis- 
missal of  Nubar  Pasha,  and  had  contented  themselves  with  a  verbal 


1860.  OUR  EGYPTIAN  PROTECTORATE.  335 

protest.  The  natural  inference  was,  that  what  he  had  done  already 
he  could  do  again,  and  that  any  further  attempts  to  recover  his 
independence  would  entail  no  greater  penalty  than  a  diplomatic 
reprimand.  In  this  belief  his  Highness  was  confirmed  by  an  unfortu- 
nate incident :  I  allude  to  the  presence  of  Mr.  Vivian  in  Cairo.  I  am 
anxious  to  say  as  little  as  may  be  in  disparagement  of  a  gentleman 
with  whom  my  personal  relations  have  always  been  of  a  friendly  and 
pleasant  character ;  and  I  also  admit  most  fully  that  Mr.  Vivian — in 
common,  for  that  matter,  with  almost  every  other  actor  in  the  Egyptian 
imbroglio  which  ended  with  the  deposition  of  Ismail  Pasha — has  never 
had  the  opportunity  of  laying  his  own  case  before  the  public.  I  can- 
not, however,  give  anything  approaching  to  a  true  narrative  of  the 
course  of  recent  events  in  Egypt  without  alluding  to  Mr.  Vivian's 
action  as  the  representative  of  England,  an  action  which  from  my 
point  of  view  was  mistaken  and  mischievous.  Now,  it  so  happened 
that  our  Consul-General  disapproved,  with  or  without  reason,  of 
Nubar  Pasha's  policy,  and  had  used  his  influence  to  persuade  his 
own  Government  to  acquiesce  in  Nubar's  dismissal  by  the  Khedive. 
This  view  of  Mr.  Vivian's  found  no  favour  with  the  ex-Minister's 
European  colleagues.  They  were  convinced — and,  as  the  event  proved, 
they  were  right  in  their  conviction — that  Nubar's  summary  dismissal 
imperilled  their  own  tenure  of  power,  and  they  held  that  in  the 
interest  of  the  Anglo-French  administration  Nubar's  reinstatement 
should  have  been  insisted  upon  by  the  Governments  of  London  and 
Paris.  This  antagonism  of  opinion  between  the  English  Consul  and 
the  English  Finance  Minister  at  Cairo  was  matter  of  notoriety  in 
Egypt.  It  was  known,  too,  that  this  divergence  of  view  had  unfor- 
tunately assumed  an  almost  personal  character.  When,  therefore, 
shortly  after  the  acceptance  of  the  Anglo-French  ultimatum  by  the 
Khedive,  and  the  appointment  of  a  reconstituted  Ministry  under 
Prince  Tewfik  as  President,  Mr.  Vivian  left  Egypt  on  a  sudden 
journey  to  London,  it  was  taken  for  granted  that  he  would  be  replaced 
by  a  consul  who  would  support  and  not  oppose  the  Anglo-French 
element  in  the  Egyptian  Ministry.  Mr.  Vivian,  on  the  other  hand, 
was  naturally  anxious  not  to  quit  his  post,  and  finally  succeeded  in 
inducing  the  Foreign  Office  to  sanction  his  return  to  Egypt  as 
representative  of  England.  How  far  social,  personal,  or  official  con- 
siderations contributed  to  bring  about  this  result,  it  is  needless  to 
inquire.  The  ruling  desire  of  our  Government  with  respect  to 
Egypt  at  this  period,  as  indeed  at  every  subsequent  period,  was  to 
keep  things  quiet  and  to  avoid  any  crisis  which  might  necessitate 
action  or  overt  intervention  on  our  part.  Mr.  Vivian  contrived,  as  I 
believe,  to  impress  our  Foreign  Office  with  a  belief,  in  which  he  him- 
self shared  most  honestly,  that  his  own  personal  influence  with  the 
Khedive  afforded  the  best  guarantee  against  his  Highness  taking  any 
step  which  might  bring  him  into  direct  antagonism  with  England. 


336  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  February 

The  belief  was  a  complete  delusion,  but  it  was  one  into  wbich  a  more 
astute  diplomatist  than  Mr.  Vivian  might  pardonably  have  fallen.  I 
have  seen  enough  personally  of  Ismail  Pasha  to  realise  how  difficult 
it  was  to  resist  the  persuasiveness  of  his  manner.  If  it  was  his 
interest  to  win  your  confidence,  he  set  about  the  work  with  a  skill 
which  almost  amounted  to  genius.  You  might  have  the  most  pro- 
found conviction  of  his  duplicity,  and  yet  somehow  you  left  his 
presence  with  an  impression  that  he  had  recognised  the  folly  of  trying 
to  deceive  you,  that  he  honestly  looked  upon  you  as  a  friend,  and 
that  he  valued  your  good  opinion  and  your  judgment  too  highly  to 
forfeit  it  by  any  of  the  intrigues  to  which  he  had  resorted  in 
dealing  with  men  of  less  discernment  of  character  and  less  knowledge 
of  the  world  than  you  yourself  possessed.  There  was  no  vulgar 
affectation  of  high  motives  or  superior  virtue  about  Ismail  Pasha's 
studied  confidence.  It  was  as  a  man  of  the  world  speaking  to  a  man 
of  the  world  that  he  appealed  to  your  confidence ;  and  this  appeal 
was  seldom  made  in  vain.  At  any  rate,  the  Viceroy  succeeded  in 
impressing  Mr.  Vivian  with  a  conviction  that  they  thoroughly  under- 
stood each  other  ;  and  this  conviction  played  a  not  unimportant  part 
in  the  drama  which  ended  in  the  deposition  of  the  Khedive, 

It  is  not  my  object  in  these  pages  to  tell  the  story  of  the  Egyptian 
crisis.  The  space  required  would  far  exceed  the  limits  of  an  article  ; 
nor  is  the  present  the  time  when,  to  my  thinking,  such  a  story  can  be 
told  with  advantage.  My  aim  is  to  explain  how  England  has  been 
driven  by  the  force  of  circumstances  to  assume  a  position  in  Egypt 
which  is  tantamount  to  a  Protectorate ;  and  I  only  allude  to  the 
events  of  the  last  twelve  months  to  explain  the  true  character  of  our 
new  position.  The  bugbear  of  a  so-called  '  national  party  '  was  raised 
in  order  to  throw  dust  into  the  eyes  of  Europe.  Sham  demonstrations 
and  fictitious  protests  were  got  up  to  support  the  pretence  that  public 
opinion  in  Egypt  was  hostile  to  European  administrators,  and  that 
the  Khedive  had  no  choice  except  to  bow  to  public  opinion.  Finally, 
within  two  months  of  Ismail  Pasha's  solemn  engagement  to  allow  no 
measure  to  be  passed  without  the  approval  of  his  Anglo-French 
Ministers,  these  Ministers  were  dismissed  contemptuously. 

In  France  the  intelligence  was  received  with  an  outburst  of  in- 
dignation. There  was  no  disguising  the  fact  that,  after  the  note  the 
two  Powers  had  but  just  addressed  to  the  Khedive,  this  summary 
defiance  of  their  authority  was  almost  an  insult.  The  French  are 
more  susceptible  than  we  are  to  diplomatic  slights,  and  the  Kepublic 
at  the  present  moment  is  singularly  sensitive  to  any  disregard  of 
the  dignity  of  France.  Great  irritation  had  already  been  caused 
in  Paris  by  a  saying  attributed  to  an  Egyptian  statesman,  that  '  la 
France  est  un  cadavre,  sur  lequel  on  peut  marcher,'  and  it  was 
felt  that  under  the  Empire  Egypt  would  never  have  dared  to 
treat  a  French  official  with  contumely.  Moreover,  financial  interests 


1880.  OUR  EGYPTIAN  PROTECTORATE.  337 

bad  and  have  a  political  power  in  Paris  which  they  do  not  possess 
in  London  ;  and  the  great  French  finance  establishments,  who  were 
large  holders  of  Egyptian  securities,  viewed  with  extreme  alarm 
the  prospect  of  the  restoration  of  the  old  autocratic  system,  which 
had  brought  Egypt  to  the  verge  of  ruin.  Acting  under  these 
combined  influences,  the  French  Government  proposed  to  despatch 
an  armed  force  to  Egypt  in  conjunction  with  us  in  the  event  of  the 
Khedive's  rejecting  an  ultimatum  calling  upon  him  to  reinstate  the 
dismissed  Ministers.  This  proposal  met  with  decided  disapproval  in 
London.  It  was  just  the  moment  when  our  South  African  difficulties 
were  at  the  worst.  We  had  no  troops  to  spare  for  Egypt ;  and  yet 
to  have  allowed  France  to  undertake  a  military  occupation  single- 
handed  would  have  been  contrary  to  all  the  traditions  of  English 
policy.  Again,  any  direct  intervention  in  Egypt  would  have  given 
strength  to  the  Opposition  cry  that  the  Government  was  embroiling 
the  country  in  difficulties  all  over  the  world.  Moreover,  if  I  am 
rightly  informed,  a  very  exaggerated  estimate  was  formed  in  Down- 
ing Street  of  the  resistance  which  the  Khedive  had  either  the  will 
or  the  power  to  offer.  Anyhow,  the  idea  of  decided  measures  was 
rejected  in  London;  and  the  French  Government,  which  under 
present  circumstances  is  afraid  of  any  action  which  might  expose 
France  unsupported  to  the  risk  of  European  complications,  had  no 
choice  except  to  consent  to  our  desire  for  delay.  It  was  finally  re- 
solved that  no  direct  steps  should  be  taken  to  coerce  the  Khedive,  but 
that  strong  despatches  should  be  addressed  to  him  as  to  the  possible 
consequences  of  his  shortsighted  conduct. 

This  resolution  was  regarded  at  Cairo  as  a  virtual  confession  of 
weakness.  The  Khedive  became  confirmed  in  his  belief  that  he  was 
secure  against  any  risk  of  intervention ;  and  his  scepticism  as  to  the 
possibility  of  any  such  contingency  was  increased  by  the  obvious 
divergence  of  view  between  the  two  Governments  whose  displeasure  he 
had  incurred.  France  refused  to  accept  M.  de  Blignieres'  resignation 
as  final,  and  ordered  him  not  to  quit  Egypt.  Mr.  Wilson,  on  the  other 
hand,  was  recalled  home,  and  recalled,  too,  in  a  manner  calculated, 
however  erroneously,  to  create  an  impression  that  his  policy  in  Egypt 
was  not  endorsed  by  his  own  Government.  This  opportunity,  too,  was 
seized  for  the  return  of  Mr.  Vivian  to  Cairo.  As  he  was  known  to 
be  friendly  to  the  Khedive,  and  to  be  hostile  to  the  administration 
which  had  just  been  overthrown,  the  mere  fact  of  his  reinstatement 
outweighed  the  force  of  any  formal  protest  he  was  commissioned  to 
deliver  on  behalf  of  our  Government. 

Whatever  may  have  been  the  explanation  of  his  confidence,  the 
Khedive,  after  he  had  got  rid  of  Mr.  Wilson  and  M.  de  Blignieres, 
imagined  that  he  was  secure  against  any  practical  interference  on  the 
part  of  their  respective  Governments.  The  clique  of  Pashas  who 
had  supported  and  assisted  him  in  all  his  extravagance  and  extortion 


338  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  February 

was  once  more  restored  to  power.  Nubar  and  Eiaz  Pashas  were  sent 
into  exile.  The  Fellaheen  were  subjected  to  fresh  exactions  ;  money  was 
raised  in  any  way  and  at  any  price.  Many  of  the  chief  foreign  officials 
in  the  service  of  the  Government,  whose  presence  was  in  itself  a  check 
against  flagrant  abuses,  resigned  to  avoid  dismissal ;  and  the  Khedive 
had  apparently  reason  to  congratulate  himself  on  the  complete  success 
of  his  attempt  to  emancipate  himself  from  foreign  tutelage.  He  had 
distinctly  defied  the  authority  of  England  and  France,  and,  in  spite  of 
all  their  warnings  as  to  what  would  happen  to  him  in  the  event  of 
his  rejecting  their  advice,  nothing  had  happened  or  seemed  likely  to 
happen. 

No  doubt  this  view  of  the  Khedive's  position  in  the  days  imme- 
diately preceding  his  fall  would  be  rejected  as  incorrect  by  the 
Foreign  Offices  of  Paris  and  London.  I  am  perfectly  well  aware 
that  the  two  Governments  never  came  to  a  determination  to  allow 
the  Khedive  to  carry  out  his  coup  d'etat  with  impunity.  On  the 
contrary,  despatch  after  despatch  was  sent  to  Cairo  both  by  Lord 
Salisbury  and  by  M.  Waddington  informing  his  Highness  in  diplomatic 
language  that  he  must  not  trespass  too  long  on  the  forbearance  of  the 
protecting  Powers.  I  am  not  saying  that  these  threats  would  have 
remained  a  mere  brutum  fulmen,  or  that  no  action  would  ulti- 
mately have  been  taken  even  if  Germany  had  not  interfered.  Of  all 
unprofitable  controversies  the  most  profitless  is  a  discussion  as  to 
what  would  have  happened  if  something  had  not  occurred  which  did 
occur.  All  one  can  say  is  that  the  difficulties  inseparable  from 
a  dual  Protectorate  hindered  any  prompt  acceptance  on  the  part  of 
England  and  France  of  the  challenge  thrown  down  by  the  Khedive. 
France  would  have  liked  to  interfere  at  once,  but  England  was  not 
prepared  for  any  decisive  action.  The  result  was  that  the  Khedive 
was  emboldened  to  disregard  the  warnings  duly  communicated  to  him 
by  Mr.  Vivian  and  M.  Godeaux  on  behalf  of  their  respective  Govern- 
ments. His  Highness,  in  consequence,  not  only  replaced  Prince 
Tewfik  as  Prime  Minister  by  Cherif  Pasha,  but  openly  declared  his 
resolution  of  doing  away  with  all  European  administrators  in  de- 
ference to  the  alleged  demand  of  native  Egyptian  opinion.  Finally, 
he  issued  a  decree  by  which  he  proposed  to  regulate  the  liabilities  of 
Egypt  according  to  his  own  free  will  and  pleasure. 

These  high-handed  measures  met  with  no  effectual  opposition  on 
the  part  of  either  England  or  France.  The  Porte  offered  to  depose 
the  Khedive  of  its  own  authority.  But  the  offer  met  with  no  favour 
at  the  time.  Protests  against  the  illegality  of  the  Khedive's  pro- 
ceedings were  duly  indited  both  in  London  and  Paris.  But  nothing 
was  done  to  give  effect  to  these  remonstrances.  Weeks  went  by,  and 
the  virtual  triumph  of  the  Khedive  seemed  assured,  when  suddenly 
the  German  Consul  at  Cairo  received  ^instructions  to  inform  his 
Highness  that  his  Government  considered  the  decrees  of  April  22  to 
be  null  and  void. 


1880.  OUR  EGYPTIAN  PROTECTORATE.  339 

How  this  action  came  about  has  never,  so  far  as  I  know,  been 
clearly  ascertained.  Germany  had  a  comparatively  insignificant  in- 
terest in  the  affairs  of  Egypt.  A  very  small  portion  of  the  floating 
debt  was  due  to  German  creditors.  It  is  not  easy  to  believe  that 
Germany  ever  really  contemplated  any  intervention  in  Egypt,  and  it 
is  still  less  easy  to  understand  how  she  could  practically  have  inter- 
vened even  if  she  had  been  so  minded.  But  the  prestige  of  Germany 
— her  repute  of  strength,  which  is  to  a  nation  what  credit  is  to  an 
individual — stood  her  in  good  stead.  The  mere  fact  that  Prince 
Bismarck  had  declared  the  Khedive  could  not  be  allowed  to  play 
fast  and  loose  with  the  interests  of  German  subjects  produced  more 
effect  than  all  the  despatches  indited  from  London  and  Paris  ;  and 
from  the  day  when  Germany  pronounced  against  the  Khedive  it  was 
obvious  that  the  end  had  come.  Meanwhile,  the  initiative  taken  by 
Germany  had  a  result  which  might  easily  have  been  foreseen,  and 
which  doubtless  was  foreseen  by  those,  whoever  they  may  have  been, 
who  suggested  to  Prince  Bismarck  the  advisability  of  his  coming 
forward  as  the  champion  of  the  Egyptian  creditors.  It  was  felt  at 
once  in  Paris  that  the  time  for  vacillation  had  passed.  The  Eepublic 
could  not  allow  it  to  be  said  that  France  was  unable  or  unwilling  to 
protect  the  interests  of  her  subjects  in  Egypt  while  the  insignificant 
interests  of  the  German  creditors  were  safeguarded  by  the  mere 
expression  of  Prince  Bismarck's  will ;  and  the  English  Govern- 
ment recognised,  on  the  one  hand,  that  France  could  not  be  held  back 
any  longer,  and  on  the  other  that  we  could  not  allow  Germany  to  take 
into  her  own  hands  the  forcible  solution  of  the  Egyptian  question. 
We  might  hesitate  about  the  expediency  of  'belling  the  cat'  at 
all,  but  if  it  was  to  be  belled,  the  belling  must  be  done  by  us.  Some 
time  before,  as  I  have  said,  the  Porte  had  offered  to  depose  the  Khedive 
if  such  a  course  of  action  would  be  agreeable  to  the  English  and  French 
Governments.  This  offer  was  now  accepted. 

The  moment  the  Governments  of  England  and  France  made  up 
their  minds  to  depose  the  Khedive  through  the  agency  of  the  Porte, 
the  whole  phantasmagoria  of  national  party,  Egyptian  nationality, 
popular  rising  on  behalf  of  the  native  Sovereign,  appeal  to  arms, 
resistance  to  the  death,  vanished  into  thin  air.  Somehow,  whenever  I 
think  of  Ismail  Pasha's  collapse,  I  am  irresistibly  reminded  of  Sam 
Slick's  story  of  the  coon,  who,  when  he  saw  the  famous  Colonel 
taking  aim,  called  out, '  Don't  trouble  yourself  to  fire,  Colonel ;  I  may 
as  well  come  down  at  once.'  Never  did  any  prince  '  come  down '  so 
readily  as  the  Khedive,  when  he  once  saw  that  his  assailants  were  in 
earnest.  The  reason  why  he  showed  no  fight  throws  a  valuable  light 
on  our  relations  with  Egypt.  It  would  be  a  mistake  to  attribute 
Ismail  Pasha's  collapse  to  lack  of  personal  courage.  I  should  doubt 
his  possessing  any  exceptional  physical  bravery,  but  he  had  to  a  remark- 
able degree  the  gambler's  instinct  and  the  gambler's  boldness.  He  was 


340  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  February 

not  the  man  to  forfeit  his  stakes  while  there  was  a  chance,  however 
remote,  of  holding  on  to  his  winnings.  He  threw  up  the  game 
simply  and  solely  because  he  knew  better  than  any  one  else  that  he 
had  absolutely  no  cards  in  his  hand.  In  our  sense  of  the  word 
nation,  there  can  hardly  be  said  to  be  an  Egyptian  nationality.  The 
population  of  Egypt  has  little  more  in  common  with  the  Turkish 
Pashas  by  whom  it  is  ruled  than  it  has  with  the  European  residents 
settled  in  the  country.  The  Fellaheen  are  the  easiest  people  in  the 
world  to  govern.  They  and  their  fathers  before  them  have  been  so 
ground  down  by  one  set  of  taskmasters  after  another  that  the 
possibility  of  resisting  the  orders  of  their  ruler,  be  he  who  he  may, 
hardly  enters  their  minds.  But  exactly  for  the  same  reason  they 
cannot  be  relied  upon  to  make  any  effort  whatever  to  defend  one  task- 
master against  another.  Thus  the  Government  of  Egypt  was  in 
reality  a  Court  without  a  nation  ;  and  with  this  Court  the  authority 
of  the  Sultan  was  greater  than  that  of  the  Khedive.  No  doubt  Ismail 
Pasha  was  justly  unpopular  with  the  Egyptians  on  account  of  his 
oppressions  and  exactions.  But  if  he  had  been  the  best  and  most 
beloved  of  rulers,  not  a  hand  would  have  been  raised  by  his  people  to 
protect  him  from  attack.  A  flock  of  sheep  are  easy  to  drive,  and 
may  possibly  prefer  one  shepherd  to  another,  but  they  will  not  take 
part  in  any  conflict  as  to  who  is  to  drive  and  fleece  them. 

If  the  Porte  could  have  had  its  own  way,  Halim  Pasha  would 
probably  have  been  substituted  for  Prince  Tewfik  on  the  deposition 
of  the  reigning  Viceroy,  But  the  Porte  in  this  matter  was  only  an 
agent,  not  a  principal.  The  reasons  why  Turkey  took  upon  herself 
the  duty  of  deposing  the  Khedive  were,  I  think,  of  a  complicated 
character.  In  the  first  place,  though  the  Porte  was  sublimely  in- 
different to  the  maladministration  of  Egypt,  yet  its  statesmen  were 
alive  to  the  discredit  brought  upon  all  Ottoman  financial  arrange- 
ments by  the  attitude  of  the  Khedive ;  in  the  second  place,  the 
Porte  conceived  that  by  volunteering  to  extricate  France  and 
England  from  an  awkward  dilemma  it  might  place  those  Powers 
under  an  obligation,  and  thereby  induce  them  to  favour  a  fresh 
loan ;  and,  finally,  the  Porte  was  well  aware  that  to  depose  the 
Khedive  itself  was  the  only  way  to  maintain  its  suzerainty  over 
Egypt.  The  Sultan  and  his  Ministers  saw  that,  after  the  action  of 
Germany,  France  and  England  had  no  choice  except  to  depose  the 
Viceroy.  If  they  did  this  themselves,  the  nominal  authority  of  the 
Porte  over  Egypt  was  at  an  end ;  and  as  Turkey  was  powerless  to 
hinder  the  Western  Powers  from  doing  what  they  thought  fit,  the 
best  course  for  her  was  to  make  a  merit  of  necessity,  and  take  upon 
herself  the  task  of  deposition. 

When  once  it  was  known  in  Cairo  that  the  Porte  had  determined 
to  bring  the  Khedive's  reign  to  an  end,  all  idea  of  resistance  was 
abandoned.  The  one  thought  of  everybody,  Ismail  Pasha  included, 


1880.  OUR   EGYPTIAN  PROTECTORATE.  341 

was  to  make  the  best  bargain  possible  under  the  circumstances ;  and 
here  ensued  a  sort  of  play  at  cross-purposes  which  was  not  devoid 
of  an  element  of  humour.  England  and  France  were  anxious  Ismail 
Pasha  should  obviate  the  actual  intervention  of  the  Porte  by 
abdicating  of  his  own  free  will  in  favour  of  his  son,  Prince  Tewfik. 
The  Porte  was  in  alarm  lest  Ismail  should  forestall  its  action  by 
resigning  the  crown  of  his  own  accord ;  and  the  Khedive  himself  was 
in  dire  perplexity  as  to  whether  he  could  make  better  terms  for 
himself  by  a  voluntary  abdication  or  by  forcible  deposition.  There 
seems  to  be  little  doubt  that  he  had  finally  decided  in  favour  of  the 
former  alternative,  but  that  while  he  was  standing  out  for  the 
guarantee  of  a  large  civil  list,  the  Porte  got  the  start,  and  decreed 
his  deposition.  The  play  was  played  out ;  and  the  Khedive  had 
been  out-finessed  by  the  Sultan.  Of  the  many  mortifications  of  his 
closing  years,  I  suspect  this  last  was  not  the  least.  It  is  only  fair  to 
say  here,  where  I  have  had  occasion  to  say  much  to  Ismail  Pasha's 
disfavour,  that  when  the  end  came  he  bore  himself  not  unworthily, 
nor  without  dignity.  Though  a  capricious  and  exacting,  he  was 
not  an  unkindly  master,  and  amongst  his  own  entourage,  his 
family,  the  women  of  his  harem,  and  his  slaves,  there  was  very 
genuine,  if  not  altogether  disinterested,  sorrow  expressed  and  felt  at 
his  downfall.  The  resident  European  community,  to  whom  he  had 
always  been  friendly,  and  who  had  partaken  freely  of  his  lavish 
hospitality,  stood  by  him  in  his  disgrace,  and  his  departure  into 
exile  was  accompanied  by  sincere  expressions  of  regret  on  the  part  of 
the  Court  circle  and  the  European  embassy,  but  without  one  solitary 
manifestation  of  sympathy  on  the  part  of  the  Egyptian  population. 

The  true  significance  of  the  act  by  which  Ismail  Pasha  had 
been  dethroned  was  not  fully  appreciated  at  once  out  of  Egypt, 
owing  to  the  fact  that  it  was  performed  in  the  name  of  the  Porte. 
Indeed,  at  the  time,  exception  was  taken  to  the  deposition  by  some 
English  critics,  who  seriously  argued  that  we  bad  replaced  Egypt 
under  the  rule  of  Turkey.  No  such  delusion  was  entertained  in  the 
East.  There  everybody  knew  that  the  Khedive  had  been  deposed 
simply  and  solely  by  the  will  of  England  and  France ;  that  the  real 
if  not  the  avowed  cause  of  his  deposition  was  his  refusal  to  submit  to 
the  authority  of  the  two  Governments ;  and  that  it  was  by  their 
orders  that  Prince  Tewfik  and  not  Prince  Halim  had  been  placed 
upon  the  vice-regal  throne.  In  other  words,  England  and  France 
had,  it  was  felt,  assumed  a  complete  protectorate  over  Egypt.  It  was 
upon  them,  in  consequence,  that  the  duty  devolved  of  deciding  how 
Egypt  should  be  administered  in  future.  Once  again,  the  vacilla- 
tion which  has  characterised  all  our  policy  with  respect  to  Egypt 
hindered  us  from  reaping  the  advantages  of  our  position.  As  the 
Khedive  had  been  deposed,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  because  he  had  dis- 
missed the  Anglo-French  Ministry  without  our  consent,  the  obvious 
VOL.  VII.— No.  36.  A  A 


342  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  February 

and  straightforward  course  would   have  been  to  insist  upon  the  dis- 
missed Ministers  being   reinstated  in  office.     This  was  the  course 
recommended  by  the  French  Government.     Our  own  Government, 
however,  demurred.     Parliament  was   sitting :    the  Opposition  were 
certain  to  make  capital  out  of  the  cry  that  when  we  had  troubles 
enough  upon  our  hands,  the  Government  were  taking  upon  themselves 
the  administration  of  Egypt :  and  the  instinct  of  the  Ministry  was  to 
avoid  any  act  which  could  bring  home  clearly  to  the  public  the 
extent  of  the  responsibility  we  had  assumed.     Let  me  say  here  that 
in  this    attempt    to   explain  the  policy  pursued  towards  Egypt,  I 
do  not  profess  to  write  with  any  official  information.     I  know  what 
was  done.     Why  it  was  done,  I  can  only  conjecture.     But  having 
been    in   close   and   constant   communication    with    several  of  the 
principal    actors   in   the    Egyptian    drama,    my    conjecture    is,    I 
may   fairly    say,    not    evolved    solely  or   mainly   out    of  my    own 
consciousness.      My   information,   then,   leads   me   to   believe    that 
upon    the    accession    of    Tewfik    Pasha   it    was  the    wish    of    our 
Ministry  to  interfere  as  little  as  possible  with  the  reorganisation  of 
the  Egyptian  Government.    To  leave  the  new  ruler  to  himself,  under 
the  belief  that  the  fate  of  his  predecessor  would  suffice  to  convince 
him  of  the  necessity  of  studying  the  interests  of  the  protecting  Powers, 
was  the  policy  which  found  favour  with  our  Foreign  Office,  and  it  was 
one,  I  admit  freely,  which  had  much  to  recommend  it.     Our  partner, 
however,  in  the  Protectorate,  was  not  of  the  same  opinion.    M.  Wad- 
dington  insisted  that  M.  de  Blignieres  must  be  virtually  reinstated. 
In  speaking  on  the  subject  in  conversation  about  this  time,  M.  Wad- 
•dington  remarked  to  an  Englishman :  '  Your  Government  must  think 
I  am  very  short-sighted  to  imagine  that  I  am  going  to  surrender  the 
vantage-ground  we  have  gained  in  Egypt.     The  great  achievement 
of  my  diplomacy  has  been  the  acquiring  for  France  in  Egypt  the 
influence  on  the  administration  of  the  country  to  which  she  is  justly 
•entitled,  and  that  influence  I  am  not  going  to  throw   away  simply 
because  it  does  not  suit  the  convenience  of  England  to  follow  out  our 
common  policy.'     Such,  I  have  reason  to  believe,  was  the  purport  of 
M.  Waddington's  language,  both  officially  and  unofficially.     At  all 
events,  he  stood  out  for  the  retention  of  M.  de  Blignieres'  services. 

The  result  was,  as  must  always  be  the  case  under  a  dual  Protecto- 
rate, that  a  compromise  was  agreed  upon  through  the  adoption  of  a 
medium  course,  of  which  neither  partner  altogether  approved.  It 
was  settled  that  England  and  France  should  not  insist  upon  the  rein- 
statement of  the  Anglo-French  Ministry,  but  that  they  should  insist 
upon  the  acceptance  by  the  Khedive  of  irremovable  Anglo-French 
Controllers,  M.  de  Blignieres  being  the  nominee  of  France.  The  young 
Viceroy,  with  whom  the  late  Minister  of  Public  Works  had  not  ingra- 
tiated himself,  protested  strongly  against  his  selection  for  the  post  of 
Controller.  But  the  French  Government  remained  firm,  and  Tewfik 


1880.  OUR  EGYPTIAN  PROTECTORATE.  343 

Pasha  had  to  give  way.  Major  Baring,  who  had  previously  rilled  the 
post  of  English  Commissioner  of  the  Public  Debt  with  great  ability, 
was  appointed  by  our  Government  as  M.  de  Blignieres'  colleague. 
The  appointment  was  unexceptionable  in  itself ;  but  the  fact  remained 
that  of  the  two  Anglo-French  Ministers,  who  had  followed  identically 
the  same  policy,  and  had  been  dismissed  under  identically  the  same 
circumstances,  the  French  Minister  was  reinstated  in  defiance  of  the 
wishes  of  the  Egyptian  Government :  the  English  was  shelved  in 
compliance  with  those  wishes.  Such  a  fact  could  not  fail  to  impress 
the  Egyptian  mind  with  the  conviction  that  France  was  more  to  be 
feared  than  England :  and  in  the  East  fear  and  respect  are  one  and 
the  same  thing. 

It  would  have  been  far  better  if  the  Controllers  had  proceeded  at 
once  to  discharge  their  functions.  Unfortunately,  their  return  to 
Egypt  was  delayed  by  causes  to  which  I  shall  presently  allude,  and  a 
sort  of  interregnum  ensued.  It  is  too  early  as  yet  to  predict 
with  any  certainty  what  character  the  new  Khedive  may  ultimately 
develope.  But  we  may  say,  without  any  courtly  flattery,  that 
so  far  he  has  given  strong  evidence  of  an  honest  desire  to  rule 
justly  and  loyally.  In  all  Oriental  countries,  an  heir  apparent  has 
necessarily  to  efface  himself,  and,  indeed,  one  of  the  many  curses 
of  the  Harem  system  is  that  there  is  and  can  be  no  real  confidence 
between  fathers  and  sons.  Moreover,  the  suspicious  character  of 
Ismail  Pasha's  mind  rendered  the  position  of  the  Crown  Prince  ex- 
ceptionally difficult.  So  long,  therefore,  as  his  father  reigned, 
Tewfik  Pasha  gave  little  indication  of  any  marked  individuality. 
Unlike  his  brothers,  he  had  hardly  ever  quitted  Egypt ;  he  had  been 
brought  up  under  native  influences,  and  what  education  he  had 
acquired  had  been  chiefly  self-imparted.  Suddenly  this  young  Prince 
was  called  from  enforced  retirement  to  become  the  reigning  sovereign 
of  Egypt.  He  has  accepted  the  position  as  a  serious  trust,  not  as  an 
opportunity  for  self-indulgence  or  display.  He  has  worked  very  hard, 
shown  an  extreme  desire  to  acquire  information,  has  led  a  singularly 
quiet  and  simple  life,  has  put  down  extravagance  as  far  as  it  lay  within 
his  own  power  to  do  so,  and  has  displayed  an  apparently  genuine  de- 
sire to  avoid  the  errors  of  his  father,  and  to  promote  the  good  of  the 
country.  I  doubt,  however,  whether,  as  time  goes  on,  Tewfik  will 
prove  as  ready  to  accept  the  advice  of  his  Ministers  and  Controllers 
as  he  has  proved  hitherto.  He  is,  if  I  mistake  not,  feeling  his  way. 
The  new  Khedive  is  a  strict  though  not  a  fanatical  Moslem ;  and 
he  has  no  personal  liking  for  the  European  entourage  with  which 
Ismail  Pasha  loved  to  surround  himself.  If  circumstances  should 
allow  free  scope  to  the  development  of  his  character  as  a  ruling 
Prince,  Tewfik  Pasha  will,  I  think,  be  found  to  have  a  will,  a  policy, 
and  ideas  of  his  own.  But  whether  any  such  development  will  be 
allowed  is  still  a  very  open  question. 

A  A  2 


344  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  February 

At  the  outset,  however,  of  his  career  as  Khedive,  Tewfik  Pasha  was 
not  in  a  position  to  make  his  personal  influence  felt.  For  some  time 
after  his  accession,  he  had  little  means  of  ascertaining  what  his  true 
status  was  to  be.  He  could  hardly  tell  whether  he  was  intended  by  the 
Powers  who  had  placed  him  upon  the  throne  to  be  a  dependent  of 
the  Porte,  or  the  docile  instrument  of  England  or  France,  or  a 
mere  locum  tenens  destined  to  be  thrown  aside  as  soon  as  his 
father  had  come  to  an  arrangement  with  his  creditors.  It  was  some 
time  before  the  reality  of  Ismail  Pasha's  fall  was  recognised  in 
Egypt.  The  deposed  Prince,  whatever  his  other  faults,  had  played  so 
great  a  part — had  so  completely  filled  the  Egyptian  stage — that 
his  countrymen,  and  his  own  kinsmen  above  all,  found  it  difficult  to 
believe  that  while  he  lived  he  could  cease  to  be  the  Effendina,  the 
Lord  and  Master.  Apart  from  this  general  sentiment,  in  which  he 
fully  shared,  Prince  Tewfik  was  aware  that  his  father  was  engaged  in 
active  intrigues  at  Constantinople  to  obtain  permission  to  reside  in 
Egypt.  So  long  as  there  seemed  a  possibility  that  these  intrigues 
might  be  crowned  with  success,  Tewfik's  tenure  of  the  throne  was  in- 
secure, and  his  dominant  idea  in  the  early  days  of  his  reign  was  to  do 
nothing  which  might  cut  him  off  from  the  possibility  of  a  reconcilia- 
tion with  the  ex-Khedive  in  the  event  of  his  recovering  the  throne. 

Under  these  circumstances  Tewfik  retained  Cherif  Pasha  as  his 
Prime  Minister,  and  allowed  the  administration  of  the  country  to 
remain  in  the  hands  of  the  Turkish  Pashas  who  had  been  his  father's 
chief  partisans  and  adherents.  The  result  was  that  things  went  on  for  a 
time  in  much  the  same  way  as  before,  and  that  the  deposition  of  the 
ex-Khedive  effected  little  or  no  immediate  alteration  in  the  internal 
condition  of  Egypt.  This  result  is  to  be  regretted,  as  it  tended  to 
obscure  the  significance  of  this  act  of  State  justice  in  popular  appre- 
hension, and  threw  doubt  on  the  ability  of  the  protecting  Powers  to 
carry  through  the  policy  they  were  supposed  to  have  adopted. 
However,  though  it  would  have  been  better  if  Prince  Tewfik  upon  his 
accession  had  entrusted  the  Administration  either  to  Nubar  or  Kiaz 
Pasha,  or  some  statesman  who  was  identified  in  popular  appre- 
ciation with  the  new  order  of  things,  in  contradistinction  to  Cherif, 
who  was  associated  with  the  old  regime,  no  serious  harm  was  done. 
The  course  of  events  soon  showed  that  after  Vhat  had  come  and 
gone  it  was  impossible  for  the  protecting  Powers  to  pursue  any 
longer  a  policy  of  non-intervention ;  and  a  scheme  was  devised 
between  Paris  and  London  for  the  future  administration  of  Egypt. 
It  was  settled,  as  I  have  already  stated,  that  two  Controllers  should 
be  appointed.  It  was  further  agreed  that  a  Commission  of  Liquida- 
tion should  be  called  into  being  to  effect  an  arrangement  between 
Egypt  and  her  creditors.  As  an  almost  necessary  corollary  of  those 
arrangements,  it  was  agreed  at  the  instance  of  the  French  Government 
that  Mr.  Vivian  should  not  return  to  his  post,  but  should  be  replaced 


1880.  OUR  EGYPTIAN  PROTECTORATE.  345 

by  some  one  who  was  willing  to  co-operate  more  cordially  with  the 
European  Controllers.  If  the  matter  had  been  decided  by  the  wishes 
of  people  on  the  spot,  Mr.  Vivian,  I  may  say  here,  would  have  been 
succeeded  by  Mr.  Lascelles,  who  had  acted  as  Consul- General  in  the 
absence  of  Mr.  Vivian,  and  had  won  general  regard  and  confidence 
by  his  good  sense,  good  temper,  and  straightforward  loyalty.  The 
traditions,  however,  of  the  diplomatic  service  were  opposed  to  any  such 
disregard  of  routine,  and  Mr.  Lascelles  was  promoted  to  Bulgaria, 
while  Mr.  Malet,  one  of  the  most  eminent  of  the  younger  generation 
of  our  diplomatists,  was  sent  to  Cairo.  So  far,  I  may  add,  Mr.  Malet's 
conduct  of  very  difficult  negotiations  has  fully  justified  the  wisdom  of 
his  selection. 

In  the  East  acts  count  for  much  more  than  words  ;  and  the  recall 
of  M.  Tricou,  the  French  Consul,  and  the  removal  of  his  colleague 
Mr.  Vivian,  who  had  both  been  partisans  of  the  Turkish  party,  did 
more  than  all  the  despatches  which  had  been  written  to  convince 
Tewfik  Pasha  that  with  his  father's  deposition  it  was  not  only  an 
individual  but  a  system  which  had  been  overthrown.  Cherif  Pasha 
was  dismissed,  and  Eiaz  Pasha,  the  ex-Minister  of  the  Interior  under 
the  Wilson-De  Blignieres  administration,  was  placed  in  his  stead. 
The  more  obvious  course  under  the  circumstances  would  have  been 
to  recall  Nubar,  the  one  statesman  whom  Egypt  possesses,  and  the 
man  who  had  done  most,  directly  as  well  as  indirectly,  to  free  Egypt  from 
the  incubus  of  the  late  Khedive.  But  many  considerations  militated 
against  Nubar's  return  to  power.  As  an  Armenian  and  a  Christian, 
he  was  singularly  obnoxious  to  the  Turkish  entourage  of  the  Palace. 
Tewfik  Pasha  himself  probably  inherited  something  of  the  mixed 
sentiment  of  dislike  and  fear  with  which  his  father  had  regarded 
the  Egyptian  Minister  who  had  made  himself  a  European  reputa- 
tion. And  the  Alexandrian  community  were  from  various  reasons 
unfavourable  to  Nubar's  marked  individuality.  But  all  these  con- 
siderations would  have  been  of  little  weight,  if  the  English  and  French 
Governments  had  been  desirous  of  Nubar's  restoration  to  power. 
They  felt,  however— perhaps  not  altogether  without  reason — that  their 
new  system,  by  which  they  were  to  direct  the  administration  of 
Egypt  through  the  agency  of  native  Ministers  placed  under  the  super- 
vision of  the  Anglo-French  Controllers,  would  be  more  likely  to  succeed 
if  the  Egyptian  Premier  were  a  man  of  Jess  individual  and  inde- 
pendent authority  than  Nubar  possessed.  Indeed,  this  sentiment  was 
so  strongly  entertained  at  Paris  that  Nubar  s  return  from  exile  was 
retarded  for  many  months  on  the  demand  of  the  French  Foreign 
Office.  No  greater  proof  could  be  afforded  of  the  extent  to  which 
our  dual  Protectorate  over  Egypt  has  been  carried  than  the  fact  that 
the  period  at  which  Nubar  should  be  allowed  to  return  to  reside  on 
his  own  property  in  his  own  country  was  settled,  not  at  Cairo  by  the 
Khedive,  but  at  Paris  bv  M.  Waddin<rton. 


346  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  February 

Moreover,  Eiaz's  qualifications  for  the  post  he  was  called  to  fill 
were  positive  as  well  as  negative.  A  native-born  Egyptian,  he  had 
risen  to  eminence  in  the  public  service  by  his  ability  and  industry, 
and  had  acquired  a  well-deserved  reputation  for  integrity  and  good 
faith.  As  an  orthodox  though  liberal  Mahometan,  he  was  viewed  with 
less  disfavour  than  Nubar  by  the  Turkish  party,  while  his  intimate 
knowledge  of  the  people,  his  kindliness  of  disposition,  and  his  manifest 
desire  to  promote  the  public  good  made  him  acceptable  to  the  native 
population.  He  had  travelled  a  good  deal  abroad,  was  well  educated 
according  to  an  Eastern  standard,  and  had  brought  back  with  him 
from  his  recent  exile  in  Europe  a  strong  conviction  that  the  only 
safety  for  Egypt  lay  in  complying  with  the  policy  of  the  Powers  who 
had  assumed  the  protection  of  her  interests. 

Thus  the  appointment  of  Riaz  Pasha  to  the  presidency  of  the  new 
native  Ministry  facilitated  the  control  which  England  and  France  in- 
tended to  exercise  over  Egyptian  affairs.  The  Controllers  did  not  return 
to  their  posts  till  the  new  Ministry  had  been  for  some  months  in  office. 
In  their  absence  nothing  could  be  done.  It  was  understood  that  no 
definite  or  permanent  arrangement  of  any  kind  should  be  made  till  after 
their  arrival ;  and  therefore  during  the  interregnum  which  ensued  every- 
thing that  could  be  adjourned  was  put  off,  as  little  was  done  as  possible, 
and  the  new  system  of  administration  was  in  consequence  discredited 
to  some  degree,  both  at  home  and  abroad,  by  the  delays,  embarrass- 
ments, and  complications  inseparable  from  a  prolonged  period  of  sus- 
pended action.  Happily,  the  unusual  bountifulness  of  the  harvest  re- 
stored prosperity  to  Egypt.  For  the  first  time  since  the  accession  of 
Ismail  Pasha,  the  Fellaheen  were  not  harassed  or  coerced  for  payment 
of  taxes  in  advance.  Thus  at  the  very  moment  that  the  marvellous 
plenty  of  the  crop  was  yielding  exceptional  returns  to  the  tiller  of 
the  soil,  the  proceeds  were  allowed  to  accumulate  in  his  hands.  The 
remissness  in  the  collection  of  taxes  tended  no  doubt  to  aggravate 
the  financial  difficulties  of  the  Egyptian  Treasury.  But  it  gave  the 
country  a  sort  of  breathing  time  which  had  long  been  needed.  Any 
one  who  has  resided  in  Egypt  during  the  last  few  months  could  not 
fail  to  be  struck  by  the  anomaly  that  while  the  country  was  literally 
overflowing  with  wealth,  the  State  was  approaching  the  lowest 
stage  of  financial  embarrassment.  This  anarchy,  however,  was  rather 
apparent  than  real.  The  cause  of  the  immediate  difficulties  of  Egypt 
was  the  existence  of  a  floating  debt  which  there  were  no  funds  forthcom- 
ing to  meet.  A  landowner  with  an  estate  which,  after  all  the  mortgages 
are  paid,  yields  him  ten  thousand  a  year  would  be  solvent  eve*n  if  he 
owed  a  year's  income.  But  if  this  ten  thousand  pounds  of  debt  con- 
sisted of  any  number  of  claims  the  owners  of  which  were  clamouring 
for  payment ;  if  all  his  available  cash  was  locked  up  ;  and  if  he  was 
unable  to  raise  any  further  mortgage  on  his  estates,  he  might,  though 
fully  able  to  meet  his  liabilities  in  time,  yet  be  in  a  state  of  extreme 


1880.  OUR  EGYPTIAN  PROTECTORATE.  347 

embarrassment.  This  was  very  much  the  plight  of  Egypt  last  summer. 
The  floating  debt  which  had  been  created  by  Ismail  Pasha  in  defiance 
of  his  plighted  word  had  long  been  an  incubus  on  the  revenues  of 
Egypt.  When  Mr.  Wilson  undertook  the  Ministership  of  Finance  his 
first  step  was  to  raise  "a  loan  through  Messrs.  Eothschild  for  the  pur- 
pose of  paying  off  the  unfunded  debt.  This  loan  was  secured,  or  supposed 
to  be  secured,  upon  the  estates  ceded  by  the  Khedive  and  his  family  to 
the  State.  It  turned  out,  however,  that,  according  to  Egyptian  law, 
a  mortgage  could  not  be  legally  effected  on  these  estates  without  a 
precise  description  of  their  locality  and  dimensions.  In  a  country 
where  no  cadastre  existed,  the  work  of  specifying  the  area  and  situa- 
tion of  nearly  a  million  acres  necessarily  occupied  a  long  time  ;  and 
thus,  though  the  Khedivial  estates  were  ceded  to  the  State  early  in 
November,  it  was  not  till  the  beginning  of  February  that  they  could 
formally  be  assigned  to  Messrs.  Eothschild  by  a  duly  registered  mort- 
gage. In  the  interval  a  number  of  creditors,  who  had  obtained 
judgments  against  the  State  in  the  International  Courts,  attached 
certain  portions  of  the  ceded  domain  for  amounts  the  total  of  which 
was  nearer  two  millions  than  one.  The  Egyptian  Government  dis- 
puted the  validity  of  these  attachments,  on  the  ground  that  the  Khedive 
had  surrendered  his  estates  to  the  State  for  the  explicit  purpose  of 
paying  off  the  floating  debt,  and  that  the  loan  had  been  granted  for 
this  object,  on  the  understanding  that  by  the  act  of  cession  the 
estates  were  handed  over  to  the  issuers  of  the  loan.  This  contention 
was  admitted  by  the  Court  of  First  Instance  in  Egypt,  but  was  rejected 
on  appeal  to  the  Supreme  Court.  This  court,  under  the  direction  of 
S.  Lapenna,  the  experienced  Italian  jurist,  who  presides  over  the 
International  tribunals,  decided  that  the  moment  the  Khedive's 
private  lands  were  ceded  to  the  State  they  became  public  property, 
and  could  be  sequestered  by  any  judgment  creditor  as  security  for  his 
debt.  There  was  also  reason  to  doubt,  according  to  the  judgment  of 
the  court — though  this  point  was  never  clearly  determined — whether 
the  mortgage  in  favour  of  the  Rothschild  loan  could  be  considered  to 
have  priority  over  the  claims  of  other  creditors,  whose  debts  had 
been  contracted  previous  to  the  issue  of  the  loan,  but  who  had  not 
obtained  judgment.  Under  these  circumstances,  Messrs.  Rothschild 
refused  to  pay  over  the  balance  of  the  loan,  amounting  to  about 
4,000,000^.,  till  the  validity  of  their  mortgage  had  been  established 
beyond  the  possibility  of  doubt.  The  default  in  this  anticipated 
payment  upset  all  the  financial  arrangements  of  the  Anglo-French 
Ministry,  and  contributed  in  no  small  degree  to  their  downfall.  The 
first  object,  therefore,  of  the  Controllers,  was  to  obtain  a  settlement 
of  this  legal  difficulty,  so  as  to  enter  into  possession  of  the  funds 
required  to  meet  the  overdue  engagements  of  the  Government. 

It  was  so  clearly  and  manifestly  the  interest  of  Egypt  that  the 
funds  borrowed  for  the  purpose  of  relieving  the  State  from  pressing 


348  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  February 

liabilities  should  be  devoted  to  this  object,  and  not  diverted  to  the 
profit  of  individual  creditors,  that  in  any  other  civilised  country  in  the 
world  the  Solus  Reipublicce  doctrine  would  have  been  held  to  justify 
the  over-riding  of  the  strict  letter  of  the  law.  But  the  relations  be- 
tween the  State  and  the  law  courts  in  Egypt  are  such  as  are  without  a 
parallel  elsewhere.  In  Egypt,  as  in  every  other  part  of  the  Ottoman 
Empire,  the  Capitulations  had  given  jurisdiction  over  all  suits  in 
which  Europeans  were  involved  to  the  Consular  Courts  of  their 
respective  countries.  These  Capitulations,  which  were  created  as  a 
protection  to  foreigners  when  the  Christian  was  weak  and  the 
Turk  was  strong,  had  become  an  agency  of  oppression  against  the 
natives  as  the  Christian  had  become  strong  and  the  Turk  weak. 
Under  the  consular  jurisdiction,  especially  as  administered  by  the 
representatives  of  the  minor  Powers,  there  was  neither  law  nor  justice 
in  Egypt.  The  great  achievement  of  Nubar  Pasha  as  Prime  Minister 
was  his  success  in  inducing  the  European  Powers  to  surrender — or, 
more  correctly  speaking,  to  suspend — this  anomalous  jurisdiction. 
England  supported  Nubar  Pasha  actively  in  his  efforts  for  this 
purpose  ;  and  in  1876  the  Powers  agreed  to  substitute  for  their 
separate  courts  a  system  of  International  tribunals,  the  judges  in 
which  were  nominated  by  them.  The  reform  has,  on  the  whole, 
worked  admirably,  and  the  International  Courts,  in  which  justice  is 
administered  promptly,  fairly,  and  economically,  form  the  basis  of 
the  prosperity  and  development  of  Egypt.  There  is,  however,  one 
grave  objection  to  their  practical  working,  the  existence  of  which  was 
not  foreseen  at  the  time  of  their  formation.  The  tribunals  are  bound 
to  execute  the  law  as  laid  down  in  a  code  based  almost  entirely  upon 
the  French  law.  No  agency  is  provided  by  which  this  code  can  be 
modified  in  the  slightest  particular,  no  matter  how  paramount  the 
necessity,  without  the  consent  of  every  one  of  the  Powers  represented 
in  the  International  tribunals.  Supposing,  for  instance,  owing  to 
war  or  famine,  or  any  other  calamity,  it  became  necessary,  as  is  done 
under  like  circumstances  in  other  countries,  to  arrest  for  a  time  all 
legal  proceedings  in  respect  of  State  debts,  the  Egyptian  Government 
has  absolutely  no  power  to  take  such  a  measure  in  self-defence,  if 
Holland  or  Greece  should  decline  to  agree  with  all  the  other  Powers 
of  Europe  in  authorising  the  courts  to  sanction  a  Moratorium. 

Thus,  in  order  to  get  over  the  technical  difficulty  which, 
with  or  without  reason,  had  interfered  with  the  legal  assignment  of 
the  Domain  estates  to  the  creditors  of  the  Eothschild  loan,  it  was, 
necessary  to  obtain  the  assent  of  some  dozen  Powers  to  a  decree 
rendering  this  assignment  beyond  the  possibility  of  further  dispute. 

The  task  of  obtaining  this  assent  was  undertaken  by  the  Controllers. 
It  was  not  an  easy  task.  The  jealousy  with  which  the  Anglo-French 
Protectorate  over  Egypt  was  naturally  regarded  by  the  other 
Mediterranean  Powers  caused  them  to  view  with  disfavour  any 


1880.  OUR  EGYPTIAN  PROTECTORATE.  349 

proposal  which  was  calculated  to  facilitate  its  operation.  Austria 
and  Italy  took  the  lead  in  the  opposition  to  the  policy  of  the 
Controllers ;  and  though  their  interests  in  Egypt  are  insignificant 
compared  with  those  of  the  Western  Powers,  their  right  of 
refusing  to  hear  of  any  modification  in  the  International  code 
made  them  practically  masters  of  the  situation.  If  it  had  not 
been  for  the  active  exertions  of  the  French  and  English  Governments, 
and  the  immense  influence  wielded  by  the  great  house  of  Rothschild, 
the  sanction  of  the  malcontent  Powers  could  not  have  been  obtained. 
It  was  only  with  great  difficulty  that  MM.  Baring  and  De  Blignieres, 
after  a  series  of  protracted  negotiations  conducted  by  them  person- 
ally at  Vienna,  could  obtain  a  compromise.  In  virtue  of  this  com- 
promise all  the  judgment  debts,  in  respect  of  which  portions  of  the 
Domain  land  had  been  attached  prior  to  the  conclusion  of  the  specific 
mortgage  of  these  lands  to  the  Rothschilds  on  the  3rd  of  February, 
1879,  were  to  be  paid  in  full  out  of  the  unpaid  balance  of  this 
loan ;  but  in  respect  of  all  other  debts,  the  Rothschild  loan  was  to  be 
considered  a  first  charge  upon  the  Domain  lands.  Germany  and  Italy 
followed  in  this  matter  the  decision  of  Austria ;  but  even  after  a 
decree  based  upon  this  compromise  had  been  framed  and  signed  at 
Cairo  by  the  representatives  of  the  Great  Powers,  its  execution  had  to 
be  delayed  for  some  time  longer,  because  Greece  hesitated  about 
conceding  her  consent  to  its  provisions.  The  difficulty  attending 
this  comparatively  simple  issue  explains  the  failure  of  the  Controllers 
in  carrying  through  the  more  important  part  of  their  mission  to 
Vienna.  As  I  have  stated,  the  appointment  of  the  Controllers  was, 
according  to  the  Anglo-French  programme,  to  be  supplemented  by 
the  institution  of  a  Commission  of  Liquidation,  of  which  Mr.  Rivers 
Wilson  was  to  be  president,  and  in  which  the  representatives  of 
England  and  France  were  to  have  the  majority  of  votes.  This  Com- 
mission was,  it  was  understood,  to  recommend  the  reduction  of  the 
interest  on  the  Unified  Debt,  the  consolidation  of  the  various  small 
loans,  the  abolition  of  the  Moukabala,  the  settlement  of  the  out- 
standing floating  debt  upon  reasonable  terms,  and  a  number  of 
minor  reforms  which  are  essential  to  the  establishment  of  any  financial 
equilibrium  in  Egypt.  These  recommendations,  however,  must,  as  I 
have  already  explained,  remain  mere  expressions  of  opinion,  unless 
they  are  accepted  as  binding  by  the  International  courts ;  and  the 
courts  could  not  so  accept  them  without  authority  from  their  prin- 
cipals— that  is,  from  the  Powers  by  whom  they  were  called  into 
existence.  In  order  to  evade  this  difficulty  England  and  France 
proposed  that  the  Powers  represented  in  the  International  tribunals 
should  agree  beforehand  to  accept  the  report  of  the  Commission  as 
binding  upon  the  tribunals.  Tins  proposal,  however,  met  with  point- 
blank  resistance  on  the  part  of  Austria  and  Italy.  They  refused  to 
submit  the  interests  of  their  subjects  who  were  creditors  of  Egypt, 


350  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY.  February 

to  the  decision  of  a  body  in  which  England  and  France  were  supreme, 
and  intimated  that  their  consent  to  any  such  arrangement  must 
be  conditional  on  such  an  introduction  of  new  elements  into  the 
Egyptian  administration  as  would  convert  the  Anglo-French  Pro- 
tectorate into  an  International  one.  Under  these  circumstances,  the 
idea  of  any  Commission  of  Liquidation  had  to  be  abandoned,  at  any 
rate  for  the  time.  It  is  worth  adding  that  these  negotiations,  in  which 
Egypt  was  the  chief  party  interested,  were  conducted  exclusively  by  the 
Anglo-French  Controllers  in  Europe,  acting  under  instructions  from 
their  own  Governments,  and  almost  without  communication  with  the 
Government  of  Cairo.  I  do  not  dispute  the  expediency  of  the  mode 
in  which  these  negotiations  were  carried  through,  but  if  the  exercise 
of  such  powers  does  not  constitute  a  Protectorate,  I  fail  to  under- 
stand the  meaning  of  words. 

Simultaneously  with  the  decree  regulating  the  legal  status  of  the 
Domain  lands  mortgaged  to  the  Rothschild  loan,  the  Egyptian 
Government  issued  a  decree  defining  the  position  of  the  Controllers. 
If  ever  the  correspondence  which  passed  at  this  period  between  Cairo, 
Paris  and  London  should  be  made  public  in  its  entirety,  it  will  be 
found  that  the  Khedive  and  his  Ministers  did  their  utmost  to  modify 
the  stringency  of  the  4erms  in  which  the  authority  accorded  to  the 
Controllers  is  defined,  but  were  baffled  by  the  steadfast  resistance 
of  the  protecting  Powers.  The  authority  finally  conceded  resembles 
closely  that  exercised  by  the  Resident  in  a  protected  Native  State 
of  British  India.  The  controllers  have  a  right  to  be  present  at 
the  Councils  of  the  Ministry,  to  demand  information  and  offer  advice 
on  any  matter  affecting  in  any  way  the  financial  condition  of  the 
country ;  they  are  empowered  to  appoint  resident  inspectors,  who 
are  to  report  to  them,  not  to  the  Ministers,  and  to  hold  office  during 
their  own  pleasure ;  and  they  are  authorised  to  refer  any  disregard  of 
their  advice  to  the  diplomatic  representatives  of  their  two  countries. 
The  Controllers  themselves  are  immovable,  except  with  the  consent 
of  France  and  England ;  though  Egypt  has  still  been  allowed  the 
privilege  of  paying  their  salaries.  I  do  not  complain  of  these  powers 
as  excessive.  I  think  the  existence  of  some  such  European  control 
as  that  exercised  by  M.  de  Blignieres  and  Major  Baring  is  essential  to 
the  welfare  of  Egypt,  situated  as  she  is.  But,  when  I  am  told  that 
the  Court  and  the  Pashas,  who  compose  the  national  party,  prefer 
the  system  of  Anglo-French  Controllers  to  that  of  Anglo-French 
Ministers,  as  constituting  a  smaller  interference  with  their  indepen- 
dence, I  can  only  say  that  the  Egyptians  in  this  case  are  far  less 
shrewd  than  my  acquaintance  with  them  has  led  me  to  believe.  If 
it  is  so,  Rehoboam  was  right  after  all  in  his  theory  of  Oriental 
government. 

The  events  which  have  occurred  since  the  Controllers  began  to 
exercise  their  functions  in  earnest  are  of  too  recent  a  date,  and   of 


1880.  OUR  EGYPTIAN  PROTECTORATE.  351 

too  incomplete  a  character,  to  require  recapitulation  for  my  present 
purpose.  The  sudden  access  of  prosperity  in  Egypt  which  has 
coincided  with  their  advent  to  power  is,  I  think,  due  to  three  causes — 
the  unexampled  richness  of  the  crops  ;  the  extent  to  which,  under  the 
new  Khedive,  the  country  has  been  ruled  with  reasonable  justice  and 
humanity ;  and  the  fact  that  for  the  first  time  the  authority  of  the 
European  element  has  been  distinctly  and  explicitly  recognised  as  a 
principal  factor  in  the  administration  of  Egypt.  So  far,  every 
single  important  act  of  the  Government  has  been  made  with  the 
advice  and  under  the  direct  supervision  of  the  Controllers ;  and 
as  long  as  this  remains  the  case,  there  is  full  security  for  the  admin- 
istration of  the  State  being  conducted  with  tolerable  efficiency  and 
honesty.  The  settlement  by  which  the  Controllers  propose  to 
liquidate  the  financial  difficulties  of  Egypt  is  now  before  the  world. 
It  is  a  fair  and  reasonable  scheme,  and  has  been  accepted  as  such  by 
public  opinion.  How  it  is  to  be  carried  out  in  practice  remains  to 
be  seen.  The  Powers  represented  on  the  International  tribunals 
will  shortly  be  called  upon  to  approve  a  decree  recognising  the 
above  scheme  as  binding  on  the  courts ;  and  this  demand  will  be 
actively  supported  by  England  and  France.  If  the  Powers  accept, 
well  and  good  ;  but  if  they  decline  from  the  same  causes  as  induced 
them  to  reject  the  Commission  of  Liquidation,  there  is  only  one 
way  left  of  escaping  from  the  deadlock  to  which  the  financial  affairs 
of  Egypt  will  have  been  brought.  The  International  courts  were 
only  established  for  five  years  as  an  experiment,  though  it  was 
understood  that  if  they  proved  a  success  they  would  be  made 
permanent.  Now,  if  England  and  France  were  to  withdraw  from 
the  tribunals,  the  result  would  be  that  the  old  consular  courts 
would  resume  their  jurisdiction ;  and  under  this  jurisdiction,  op- 
pressive as  it  was  in  many  respects,  no  action  could  lie  against 
the  State,  and  no  judgment  enforced  on  State  property.  If,  there- 
fore, the  International  tribunals  should  be  brought  to  an  end,  the 
creditors  of  Egypt  would  have  no  legal  means  of  enforcing  payment, 
and  England  and  France  have  it  in  their  power  to  bring  these  courts 
to  an  end  in  a  year's  time,  at  the  very  longest.  The  subject  of  the 
International  courts  is  far  too  wide  a  one  to  be  entered  upon  cursorily. 
It  is  enough  to  say  that  almost  anything  would  be  less  disastrous  for 
Egypt  than  the  re-establishment  of  the  old  Capitulations  ;  and  if  the 
financial  difficulties  bequeathed  by  the  late  Khedive  to  his  country 
can  only  be  settled  on  a  satisfactory  basis  by  allowing  the  consular 
courts  of  the  minor  Powers  to  resume  their  old  jurisdiction,  the 
remedy  would  be  far  worse  than  the  evil  it  was  intended  to  cure. 

My  object  in  this  article  has  been  to  call  attention  to  the  direct 
and  comprehensive  character  of  the  Protectorate  we  have  assumed 
over  Egypt  in  conjunction  with  France.  In  common  with  every  one 
who  has  at  heart  the  welfare  of  the  Mle  land,  I  am  reluctant  to 


352  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY.  February 

say  anything  which  may  increase  the  difficulties  inseparable  from  the 
task  the  two  Governments  have  undertaken.  But  it  is  obvious  that 
the  efficiency  of  the  Protectorate  depends  absolutely  upon  the  two 
protecting  Powers  working  cordially  together.  The  result  of  this 
dual  arrangement  has  been  undoubtedly  to  give  a  great  increase  to 
French  authority  and  influence  in  Egypt.  From  the  purchase  of  the 
Suez  Canal  shares  up  to  the  date  when  Ismail  Pasha  was  allowed  to 
dismiss  the  Anglo-French  Ministry  with  impunity,  English  influence 
was  paramount  in  Egypt.  Since  that  period  France  has  got  precedence 
over  us  in  every  respect.  I  regret  this  result,  not  so  much  as  an 
Englishman,  as  because,  from  causes  into  which  I  need  not  enter, 
English  influence  is  on  the  whole  more  beneficial  than  French  to  the 
development  of  Egypt.  But  I  have  little  fear  as  to  the  ultimate 
result.  The  interests  of  England  in  Egypt,  both  political  and  com- 
mercial, are  so  immeasurably  superior  to  those  of  France  that  in  the 
long  run  England  and  not  France  must  always  claim  the  supremacy. 
The  reason  why  I  allude  to  this  struggle  for  influence,  in  which  France 
for  the  time  has  obtained  the  upper  hand,  is  to  show  one  of  the 
permanent  difficulties  inseparable  from  any  joint  Protectorate.  Major 
Baring  and  M.  de  Blignieres  have  hitherto  worked  together  with  a  har- 
mony that  does  every  credit  to  their  good  sense  and  honesty  of 
purpose.  The  entente  cordiale  between  the  two  Governments  of 
London  and  Paris  has  been  successfully  maintained  in  Egypt,  partly 
because  our  interests  in  other  parts  of  the  world  have  led  us  to  act 
together,  partly  because  England  has  in  the  end  always  given  way  to 
France  whenever  there  was  any  difference  of  opinion  with  respect  to 
Egyptian  affairs.  But  this  Anglo-French  understanding  cannot  be 
expected  to  last  for  ever,  and  whenever  it  ceases  to  exist  the  authority 
of  the  joint  control  falls  to  the  ground.  Italy,  Austria,  Greece, 
Russia,  and  all  the  Powers  who  view  with  ill-will  the  supremacy  we 
have  established  over  Egypt,  are  on  the  look-out  for  any  dissension 
between  England  and  France  which  may  enable  them  to  overthrow 
this  supremacy  ;  and  no  native  prince,  whoever  he  may  be,  will  be 
able  to  resist  the  temptation  of  seizing  any  opportunity  to  emancipate 
himself  from  the  unwelcome  control  of  the  protecting  Powers.  Thus, 
though  the  experiment  of  an  allied  Protectorate  has  worked  well  so 
far,  and  is  perhaps  the  best  that  could  have  been  adopted  under  the 
circumstances,  it  is  fraught  with  complications  in  the  future,  both  in 
Egypt  and  elsewhere,  which  England  might  have  avoided  by  a  bolder 
and,  as  I  deem,  a  wiser  policy.  As  it  is,  we  have  assumed  all  the 
responsibilities  of  a  Protectorate  without  the  power  which  its  direct 
assumption  would  have  bestowed  upon  us. 

EDWARD  DICEY. 


1880.  353 


ON  HISTORICAL   PSYCHOLOGY. 

TJIE  investigation  of  the  origin  and  primitive  condition  of  the  Mind, 
the  '  innateness  '  or  derivedness  of  its  ideas  or  faculties,  has  occupied  a 
considerable  space  in  modern  European  philosophy  from  the  publica- 
tion of  Locke's  famous  treatise  to  the  present  time.  In  England 
especially,  during  the  last  thirty  years,  under  the  influence  of  the 
Mills,  Bain,  Spencer,  Lewes,  and  other  writers  of  the  dominant 
school,  it  has  been  thought  that  the  study  of  the  conditions,  physical 
and  psychical,  under  which  different  species  of  mental  phenomena  are 
empirically  found  to  manifest  themselves,  must  necessarily  lead  to 
conclusions  of  fundamental  importance  in  metaphysics  and  ethics  : 
indeed  it  is  often  taken  for  granted  in  current  controversy  that  the 
view  which  any  one  takes  of  the  '  association  of  ideas  '  or  the  '  evolu- 
tion of  faculties '  will  determine  the  answer  which  he  gives  to  the 
deepest  questions  as  to  Being,  Knowledge,  and  Duty.  The  aim  of 
the  present  paper  is  to  show  that  this  common  presumption  is  really 
unfounded.  The  inquiry  into  the  conditions  under  which  any  class 
of  mental  phenomena  are  produced  has  doubtless  very  considerable 
interest,  both  speculative  and  practical :  the  history  of  minds 
should  be  studied  as  much  as,  or  more  than,  any  other  history, 
and  the  art  of  education  and  the  important  branch  of  Ethics  which 
relates  to  self-culture  must  be  to  a  great  extent  based  upon  it ; 
but  it  belongs  rather  to  Psychology  regarded  as  a  special  department 
of  empirical  science,  than  to  the  supreme,  architectonic  study  which 
we  call  Philosophy.  In  saying  this  I  do  not  mean  to  assert  that  there 
is  no  conceivable  knowledge  as  to  the  origin  of  minds  which  would 
have  profound  philosophical  importance.  For  instance,  it  must  be 
admitted  that  if  we  could  prove  that  minds  were  directly  created  at 
or  before  birth,  or  had  existed  during  eternity  a  parte  ante,  and  if 
we  could  ascertain  ivhat  it  was  that  had  had  this  eternal  existence  or 
transcendental  origin,  our  metaphysical  and  ethical  inquiries  would 
obtain  an  entirely  new  starting  point.  My  contention  is  that  no 
such  result  is  likely  to  be  produced  by  any  conclusions  that  we  can 
reasonably  suppose  to  be  scientifically  attainable,  as  to  the  origin 
either  of  mind  generally,  or  of  any  particular  mental  elements  or 
attributes. 


354  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  February 

"We  may  perhaps  distinguish  three  philosophical  questions,  on  the 
discussion  of  which  theories  of  the  origin  of  mental  facts  have  been 
supposed  to  exercise  a  preponderant  influence.  There  is,  first,  the 
fundamental  question  as  to  the  nature  and  mutual  relations  of  Mind 
and  Matter,  the  two  kinds  of  being  which,  in  the  view  of  common 
sense,  together  make  up  the  whole  universe  of  reality.  Secondly,  there 
is  the  logical  or  '  metalogical '  question  as  to  the  validity  of  axioms,  or 
universal  propositions  taken  as  ultimate  premises  in  Mathematics  and 
Rational  Physics ;  and  to  some  extent,  at  least,  in  any  science  that 
has  reached  the  deductive  stage.  And  thirdly,  there  is  the  similar 
question  as  to  the  validity  of  the  universal  rules  or  principles  of 
duty,  which  are  in  the  same  way  taken  as  premises  in  all  ordinary 
moral  reasoning.  All  three  questions  have  been  very  closely  con- 
nected in  philosophical  exposition  and  controversy.  It  is  obvious 
that  the  second  and  third  will  naturally  be  examined  and  answered 
by  the  same  method :  and  the  different  ways  in  which  they  have  been 
answered  have  commonly  had  a  close  connection  with  the  views, 
'  materialistic '  or  '  idealistic,'  which  different  philosophers  have 
taken  of  the  ontological  problem  first  mentioned.  Indeed  we  may 
almost  say  that  the  second  question,  at  the  present  time,  is  most 
generally  interesting,  on  account  of  this  connection.  In  an  earlier 
stage  of  physical  science,  indeed,  the  issue  between  the  a  pinion  and 
'  empirical '  views  of  the  evidence  of  axioms  was,  or  seemed  to  be, 
practically  important  for  the  determination  of  scientific  method. 
Men  were  really  not  agreed  as  to  how  they  should  go  about  to  acquire 
knowledge  of  physical  laws.  But  this  importance  is  now  evanescent, 
at  least  as  regards  the  established  and  dignified  sciences  that  have 
professors  and  manuals.  For  example,  the  interest  taken  in  discuss- 
ing the  grounds  of  our  belief  in  the  laws  of  motion,  depends  on  the 
light  which  the  discussion  is  expected  to  throw  on  the  constitution  of 
the  mind  that  somehow  has  come  to  know  these  general  facts  of  the 
material  world:  we  all  know  that  physicists  will  continue  their 
researches  and  reasonings  in  precisely  the  same  way,  whether  the 
Conservation  of  Energy  be  established  on  an  a  priori  basis,  or 
treated  as  merely  a  generalisation  from  experience.  Indeed,  what- 
ever may  be  the  special  arena  selected  for  single  combat  between 
Idealism  and  Sensationalism  or  Empiricism,  the  important  issue  at 
stake  is  commonly  thought  to  be  the  degree  of  dependence  of  mind 
on  matter :  whatever  a  philosopher  may  mean  by  Idealism,  common- 
sense  means  by  it  the  systematic  establishment  of  the  popular  convic- 
tion that  a  man  is  something  more  than  his  body. 

Let  us  ask,  then — What  is  the  bearing  of  the  inquiry  into  the 
origin  of  rnind  (as  a  whole  or  in  part)  on  the  question  of  the  connec- 
tion between  Mind  and  Matter  ? 

We  must  first  observe  that  this  connection  is  primd  facie  of 
two  quite  distinct  kinds:  (1)  Physiology  leads  us  to  conclude  that 


1880.  ON  HISTORICAL  PSYCHOLOGY.  355 

movements  of  particles  of  organised  matter  are  causes  or  universal 
concomitants  of  all  mental  processes;  while  (2)  all  matter  is  the 
object  of  the  mental  process  which  we  call  cognition,  and,  so  regarded, 
admits  of  being  logically  analysed  into  a  number  of  distinct  qualities, 
related  in  a  complex  way  to  the  mental  phenomena  which  we  call 
sensations.  Though  these  two  relations  appear  to  be  inextricably 
confounded  in  some  theories  of  perception,  they  are  obviously  easy 
to  distinguish  ;  for  in  any  act  of  perception  the  matter  that  is  per- 
cept or  object  is  commonly  outside  the  organism  of  the  percipient, 
and  is  in  any  case  quite  distinct  from  the  nerve- matter  whose  move- 
ments immediately  precede  or  accompany  the  mental  perception. 
And  it  is  of  the  utmost  importance  for  clearness  of  discussion,  to 
keep  the  two  relations  distinct :  since  the  dependence  of  mind  on 
matter,  on  which  the  materialist  insists,  is  really  in  no  way  affected 
by  the  analysis  of  matter  into  mind  which  the  idealist  attempts  to 
demonstrate.  Let  us  grant  all  that  any  idealist,  whether  Berkeleian 
or  post-Kantian,  has  maintained  as  to  the  relation  of  matter  as  cog- 
nited  object  to  mind  as  cognising  subject :  let  us  grant,  that  is,  that 
all  matter,  or  all  that  is  known  or  knowable  by  us,  admits  of  being 
analysed  into  feelings,  thoughts,  or  mental  elements  of  some  kind. 
The  whole  problem  of  the  connection  of  our  individual  minds  with 
our  individual  bodies  will  remain  just  where  it  was ;  only  it  will 
require  to  be  stated  in  somewhat  different  terms.  We  shall  have  to 
ask  how  those  modes  of  mind  which  I  call  my  thoughts,  feelings, 
and  volitions,  are  related  to  those  other  highly  complex  modes  of  mind 
which  I  call  movements  of  the  solid  and  fluid  particles  of  my  body  ; 
and  the  materialistic  arguments  to  show  that  the  latter  phenomena 
are  invariable  antecedents  of  the  former  will  lose  none  of  their  sub- 
stantial force  from  the  new  phraseology  in  which  they  will  have  .to 
be  thrown.  And  hence  it  will  appear  that  we  need  not  at  present 
concern  ourselves  with  the  idealistic  analysis  of  the  common  notion 
of  matter,  regarded  as  object  of  mind ;  however  metaphysically  in- 
teresting the  issues  raised  by  it  may  be.  For  no  idealist  (so  far  as  I 
know)  has  ever  maintained  that  the  whole  physical  universe  is  inse- 
parably connected  with  his  own  particular  mind,  or  with  that  of  any 
other  human  being;  and  it  is  only  the  origin  of  such  particular 
minds  that  has  ever- been  supposed  to  admit  of  scientific  investigation. 
Let  us,  then,  confine  ourselves  to  the  connection  of  individual 
minds  with  organised  matter.  Here  the  fundamental  question,  of 
course,  is — Does  the  individual  mind  result  from  a  certain  organisa- 
tion of  an  individual  organism,  and  terminate  when  the  organisation 
is  destroyed  ?  It  is  on  this  point  that,  in  the  view  of  common-sense, 
almost  the  whole  interest  of  metaphysics  is  concentrated ;  it  is  the 
metaphysician's  '  Yes,'  or  '  No,'  or  <  Not  proven,'  in  answer  to  this 
question,  which  is,  for  the  plain  man,  '  der  laugen  Eede  kurzer 
Sinn.' 


356  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY.  February 

In  order  to  ascertain  how  far  the  inquiry  into  the  origin  of  mind 
throws  any  light  on  this  question,  let  us  briefly  survey  the  chief  con- 
siderations that  incline  us  to  answer  it  in  the  affirmative  or  the 
negative.  On  the  former  side  we  have  (1)  probability  amounting  to 
moral  certainty,  that  whenever  any  embodied  mind  has  experienced 
a  change,  a  certain  material  change  has  simultaneously  taken  place  ; 
(2)  absence  of  any  accepted  evidence  of  the  existence  of  particular 
minds  not  embodied ;  (3)  the  establishment  of  a  vast  and  complex, 
though  incomplete,  correspondence  between  particular  kinds  or  quali- 
ties of  mental  processes  and  particular  organic  actions  or  conditions. 
On  the  latter  side  we  have  the  disparity  l  of  physical  and  psychical 
phenomena,  and  the  apparent  arbitrariness  of  the  connection  between 
the  two.  We  do  not  in  the  least  see  why  movements  of  nerve-parti- 
cles should  produce  feelings,  and  can  quite  easily  conceive  the  whole 
series  of  states  which  compose  our  consciousness  continuing  without 
these  physical  antecedents  or  concomitants  ;  hence  it  is  inferred  that 
the  latter  cannot  be  the  real  causes  of  the  former.  The  force  of  this 
argument,  such  as  it  is,  is  perhaps  somewhat  strengthened  by  the 
occultness  of  the  connection  ;  we  have  no  means  of  observing  or 
definitely  inferring  the  kind  of  motions  of  matter  that  immediately 
precede  or  accompany  mental  phenomena.  I  have  not  referred  to  the 
ethical  arguments  drawn  from  the  need  of  a  future  state  to  realise 
justice  or  to  establish  the  required  connection  between  virtue  and 
happiness,  or  to  the  vaguer  reasoning  based  on  the  desires  and  expec- 
tations of  continued  existence  commonly  found  among  men  ;  because 
these  considerations,  whatever  their  precise  value  may  be,  can  scarcely 
be  adduced  as  arguments  to  prove  that  such  continued  existence  of 
the  individual  will  be  independent  of  a  corporeal  organism.  No 
doubt  with  many  persons  they  operate  in  favour  of  this  conclusion  : 
still,  it  is  (I  suppose)  the  orthodox  belief  in  all  Christian  Churches 
that  the  immortality  of  the  soul  can  only  be  realised  through  the 
miraculous  resurrection  of  the  body. 

How  far,  then,  are  the  '  pros '  and  *  cons,'  as  above  stated,  affected 
by  any  views  as  to  the  origin  of  mind  that  can  be  supported  by 
evidence  scientifically  admissible  ?  To  test  this  thoroughly,  let  us 
grant  all,  and  more  than  all,  that  the  most  dogmatic  of  historical 
psychologists  can  possibly  claim.  Let  us  suppose  that  we  have 
ascertained  approximately  the  order  in  which  each  species  of  mental 
phenomena  normally  makes  its  appearance  in  the  development  of 
mind ;  that  we  have  fixed  the  historical  place  of  sensations  of  each 
kind,  of  the  different  grades  of  volition,  of  the  varying  phases  of 
emotion  from  the  coarsest  to  the  most  refined,  and  of  all  the  funda- 
mental notions  or  elementary  judgments  of  thought ;  and  that  we 

1  It  is  hardly  necessary  to  argue  again,  as  above,  that  this  disparity  will  subsist, 
though  of  course  altered  in  form,  even  if  we  accept  the  idealistic  analysis  of  matter 
into  mental  elements. 


1880.  ON  HISTORICAL  PSYCHOLOGY.  357 

can  state  in  each  case  the  important  psychical  and  physical  ante- 
cedents. I  cannot  perceive  that  the  force  either  of  the  argument 
from  the  actual  closeness  and  universality  of  the  connection  between 
psychical  and  physical  fact,  and  the  modifying  influence  exercised 
by  the  body  on  the  mind,  or  of  the  opposite  argument  from  the 
arbitrariness,  occultness,  and  conceivable  dissolubility  of  the  con- 
nection, will  be  affected  to  any  appreciable  extent.  If,  however,  we 
suppose  the  process  of  change  thus  traced  to  be  perfectly  gradual  and 
continuous,  another  argument  emerges  when  we  carry  the  process 
back  until  mind  vanishes  altogether,  which  we  may  call  the  Argu- 
ment from  Continuity.  It  is  urged  that  if  the  highest,  most  distinctly 
mental  phenomena  of  organised  beings  are  connected  by  an  unbroken 
series  of  infinitesimal  differences  with  the  lowest  (to  whose  existence 
we  should  commonly  not  apply  the  term  *  mental '  or  '  psychical '  at 
all),  and  even  with  the  phenomena  of  inorganic  matter,  there  is  no 
point  at  which  the  existence  of  mind,  as  an  independent  entity,  can 
be  conceived  to  begin.  Probably  much  of  the  alarm  caused  to  anti- 
materialists  by  the  zoological  theories  of  Evolution  and  Natural 
Selection  has  been  due  to  the  supposed  force  of  this  argument.  It 
has  been  thought  that  mind  could  not  be  independent  of  matter,  if 
man  was  gradually  developed  out  of  a  monkey,  and  the  monkey  out 
of  a  fish,  and  so  on.  We  may  observe,  by  the  way,  that  this  particular 
alarm  is  in  any  case  exaggerated,  as  the  force  of  the  argument,  such 
as  it  is,  seems  sufficiently  constituted  by  the  undeniable  fact  that 
each  individual  man  has  been  gradually  developed  out  of  a  portion 
of  his  parent's  frame,  of  which  the  manner  of  existence  was  not 
more  psychical  than  that  of  the  fish ;  little,  therefore,  is  lost  by 
admitting  that  his  race  has  gone  through  a  similar  course  of  change. 
I  think,  however,  that  we  may  challenge  the  validity  of  the  whole 
Argument  from  Continuity  against  the  independent  existence  of 
mind.  It  is  based,  so  far  as  I  understand  it,  on  a  supposed  difficulty 
in  believing  that  a  new  thing  has  come  into  existence  quite  gradu- 
ally. Now  I  admit  that  it  is  difficult  for  us  to  understand  how 
any  really  new  fact  can  begin  to  be  at  all.  But  this  difficulty  has 
to  be  overcome,  it  would  seem,  by  all  modern  schools  of  thought 
in  the  case  of  individual  minds.  For,  on  the  one  hand,  it  is  undeni- 
able that  any  particular  mind — if  we  mean  no  more  by  this  term 
than  the  stream  of  transient  phenomena,  thoughts,  feelings,  and 
volitions,  of  which  we  have  direct  experience — is  a  new  fact.  That 
is,  no  one  can  deny  that  it  is  different  from  whatever  physical  facts 
antecede  or  accompany  it ;  and  no  one  again  contends  that  it  is  com- 
posed of  pre-existent  thoughts,  emotions,  &c.,  rearranged  in  new  re- 
lations. On  the  other  hand,  we  have  equally  to  admit  that  this  new 
fact,  so  far  as  empirically  known,  actually  begins  to  be  between  certain 
narrow  limits  of  time.  If  this  be  granted  I  do  not  see  that  a  perfectly 
gradual  beginning  is  harder  to  accept  than  an  abrupt  one ;  on  the 
VOL.  VII.— No.  36.  B  B 


368  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  February 

contrary,  I  should  say  it  was  certainly  easier.  There  is  no  doubt  a 
certain  difficulty  in  imaginatively  tracing  a  thing  to  its  origin,  if  that 
has  to  be  reached  through  an  infinite  series  of  indefinitely  small 
changes ;  but  this  is  only  Zeno's  old  puzzle  as  to  Achilles  catching 
the  tortoise,  turned  round  and  applied  to  the  beginning  instead  of 
the  end  of  a  finite  quantity  of  infinitesimally  divisible  change  ;  and 
we  have  long  agreed  not  to  trouble  ourselves  about  this  ancient 
paradox. 

I  have  spoken  so  far  of  mind  considered  as  a  whole  (or  of  mental 
phenomena  taken  generally);  I  find,  however,  that  some  persons 
consider  it  fundamentally  important,  in  discussing  the  relation  of 
mind  and  body,  to  draw  a  distinction  between  different  kinds  of 
mental  fact.  They  are  prepared  to  admit  that  the  kind  of  fact, 
which  we  distinguish  as  '  feeling,'  or  '  sensation,'  or '  sense-perception,' 
may  have  been  completely  caused  by  movements  of  organic  matter ; 
but  they  maintain  that  this  cannot  be  the  case  with  other  species  of 
psychical  phenomena,  such  as  the  immediate  knowledge  of  the  unity, 
permanence,  identity  of  the  conscious  self,  or  the  axioms  of  arithmetic 
or  geometry,  or  perhaps  abstract  notions  generally,  &c.  Much  con- 
troversy has  been  carried  on  about  these  distinctions,  and  many 
persons  still  seem  rather  concerned  to  maintain  that  '  general  notions,' 
*  primitive  judgments,'  and  so  forth,  cannot  be  derived  from  sensa- 
tions, than  that  sensations  cannot  be  derived  from  processes  of 
organic  matter.  This  is  surely  straining  at  the  gnat,  while  allowing 
the  camel  free  entrance.  I  do  not  wish  to  under-estimate  the  un- 
likeness  that  exists  between  different  species  of  mental  phenomena ; 
in  particular,  between  cognitions  of  any  kind  and  the  feelings  from 
which  it  is  sought  to  derive  them.  But  no  difference  of  this  kind 
,  seems  to  me  at  all  equal  to  the  unlikeness  that  I  find  between  psychical 
facts  generally  and  the  physical  facts  with  which  physiology  leads  us 
to  connect  them.  Therefore,  if  we  once  admit  that  the  movement 
of  particles  of  matter  is  an  adequate  cause  of  the  most  elementary 
feeling,  I  see  no  firm  ground  on  which  we  can  argue  that  it  cannot 
be  an  adequate  cause  of  the  most  refined  and  complicated  thought. 

A  special  case,  in  which  great  importance  has  been  attached  to 
:  supposed  differences  in  the  origin  of  different  kinds  of  cognition,  is 
furnished  by  the  controversy  before  noticed  as  to  the  validity  of 
mathematical  and  physical  axioms.  It  is  often  thought  to  be 
impossible  that  universally  true  propositions — such  as,  '  that  two 
.straight  lines  cannot  inclose  a  space ' — should  be  derived  from  ex- 
perience of  the  particular  space  in  which  our  particular  bodies  (or 
«ven  those  of  our  ancestors)  have  moved  about.  Indeed,  this  is  used 
in  opposite  ways  as  an  argument  on  either  side  of  the  famous  con- 
troversy about  such  axioms:  on  the  one  hand,  it  is  maintained 
that  they  cannot  have  had  an  empirical  origin,  because  of  the 
universal  validity  which  mathematicians  agree  in  attributing  to 


1880.  ON  HISTORICAL  PSYCHOLOGY.  359 

them ;  and  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  argued  that  since  we  can  show- 
how  they  have  come  from  experience,  they  cannot  have  a  universal 
validity ;  we  can  only  affirm  them  in  respect  of  our  space,  not  of 
space  generally.  Now  I  freely  admit  my  inability  to  explain  how 
the  movements  of  particular  parts  of  matter,  such  as  my  limbs, 
muscles,  and  nerve-particles,  should  cause  in  my  mind  a  belief  that 
no  two  straight  lines  can  ever  inclose  a  space;  and  I  further  admit 
that,  supposing  the  causal  connection  established,  it  affords  no 
guarantee  of  the  truth  of  the  belief.  But  my  difficulty  begins 
farther  back.  I  find  myself  equally  unable  to  explain  why  any 
motions  of  material  particles  should  generate  the  belief  that  any  two 
particular  straight  lines  actually  do  not  inclose  a  space,  and  again  I 
cannot  see  that  the  mere  particularity  of  this  cognition  is  in  itself  a 
ground  for  my  accepting  it  as  true.  I  certainly  find  myself  disposed 
to  make  an  indefinite  number  of  such  particular  affirmations  in 
respect  of  the  space  with  which  I  am  familiar ;  and  my  reliance 
on  such  affirmations  is  continually  strengthened  by  the  absence  of 
conflict  among  them,  and  by  their  agreement  with  similar  affirma- 
tions made  by  others.  But  then  I  have  just  the  same  unreflective 
certitude,  and  the  same  kind  of  confirmation,  in  respect  of  my  beliefs 
as  t.o  the  universal  relations  of  space ;  and  if  these  sources  of  con- 
viction do  not  furnish  a  sufficiently  strong  barrier  against  philo- 
sophical scepticism  in  the  latter  case,  neither  do  they  in  the  former. 
At  any  rate  I  have  no  a  priori  knowledge  that  the  motions  of  organic 
matter  are  more  qualified  to  cause  the  one  kind  of  belief  than  the 
other,  still  less  that  they  are  qualified  to  cause  either  in  such  a 
manner  as  to  make  it  true.  And  certainly  no  such  knowledge  can  be 
obtained  from  any  empirical  investigation  of  the  history  of  the  beliefs 
in  question. 

Similarly,  when  we  pass  to  consider  the  premises  of  ethical 
reasoning,  or  the  cognitive  faculty  conversant  with  them,  it  does  not 
appear  that  the  i  authority  of  conscience  '  can  bo  in  any  way  affected 
by  examination  of  its  origin.  I  am  supposing  that  we  admit,  as 
an  empirical  fact,  the  existence  in  most  or  all  minds  of  some 
ethical  premises,  some  ultimate  beliefs  as  to  the  rightness  and 
wrongness  of  actions  considered  either  in  themselves  or  in  relation 
to  some  further  ends ;  since  if  this  be  denied,  the  psychogonical  in- 
vestigation assumes  a  quite  different  character ;  it  is  not  Conscience 
at  all — in  the  ordinary  sense  of  the  term — of  which  the  origin  is 
investigated,  but  some  other  mental  phenomenon.  E.g.  there  are 
some  persons  who  understand  by  Conscience  merely  what  they  more 
distinctively  call  '  moral  sentiments ; '  i.e.  the  mere  likings  and  dis- 
likings  which  we  feel  for  certain  kinds  of  human  conduct  and 
character,  as  we  do  for  the  human  face  and  figure,  costume,  scenery, 
&c.  That  we  have  such  moral  tastes  and  distastes  is  undeniable  ; 
but  it  is  equally  obvious  that  if  these  constitute  the  whole  phenomenon 

BB  2 


360  TH%  NINETEENTH   CENTURY.  February 

of  the  moral  consciousness,  no  question  can  be  raised  about  the  relation 
of  its  origin  to  the  validity  of  its  dictates  or  affirmations :  since  in 
fact  there  are  no  dictates  or  affirmations  to  discuss;  validity  and  in- 
validity are  not  strictly  attributes  of  mere  likes  and  dislikes.  It  i?, 
of  course,  important  to  ascertain  how  these  tastes  and  distastes  origi- 
nated, in  order  that  we  may  see  how  far  they  are  likely  to  promote 
the  good  or  well-being  of  the  individual  feeling  them,  or  of  society. 
But  then,  on  this  view,  such  sentiments  are  considered  as  possible 
means  to  this  further  end  called  welfare  or  well-being;  and  the 
ethical  premiss,  enunciation,  or  dictate,  of  which  it  becomes  all- 
important  to  determine  the  validity,  is  the  implied  proposition  that 
a  certain  mode  of  '  being '  in  a  man  or  a  community  is  '  well-being,' 
'  good,'  and  therefore  what  we  ought  to  promote.  And  no  one,  as  far 
as  I  know,  has  maintained  with  regard  to  this  premis?,  this  ultimate 
axiom  as  to  what  is  '  well '  or  '  ill '  in  human  existence,  that  our  view 
o'f  its  correctness  or  incorrectness  will  be  affected  by  any  examina- 
tion of  its  origin. 

Others  again  find  in  the  troubles  and  satisfactions  of  conscience 
nothing  more  than  the  forecast,  more  or  less  definite,  of  punishments- 
and  rewards  that  may  be  expected  from  other  human  beings  in  con- 
sequence of  certain  kinds  of  behaviour.  On  this  view  there  are  two 
quite  distinct  questions  which  may  be  raised  as  regards  the  authority 
of  conscience  :  first,  whether  this  forecast  or  anticipation  of  pain 
and  pleasure  truthfully  represents  the  future  reality ;  and  secondly,, 
whether  the  prospect  of  these  particular  pains  and  pleasures  ought 
reasonably  to  determine  our  actions.  But  it  does  not  appear  that 
either  of  these  points  can  be  settled  by  investigating  the  history  of 
conscience.  In  order  to  find  out  whether  my  community  is  likely  to 
reward  or  punish  me  for  such  and  such  acts,  my  obvious  course  is  to 
study  the  ways  and  habits  of  existing  humanity :  a  knowledge  of 
human  tendencies  in  the  past  may  no  doubt  help  me  somewhat  to 
form  my  conclusion,  but  only  in  a  secondary  and  subordinate  way. 
If,  however,  I  ask  how  these  pains  and  pleasures  are  to  be  valued 
by  a  reasonable  agent,  on  what  principle  they  are  to  be  preferred 
or  postponed  to  other  agreeable  and  disagreeable  feelings,  whether 
the  standard  of  comparison  is  to  be  purely  quantitative,  or  whether 
considerations  of  quality  are  to  come  in,  &c.  &c.,  I  evidently  raise 
questions  which  are  altogether  out  of  relation  to  theories  of  mental 
or  social  history.  And  this  is  still  more  clearly  the  case  if  the  ethical 
debate  takes  a  wider  range,  and  it  is  asked  whether  pleasure  and  pain 
are  the  sole  objects  at  which  it  is  reasonable  to  aim ;  and,  if  not,  what 
other  objects  there  are,  and  in  what  balance  the  real  worth  of  these 
can  be  weighed  against  amounts  of  pleasure  and  pain.  Where  we 
are  to  find  satisfactory  answers  to  these  questions  I  am  not  now  con- 
sidering ;  but  it  seems  pretty  certain  that  we  shall  not  find  them  in 
the  study  of  historical  psychology. 

HENRY  SIDGWICK. 


1880.  361 


REASONS  FOR  DOUBT  IN  THE    CHURCH 
OF  ROME:    A   REPLY. 

LORD  EEDESDALE'S  paper  in  the  December  number  of  this  Keview 
being  a  pendant  to  a  previous  article  by  another  writer  entitled 
4  Apology  for  Doubt  in  the  Church  of  England,'  is  evidently  intended 
for  the  use  and  benefit  of  Eoman  Catholics.  It  is  clear  to  us  who 
are  of  the  Household  of  the  Faith  that  the  noble  writer  does  not 
realise  the  basis  on  which  the  Catholic  rests  his  belief.  To  doubt 
wilfully  any  one  article  of  faith,  or  to  enter  on  the  examination  of 
any  dogma  with  the  intention  of  suspending  belief  until  the  conclu- 
sion of  such  examination,  would  be  for  a  Catholic  a  deadly  sin. 

This  will  be  evident  if  it  be  borne  in  mind  that  the  Catholic 
believes  the  whole  deposit  of  revelation  to  have  been  committed  to 
the  care  of  an  organised  body  possessed  of  a  divine  life.  He  believes 
this  living  body,  the  Church  of  Christ,  to  be  the  sole  Guardian,  the 
unerring  Teacher,  the  indefectible  Witness  of  the  Faith,  and  the 
ultimate  Judge  in  all  controversies  concerning  it.  The  Catholic 
believes  in  revelation  because  (rod  is  very  Truth,  and  cannot  deceive 
nor  be  deceived  ;  and  he  accepts  this  revelation  on  the  authority  and 
testimony  of  the  divine,  and  therefore  infallible,  voice  of  the  Church. 
Mysteries  beyond  the  ken  of  human  understanding,  as  well  as  facts 
•and  doctrines  which  might  be  known  by  the  light  of  mere  reason, 
thus  rest  on  the  same  basis  of  certitude. 

In  order  to  be  admitted  into  the  Church,  the  adult  has  to  make 
an  act  of  faith  in  this  fundamental  truth  of  her  existence  and  autho- 
rity ;  and  once  in  the  Church,  the  mind,  strengthened  by  Divine 
grace,  forms  the  habit  of  believing  in  the  truths  of  Christianity. 
Just  as  the  logician  examines  the  nature  and  value  of  the  syllogism, 
-and  then  without  further  proof  uses  this  instrument,  so  the  adult 
first  examines  the  credentials  and  claims  of  the  Church,  and  having 
•admitted  her  divine  life,  her  divine  authority,  and  her  divine  testimony, 
afterwards  accepts  her  word  habitually  and  without  questioning. 

Lord  Redesdale  would  have  done  much  to  further  the  cause  of 
Christian  unity  if  he  had  directed  the  attention  of  his  readers  to  the 
great  principle  which  we  have  laid  down  ;  for  the  real  question  under- 
lying all  differences  between  Catholics  and  Protestants  is  simply  this  : 


362  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  February 

Has  God  left  on  earth  a  visible  and  divine  witness  to  the  Christian 
revelation  ?  It  is  clear  that,  if  the  Eoman  position  be  established, 
belief  in  all  dogmas  propounded  by  the  Church  follows  as  a  necessary 
consequence. 

As,  however,  Lord  Redesdale  has  chosen  to  urge  certain  statements 
as  reasons  for  doubt  in  the  Church  of  Rome,  we  will  deal  with  these 
statements  in  the  order  in  which  they  stand. 

1.  By  giving  Communion  under  one  kind,  the  Roman  Church, 
according  to  our  author,  '  sets  up  her  own  teaching  in  direct  opposition 
to  Christ's  own  words,'  and  deprives  her  children  of  receiving  through 
the  cup  remission  of  sin  through  the  blood  of  Christ.  He  adduces 
two  passages  of  Scripture  from  St.  Matthew  xxvi.  and  St.  John  vi.  56. 
We  Catholics  reply  that  the  words  of  the  Gospel  of  St.  John,  '  Except 
ye  eat  the  flesh  of  the  Son  of  Man,  and  drink  his  blood,  ye  have  no 
life  in  you,'  are  taken  by  us  in  a  literal  sense,  as  signifying  that  we 
must  eat  the  real  flesh,  and  drink  the  real  blood  of  the  Saviour. 
With  the  crowd  we  may  ask  '  How  can  this  man  give  us  his  flesh  to 
eat  ?  '  but  we  do  not,  like  many  of  the  disciples,  exclaim,  c  This  is  a 
hard  saying,  who  can  hear  it  ? '  nor  do  we  go  back  '  and  walk  no  more 
with  him  ; '  rather  with  St.  Peter  we  say,  '  Lord,  to  whom  shall  we 
go  ?  thou  hast  the  words  of  eternal  life.  And  we  believe  and  are 
sure  that  thou  art  the  Christ,  the  Son  of  the  living  God.' 

Now  we  confess  that  in  the  Blessed  Sacrament  under  the  species 
of  bread,  and  equally  under  the  species  of  wine,  is  the  living  Christ 
in  the  fulness  of  His  two  natures  and  His  Divine  personality.  The 
risen  Flesh,  the  risen  Blood,  the  Soul,  and  the  Godhead,  in  all  their 
completeness  are  there,  under  the  accidents  or  properties  of  bread, 
and  also  under  the  accidents  or  properties  of  wine.  Whether  then 
the  Communion  be  given  by  the  consecrated  bread  or  by  the  conse- 
crated cup,  or  by  both,  we  equally  receive  the  one  living  Christ,  and 
therefore  eat  His  Flesh  and  drink  His  Blood.  Whoever  believes  in 
the  real  presence  of  our  Lord  in  the  Blessed  Sacrament  must  admit 
this.  Greeks  and  Armenians  are  in  this  belief  one  with  Rome. 

Had  Communion  been  given  while  Christ  was  dead,  under  the 
form  of  bread  there  would  have  been  the  Flesh  of  Christ;  united  to 
the  Divine  Nature,  but  not  the  precious  Blood  ;  and  under  the  form  of 
wine  there  would  have  been  the  Blood  of  Christ  united  to  the  Divine 
Nature,  but  not  His  Sacred  Flesh,  and  consequently  the  communicant, 
in  order  to  fulfil  our  Lord's  command,  would  have  been  obliged  to 
receive  under  both  kinds. 

Dr.  Dollinger,  a  witness  whose  testimony  Lord  Redesdale  may  be 
disposed  to  admit,  in  his  History  of  the  Church  asserts  that  '  there 
never  was  a  doubt  that  the  substance  of  the  sacrament  was  contained 
under  either  form,  or  that  he  who  received  under  either  form,  received 
a  perfect  sacrament,  and  all  the  graces  that  were  connected  with  it : 
that  he  was  incorporated  with  Christ,  and  was  nourished  with  His 


1880.         DOUBT  IN  THE  CHURCH  OF  ROME.  363 

body.'  .  .  .  '  Communion  under  one  form,'  he  goes  on  to  say,  4  was, 
therefore,  frequent  in  the  ancient  Church,  perhaps  more  frequent  than 
Communion  under  both  forms.'  Instances  of  this  are  given  in  the  case 
of  infants  who  received  only  the  species  of  wine,  of  anchorets  in  the 
wilderness  who  bore  with  them  the  consecrated  bread,  of  the  sick  who 
also  received  the  bread,  of  the  faithful  who  took  it  with  them  to  their 
own  houses,  especially  in  the  times  of  persecution ;  and  of  bishops 
who  sent  it  one  to  another.  It  may,  therefore,  fairly  be  said  that  the 
Christians  who  lived  soon  after  the  days  of  the  Apostles  did  not 
understand  the  words  of  our  Lord  in  the  sense  which  Lord  Redesdale 
now  attaches  to  them. 

They  did  not  believe  the  words,  *  Except  ye  eat  the  flesh  of  the 
Son  of  Man,  and  drink  his  blood,  ye  have  no  life  in  you '  to  imply  the 
necessity  of  receiving  Communion  under  the  form  of  wine  as  well  as 
under  that  of  bread. 

Catholics  hold  the  words  of  the  Evangelists  which  describe  the 
Last  Supper  to  mean — (1)  That  Christ  on  that  occasion  exercised  His 
priesthood  according  to  the  order  of  Melchisedec.  He  took,  He 
blessed,  He  brake  the  bread,  He  gave  thanks,  and  He  gave  it  to  His 
Apostles,  saying,  '  This  is  my  body  ; '  and  in  like  manner  He  took  and 
blessed  the  cup  and  gave  it,  saying,  'This  is  my  blood.'  (2)  That  by 
the  words  '  Do  this  in  commemoration  of  me,'  He  perpetuated  this 
priesthood  in  the  persons  of  His  Apostles  and  of  their  successors. 

The  sacrificial  power  so  conferred  was  to  be  exercised  in  the  same 
manner  in  which  it  had  been  exercised  by  our  Lord.  Hence  the 
integrity  of  the  sacrifice  requires  the  consecration  of  both  bread  and 
wine,  and  the  receiving  of  both  by  the  sacrificer.  And  let  it  here  be 
remarked  that  a  priest  or  bishop,  or  even  the  Pope  himself,  when  not 
offering  the  sacrifice,  receives  Communion  merely  under  the  form  of 
bread.  As  to  the  necessity  of  the  consecration  of  both  species  for 
the  integrity  of  the  sacrifice,  Greeks  of  all  sects,  Nestorians,  and 
Armenians  are  one  with  Rome.  The  command  of  our  Lord  was  clear 
and  absolute,  and  no  power  on  earth  can  change  it.  By  a  strange 
contradiction,  the  Communion  service  in  use  among  Anglicans,  who 
are  so  loud  in  their  accusations  of  a  mutilated  sacrament,  orders,  in 
direct  opposition  to  Christ's  command,  a  new  consecration  under  one 
kind  only,  in  case  either  element  should  come  short. 

The  second  point  put  forward  by  the  noble  Lord  is  that  the 
Church  of  Rome  '  continues  to  invent  new  articles  of  faith,'  and  he 
illustrates  this  statement  by  a  reference  to  the  dogma  of  the  Immacu- 
late Conception  and  that  of  Papal  Infallibility. 

Catholics  hold  that  the  Church  has  no  power  to  invent  articles  of 
faith,  or  to  proclaim  a  new  revelation.  Her  office  is  to  guard  the 
deposit  of  Faith  in  its  integrity,  to  teach  it  in  its  completeness  to  the 
nations,  to  expound  its  meaning,  and  to  apply  it  for  the  promotion  of 
the  spiritual  welfare  of  her  children. 


364  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY.  February 

Catholics  know  that  Councils  have  decided  controversies  and  made 
declarations  concerning  the  Faith.  But  such  decisions  and  declara- 
tions are  not  inventions.  The  very  wording  of  their  decrees  shows 
that  they  are  derived  from  the  faith  once  delivered  to  the  saints. 
Nice  did  not  invent  the  Godhead  of  Jesus  Christ,  Constantinople  did 
not  invent  the  divinity  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  Ephesus  did  not  invent  the 
two  natures  in  Jesus  Christ,  nor  did  the  Vatican  invent  the  personality 
of  God;  although  these  doctrines  were  declared  by  these  several 
Councils.  The  varied  circumstances  of  the  Church,  the  very  prone- 
ness  of  mankind  to  err,  the  wants  of  the  supernatural  life  of  men,  the 
direction  of  intellectual  activity  to  religion,  necessitate  on  the  part 
of  the  Church  explicit  declarations  of  the  body  of  faith  which  she  has 
always  held. 

It  is  true,  indeed,  that  the  words,  *  immaculate  conception  '  and 
*  Papal  infallibility '  are  not  to  be  found  in  Holy  Scripture,  yet  the 
Catholic  cannot  fail  to  see  in  the  sacred  pages  the  doctrines  of  which 
they  are  the  expression  or  legitimate  development.  On  the  im- 
maculate conception  of  her  who,  in  the  words  of  the  Scripture,  is 
full  of  grace,  whom  all  nations  shall  call  blessed,  Cardinal  Newman,  in 
his  Second  Eve,  has  collected  a  mass  of  testimony  which  proves  that 
the  doctrine  is  no  new  thing  in  God's  Church.  And  as  to  the  infalli- 
bility of  the  Pope,  the  successors  of  St.  Peter  did  not  wait  for  the 
Vatican  Council  to  proclaim  them  infallible,  but  from  the  earliest 
times  they  have  acted  as  men  who  believed  themselves  to  be  possessed 
of  this  great  gift.  They  have  condemned  error,  they  have  proclaimed 
.anew  truths  that  seemed  in  danger  of  being  obscured  or  perverted. 
The  obstinate  refusal  of  submission  to  their  dogmatic  decrees  was 
•ever  held  to  involve  grave  sin. 

No  one  can  read  the  Regula  Fidei  of  Pope  Hormisdap,  or  Pope 
Gelasius'  letter  to  the  Emperor  Anastasius,  or  the  opening  words  of 
the  Code  of  Justinian,  or  the  profession  of  the  Greeks  at  the  Second 
Council  of  Lyons,  or  the  bull  Unam  Sanctam,  without  seeing  how 
thoroughly  the  supremacy  of  the  Holy  See  both  in  government  and 
in  teaching  was  embedded  in  the  mind  of  the  Church. 

Catholics  find  in  the  doctrine  of  the  Infallibility  as  defined  by 
the  Vatican  Council  the  full  meaning  of  our  Lord's  words,  '  Thou 
art  Peter,  and  on  this  rock  I  will  build  my  church,  and  the  gates 
of  hell  shall  not  prevail  against  it,'  '  I  have  prayed  for  thee  that 
thy  faith  fail  not,  and  when  thou  art  converted  strengthen  thy 
brethren,'  and  of  His  charge  to  St.  Peter,  '  Feed  my  lambs,  feed  my 
sheep.' 

In  the  last  place  Lord  Eedesdale  urges  that  the  Church  of  Eome 
'  refuses  to  accept  what  the  Church  has  decided,  and  so  long  as  she 
continues  to  do  so  renders  Christian  unity  impossible.'  In  support 
of  this  proposition  he  adduces  the  28th  canon  of  the  Council  of 
Chalcedon,  and  concludes  that  'the  Church  in  the  fifth  century  knew 


1880.        DOUBT  IN  THE  CHURCH  OF  ROME.  365 

nothing  of  any  particular  authority  belonging  to  the  Bishop  of  Eome 
as  St.  Peter's  successor.' 

The  Catholic  faith  is  that  a  General  Council  cannot  be  convoked 
without  the  authority  of  the  Pope,  nor  can  its  decrees  and  canons 
become  the  dogmas  and  laws  of  the  Church  until  they  have  been 
approved  and  confirmed  by  the  Sovereign  Pontiff. 

Now  the  28th  canon  of  Chalcedon  was  at  the  time  of  the  Council 
protested  against  by  the  Papal  Legates  ;  it  was  inserted  among  the 
canons  in  defiance  of  their  protest.  Pope  Leo  approved  all  the  dog- 
matic decrees  of  this  Council,  and  repudiated  the  28th  canon,  which 
concerned  discipline  and  not  faith,  and  which  provided  that  *  New- 
Rome,  the  honoured  seat  of  Empire,  and  the  residence  of  the  Senate, 
should  possess  equal  privileges  in  ecclesiastical  matters  with  ancient 
Rome  and  should  be  second  in  rank.' 

That  the  Pope  did  not  approve,  but  rejected  this  canon,  is  to  the 
Catholic  mind  an  end  of  all  controversy  on  the  subject.  The  canon 
neither  is  nor  ever  was  a  part  of  Church  law,  and  cannot,  there- 
fore, be  urged  as  a  reason  for  doubt  in  the  Church  of  Rome.  This 
answer  is  sufficient  for  a  Catholic  ;  but  the  conclusion  drawn  by  Lord 
Redesdale  requires  some  additional  reply. 

The  Council  of  Chalcedon  from  which  this  canon  was  taken  was 
convened  by  Pope  Leo.  His  four  Legates  presided  over  it.  At  the 
very  opening  session  the  legate  Paschasinus  announced  that  he  had  a 
command  from  the  most  holy  and  apostolic  Bishop  of  Rome,  which  is 
the  head  of  all  the  Churches.  The  Legates  demanded  that  Dioscorus 
should  not  be  allowed  to  sit  as  one  of  the  Fathers  or  to  vote,  inasmuch 
as  he  had  dared  to  hold  a  Synod  without  the  authority  of  the  Apostolic 
See,  which  never  had  been  done,  nor  ought  to  be  done.  For  this  and 
other  matters  he  was,  at  the  request  of  the  assembled  Fathers,  con- 
demned by  the  Papal  Legates.  In  the  preamble  to  their  sentence, 
they  speak  of  the  Apostolic  Throne  having  pardoned  certain  of  the 
Bishops  of  the  Robber  Synod,  and  proceed  in  these  words  : — '  Leo,  the 
most  blessed  Archbishop  of  Rome,  declares  by  us,  and  by  this  most  Holy 
Synod,  and  being  in  union  with  the  Blessed  Apostle  Peter,  who  is  the 
rock  and  the  support  of  the  Catholic  Church  and  the  Orthodox  Faith, 
that  Dioscorus  is  deprived  of  his  bishopric  and  of  all  ecclesiastical 
•dignity.  In  the  preceding  session  the  famed  dogmatic  letter  of  Pope 
Leo  to  Flavian  was  read,  and  the  Fathers  exclaimed, '  This  is  the  Faith 
of  the  Fathers !  .  .  .  Anathema  to  those  who  believe  otherwise ! 
Peter  has  spoken  by  Leo.'  The  sessions  of  the  Council  concluded, 
the  Fathers  addressed  a  Synodal  letter  to  Leo,  entreating  His  Holiness 
to  approve  and  confirm  its  decrees.  The  Pope  pointed  out  that  to 
-accept  the  28th  canon  of  Chalcedon  was  to  deny  the  6th  canon  of 
Nice,  and  His  Holiness  put  in  its  true  light  the  Apostolic  origin  of 
the  Church.  Before  his  time,  St.  Cyprian  had  said,  '  Rome  is  the 
principal  Church,  the  centre  of  unity,  whence  sacerdotal  unity  has 


366  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  February 

arisen  because  she  is  the  Cathedra  Petri.'  The  Council  of  Sardica  had 
said,  '  hoc  enim  optimum  et  valde  congruentissimum  esse  videbitur  si 
ad  caput,  id  est  ad  Petri  sedem,  de  singulis  quibusque  provinciis 
Domini  referant  sacerdotes.' 

The  most  cursory  study  of  the  acts  of  the  Council  of  Chalcedon 
shows  that,  although  the  greater  number  of  the  bishops  assembled 
•were  Greek,  and  naturally  wished  to  confer  on  Constantinople  special 
privileges,  they  acknowledged  without  protest  the  supremacy  of  the 
authority  of  St.  Peter's  successor. 

In  fact,  it  is  hard  to  understand  how  Lord  Redesdale  can  assert 
that  '  the  Church  in  the  fifth  century  knew  nothing  of  any  particular 
authority  belonging  to  the  Church  of  Rome.'  To  produce  evidence 
from  the  Fathers  anterior  to  this  period  would  be  to  trespass  too  far 
on  the  pages  of  the  Nineteenth  Century,  but  we  may  refer  its  readers 
to  the  Cathedra  Petri  of  Mr.  Allnatt,  who  has  collected  their  testi- 
mony in  a  small  volume  (Burns  and  Gates). 

Acting  on  Lord  Redesdale's  admirable  suggestion  as  to  the  value 
of  brevity  in  an  article  of  this  nature,  we  have  tried  to  show  that 
the  Catholic  is  saved  from  doubt  by  the  knowledge  that  the  Church 
is  the  Pillar  and  Foundation  of  Faith,  that  she  has  a  divine  and 
therefore  an  infallible  teaching  authority,  and  that  she  has  a  head  in 
the  constant  and  indefectible  line  of  the  successors  of  St.  Peter,  to 
whom,  in  the  words  of  the  Preamble  of  the  Decree  on  Papal  Infalli- 
bility, '  the  Holy  Spirit  was  not  promised  that  by  His  revelation  they 
might  make  known  new  doctrine,  but  that  by  His  assistance  they 
might  inviolably  keep  and  faithfully  expound  the  revelation  or 
deposit  .of  faith  delivered  through  the  Apostles.' 

T.  J.  CAPEL. 


1880.  367 


FREE    TRADE,   RAILWAYS,   AND   THE 
GROWTH  OF  COMMERCE; 


An  Attempt  to  estimate  the  Comparative  Effects  of  (i)  Liberation  of 
Intercourse  and  (2)  Improvement  of  Locomotion  upon  the  Trade  and 
Wealth  of  the  United  Kingdom  during  the  last  Half -Century. 

IT  is  now  nearly  forty  years  since  the  war  against  Protective  legisla- 
tion, so  miscalled,  was  carried  over  from  the  study  of  the  economist, 
and  the  platform  of  the  Anti-Corn-Law  League,  to  the  arena  of 
Parliament,  and  began  to  take  the  form  of  serious  and  trenchant 
legislation.  Daring  more  than  five-and-twenty  of  those  years,  the 
British  agriculturist  has  been  exposed  to  a  competition  with  the 
rest  of  the  world  almost  absolutely  free :  and  the  ruin  predicted  for 
him  by  his  friends  took  this  peculiar  form,  not  only  that  he  survived, 
but  that  for  a  full  quarter  of  a  century  there  never  was  once  raised 
that  cry  of  agricultural  distress  which,  under  the  system  of  Protec- 
tion, invariably  pierced  the  ears  of  Parliament  at  intervals  of  a  few 
short  years.  The  growth  of  general  trade  has  notoriously,  during  the 
entire  period  from  1842,  been  enormous. 

But  a  season  of  pressure  and  distress,  both  for  commercial  and 
for  agricultural  producers,  has  at  length  arrived.  There  are  a  set 
of  gentlemen  who  have  ever  believed  and  professed  themselves  to 
be  the  only,  or  the  very  best,  allies  of  the  farmer.  With  this  belief 
and  profession,  they  ought  to  have  directed  his  mind  by  their  advice 
to  what  was  useful  to  him,  and  practicable  in  itself.  But  unhappily 
their  plan  of  action  has  been  to  recommend  to  him  what  they  ought 
to  have  known  to  be  unattainable,  and  for  the  most  part  what,  even  if 
attainable,  would  have  been  mischievous  alike  to  him  and  the 
community.  They  have  thus  been  in  fact,  though  not  in  design,  his 
perpetual  evil  genius,  his  tempters,  and  his  betrayers.  On  this  new 
occasion,  they  have  declared  or  hinted  to  him  that  he  had  better  cry 
aloud  for  a  revival  of  Protection.  That  remedy  the  farmer  has  had 
the  good  sense  to  eye  askance.  Yet  some  persons  in  Parliamentary, 
and  even  in  official,  positions  appear  still  to  do  their  best  to  mislead 
him ;  while,  among  particular  sections  of  manufacturers  and  work- 
men, a  desire  has  been  exhibited  to  revive  the  reign  of  restriction,  at 
least  on  their  own  behalf. 


3G8  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  February 

There  is  no  evidence  that  our  trading  neo-protectionists  are  in 
general  prepared  to  renew  the  restraints  upon  the  importation  of 
bread  and  meat  for  the  people.  But  if  the  reign  of  impoverishment 
is  to  be  newly  proclaimed,  let  it  run  equably  all  round.  Until  some- 
thing in  the  nature  of  a  balanced  plan,  for  an  equable  distribution  of 
the  poison,  shall  have  been  adjusted,  neither  decency  nor  policy  will 
allow  of  any  serious  combination  or  effort.  Still,  the  mere  fact  that 
the  scattered  elements  of  disturbance  should  exist,  and  exist  under 
countenance  from  some  of  those  who  are  marked  out  by  position  as 
the  born  guides  and  rulers  of  the  land,  is,  if  not  a  danger  to  the  State, 
yet  perhaps  a  scandal  to  the  age.  The  fortress  of  commercial  freedom 
is  indeed  strong  against  all  open  assault ;  but  stealthy  approaches,  by 
mining  and  the  like,  are  not  out  of  the  question.  It  is  at  any  rate 
well  to  survey  from  time  to  time  the  bulwarks,  and  to  realise  for  our- 
selves what  we  owe  to  those  most  conservative  and  most  philanthropic 
changes,  which  were  purchased  at  so  heavy  a  cost  in  time,  labour, 
discussion,  and  intrigue.  It  is  well  to  hold  fast  in  our  memory  the 
debt  which  we  owe  to  Freedom  of  Trade  ;  but  we  shall  lodge  it  the 
more  safely  there,  if  we  have  first  placed  it  clearly  before  our  eyes  in 
its  true  form  and  dimensions. 

And  here  arises  in  our  face  the  difficulty  with  which  in  this  paper 
I  propose  to  deal.  We  have  the  admitted  fact  of  an  enormous,  an 
unexampled,  material  progress  since  the  novus  ordo  scedorum,  and 
the  emancipation  of  our  industry,  began.  But,  during  the  same 
period,  other  agencies,  confessedly  tending  in  the  same  direction, 
have  been  at  work.  To  these  other  agencies,  of  which  railways  have 
been  the  most  powerful  and  conspicuous,  the  whole  result  has  often 
been  ascribed  by  those  among  the  opponents  of  Free  Trade,  who 
were  usually  the  most  courageous,  honest,  and  obtuse.  But  even 
the  heartiest  and  most  sanguine  Free  Trader  must  admit  that  they 
have  made  a  large  contribution  to  the  general  upshot.  Are  there, 
then,  any  means  by  which  we  can  divide  the  spoil,  that  is  to  say  the 
honour  and  the  credit,  rendering  to  each  set  of  influences  its  due  ? 

I  am  of  opinion  that  this  cannot  be  done,  by  any  means  we  now 
possess,  with  anything  like  precision ;  but  that  an  approximation  to 
the  truth  can  be  made,  such  as  to  be  of  great  interest  in  itself,  and 
of  great  value  for  practical  purposes.  The  interest  is  that  which 
necessarily  attaches  to  every  expedient  available  for  measuring  the 
material  results  of  great  legislative  changes.  The  practical  purpose  is 
to  shut  the  mouths  of  those  who  still  maintain  that  *  Free  Trade  'has 
bad  no  share  in  producing  the  vast  expansion  of  our  commerce,  which 
has  marked  the  last  forty  years  ;  or  who  are  endeavouring  to  practise 
upon  the  selfishness  of  class,  with  revival  of  Protection  as  a  motto  on 
their  flag ;  in  some  cases  not  without  an  apparent  view  to  political  ends. 

I  shall  seek  first  to  lay  firmly  the  ground  from  which  we  are  to 
start :  by  showing,  in  a  summary  way,  how  completely  Protection 


1880.   FREE  TRADE,  RAILWAYS,  AND   COMMERCE.    369 

did  its  duty,  and  earned  its  character,  as  a  scheme  for  retarding,  if 
it  could  not  altogether  prevent,  the  growth  of  national  wealth. 

My  next  business  will  be  to  avail  myself  of  the  important  fact, 
which  principally  enables  me  to  construct  my  main  thesis  :  this, 
namely,  that  before  legislation  turned  energetically  towards  com- 
mercial freedom,  the  railway  system  was  in  operation,  and  for  some 
few  years  in  rather  powerful  operation. 

Thirdly,  my  endeavour  will  be  to  set  out  as  carefully  as  I  can  the 
effects  of  the  great  successive  doses,  or  instalments,  of  Free  Trade 
administered  by  legislation  at  certain  principal  epochs :  there  being 
this  marked  difference  between  railway  extension  and  the  abolition 
of  restrictive  laws,  that  the  one  may  be  practically  assumed  as  a 
constant  quantity,  operating  with  a  uniform  increment  from  year 
to  year,  whereas  the  other  has  only  marked  certain  sessions  of  Parlia- 
ment, with  periods  of  several  years  between  them. 

Fourthly :  I  propose  to  take  these  intervening  periods  severally, 
as  affording  in  each  case  a  measure,  sufficiently  accurate  for  the 
purpose  in  view,  of  the  effect  produced  upon  commerce  by  the  imme- 
diately preceding  instalment  of  what  is  termed  Free  Trade  legislation. 

Fifthly:  as  the  legislation  of  1860  very  nearly  completed  the 
work  of  annihilating  the  Protective  system  in  this  country,  we  have 
to  fix  a  term  for  the  development  of  the  measures  of  that  particular 
year.  I  propose  to  assume  that  they  had  produced  their  full  effect 
by  the  end  of  the  year  1866.  We  then  have  a  period  of  several  years, 
during  which,  although  some  relief  was  given  to  the  country  by 
remission  of  taxes,  nothing  was  done  which  directly  illustrates  the 
benefit  of  removing  Protection.  But  through  these  years  the  railway 
system  continued  regularly  to  extend  itself,  and  telegraphic  commu- 
nication was  greatly  extended.  We  therefore  possess  anew,  for  a 
period,  part  at  least  of  the  very  same  advantage  which  we  had  in  1832. 
We  see  railway  extension  and  development  continually  at  work  without 
new  legislative  assistance,  to  any  great  extent,  in  liberating  commerce 
from  restraint. 

I  need  not  remind  the  reader  conversant  with  algebra  that  a 
single  equation,  presenting  to  us  two  unknown  quantities,  cannot  be 
solved  without  other  aid.  Such  is  the  case  of  the  progress  we  were 
achieving  between  1842  and  (say)  1866.  But  if  we  are  furnished 
with  another  equation,  exhibiting  only  one  of  the  unknown  quantities, 
we  can  then  ascertain  its  value,  and,  substituting  that  value  in  the 
first  equation  for  the  symbol,  we  can  then  obtain  the  value  of  the 
second  unknown  quantity,  that  is  to  say,  we  can  convert  it  into  a 
known  one.  The  period  1830-1842  offers  us  this  single  equation. 
Railways  were  then  at  work  without  Free  Trade :  and,  observing  what 
the  one  stimulant  can  effect  without  the  other,  we  are  more  nearly 
in  a  condition  to  judge  the  amount  of  its  efficacy  where  it  is  in 
operation  together  with  the  other. 


370  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  February 

So  much  for  the  outline  of  the  process.  Now  as  to  the  materials 
at  command,  and  the  terms  to  be  employed. 

The  materials  at  command  are  principally  these : 

1.  The  returns  of  railway  traffic  and  mileage. 

2.  The  returns  of  the  Income  Tax. 

3.  The  returns  of  Exports  of  domestic  produce. 

But,  before  making  any  remarks  on  these  materials,  it  may  be  well 
to  speak  of  the  terms  which  we  shall  have  to  employ.  It  will  be  ne- 
cessary to  sum  up  conventionally,  for  brevity  and  convenience,  a 
variety  of  agencies  on  each  side  under  some  one  name  that  does  not, 
strictly  speaking,  convey  each  of  them.  These  agencies  may,  I  appre- 
hend, be  termed  on  the  one  side  legislative ;  on  the  other  locomotive. 

The  legislative  agencies  have  been  in  their  nature  negative.  Our 
predecessors,  in  many  things  wise,  have  had  dreadful  fits  of  dormita- 
tion  from  time  to  time  in  their  musings  for  the  good  of  man.  They 
thought  it  would  turn  to  his  profit  if  they  carefully  blocked  by 
prohibition,  or  narrowed  by  regulation  and  taxation,  most  of  the 
avenues  by  which  the  mind,  and  also  the  hand,  of  man  conveyed  and 
exchanged  their  respective  products.  The  travelling  of  persons,  and 
of  goods,  from  one  country  to  another  was  impeded  by  every  sort  of 
vexatious  regulation.  The  press  was  deemed  a  dangerous  institu- 
tion, and  newspapers  were  made  by  law  dear  and  scarce.  Private 
correspondence  was  heavily  taxed  for  the  commercial  classes,  while  the 
Peers,  office-holders,  and  members  of  Parliament  carried  on  their 
share  of  it  for  themselves  and  their  friends  by  franking,  which  gave 
them  a  virtual  exemption ;  and  it  seems  to  have  been  deemed  a 
matter  in  which  the  nation  at  large  could  have  no  concern.  Even 
general  literature  was  smitten  through  the  paper  duty  and  the  duty 
on  advertisements.  I  rank  the  introduction  of  cheap  postage  for 
letters,  documents,  patterns,  and  printed  matter,  and  the  abolition  of 
all  taxes  on  printed  matter,  in  the  category  of  what  is  commonly  termed 
Free  Trade  Legislation.  Not  only  thought  in  general,  but  every 
communication,  and  every  publication,  relating  to  matters  of  business, 
was  thus  set  free.  These  great  measures,  then,  may  well  take  their 
place  beside  the  abolition  of  prohibitions  and  protective  duties,  the 
simplifying  of  revenue  laws,  and  the  repeal  of  the  Navigation  Act,  as 
forming  together  the  great  code  of  Industrial  emancipation.  Under 
this  code,  our  race,  restored  to  freedom  in  mind  and  hand,  and  braced 
by  the  powerful  stimulus  of  open  competition  with  the  world,  has  upon 
the  whole  surpassed  itself  and  every  other,  and  has  won  for  itself  a  com- 
mercial primacy  more  evident,  more  comprehensive,  and  more  solid 
than  it  had  at  any  previous  time  possessed. 

We  may  thus  place  together  in  one  category  the  whole  of  the  nega- 
tive provisions,  that  have  given  back  a  liberty  in  relation  to  all  material 
pursuits,  which  had  been  unduly  filched  away.  In  order  to  include 
all  the  restraints  connected  with  the  function  of  the  brain  in  ths 


1880.    FREE  TRADE,  RAILWAYS,  AND   COMMERCE.    371 

industrial  world,  I  may  properly  call  this  great  agency  by  some  such 
name  as  Freedom  or  Liberation  of  Intercourse  ;  but  on  account  of 
brevity,  and  of  familiar  use,  I  may  likewise  be  permitted  to  refer  to  it 
by  the  name  under  which  it  has  won  its  unrivalled  honours,  the  name 
of  Free  Trade. 

The  group  of  agencies  on  the  other  side,  which  I  seek  to  bring 
into  a  fair,  if  rough,  comparison  with  liberation,  of  intercourse,  are 
positive,  not  negative  ;  and  are  also  strictly  material,  not  moral. 
They  are  very  varied  in  their  characters.  The  chief  among  them  has, 
I  apprehend,  unquestionably  been  the  marriage  of  the  steam-engine  to 
the  rail,  and  its  enlistment  in  the  business  of  locomotion  by  land. 
This  great  invention  was  due,  I  believe,  to  a  great  man.  Mr.  Cobden 
has  been  irreverently  called  an  inspired  bagman ;  but  George 
Stephenson  may  more  justly  be  called  an  inspired  engineer.  I  had 
the  honour  of  slightly  knowing  him  in  his  later  period,  now  some 
forty  years  back ;  and  this  was  the  impression  which  the  glowing  old 
man,  all  instinct  with  the  central  fire  of  genius,  made  upon  my  mind. 
The  wonderful  device,  s^o^ov  a-o(j)io-f*,dTa)v,  was  first  put  in  act 
between  Stockton  and  Darlington  at  the  end  of  1825;  and  I  can 
recollect  the  picture,  then  so  strange,  of  a  train  of  waggons  drawn  by 
an  engine,  which  was  sent  to  my  father  to  move  him  to  take  shares  in 
the  scheme  for  the  railway  between  Manchester  and  Liverpool.  For 
a  while  the  scheme  had  seemed  to  sleep,  but  had  really  been  under  test, 
in  its  original  cradle.  It  awoke  in  1830,  an  infant  Hercules  indeed, 
who  has  now  compelled  into  his  single  service  a  twelfth  part  of  the  pro- 
perty of  the  United  Kingdom.  There  is  something  that  touches  the 
feelings  in  the  recollection  that  the  death  of  Mr.  Huskisson  gave  a 
tragic  colour  to  the  day  of  the  great  inauguration  in  the  summer  of 
that  year.  The  calamity  was  perhaps  immediately  due  to  a  shaken 
nervous  system,  which  paralysed  his  presence  of  mind.  But  in  con- 
templating such  an  event  the  imagination  will  have  its  share.  It 
might  seem  as  if  a  human  sacrifice  were  required  for  the  sanction 
of  the  arduous  undertaking,  and  as  if  no  other  life  could  avail  than 
the  life  of  the  great  and  sagacious  economist,  who  already,  for  his 
initial  efforts  towards  the  liberation  of  trade,  had  suffered  a  virulence 
of  moral  persecution  probably  without  example  in  these  times,  and 
who  now  became,  in  another  and  yet  more  searching  sense,  a  martyr 
to  the  cause  of  material  progress. 

Along  with  this  gigantic  agency,  we  have  had  (2)  the  great  sister 
invention  of  the  Telegraphs  ;  ( 3)  the  change  from  wood  to  iron  in  the 
construction  of  ships,  with  that  establishment  of  ocean  highways,  rapidly, 
regularly,  and  safely  traversed  by  fleets  of  great  steamers,  which  it  so 
much  aided ;  (4)  the  constant  progress  of  mechanical  invention,  which, 
however,  was  only  the  continuance  of  a  process  already  in  operation 
before  railways  began  ;  and  (5)  in  like  manner  the  continued  appli- 
cation of  the  natural  sciences  in  a  thousand  forms  to  the  cheapening 


372  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  February 

and  improvement  of  production.  The  two  last  of  these  causes,  not 
being  new  and  special,  do  not  enter  as  largely  into  our  immediate 
subject-matter  as  the  three  first ;  though  probably  some  allowance 
ought  to  be  made  for  their  more  accelerated  and  extended  action. 
Upon  the  whole,  and  looking  at  what  is  main  and  central  rather  than 
what  is  collateral  or  accidental,  I  think  that  what  we  have  to  compare 
•with  the  liberation  of  intercourse  may  be  summed  up  in  the  phrase 
Improvement  of  Locomotion ;  the  annihilation  or  depression  of  the 
difficulties  that  distance,  and  its  accompaniments,  had  previously 
interposed ;  the  bringing  near  of  persons,  thoughts,  and  things,  that 
previously  had  been  far.  And  as  the  facts  of  the  great  progression  in 
railways  are  both  the  principal  and  the  most  accessible  facts,  and 
also  have  a  movement  in  a  certain  measure  proportioned  to  that  of 
the  sister  facts,  I  may,  for  the  sake  of  brevity,  speak  of  the  motive 
cause,  or  set  of  agencies,  now  before  us  as  that  of  Eailways,  and  the 
periods  of  time  which  it  may  be  convenient  to  mark  out  for  division 
as  Eailway-periods. 

The  problem  before  us,  then,  is  to  divide  the  credit  of  our 
material  progress,  by  an  approximation  as  fair  as  may  be,  between  its 
two  great  factors,  the  Liberation  of  Intercourse  and  the  Improve- 
ment of  Locomotion. 

Next  as  to  the  sources  of  information  upon  which  we  have  to 
draw.  My  main  instrument  will  be  an  examination  of  railway 
traffic  and  mileage  on  the  one  hand,  of  the  dates  of  liberating  or  free- 
trade  legislation  on  the  other.  Next  there  will  be  the  notice  of  the 
annual  increment,  or  rate  of  progress,  in  our  Exports,  in  relation  to 
the  times  when  the  one  or  the  other  agency  can  be  shown  to  have 
specially  affected  them.  And  this  is  the  proper  place  to  establish 
certain  general  rules. 

1.  That,  inasmuch  as  the  railway  factor,  so  to  call  it,  or  impulse 
from  causes  connected  with  locomotion,  has  on  the  whole  been  in 
course  of  pretty   regular   annual   extension,   the   increment   of  its 
action  may  be  taken,  for  practical  purposes,  as  constant  from  year  to 
year. 

2.  That  the  free- trade  factor,  so  to  call  it,  or  impulse  due  to 
legislative  emancipation  of  intercourse  between  men,  has  also  been  in 
course  of  progressive  extension  by  new  relaxations  of  restraint.     The 
increment  of  its  action,  however,  from  year  to  year  has  not  been  con- 
stant ;  it  has  been  gathered  into  great  masses  at  various  periods  from 
three  or  four  to  six  or  seven  years  apart,  and  will  have  to  be  estimated 
for  those  periods  respectively. 

3.  That  the  increase  of  the  exports  of  British  produce  from  the 
country  may  be  taken  as  upon  the  whole  a  sufficient  index  of  the 
comparative  effects  which  we  are  endeavouring  to  measure,  though 
they  are  not  to  the  same  extent  an  index  of  the  movement  of  the 
aggregate  wealth  of  the  country. 


1880.    FREE  TRADE,   RAILWAYS^   AND   COMMERCE.    373 


These  general  rules,  not  being  self-evident  in  their  character, 
will  require  some  little  comment  respectively. 

1.  As  regards  the  first,  let  not  the  reader  be  startled  by  finding  that 
the  maximum  and  minimum  of  the  annual  mileages  opened  during 
the  railway  period  differ  very  widely,  and  that  at  short  intervals.  The 
greatest  of  these  differences  was  between  1,182  miles  opened  in  1848 
after  the  great  speculations  of  1845  and  1846,  and  226  miles  opened 
in  1855.  The  very  large  extension  in  1848  constituted  a  case  of 
exception  in  railway  history ;  and  it  did  not  prevent  the  exports  of 
that  year  from  standing,  under  the  action  of  political  disturbances, 
at  a  very  low  figure.  How  little  it  affected  the  steadiness  of  the 
general  onward  movement  will  be  seen  from  the  following  brief 
table : — 


Year,  to 
December  31 

ililes  of  Railway 
ope  ii 

Addition  made 

Number  of  Year 

Annual  Average 

1842 

],857 

__ 

_ 

_ 

1848 

6,127 

3,270 

6 

545 

1852 

7,330 

2,209 

4 

552 

1859 

10,002 

2,rM>6 

7 

323 

1865 

13,289 

3,287 

•  6 

649 

1878 

17,300 

4,001 

13 

309 

The  mileage  receipts  have  varied  less  (since  1837)  than  the 
lengths  annually  added. 

In  1842  they  were  about  2,300£.,  and  they  never  fell  below  2,000£. 
except  in  1848-50,  when  they  ranged  between  that  figure  and  1,950^., 
since  which  time  they  pretty  steadily  rose  until  they  touched  3,462£. 
in  1873.  They  stand  at  3,485Z.  for  1878. 

There  is  one  of  these  periods  when  the  annual  increment  of 
mileage  fell  by  more  than  40  per  cent,  on  the  average.  But  the 
time  (1852-59)  was  remarkable  for  the  extensive  application  of  the 
telegraphic  system  to  oversea  transactions.  There  is  therefore  little 
cause  to  take  notice  of  the  variations  in  the  extension  given  annually 
by  fresh  mileage  to  the  railway  factor. 

2.  With  the  free-trade  factor  the  case  is  eminently  otherwise. 
The  instalments  or,  so  to  speak,  doses  of  Free  Trade  were  not  ad- 
ministered with  any  approach  either  to  annual  uniformity  or  to 
periodical  regularity.  They  were  applied  in  a  few  particular  years, 
separated  by  intervals  of  three,  four,  five,  or  seven  years,  during 
which  the  weapon  lay  dormant,  or  was  so  slightly  used  that  we  need 
not  take  notice  of  these  intermediate  transactions.  We  shall  have 
to  observe  how  the  periodical  increments  of  liberating  laws,  and 
through  them  of  commercial  facilities,  quickened  and  enlarged  the 
trade-movement,  when  it  was  advancing  pretty  steadily  under  a  nearly 
constant  action  of  railway  facilities.  We  shall  thus  be  enabled  in 
some  degree  to  measure  the  shares  of  propelling  force  due  to  the  two 
VOL.  VII.— No.  36.  C  C 


374  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.          February 

respectively.  We  shall  first  fmd  a  certain  amount  of  annual  growth 
to  be  set  down  to  the  credit  of  the  railway.  Then,  taking  notice 
how  far  that  annual  growth  is  enlarged  upon  each  successive  access 
of  an  instalment  or  dose  of  Free  Trade,  we  shall  get  at  some  basis 
for  a  view  trustworthy  in  its  general  bearings. 

There  was  no  instalment  of  Free  Trade,  which  need  be  taken  into 
our  account,  before  1842.  The  remissions  then  granted  did  not  take 
effect  (except  in  the  case  of  corn,  where  they  were  not  important) 
until  the  seventh  and  tenth  months  of  the  year.  I  therefore  take 
1843  as  the  first  operative  year  of  the  first  instalment  of  Liberal 
legislation  under  what  was  called  the  new  Tariff. 

The  second  instalment  was  the  new  Tariff  of  1845. 

The  third  instalment  was  the  repeal  of  the  Corn  Laws  at  the 
opening  of  1849,  together  with  the  repeal  of  the  Navigation  Laws 
during  the  Parliamentary  Session  of  that  year. 

The  fourth  was  the  new  Tariff  of  1853,  accompanied  with  the 
repeal  of  the  Soap  Duties  and  other  changes. 

The  fifth  and  last  great  instalment  was  granted  by  the  Customs 
Act  of  1860,  which  at  length  gave  nearly  universal  effect  to  the 
following  principles : 

1.  That  neither  on  raw  produce,  nor  on  food,  nor  on  manufactured 
goods,  should  any  duty  of  a  protective  character  be  charged. 

2.  That  the  sums  necessary   to  be  levied  for  the  purposes   of 
revenue  in  the  shape  of  Customs'  duty  should  be  raised  upon  the 
smallest  possible  number  of  articles. 

The  repeal  of  the  Excise  Duty  on  Paper  had  formed  a  portion  of 
the  Budget  of  1860.  It  entailed  the  severest  Parliamentary  struggle 
in  which  I  have  ever  been  engaged  ;  and  by  the  novel  action  of  the 
House  of  Lords  it  was  postponed  to  1861,  when  it  emancipated,  at 
length,  a  great  article  of  trade,  and  allowed  the  full  development  of 
the  cheap  press.  For  the  present  purpose  it  may  be  regarded  as 
belonging  to  1860,  the  last  of  what  I  may  call  the  cardinal  or  organic 
years,  inasmuch  as  the  protective  duty  on  Foreign  Paper  was  removed 
in  that  year. 

These  years,  then,  will  mark  out  the  periods  at  each  of  which  fresh 
and  powerful  agencies  of  Liberating  Legislation  began  to  take  effect 
in  our  system  ;  and,  like  the  affluents  of  a  great  river,  swelled  the 
volume  of  the  stream  of  British  commerce. 

3.  We  shall  measure,  then,  the  effect  of  the  two  factors  by  the 
magnitude  of  our  exports  of  British  produce ;  but  it  is  requisite  to 
explain  more  distinctly  the  limits  within  which  these  are  to  be  taken 
as  indicators  of  national  wealth. 

Such  exports  will  be  admitted,  I  presume,  to  measure  the  foreign 
trade  of  the  country ;  and  the  bulk  of  that  trade  will  also  measure, 
on  an  average  of  years,  the  amount  of  profit,  or  addition  to  national 
wealth,  which  is  yielded  by  it.  It  does  not  seem  necessary  to  include 


1880.  FREE  TRADE,   RAILWAYS,  AND   COMMERCE.    375 

in  our  view  the  exports  of  Foreign  and  Colonial  merchandise,  for  the 
following  reasons :  first,  that  it  could  not  be  done  with  accuracy, 
as  the  real  values  were  not  taken  until  1854  ;  and  secondly,  that  it 
would  not  greatly  affect  the  result,  as  its  movement  has  in  the  main 
followed  the  movement  in  the  exports  of  British  produce. 

It  may,  however,  still  be  said  that  the  foreign  trade  is  not  an 
accurate  test  of  the  home  trade,  nor  therefore  of  the  aggregate 
increase  in  the  wealth  of  the  nation.  And  here  it  may  be  convenient 
to  advert  to  the  growth  of  the  Income  Tax,  which  is  much  more  closely 
a  measure  of  the  growth  in  national  wealth  than  the  exports.  The 
exports  were 

In  1842 £47,284,000 

„  1878 190,045,000 

or  were  almost  exactly  quadrupled. 

The  produce  of  the  Income  Tax  per  penny  may  be  taken  (due 
allowance  being  made  for  modifications  of  the  basis)  as 

In  1842-4 £760,000 

„  1877-8       .......    1,911,000 

In  other  words,  while  two  have  grown  to  eight  in  the  one  case,  they 
have  only  grown  to  five  in  the  other. 

The  case  is  further  illustrated  by  comparing  the  growth  in  the 
two  great  Schedules  A  and  D.  In  thirty  years,  from  1842  to  1872, 
Schedule  A,  representing  land  and  houses,  together  with  mines, 
quarries,  and  the  like,  grew  by  less  than  25  per  cent.,  but  Schedule 
D  by  more  than  60  per  cent.  Schedule  D  legally  includes  (with  much 
else)  the  profits  of  foreign  trade  ;  and  this  comparison  of  growths  would 
be  still  more  instructive  if  we  could  separate  the  mines  and  quarries 
from  Schedule  A  all  along,  as  they  have  now  been  severed  since  1866. 

The  Income  Tax  itself  only  represents  the  wealthier  part  of  the 
community ;  and  I  greatly  doubt  whether  it  can  be  taken  to  indicate 
a  fully  corresponding  growth  in  the  means  of  those  classes  who  do 
not  pay  it.  Happily  for  us  all,  wages  have  improved,  while  houn 
of  labour  have  been  diminished  ;  but,  while  taking  into  view  the 
increase  of  population,  I  should  hardly  venture  to  assume  more  than 
a  double  ratio  (at  most)  of  the  aggregate  wealth  of  the  whole  com- 
munity now  as  compared  with  1842,  which  we  have  to  compare  with 
a  fourfold  ratio  in  the  case  of  its  foreign  trade. 

But  the  foreign  trade  is  none  the  less  the  main  instigator  of 
progressive  industry  and  enterprise  in  every  domestic  department ;  so 
that  the  growth  in  the  value  of  land,  and  yet  more  of  houses,  is  largelv 
due  to  it.  All,  however,  that  we  need  now  assume,  is  that  it  is  itself 
a  leading  source  of  wealth ;  in  order  thus  to  justify  our  using  it  to 
learn  how  this  source  has  been  affected. 

Outside  the  action  of  these  two  great  causes,  the  Legislative  and 
the  Locomotive  factors,  there  are  other  influences  of  a  special  and 
occasional,  and  at  the  same  time  wholly  irregular  nature,  which  I  have 

c  c  2 


376  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  February 

acted  upon  our  foreign  trade  to  thwart  and  depress  it.     These  are 
mainly  the  following : — 

1.  Bad  harvests.  4.  Wars. 

2.  Commercial  panics.  5.  Eevolutions. 

3.  Commercial  distress.  6.  The  cotton  famine. 

And  a  seventh,  equally  occasional  in  its  nature,  which  powerfully 
assists  trade ;  namely, 

7.  Large  remissions  of  taxation. 

I  well  remember  the  time  when  a  bad  harvest  meant  a  bad 
revenue.  It  is  not  so  now,  for  the  price  of  bread  is  kept  moderate 
by  foreign  importations,  and  the  augmented  means  of  the  working 
masses  have  created  a  strong,'  solid,  steady  consuming  power,  of 
which,  thirty  and  even  twenty  years  ago,  we  had  little  idea.  Only 
here  and  there  shall  I  have  occasion  to  notice  the  action  of  these 
secondary  influences  upon  our  foreign  trade,  when  it  may  appear  to 
have  been  so  energetic  as  palpably  to  affect  the  reckoning.  But  it 
must  be  borne  in  mind  that  some  one,  or  more  than  one,  is  commonly 
at  work,  in  its  degree,  to  elevate  or  depress  our  trade ;  and  therefore  all 
along  I  cannot  pretend  to  be  doing  more  than  to  present  approximate 
conclusions,  with  a  margin  of  considerable  breadth,  within  the  bounds 
of  which  all  the  evidence  is  indeterminate,  and  its  appreciation  open 
to  much  variety  of  opinion.  The  results  are,  however,  in  almost  every 
case  so  marked  as  to  leave  ample  space  for  such  a  margin. 

After  these  rather  copious  explanations,  I  am  now,  perhaps,  in  a 
condition  to  set  forth  the  case  under  the  four  heads  which  I  sketched 
in  the  early  part  of  this  paper. 

1.  I  am  to  show  the  utter  and  absolute  failure  of  Protection  as 
a  means  of  promoting  the  material  growth  of  the  nation. 

At  the  commencement  of  the  century,  our  exports  were  not  very 
regular,  as  they  were  subject  in  a  peculiar  degree  to  the  influences 
of  war.  In  1800  they  were  39,500,000?.,  in  1805  they  were 
37,250,000?.  In  1815,  they  rose,  for  the  moment,  with  the  return 
of  peace,  to  49,500,000?. ;  as  the  foreign  demand  for  goods  came  up 
faster  than  the  foreign  industries  which  were  to  produce  them.  It 
is  from  1816  onwards  that  we  see  the  true  unmixed  action  of  a 
Protective  system  upon  a  trade,  which  had  previously  thriven,  to  a 
certain  extent  (for  in  1810  it  reached  47,000,000?.),  upon  the  surer 
aid  of  a  maritime  monopoly  secured  by  the  strong  hand. 

In  fifteen  years  of  peace,  down  to  1830  inclusive,  the  exports 
stood  as  follows  : — 

Average 

1816-18  .                 .....  £42,000,000 

1819-21 35,000,000 

1822-24 36,000,000 

1825-27  .        .        .        .    -     .        .        .  36,000,000 

1822-30 37,000,000 


1880.   FREE  TRADE,  RAILWAYS,   AND   COMMERCE.    377 

If,  as  -would  be  just,  we  strike  out  from  the  last  triennium  the  year 
1830,  during  the  latter  half  of  which  the  Liverpool  and  Manchester 
Railway  was  at  work,  even  the  poor  semblance  of  increase  presented 
by  the  closing  figures  will  disappear ;  for  the  years  1828  and  1829 
only  give  an  average  of  36,250,OOOZ.  Although  mechanical  invention 
was  in  constant  growth,  and  various  initial  measures  had  been  taken 
with  a  view  to  the  extension  of  trade,  yet  in  the  main  the  system 
remained  inviolate,  and  Protection  proved  itself  to  be,  in  the  United 
Kingdom  at  least,  but  another  name  for  Paralysis. 

This  is  a  figurative  expression ;  but  it  is  strictly  within  the 
measure  of  the  truth.  Whether  Protection  is  a  universal  poison, 
,or  whether  it  may  be  conceived  to  operate  as  food  in  cases  where  it 
is  granted  for  a  few  years  in  order  to  shelter  the  first  investments  in 
a  new  industry,  I  do  not  now  inquire.  We  at  least  have  never  seen 
or  known  it  in  that  mitigated  form.  With  us,  it  has  sheltered 
nothing,  but  the  most  selfish  instincts  of  class  against  the  just  demands 
of  the  public  welfare.  These  it  has  supplied  with  strongholds,  from 
whose  portals  our  producers  have  too  generally  marched  forth  in  the 
day  of  need,  armed  from  head  to  foot  with  power  and  influence 
largely  gotten  at  the  expense  of  the  community,  to  do  battle,  with 
a  perverted  prowess,  against  nature,  liberty,  and  justice.  Whether 
this  poison  of  Protection  is  equally  virulent  in  other  lands,  where 
thrift,  or  the  love  of  excellence  in  industrial  production,  may  be  more 
indigenous  than  with  us,  I  do  not  presume  to  say.  I  am  well 
convinced  that  it  is  at  most  a  question  whether  the  mischief  is 
always  superlative,  or  sometimes  only  positive  ;  and  I  do  believe,  if 
my  belief  be  worth  anything,  that  the  unrivalled  plant  of  British 
energy  never  truly  thrives  in  a  hothouse,  but  only  when  sun  and 
rain,  wind  and  frost  and  snow  play  freely  upon  it,  to  exercise  and 
brace  its  growth.  Enough,  however,  of  this.  Such  topics  belong 
perhaps  to  a  wider  field.  We  have  now  our  starting-post  firmly 
planted  in  the  ground,  and  may  set  out  on  our  way  towards  the  goal. 

The  first  period  we  have  to  examine  is  that  during  which  the 
Railway  factor  was  at  work  without  the  co-operation  of  the  Legislative 
or  Free  Trade  factor.  It  extends  over  the  twelve  years  1831-42 
inclusive.  Subdividing  this  period  for  a  more  minute  examination, 
we  find  the  four  triennia  exhibiting  a  growth  of  exports  as  follows : — 

Average 
1831-3         .        .         .         .      •  .         .         .     ^38,000,000 

]834-G 47,000,000 

1837-9 48,000,000 

1840-2 50,000,000 

In  the  first  of  these  periods,  trade  was  artificially  kept  down  by  the 
political  excitement  of  the  country,  which,  for  once,  actually  bordered 
upon  revolution.  The  second  was  one  of  great  activity  in  general 
business,  and  of  plenty  indicated  by  an  average  price  of  wheat  reduced 


373      .  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  February 

from  64s.  to  44s.  per  quarter.  The  third  again  carried  wheat  to 
64s.,  and  with  the  panic  of  1837  caused  a  very  heavy  decline  of  ex- 
ports. Yet  even  the  triennium  of  dear  corn  and  commercial  failures 
exhibits  an  average  increase  to  48,000,000?.  The  fourth  again 
included  at  least  one  deplorable  commercial  year  (1842),  yet  showed 
on  the  average  a  further  augmentation  to  50,000,000?.  The  entire  term 
of  twelve  years  exhibits  a  growth,  between  its  first  triennium  and  its 
last,  of  12,000,000?.  in  our  exports,  and  may  fairly  be  taken  at  not 
less  than  1,000,000?.  annually.  Until  the  summer  of  1837,  when 
the  Grand  Junction  line  was  opened,  I  am  not  aware  that  any 
important  railway  was  at  work,  except  that  between  Liverpool  and 
Manchester.  But  by  1838  the  four  great  centres  of  London,  t 
Birmingham,  Liverpool,  and  Manchester  were  all  united  by  rail. 

It  may  be  said  that  the  railways  which  had  been  opened  before 
the  end  of  1 842,  and  which  did  not  reach  2,000  miles  in  length, 
could  not  yet  have  had  time  to  develope  their  arrangements,  and 
that  accordingly  we  cannot  consider  these  years  as  exhibiting  suffi- 
ciently the  results  of  the  system.  But  on  the  other  hand  it  is  to  be 
remembered  that  they  drew  upon  the  first  richness  of  a  virgin  soil. 
Connecting  together  the  wealthiest,  most  active,  and  most  populous 
places,  they  told  far  more  rapidly  and  powerfully  upon  trade,  than  did 
the  lines  opened  at  a  later  period.  It  is  probable  that  this  considera- 
tion may  nearly  suffice  to  keep  even  the  balance  between  the  energy 
of  the  Railway  factor  in  the  earlier  and  in  the  later  years.  The 
mileage  traffic  supplies  us  with  an  adequate  test ;  and  the  reply  it 
furnishes  is  this,  that  between  1842  and  1846  the  return  per  mile 
varied  from  alout  2,300?.  to  2,540?.,  and  that  so  late  as  in  1870  it  had 
only  reached  2,794?.  I  have  not  the  returns  before  1842;  but  my 
impression  is  that  at  that  time  the  receipt  per  mile  was  decidedly 
high.  The  point  is  one  of  great  importance  in  connection  with  the 
assumption  I  have  made,  that  the  increment  of  our  foreign  trade  due 
to  the  action  of  locomotive  causes  may  be  taken  as  nearly  constant 
from  year  to  year. 

So  much  for  the  First  Railway  Period  of  twelve  years. 
We  now  come  to  periods  defined  for  us  by  the  legislative  dates 
of  the  greater  Free  Trade  statutes. 

The  First  Instalment  of  Free  Trade  may  be  taken  as  tested  in 
some  degree  by  the  years  1843-5.  The  result  is  that  these  years 
give  an  average  export, of  57,000,000?. :  an  aggregate  growth,  there- 
fore, of  7,000,000?.,  and  an  annual  growth,  one  -year  with  another, 
of  2tf  millions.  Calculating  on  the  basis  we  have  laid  down,  we  have 
to  take  1,000,000?.  of  this  increment  as  due  to  the  constant  addition 
to  the  power  of  the  Railway  stimulus.  1,250,000?.  then  will  appear 
to  belong  to  the  first  modicum,  as  it  may  be  called  in  comparison 
with  what  followed,  of  Emancipating  Legislation. 

The  Second  Instalment  of  Free  Trade,  which  became  law  in  1845, 


1880.  FREE  TRADE,  RAILWAYS,,  AND   COMMERCE.     379 

has  again  only  the  brief  term  of  three  years,  1846-8,  allowed  to  it; 
for  with  the  1st  of  January,  1849,  came  the  Third  Instalment,  in  the ' 
shape  of  the  Eepeal  of  the  Corn  Law,  to  which  was  added  the  new 
Navigation  Act. 

During  those  three  years  there  was  no  increase  of  the  exports. 
There  is  indeed  a  small  diminution ;  the  average  export  being  only 
56,500,OOOZ.  instead  of  57,000,000^.  But  with  these  three  years  came 
three  great  calamities  :  the  first,  scarcity  in  England,  and  famine  in 
Ireland ;  the  second,  commercial  panic,  with  the  suspension  of  the 
Bank  Act  in  1847;  and  the  third  in  1848,  the  great  year  of  wars  and 
revolutions  on  the  Continent,  which  drove  our  exports  down,  even 
as  compared  with  1847,  by  6,000,000^.,  or  from  58,842.000^  to 
52,849,000^.  Under  these  circumstances  it  was  much  to  have  pre- 
vented a*  still  greater  contraction. 

To  estimate,  however,  the  aggregate  and  also  the  respective 
force  of  our  two  Factors,  our  best  course  may  be  not  to  make  these 
three  years  the  subject  of  a  separate  calculation,  but  to  omit  them 
from  our  calculation  of  the  average  trade,  and  to  found  this  entirely 
on  the  following  period,  that  which  belongs  to  the  Third  Instalment 
of  Free  Trade,  and  which  extends  over  the  four  years  1849-52. 

The  result  then  will  stand  as  follows.  Starting  from  the  year 
1849,  we  go  as  far  as  the  year  1852,  which  immediately  preceded  the 
Fourth  Legislative  Instalment  of  Free  Trade  in  the  Tariff  and  other 
Acts  of  1853.  In  these  four  years  we  discover  the  elastic  bound, 
by  which  our  Foreign  Trade  advanced,  when  relieved  from  the  de- 
pressing agencies  of  1 846-8,  and  further  invigorated  by  the  emanci- 
pating legislation  of  1849.  The  average  for  the  four  years  is  no  less 
than  72,000,000^.  This  exhibits  a  rise  of  15,000,000^.  per  annum 
over  the  average  for  the  years  1842-5.  Crediting  as  before  the 
Eailway  Factor  with  an  annual  increment  of  1,000,000^.,  we  have  this 
time  a  residue  of  8,000,000^.,  or  something  over  1,000,000^.  annually, 
to  set  down  to  the  account  of  emancipating  legislation. 

The  Fourth  Instalment  of  this  legislation  initiates  a  new  period, 
which  begins  with  1853.  The  triennium  1853-5,  notwithstanding 
the  Crimean  War,  exhibits  an  average  exportation  of  97,000,000^. 
From  1852,  a  very  flourishing  year  with  an  export  of  78,000,000^.,  we 
pass  to  1853  with  the  enormous  increment  of  20,000,000^.,  making  in 
all  98,000,OOOL  The  effect  of  the  War  is  measured  thereafter  for  two 
years,  1854  and  1855,  by  its  keeping  the  export  stationary,  or  affecting 
it  rather  with  a  slight  decrease.  The  figure  for  1854  is  97,184,000^., 
and  for  1855  it  is  95,688,000^.  The  average  for  the  triennium  1853-5 
may  be  taken  at  94,000,OOOL  It  exhibits  the  very  large  advance  of 
22,000,000?.  on  the  years  1849-52.  It  is  probable  that  the  Kepeal  of 
the  Navigation  Act,  which  brought  about  such  great  changes  in  ship- 
ping, had  not  time  to  tell  for  some  years  after  the  enactment,  and 
that  it  first  began  to  be  very  effective  in  this  triennium. 


380       .  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY.  February 

But  we  Lave  to  pass  through  four  more  years  before  the  period  is 
closed  by  the  year  1860,  which  brings  with  it  the  Fifth  and  last  great 
Instalment  of  Free  Trade  in  conjunction  with  the  French  Treaty, 
due  to  the  sagacious  initiative  of  Mr.  Cobden.  On  the  removal  of 
pressure  from  the  Crimean  War,  the  export  rises  in  1856  to 
115,826,000k,  and  this  is  followed  by  a  further  increase  in  1857  to- 
122,000,000k  The  commercial  explosion,  which  occurred  near  the 
close  of  the  year,  naturally  made  itself  more  felt  in  1858,  when  the 
export  fell  again  to  116,000,000^.  In  1859  the  exports  rose  to 
130,000,000k,  and  the  average  for  the  four  years  is  124,000,000k 
The  entire  period  of  seven  years  between  the  Fourth  and  the  Fifth 
Instalments,  when  compared  with  the  four  immediately  preceding  the 
Fourth  Instalment,  stands  as  follows : — 

1849-52,  average  exports    ....    £72,000,000 
1853-59       „  „  119,000,000 

The  augmentation  of  exports  here  reaches  the  enormous  amount 
of  47.000,000k,  or  nearly  7,750,000k  annually.  The  changes  of  1849, 
as  well  as  those  of  1853,  had  produced  a  very  full  effect.  As  to  the 
action  of  locomotive  influences,  the  addition  to  railway  mileage  had 
actually  fallen  from  an  annual  average  of  about  550  miles  to  one  of 
380;  but  we  may  consider  the  extension  of  the  Submarine  Telegraph  as- 
bringing  the  action  of  the  Locomotive  Factor  up  to  its  full  efficiency.. 
The  effect  of  that  agency  was,  besides  giving  a  general  stimulus  and 
facility,  to  bring  forward,  by  a  great  sudden  economy  of  time,  a  large 
quantity  of  traffic  which  would  otherwise  have  been  postponed.  For 
this  anticipation  of  transactions  some  special  credit  may  be  given. 
And  although  the  mileage  of  railways  was  not  as  rapidly  extended  as- 
before,  there  was  a  large  increase  in  the  receipts  per  mile.  Between 
1846  and  1852  these  receipts  had  fallen  from  2,540k  to  2,140k 
Between  1852  and  1859  they  again  rose  to  2,573k,  and  thus  went  a 
little  beyond  the  point  which  they  had  touched  in  1845.  The  im- 
provement was  about  20  per  cent.  ;  and  the  railway  agencies  may 
fairly  be  credited,  as  usual,  with  adding  a  fresh  million  annually  to- 
our  foreign  trade.  It  is  very  difficult  to  say  what  allowance  should 
be  made  for  that  acceleration  of  oversea  transactions  which  was  due 
to  the  economy  of  time  effected  by  the  Telegraph.  This  must  be 
admitted  to  be  guess-work  ;  and  it  may  be  guessed  at  5,000,000k  or 
even  at  10,000,000k  annually.  If  we  take  it  at  the  latter  figure,  the 
Eailway  Factor  will  be  credited  with  1 7,000,000k  instead  of  7,000,OOOL 
for  this  period.  But  there  will  still,  even  on  this  supposition,  remain 
the  immense  increment  of  30,000,000k  in  our  foreign  trade,  or  more 
than  4,000,000k  a  year,  apparently  due,  and  this  on  an  estimate  perhaps 
unduly  reduced,  to  the  agency  of  legislation  for  the  Liberation  of 
Intercourse. 

If  it  be  thought  that  the  allowance  made  for  the  peculiar  accelbra- 


1880.  FREE  TRADE,  RAILWAYS,  AND   COMMERCE.    381 

live  effect  of  the  Telegraphic  system  ought  to  be  thrown  over  a  larger 
number  of  years,  that  remark  "will  be  met  by  another  and  more  synop- 
tical view,  which  will  shortly  be  presented,  of  this  remarkable  period. 

We  have  now  dealt  with  the  first,  second,  third,  and  fourth  ad- 
vances made  in  the  direction  of  Free  Trade ;  and  we  have  yet  to  deal 
with  the  only  remaining  great  operation,  that  of  1860.  In  approach- 
ing this  latest  stage  of  the  inquiry,  we  have  two  new  difficulties  to 
contend  with.  One  is  the  novel  and  as  it  were  forced  reduction  of  our 
exports  by  the  enormous  and  sudden  contraction  of  the  cotton  supply 
through  the  action  of  the  great  civil  war  in  America.  This  may  be 
dealt  with  in  detail.  But  the  other  goes  to  the  root  of  the  arrange- 
ment followed  in  this  paper.  To  measure  the  effect  produced  by  each 
successive  instalment  of  Free  Trade,  we  have  taken  the  increase  in  the 
average  exports  for  the  term  of  years  between  the  instalment  actually 
dealt  with  and  the  period  of  the  next  instalment :  three  years  from 
1842  to  1845  ;  four  years  from  1845  to  1849  ;  four  years  from  1849 
to  1853  ;  seven  years  from  1853  to  1860.  But  after  1860  we  have  no 
limit  provided  for  us  by  a  fresh  great  epoch  of  onward  legislation  to 
mark  out  a  testing  term  of  years.  It  only  remains  to  assume  one.  I 
shall  assume  the  term  of  seven  years,  1860-7,  rather  than  the  shorter 
terms  of  four  or  three  years,  and  this  for  two  reasons.  First,  that  the 
years  1861  and  1862  were,  by  reason  of  the  American  War,  wholly  un- 
suited  to  be  used  as  testing  years.  Secondly,  that,  as  the  Commercial 
Treaty  of  18 60  gave  an  impulse  to  liberating  legislation  in  various 
countries,  it  may  fairly  claim  the  longer  rather  than  the  shorter 
term  as  the  proper  instrument  for  testing  its  effect. ' 

The  seven  years  1860-6,  which  I  adopt  as  adequately  ascertaining 
the  normal  impulse  of  the  new  legislation  upon  our  foreign  trade, 
may  be  taken  as  one  period  ;  and  in  that  view  they  present  a  total 
export  of  1,046,700,000?.,  or  an  annual  average  export  of  149,500,000?. 
This  sum,  compared  with  119,000,000?.  for  1853-9,  gives  a  total 
increment  .of  30,500,000?.,  and  an  annual  increment  of  nearly 
4,500,000?.  Of  this  amount,  proceeding  on  our  former  basis,  we  have 
to  assign  3,500,000?.  to  Free  Trade. 

But^the  circumstances  of  the  American  civil  war,  which  for  a 
time  withdrew  bodily  the  main  aliment  of  our  greatest  manufacture, 
acted  on  the  trade  of  this  period  in  such  a  manner  as  to  stamp  it  with 
a  character  not  only  of  anomaly,  but  of  exception.  The  largest 
annual  trade  of  the  septennial  period  rose  in  1866  to  188,000.000?., 
while  the  smallest,  in  1862,  was  under  124,000,000?.  The  trade  of 
1860,  notwithstanding  a  bad  harvest,  was  so  stimulated  by  the 
liberating  Customs  Act,  which  passed  pretty  early  in  the  sessional  year, 
that  it  rose  at  once  from  130,000,000?.  to  135,000,0002.;  but  in  1861, 
although  the  whole  year  had  the  benefit  of  the  new  legislation,  the 
exports  fell  to  1  25,000,000?.,  or  5,000,000?.  below  the  point  they  had 
reached  in  1859. 


382  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  February 

The  cotton  famine,  for  such  it  might  strictly  be  called,  presents 
itself  as  the  obvious  cause  of  this  decline.  The  war  in  America  acted 
upon  our  exports  as  well  as  upon  our  supplies,  since  it  also  shut  the 
ports  of  a  large  portion  of  the  Union.  Our  export  of  cottons,  which 
in  1859  had  reached  48,000,000?.,  and  which  mounted  in  1860  to 
52,000,000?.,  fell  in  1861  (the  war  beginning  in  April  of  that  year)  to 
less  than  47,000,000?.,  and  in  1862  to  less  than  37,000,000?.  The 
aggregate  exports  to  the  United  States,  which  for  the  four  years  1856-9 
averaged  19,500,000?.,  fell  in  the  two  years  1861—2  to  an  average  of 
11,500,000?.  In  order  then  to  judge  of  the  impulse  given  to  general 
trade  in  these  two  years,  we  must  (I  think),  before  comparing  them 
with  the  four  years  1856-9,  deduct,  on  both  sides,  not  only  our  export 
of  cottons,  but  even  our  aggregate  exports  to  the  American  Union. 

While  the  total  exports  of  these  four  years  give  an  average  of 
12 1,500,000?.,  the  export  of  cottons  (goods  and  yarns)  was  42,000,000?. 
Making  this  deduction,  the  export,  other  than  of  cottons,  gives  an 
average  of  79,500,000?.  But  the  aggregate  exports  to  the  United 
States  averaged  19,500,000?.,  so  that  our  export  trade,  after  the  two 
deductions,  amounted  only  to  60,000,000?. 

Now  in  the  two  years  1861-62  the  average  total  exports  were 
124,500,000?.  The  average  export  of  cottons  was  41,750,000?.,  and  the 
average  export  to  the  United  States  was  11,500,000?.  We  have, 
therefore,  to  deduct  53,250,000?.  from  the  total  of  124,500,000?.,  in 
order  to  institute  our  comparison.  It  will  then  stand  thus  : — 

Trade  of  1856-9,  after  deductions      ....    £60,000,000 
„       1861-2  „  ....      70,750,000 

So  that  the  later  years  give  an  increment  per  annum  of  10,750,000?. 
upon  our  general  trade,  notwithstanding  the  pressure  exercised  upon 
it  throughout  the  world  by  the  cotton  famine.  In  this  view,  the  in- 
crement stated  fails  to  exhibit  the  full  normal  effect.  But,  on  the  other 
hand,  it  derives  an  undue  advantage  from  one  item  included  twice 
over  in  the  deduction  :  the  item  of  cottons  exported  to  the  United 
States,  which  are  included  in  both  the  deductions,  and  thus  somewhat 
exaggerate  the  result.  I  have  not  the  means,  from  the  do<jpments 
before  me,  of  a  more  precise  statement.  But  the  figures  which  have 
been  given,  after  a  due  allowance  on  this  score,  show  approximately 
an  immediate  increase  which  may  safely  be  stated  at  several  millions 
annually  upon  three-fifths  of  our  trade,  and  thus  amply  sustain  the 
results  we  have  elsewhere  attained  to  prove  the  invigorating  force  of 
emancipating  legislation. 

It  seems  plain,  however,  that  these  years  were  exceptional,  and 
that  they  would  only  confuse  any  statement  of  the  general  growth  of 
our  foreign  trade  which  should  include  them.  It  will  be  best 
accordingly  to  strike  the  average,  to  ascertain  our  seven  years'  growth, 
only  upon  the  five  years  1860  and  1863-66.  Two  indeed  of  these 


1880.    FREE  TRADE,  RAILWAYS,   AND   COMMERCE.    383 

years,  1863  and  1864,  suffered  seriously  from  the  American  War. 
But  the  import  of  raw  cotton  had  begun  to  rise  progressively.  The 
case  now  fell  more  within  the  ordinary  limits  of  the  range  between 
good  years  and  bad,  and  ought  not  therefore  to  be  dealt  with  in  an 
exceptional  manner. 

If  then  we  take  an  average  of  our  trade  upon  the  five  years  last 
named,  we  obtain  for  it  the  figure  of  159,500,000?.  This  we  have  to 
compare  with  119,000,000?.,  which  was  the  average  obtained  for  the 
seven  years  1853-59.  The  augmentation  amounts  to  40,500,000?. ; 
and  if,  as  before,  7,000,000?.  are  assigned  to  locomotive  agencies,  there 
remain  33,500,000?.  to  be  set  down  to  the  effect  of  liberating  legisla- 
tion :  or  about  4,750,000?.  a  year. 

We  have  now  come  down  to  the  end  of  the  year  1866.  Thirteen 
more  years  have  passed  down  to  the  time  at  which  I  write.  Of  these 
the  first  four,  from  1867  to  1870  inclusive,  were  not  subject  to  the 
action  of  any  such  violently  disturbing  causes  as  to  make  them  un- 
available for  the  purposes  of  this  paper.  The  export,  which  was 
189,000,000?.  in  1866,  was  199,000,000?.  in  1870,  showing  an  average 
increment  of  2,500,000?.  a  year.  If,  avoiding  1861-63  on  account  of 
the  war  in  America,  we  compare  the  average  for  1864—66  with  the 
average  for  1867-70,  the  first  give  172,000,000?.,  the  second 
187,000,000?.,  so  that  the  annual  increment  is  less  than  4,000,000?., 
and  is  materially  below  what  it  was  in  periods  when  some  new  stimulus 
of  liberating  legislation  had  been  freshly  administered. 

It  is  certainly  tantalising  to  arrest  this  examination  so  far  back 
as  at  the  end  of  1870.  But  the  reason  is  that  these  eight  years  do 
not  seem  to  afford  ground  for  any  probable  inference  illustrative  of 
the  present  inquiry.  In  1870  our  exports  were  200,000,000?.  In 
two  years  they  rose  to  256,000,000?.  At  that  level  they  remained 
for  two  years.  Then  came  five  years  of  continuous  decline  (1874-8)» 
a  decline  in  price  mainly,  but  also  in  quantity,  to  193,000,000?.,  or 
7,000,000?.  below  the  level  of  1870.  During  that  interval  the  large 
trade  in  sugar  has  been  altogether  freed  from  the  pressure  of  Customs 
Duty  (1874),  and  the  vast  trade  in  corn  released  (1870)  from  a  small 
residue  of  protective  impost,  amounting  to  some  four  or  five 
per  cent,  on  the  value.  While  these  have  affected  an  imported 
value  of  80,000,000?.  sterling  (in  1878),  the  increment  of  railway 
extension  has  been  reduced,  and  has  not  exceeded  220  miles  per 
annum.  A  new  locomotive  force  has  been,  however,  found  in  the 
opening  of  the  Suez  Canal ;  and  the  extension  of  railways  abroad  has 
been  very  large ; l  and  also  of  telegraphs.  Political  disturbance, 
indifferent  and  bad  harvests,  and  excessive  speculation,  have  all 

1  Railway  Mileage. 

1865.  1875. 

In  France,  Germany,  Austria  and  Bussia     .        .        .    21,824  53,900 

United  States         . 35,100  75,000 

Journal  of  the  Statistical  Society,  June  1878,  p.  205. 


384  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  February 

contributed  to  darken  and  perplex  the  state  of  things.  The  inflation, 
and  the  subsequent  obstinate  depression,  in  certain  prices,  especially 
those  of  iron  and  coal,  are  without  any  approach  to  a  parallel  in  our 
commercial  history.  On  the  whole,  the  result  is  that,  though  I  for 
one  find  it  possible  enough  to  trace  the  growth  of  our  trade  down  to 
1870,  I  find  myself,  as  to  the  subsequent  years,  wholly  unable  to 
disengage  the  more  general  facts  from  the  particular  and  disturbing 
circumstances.  Without  doubt,  if  this  could  be  done,  we  should  find 
that  there  has  been  a  real  growth  since  1870;  but  I  cannot  discover 
how  we  are  to  take  any  measure  of  it,  except  one  purely  conjectural. 
When  an  upward  movement  shall  once  not  only  have  commenced, 
but  have  become  established  and  broadly  represented  in  our  returns, 
it  may  be  allowable  to  average  together  the  years  1871-9  ;  but  until 
that  beginning  shall  have  been  palpably  and  indisputably  made,  and 
made  calculable,  it  would  be  a  leap  in  the  dark. 

It  may,  however,  be  well  to  mention  (valeat  quantum}  that  for 
the  eight  years  1871-8  the  average  would  be  about  220,000,000^. 
If  we  assume  this  to  be  the  real  growth,  and  compare  it  with 
187,000,OOOL  for  1867-70,  it  would  give  an  increase  of  33,000,000^ 
in  nine  years,  or  over  3,500,OOOL  a  year.  But  while  this  amount 
must  be  regarded  as  doubtful  in  itself,  there  would  be  a  further  diffi- 
culty in  determining  even  by  approximation  the  proportions  in  which 
it  ought  to  ba  assigned  to  the  Legislative  and  Locomotive  causes 
respectively.  One  conclusion,  and  one  only,  seems  to  flow  legitimately 
from  the  general  picture  of  these  years,  namely,  that  their  average 
growth  has  been  smaller  than  was  the  growth  of  years  directly  subject 
to  the  fresh  influence  of  acts  of  liberating  legislation.  This  conclusion 
will  be  confirmed  by  a  further  statement  which  I  have  to  present. 

A  simpler,  but  also  a  less  effective,  method  for  estimating  the 
results  of  liberating  legislation  will  be  to  compare  the  trade  of  the 
first  year  after  each  of  the  successive  changes  with  the  trade  of  the 
year  preceding  it.  The  basis  is  indeed  too  narrow,  for  a  single  year 
does  not  give  time  enough  to  develope  new  commercial  arrangements 
in  harmony  with  altered  laws.  It  is  also  far  from  accurate,  inasmuch 
as  the  legislation  does  not  take  effect  from  the  beginning  of  the 
natural  year,  and  consequently  only  a  fraction  even  of  the  twelve- 
month is  represented.  In  the  case  of  1842  this  was  the  smaller 
fraction,  and  I  therefore  take  1843  as  the  first  year  under  the  New 
Tariff  of  1842.  With  these  explanations,  I  present  briefly  in  a  table 
the  results  of  this  method,  which,  however  imperfect,  serves  in  some 
degree  to  test  and  check  what  has  already  been  stated : — 


Preceding  Years  Export. 

1842   .  .  £47,284,000 

1844   .  .  58,534,000 

1848   .  .  .52,849,000 

1852   .  .  78,076,000 

1859   .  .  130,411,000 


Succeeding  Years  Export. 

1843    .  .  £52,200,000  (1) 

1845    .  .  60,111,000  (2) 

1849    .  .  63,596,000  (3) 

1853   . .  -  .  98,933,000  (4) 

1860    .  .  135,891,000  (5) 


1880.    FREE  TRADE,  RAILWAYS,   AND   COMMERCE.    385 

The  immediate  increment  is  in  (1)  4,922,000?.;   (2)  1,577,000?.; 
(3)  10,747,000?. ;  (4)  20,857,000?. ;  (5)  5,480,000?. 

The  large  variation  in  these  amounts  indicates  the  action  of  the 
collateral  and  secondary  causes,  to  which  reference  has  been  made. 
In  the  case  of  No.  3,  the  year  1848,  with  which  the  comparison  is 
made,  had  been  exceptionally  depressed  by  war  and  revolution  in 
Europe.  But  if,  instead  of  1848  and  1849,  we  were  to  take  1849 
and  1850,  we  should  still  obtain  the  very  large  increment  of 
7,771,000?.  Taking  the  figures  as  they  stand,  they  show  that 
the  result  of  the  large  measures  of  Free  Trade  severally  was  to  add 
on  the  five  occasions,  in  less  than  a  twelvemonth  for  four  of  them, 
the  sum  of  43,673,000?.  to  our  export  trade;  or  for  each  occasion, 
on  the  average,  8,493,000?.  Now  the  average  annual  increment, 
over  the  whole  period  from  1842  to  1870,  was  about  4,400,000?. 
Thus  the  general  effect  of  the  liberating  laws  was,  in  a  period  con- 
siderably under  the  twelvemonth,  nearly  to  double  the  average  rate  of 
growth.  I  cannot  but  think  this  fact  carries  with  it  an  irresistible 
weight  of  demonstration.  It  would  be  futile  to  imagine  that  at 
these  particular  seasons  there  was  in  each  case  such  a  powerful  en- 
hancement of  the  regularly  growing  action  of  locomotive  facilities  as 
in  any  sensible  degree  to  account  for  such  great  augmentations. 
We  have  therefore  no  choice  but  to  assign  them  in  substance  to  the 
direct  effect  of  liberating  legislation. 

It  seems  perfectly  legitimate,  and  of  considerable  utility,  to  find 
a  further  verifying  formula  for  the  more  detailed  examinations  already 
made  in  a  broader  conspectus  of  the  Free  Trade  Period  as  a  whole, 
and  in  a  comparison  of  it  with  the  First  Eailway  Period. 

In  the  First  Eailway  Period,  1830-42,  we  have  seen  an  addition 
of  about  1,000,000?.  sterling  annually  to  our  exports,  and  have  left 
them  standing  at  50,000,000?.  In  1876,  alter  twenty-eight  years 
through  which  the  Legislative  and  the  Locomotive  Factors  have 
been  jointly  at  work,  the  exports  are  199,500,000?.,  or  let  us  say 
200,000,000?.  The  original  starting-point,  supplied  by  the  paternal 
or  protective  period,  was  38,000,000?.  The  average  annual  increment 
for  the  twenty-eight  years,  during  which  the  two  factors  worked 
together,  would  upon  these  data  be  over  5,250,000?.,  against 
1,000,000?.  while  locomotion  worked  alone.  Eegarding  the  matter 
in  this  light,  out  of  the  total  growth  of  162,000,000?.  the  locomotive 
factor  might,  at  first  sight,  claim  40,000,000?.,  or  one-fourth,  leaving 
122,000,000?.,  or  three- fourths  of  the  whole,  for  liberating  legislation. 

But  it  is  probable,  as  I  have  already  said,  that  an  allowance 
should  be  made  for  the  very  special  effect  of  the  Telegraph  in  quick- 
ening commercial  transactions.  There  has  likewise  been  an  increase 
in  the  receipts  per  mile  from  Eailway  traffic,  amounting  possibly  to 
one-third.2  But  against  this  increased  efficiency  of  railways  is  to  be 
2  I  am  not  in  possession  of  the  exact  figures  for  1879. 


386  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  February 

set  the  diminution  in  the  number  of  miles  opened.  And  while, 
without  doubt,  the  benefits  of  any  given  locomotive  agencies  are 
more  and  more  felt  from  year  to  year,  the  very  same  expansive 
principle  applies  to  Liberating  Legislation,  which  continually  gives 
scope  for  new  improvements  in  the  methods  of  trade.  Let  us,  how- 
ever, with  reference  to  what  has  here  been  said,  add  10,000,000^.  to 
the  sum  set  down  to  the  credit  of  Locomotive  agencies.  In  this 
view  those  agencies  will  have  given  an  extension  of  50,000,000?.  to 
our  export  trade,  while  1 1 2,000,000£.  will  remain  due  to  Liberating 
Legislation :  or  about  30  per  cent,  will  be  set  down  to  the  first, 
and  70  per  cent,  to  the  second. 

Look  at  these  figures  as  we  will,  within  the  bounds  fixed  for  us 
by  positive  data,  and  I  think  it  is  impossible  to  arrive  at  any  other 
conclusion  than  that  the  operation  of  a  sound  Political  Economy  has 
been  even  more,  and  greatly  more,  prolific  in  enlarging  the  commerce 
and  wealth  of  the  country,  than  the  operation  of  its  sister  and  ally, 
Inventive  Grenius,  applied  to  the  development  of  natural  science  for 
purposes  of  locomotion. 

I  am  aware  that  no  portion  of  the  reasoning  or  evidence,  which 
I  have  presented,  can  claim  to  be  demonstrative  when  taken  by  itself. 
At  every  step  exception  may  be  taken  to  my  methods,  as  allowing 
too  little  or  too  much.  But  I  have  given  the  case  as  a  whole  in 
three  distinct  forms,  independent  of  one  another  : 

1.  The   comparison   of    the   periods,   following    each   successive 
instalment  of  Liberating  Legislation,  with  one  another  and  with  the 
years  1830-42,  forming  the  purely  Locomotive  period. 

2.  The  comparison  of  the  entire  period  of  Liberating  Legislation 
(1842-70)  with  (1830-42)  the  purely  Locomotive  period. 

3.  The  comparison  in  each  case  of  the  last  reported  year  preceding 
the  great  legislative  changes  with  the  first  reported  year  following 
upon  them. 

If  each  one  of  these  three  strands  be  thought  by  circumspect 
statisticians  insufficient  to  sustain  the  conclusion,  still  I  submit  that 
the  concurrence  of  their  testimony  binds  them  into  a  rope  which  will 
safely  bear  the  weight. 

It  may  be  said  that,  if  Freedom  of  Trade  has  become  the  solid 
and  unalterable  basis  of  our  legislation,  inquiries  such  as  these  can 
have  for  us  none  but  a  speculative  interest.  Even  on  this  showing, 
however,  they  bear  a  character  highly  practical  for  the  Governments 
and  citizens  of  other  lands,  who  are  rushing  or  gliding  back  into  the 
embarrassments  of  a  condemned  and  impoverishing  system,  or 
hugging  themselves  with  abundant  gratulation  on  their  never  having 
departed  from  it.  In  the  Statistical  Journal  for  June  1878,  Mr. 
Newmarch  has  published  a  table  which  compares  the  trade  of  four 
great  Protective  countries  with  that  of  the  United  Kingdom.  To 
this  valuable  table  I  regard  the  present  paper  as  supplementary  and 


1880.    FREE  TRADE,  RAILWAYS,  AND   COMMERCE.  387 

auxiliary.  It  shows  how  favourably  Free  Trade  among  us  compares 
with  Protection  in  France,  Austria,  Kussia,  and  the  United  States. 
One  strange  plea,  indeed,  the  witch  has  invented  at  her  last  gasp,  to 
save  her  from  the  stake  she  has  so  well  deserved.  She  yields  a  lip- 
homage  to  Free  Trade  as  good  for  Britain,  though  elsewhere  bad. 
This  country,  it  seems,  had  just  reached  by  means  of  Protection  a 
development,  which  has  enabled  her  to  venture  safely  on  Free  Trade. 
An  unreformed  drunkard  might  as  well  say  to  a  reformed  one,  that 
he  indeed,  drunkard  A,  had  by  means  of  constant  drinking  so  fortified 
his  constitution  as  to  be  able  to  face  the  perils  of  temperance,  but 
that  to  himself,  drunkard  B,  who  had  not  yet  emptied  so  many 
puncheons,  butts,  and  bottles,  such  premature  amendment  would  be 
fatal.  What  is  the  term  granted  to  Protection,  and  with  which  she 
will  be  satisfied,  to  complete  her  minority,  and  sow  her  wild  oats  ? 

Scire  velim,  pretium  chartis  quotas  arroget  armus.3 

Alas !  the  wild  oats  are  never  sown,  the  minority  never  is  exhausted ; 
and  the  blushing  maiden,  when  all  her  excuses  are  exhausted,  will 
fight  at  last  to  the  death  in  other  lands  as  she  did  in  this,  a  withered 
and  hideous,  but  resolute  and  formidable,  hag.  The  trades  of  most 
continental  countries,  be  it  observed,  are  not  younger  trades  than  ours, 
but  older  ;  as  civilisation  is  older  in  France,  Spain,  Italy,  and  perhaps 
also  in  Germany,  than  it  is  in  England.  By  far  the  most  remarkable 
industry  we  possessed  before  1842  was  the  Cotton  industry;  which 
supplied  in  1841  not  far  short  of  a  moiety  of  our  total  exports 
(23,500,000?.  out  of  51,500,000^.),  and,  but  for  the  import  duty, 
would  probably  have  exceeded  that  proportion.  Was  it  Protection 
which  had  given  to  the  cotton  industry  this  peculiar  extension  ?  On 
the  contrary,  it  was  distinguished  from  the  other  great  trades  by  this, 
that  far  the  larger  part  of  its  products  was  sent  and  sold  abroad.  So 
that  by  far  the  most  powerful  of  our  manufactures  was  by  far  the 
least  protected.  I  might,  perhaps  without  impropriety,  even  say 
that  it  was  a  persecuted  trade.  Not  only  was  the  raw  material,  until 
1842,  struck  with  an  import  duty,  but  there  was,  until  a  period  not 
much  earlier,  a  duty  of  excise  on  printed  calicoes.  Into  these  points  I 
will  not  now  enter.  What  has  been  the  sequel  ?  That  under  the  system 
of  Free  Trade,  though  our  business  in  cottons  has  undergone  a  large 
absolute  extension,  its  proportion  of  our  export  trade  has  diminished. 
In  the  great  years  1872-3,  it  supplied,  instead  of  near  a  half,  less 
than  a  third  of  our  export  trade,  and  in  the  years  1874-8  it  has 
stood  at  about  one-third,  or  say  33  per  cent.,  of  the  whole, 
instead  of  45  per  cent.  What  is  this  but  to  say,  in  other  words, 
that  we  cannot  eat  our  cake  and  have  it  ?  The  cotton  industry 
could  not  have  the  full  benefit  of  Free  Trade,  because  it  had  enjoyed 
part  of  that  benefit  already.  This  pretended  benefit  of  Protection 

3  Hor.  Ep.  II.  i.  35. 


388  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY. 

during  the  first  minority  of  a  trade,  was  just  what  it  had  least  of  all 
enjoyed;  and,  consequently,  it  had  grown  beyond  every  other  trade. 
The  other  trades  of  the  country  were  kept  in  swaddling  clothes, 
while  cotton  had  its  right  hand  free.  Is  it  possible  to  contend  that 
the  swaddling  clothes  were  the  secret  of  strength,  in  the  face  of  the 
fact  that  the  child  but  half  swaddled  grew  the  most,  and  that,  when 
the  whole  was  removed  from  the  rest,  and  the  residue  from  it,  then  its 
brothers  and  sisters  began  to  catch  it  up  ?  Protection,  if  a  guardian, 
is  a  guardian  who  carries  to  his-  own  banking  account  the  proceeds 
of  the  minor's  estate  ;  and  the  favour  now  given  to  Protection  in 
America  and  elsewhere  is  simply  endowing  such  a  guardian  with  an 
annuity  instead  of  ensconcing  him  in  the  prison  or  the  dock. 


W.  E.  GLADSTONE. 


POSTSCRIPT. 


I  have  been  prevented  by  circumstances  from  commenting  on  a 
very  able  and  valuable  argument  by  Lord  Derby  on  points  akin  to 
the  subject  of  this  paper.  While  expressing  my  concurrence  in  his 
general  views,  and  my  hope  that  his  address  will  be  of  great  utility, 
I  may  venture  to  say  that  my  own  estimate  of  the  proportion 
which  the  income  from  Foreign  Trade  bears  to  the  aggregate  annual 
income  of  the  country  is  materially  larger  than  that  of  Lord  Derby, 
who  places  it  at  one-seventh  only. 

January  !>:},  1880. 


THE 

NINETEENTH 
CENTUEY. 


No.  XXXVII.— MARCH  1880. 


ENGLAND    AS  A   NAVAL   POWER. 

THE  subject  of '  England  as  a  Military  Power '  has  been  well  treated  in 
the  pages  of  this  Eeview  by  one  of  the  ablest  and  most  successful  of 
our  generals.  In  taking  up  the  consideration  of '  England  as  a  Naval 
Power,'  it  is  my  most  anxious  desire  to  write  about  it  in  a  spirit  of 
fairness  and  impartiality,  and  to  indicate  the  facts  which  relate  to  it, 
free  alike  from  optimist  exaggeration  and  pessimist  depreciation. 
However  much  we  may  regret  the  stubborn  realities  which  surround 
us  and  compel  us  to  give  our  time,  our  wealth,  and  our  energies  to 
the  unproductive  arts  of  destruction,  yet,  in  the  present  state  of  the 
world  and  our  own  position  in  it,  we  are  not  free  agents  in  the  matter. 
We  cannot  follow  the  peaceful  paths  of  civilisation  and  progress,  re- 
gardless of  the  intentions  and  aspirations  of  those  around  us.  We 
see  masses  of  men  terribly  armed,  admirably  disciplined,  who?e 
destructive  energies  may,  at  any  moment,  be  launched  against  their 
fellow-men,  and  overwhelm  in  a  common  ruin  all  that  we  value,  all 
that  we  and  our  forefathers  have  realised  through  self-sacrifice  and 
devotion.  We  cannot  suffer  this  unresistingly,  even  though  the  blow 
should  not  be,  in  the  first  instance,  aimed  directly  at  ourselves. 

Our  own  place  among  the  nations  of  the  earth  is  remarkable  and 
providential.  We  have  a  great  inheritance  of  glory  and  responsibility. 
With  all  its  faults  and  with  all  its  shortcomings,  the  English  race 
has  left  its  mark  for  good  over  vast  and  populous  regions  of  the  world. 
We,  and  those  who  come  after  us,  inherit  with  our  name  great 
possessions,  immense  wealth,  large  risks,  heavy  responsibilities.  It 
VOL.  VII.— No.  37.  D  D 


390  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  March 

•would  be  a  dastard's  spirit  that  would  shrink  from  accepting  that 
noble  inheritance  because  of  the  difficulties  it  would  bring  and  the 
sacrifices  it  would  entail.  The  least  thoughtful  amongst  us,  when 
comparing  the  small  extent  of  the  British  Islands  thrust  out  to  the 
North-west  of  Europe,  enjoying  no  very  hospitable  climate,  and 
possessing  no  exuberant  fertility  of  soil,  with  the  marvellous  and  un- 
paralleled development  of  the  race  which  has  sprung  from  them,  must 
reflect  that  we  are  not  here  for  nothing,  and  will  readily  admit  that 
the  law,  the  order,  the  civilisation,  and  even  the  language  which  that 
race  has  diffused  over  the  world,  are  worth  defending  at  their  fountain- 
head.  The  duty  of  doing  so,  and  the  sacrifices  required,  lie  plainly 
before  us,  and  from  the  necessity  of  maintaining  an  armed  force  there 
is  clearly  no  escape.  That  such  a  force  should  be  essentially  conser- 
vative and  defensive,  rather  than  aggressive  and  destructive,  will,  I 
think,  be  readily  conceded  to  me ;  but  I  may  be  allowed  to  say  in 
explanation  that  no  force  can  be  effectively  defensive  that  is  not  pre- 
pared to  act  offensively  on  occasion. 

Whether  or  no  the  navy  may  still  with  propriety  be  called  the 
right  arm  of  England,  its  efficiency  is  vital  and  paramount  to  the 
preservation  of  the  Empire.  I  propose,  therefore,  to  describe  its 
present  condition,  and  to  consider  its  adequacy  to  perform  the  duties 
required  of  it. 

An  inadequate  navy  is  an  inefficient  navy,  in  the  sense  of  its 
being  incapable  of  performing  the  work  required  of  it.  It  is  as  well 
to  state  this  clearly,  as  the  tendency  of  all  administrators  of  naval 
affairs  and  of  many  writers  on  the  subject  is  to  forget  that  the 
efficiency  of  single  ships  is  not  the  only  element  in  the  efficiency  of  a 
navy. 

It  was  well  remarked,  in  a  recent  number  of  the  Pall  Mall 
Gazette,  that  both  Conservatives  and  Liberals  declare,  and  in  the 
abstract  believe,-  that  the  efficiency  of  the  navy  is  outside  of  the 
domain  of  party  politics,  but  that  in  reality  the  naval  administrators 
of  both  parties  are  so  afraid  of  being  charged  by  their  opponents  with 
reckless  expenditure,  that  they  are  very  apt,  consciously  or  uncon- 
sciously, to  deceive  themselves  and  give  to  the  public  words  instead  of 
facts  on  the  subject.1  It  is  no  doubt  owing  to  this  frame  of  mind  that 
we  are  continually  hearing  from  responsible  authorities  of  the  great 
efficiency  of  the  navy,  and  of  its  ability  to  deal,  if  not,  as  has  been 

1  As  an  illustration  I  cannot  but  notice  the  extreme  care  taken  in  the  Xavy  Esti- 
mates year  after  year  to  record  the  differences  in  the  yearly  expenditure  of  each  par- 
ticular  vote.  There  is  always  a  triumphant  reference  to  any  item  on  which  a  dimi- 
nution can  be  shown.  In  matters  of  management  and  business  all  capable  and  ex- 
perienced administrators  know  perfectly  well  the  vast,  nay,  the  often  antagonistic, 
difference  between  true  economy  and  the  mere  non-spending  of  money.  The  former 
is  the  key  to  that  efficiency  which  we  all  desire,  and  about  which  it  is  more  impor- 
tant to  hear  than  whether  more  or  less  money  has  been  expended  on  this  or  that  item 
than  was  the  case  last  year.  The  House  of  Commons  neglects  its  duty  when  it 
accepts  this  sham  instead  of  the  substance  of  true  economy. 


1880.  ENGLAND  AS  A   NAVAL   POWER.  391 

sometimes  said,  with  all  the  navies  of  the  world,  at  least  with  a 
combination  of  a  great  number  of  them.  Facts  suggestive  of  a  very 
opposite  conclusion  pretty  frequently  present  themselves,  and  we  are 
not  favoured  with  any  attempts  to  explain  such  discrepancies.  A 
careful  analysis  of  the  amount  and  condition  of  the  naval  force,  as 
given  by  its  administrators,  will  at  all  events  place  these  matters  be- 
fore us  in  a  clear  and  intelligible  light. 

It  is,  of  course,  well  known  that  the  chief  naval  administrator  is 
the  First  Lord  of  the  Admiralty,  who  is  necessarily  a  Cabinet  Minister ; 
the  politics  of  the  Cabinet  with  respect  to  foreign  affairs  determining 
chiefly  the  disposition  and  amount  of  the  available  naval  force,  as 
well  as  the  maintenance  and  preparation  of  a  suitable  reserve.  These 
two  taken  together  cause  the  principal  items  of  naval  expenditure,  and 
constitute  the  naval  force  of  the  country.  In  order  to  secure  parlia- 
mentary control,  the  First  Lord  or  the  Secretary  of  the  Admiralty 
makes  an  annual  statement  to  the  House  of  Commons  of  the  state  of 
the  navy,  and  of  the  amount  of  money  which  will  be  required  for  the 
naval  service.  Estimates  of  the  proposed  expenditure,  in  more  or  less 
detail  and  more  or  less  explained,  are  submitted  to  Parliament.  It  is 
proposed  to  take  the  statement  and  estimates  for  the  year  ending- 
March  31,  1880,  because  it  is  a  favourable  epoch  for  the  review  of  our 
naval  position,  the  vote  of  credit  for  about  two  millions  granted  in 
1878  having  enabled  the  naval  administrator  to  supply  admitted 
deficiencies,  and  strengthen  his  position  in  view  of  future  contin- 
gencies. 

In  round  numbers  we  find  that  ten  millions  and  a  half  are  wanted 
for  the  navy,  and  that  it  is  proposed  to  spend  this  amount  in  about 
equal  proportions  between  the  two  great  branches  of  the  naval  service, 
the  personnel  and  the  'materiel — that  is,  about  five  and  a  quarter- 
millions  upon  each.  My  object  is  to  show  in  general  terms  what 
amount  of  force  is  produced  by  this  expenditure,  beginning  with  the 
personnel. 

For  the  year  just  referred  to,  1,938  officers  and  20,562  pett}r 
officers  and  seamen,  in  all  22,500,  were  voted  for  the  service  of  the 
active  fleet,  which,  for  convenience,  may  be  called  Class  A.  2,604 
officers  with  15,225  petty  officers  and  seamen,  in  all  17,029,  were 
voted  for  a  first  reserve  and  other  duties  essential  to  the  maintenance 
of  the  active  fleet,  which  may  be  called  Class  B.  The  two  classes  make 
a  total  of  40,329  ;  adding  to  this  number  166  for  flag-officers  and  their 
retinues,  5,305  boys,  2,400  of  whom  are  under  training,  and  13,000 
marines,  about  half  of  whom  are  serving  on  shore,  we  get  a  grand 
total  of  58,800  officers  and  men,  forming  the  more  or  less  effective 
personnel  provided  by  Parliament  for  the  wants  of  the  navy.  The 
so-called  non-effective  list,  for  which  a  separate  vote  is  taken,  com- 
prises the  names  (including  those  on  half-pay)  of  3,069  officers. 

Class  A  mans  the  active  fleet,  which,  on  the  1st  of  January,  1879, 

D  D  2 


392  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  March 

comprised  17  armoured  ships,2  varying  in  size  and  therefore  in  the 
number  of  their  crews,  from  upwards  of  ten  thousand  to  seventeen 
hundred  tons  of  displacement,  and  95  unarmoured  ships,  varying  from 
upwards  of  six  thousand  to  one  hundred  and  eighty  tons  of  displacement. 
The  range  of  employment  of  this  fleet  embraced  the  following  stations  : 
The  Channel,  Mediterranean,  North  America  and  West  Indies,  south- 
eastern coast  of  America,  Pacific,  China,  East  India,  Australia,  Cape  of 
Good  Hope,  West  Coast  of  Africa  ;  and  there  were,  besides,  certain  ships 
allotted  for  '  particular  service,'  as  distinguished  from  fixed  employ- 
ment on  a  given  station. 

Class  B,  in  all  17,029  persons,  is  allotted  to  the  following  services. 
It  forms  the  nucleus  of  the  full  complement  of  the  ships  of  the  first 
reserve  which  are  in  commission  and  should  be  ready  for  sea  ;  it  forms 
the  two  divisions  of  the  coast-guard  ;  and  it  mans  all  harbour,  receiving, 
drill,  training,  surveying,  gunnery,  store,  and  troop  ships,  and  yachts. 
The  condition  and  power  of  the  ships  manned  by  Class  A  will  be 
more  conveniently  described  when  the  materiel  is  under  consideration  ; 
meanwhile,  the  manner  in  which  the  seamen  of  the  fleet,  amounting 
to  35,787  (exclusive  of  officers),  are  collected  and  recruited,  and  their 
general  condition  as  to  health,  discipline,  and  efficiency,  are  matters 
of  deep  importance,  and  must  be  briefly  adverted  to.  The  system  of 
entering  men  for  particular  ships,  and  discharging  them  absolutely 
from  the  service  when  the  ship  was  put  out  of  commission,  has  long 
given  way  to  a  system  of  entry  for  general  service  and  for  fixed  periods. 
Formerly,  when  a  ship  was  put  in  commission,  she  was  not  only  not 
ready  for  sea,  but  her  captain  had  to  hunt  all  over  the  kingdom  for 
volunteers  to  form  his  crew,  often  to  be  content  with  men  wholly  un- 
trained and  ignorant  of  discipline,  whom  in  a  limited  time  he  had  to 
rough  into  shape  to  the  best  of  his  ability,  and  whose  connection  with 
the  service  ended  when  the  ship  was  put  out  of  commission,  or  at 
best  was  continued  fitfully  and  capriciously. 

Happily,  the  intolerable  evils  attending  this  system  of  manning 
the  navy  have  almost  entirely  ceased  through  the  adoption  of  a  sound 
and  rational  method  of  providing  for  our  wants.  No  seaman  is  now 
entered  for  less  than  five  years'  service ;  the  great  majority  accept  the 
advantages  offered  them  by  an  engagement  for  ten  years,  which  they 
can  and  do  renew,  at  its  expiration,  for  a  further  period  of  five  or  ten 
years.  The  yearly  waste  of  the  navy  from  natural  and  accidental 
causes  is  fed  by  trained  and  disciplined  boys,  who  engage,  on  entering 
the  navy,  to  serve  continuously  for  ten  years  from  the  age  of  18  ;  so 
that  practically,  with  few  and  unimportant  exceptions,  such  as  officers 
servants,  seamen  entered  under  particular  circumstances  at  foreign 
ports,  &c.,  the  advantages  of  a  trained  and  instructed  body  of  men  are 
secured  for  the  navy. 

2  These,  and  all  subsequent  details  as  to  the  mimber  and  condition  of  our  ships, 
are  taken  from  a  Parliamentary  return,  No.  356,  of  the  session  of  1870,  moved  for 
by  Admiral  Sir  John  Hay,  M.P.,  &c. 


1880.  ENGLAND  AS  A   NAVAL  POWER.  393 

Among  so  large  a  number,  so  diversely  employed,  often  so  far  re- 
moved from  all  influences  save  those  of  a  necessarily  strict  discipline, 
some  unsatisfactory  elements  may  be  expected  to  come  to  the  front. 
Everything,  however,  tends  to  show  that  they  are  far  from  numerous ; 
and  we  are  justified  in  saying  that  the  crews  of  our  ships  are  largely 
composed  of  healthy,  well-trained,  well-disciplined,  and  well-conditioned 
men,  full  of  energy  and  resource,  men  of  whom  it  may  be  said  with  truth, 
that,  well  led  and  well  commanded,  they  will  go  anywhere  and  do  any- 
thing. It  is  often  stated  as  a  matter  to  be  regretted  that  there  is  some 
falling  off  in  what  is  called  seamanship.  The  truth  of  the  allegation, 
as  generally  understood,  is  open  to  question.  If  seamanship  may  be 
defined  as  the  art  of  managing  a  ship  under  all  the  circumstances  in 
which  she  can  possibly  be  found,  and  doing  so  with  the  means  at  the 
seaman's  disposal,  I  think  the  imputation  will  be  less  easily  enter- 
tained. When  the  only  forces  available,  either  for  counteracting  or 
making  use  of  the  winds  and  tides  in  directing  the  motions  of  a  ship, 
were  none  other  than  those  winds  and  tides,  the  scope  of  seamanship, 
however  perfect  the  art,  was  necessarily  limited.  Since  the  introduc- 
tion of  a  power  rendering  the  ship  far  more  independent  of  the  only 
means  formerly  available,  the  management  of  a  ship  has  acquired  more 
certainty,  and  its  precision  of  action  has  been  greatly  increased.  '  Ob- 
servation and  practice '  were,  and  are,  the  two  corner-stones  of  seaman- 
ship. If  these  two  requisites  for  mastering  that  art  are  less  applied 
than  formerly  to  the  imperfect  means  then  available,  they  are  working 
in  a  more  extended  field  at  the  present  time,  and  are  more  than  ever 
required.  '  Observation  and  practice,'  with  the  same  qualities  of  race 
which  enabled  our  fathers  to  excel  in  the  handling  of  their  ships,  will 
enable  the  seamen  of  the  present  day  to  use  the  more  perfect  powers 
at  their  disposal  with  an  effect  previously  unattainable.  The  minor 
features,  such  as  rigging  and  handling  sails,  may  have  suffered  some 
loss  of  perfection,  while  the  essential  object  of  such  details,  accurate 
management  under  all  circumstances,  has  largely  advanced.  So  long 
as  '  observation  and  practice '  are  cultivated,  we  need  be  under  no 
apprehension  as  to  the  result,  and  the  suggestions  of  diminished  sea- 
manship need  not  disquiet  us. 

Be  that  as  it  may,  ve  have  now  to  consider  the  sufficiency  or 
otherwise  of  the  numbers  comprised  in  the  two  classes  A  and  B, 
collected  and  recruited  under  the  system  just  described.  The 
stations  on  which  the  active  fleet  manned  by  Class  A  are 
employed  show  how  large  a  portion  of  their  services  is  required 
in  regions  where  the  law  of  nations  is  often  not  understood,  where 

O  J 

treaties  are  not  considered  binding,  where  civilisation  is  imperfectly 
developed — in  short,  where  a  police  force  is  required  not  only  to  pro- 
tect the  lives  and  property  of  our  countrymen,  but  to  keep  order 
amongst  the  lawless  and  adventurous  of  our  own  flag.  It  is  in  these 
regions  and  on  this  service  that  the  great  number  of  sloops,  gun- 


394  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  March 

vessels,  gunboats,  and  other  small  craft,  forming  the  active  fleet,  are 
employed,  and  it  is  probable  that,  even  in  what  are  called  peaceable 
times,  this  description  of  force  must  rather  be  augmented  than  dimi- 
nished. So  large  a  number  of  Class  A  are  absorbed  in  these  numerous 
craft  of  small  speed  and  coal-carrying  power,  ill  adapted  for  cruising, 
that  the  necessity  of  a  reserve  of  seamen  immediately  at  hand  to  put 
into  ships  of  a  very  different  class  (should  hostilities  break  out)  becomes 
at  once  apparent ;  and  we  turn  to  Class  B  to  see  what  may  there  be 
found  available  for  that  purpose. 

There  are  2,261  officers  and  men  now  serving  in  ships  of  the  first 
reserve,  in  commission  but  for  the  present  stationary;  4,150  officers 
..and  men  serving  in  the  coast-guard  on  shore,  who  are  seamen,  though 
some  of  them  are  still  employed  in  revenue  duties  ;  forming  a  total  of 
6,411  trained  and  disciplined  men,  a  body  which  has  been  repeatedly 
tested  and  found  in  every  way  satisfactory.  It  is  not  probable,  save 
in  cases  of  extreme  emergency,  that  many  seamen  could  be  withdrawn 
from  those  divisions  of  Class  B  employed  in  gunnery,  training,  drill, 
stationary,  depot,  receiving  ships,  and  yachts.  Troop  and  store  ships 
would  doubtless  absorb  more  men  than  at  present ;  and  if  from  all  these 
"divisions  1,000  officers  and  men  could  be  spared,  and  if  we  consider 
(as  would  doubtless  be  the  case  after  a  time)  that  428  men  and  officers 
in  the  surveying  ships  could  also  be  appropriated  to  manning  the  fleet, 
we  have  in  Class  B  an  available  reserve  of  7,839  officers  and  men. 

There  is,  however,  a  further  reserve,  called  the  Eoyal  Naval  Eeserve, 
the  availability  of  which  has  not  yet  been  put  to  the  test.  It  consists 
of  seamen,  who  must  be  British  subjects,  voluntarily  enrolled  from  the 
merchant  service,  subjected  annually  to  drills  for  short  periods,  in  con- 
sideration of  which,  and  their  engaging  to  serve  in  the  Royal  Navy 
when  called  upon,  a  retainer  is  paid  to  them,  which  ceases  when  they 
join  the  fleet.  This  reserve  is  divided  into  two  classes,  according  to 
the  men's  qualification.3  The  minimum  period  for  which  their  en- 
gagement lasts  is  five  years,  after  which,  if  they  desire  it,  they  may 
be  re-enrolled.  They  are  all  registered  at  offices  in  the  United 
Kingdom,  and  are  bound  to  present  themselves  every  six  months  to 
some  registrar.  No  reserve  man  can  therefore  be  absent  in  a  merchant 
ship  for  periods  exceeding  six  months  without  special  leave.  Various 
other  regulations  are  in  force,  tending  to  insure  the  fulfilment  of  his 
engagement  by  the  reserve  man.  Finally,  advantages  are  offered  in 
the  way  of  pensions  to  seamen  who,  partly  in  the  Eoyal  Navy  and 
partly  in  the  Naval  Eeserve,  complete  lengthened  periods  of  service. 

Provision  is  made  in  the  Navy  Estimates  for  enrolling  20,000  such 
men  ;  but  I  believe  the  largest  number  as  yet  upon  the  list  has  not  much 
exceeded  16,000,  many  of  whom  in  the  second  class  are  not  seamen. 

Notwithstanding  all  the  precautions  prescribed  by  the  regulations 

*  A  third  class  has  lately  been  introduced.     I  do  not  think  that  its  organisation 
is  yet  complete. 


1880.  ENGLAND  AS  A   NAVAL  POWER.  395 

to  insure  that  the  reserve  man  shall  be  forthcoming  when  called  upon, 
it  is  still  doubtful  whether  a  large  number  of  the  enrolled  will  be  at 
hand  when  wanted.  It  must  not  be  forgotten  how  suddenly  we  have 
seen  wars  break  out,  and  that  a  prepared  and  active  enemy  might  in- 
tercept numbers  of  this  force  while  on  their  return  voyages  to  the 
United  Kingdom. 

What  service  the  Koyal  Naval  Artillery  Volunteers  and  the  Seamen 
Pensioners  could  perform  would  be  found  more  surely  in  manning  ships 
and  gunboats  for  the  defence  of  ports  and  roadsteads  ;  they  can  hardly 
be  reckoned  upon  in  any  number  as  available  for  manning  the  active 
fleet.  Compared  with  the  number  and  size  of  the  ships  in  good  con- 
dition forming  the  reserve,  the  state  of  the  personnel  is,  under  the 
limitations  referred  to,  not  unsatisfactory. 

The  armed  ships  which  are  to  enable  us  to  maintain  our  position, 
defend  our  empire,  and  protect  that  commerce  without  which  we 
must  cease  to  exist,  are  numerous  and  formidable.  They  naturally 
divide  themselves  into  two  classes,  armoured  and  unarmoured. 
On  their  numbers  and  qualities  depend  the  honour  and  safety  of 
the  British  Empire.  In  all  the  circumstances  of  a  maritime  war 
where  fleet  actions  were  formerly  fought,  the  armoured  ships  will 
be  required.  Such  battles  may  have  to  be  fought  in  the  Mediter- 
ranean, in  the  neighbourhood  of  the  British  Islands,  and  whenever 
a  hostile  force  may  be  directed  against  an  important  British  posses- 
sion. The  fighting  power  of  this  class  should  be  the  principal 
object  of  its  construction.  On  the  unarmoured  ship  will  fall 
chiefly  the  duty  of  cruising  and  protecting  our  commerce  on  the 
high  seas.  Great  speed  and  large  coal  supplies  are  the  requisites 
of  this  class.  Owing  to  the  increased  number  of  steamships  en- 
gaged in  commerce,  and  the  very  serious  amount  of  food  on  which 
we  are  dependent  from  abroad,  the  ships  required  for  their  protec- 
tion must  necessarily  be  numerous  and  swift.  We  must  not  over- 
look the  necessity  they  will  sometimes  be  under  of  fighting  a  battle 
with  a  powerful  enemy  especially  sent  to  look  for  and  destroy 
them  ;  comparatively  slow  and  small  ships  will  certainly  be  out  of 
place  in  the  performance  of  the  duties  we  have  described.  Our  first 
consideration  shall  be  for  the  armoured  fleet. 

The  grand  total  of  armoured  ships  of  all  classes  possessed  by  the 
country  on  the  1st  of  January,  1879,  amounted  to  sixty-nine,  from 
which,  to  arrive  at  our  effective  condition  as  regards  an  ironclad  navy, 
we  must  make  the  following  deductions  : — 

Monitors  given  over  to  India  and  the  colonies    ....  3 

Building  and  completing- 11 

Condemned  as  unfit  for  sea  service     .         .         .         .         .         .11 

Under  repair,  more  or  less  extensive  ......  5 

Requiring  repairs  or  new  Loilers,  or  Lotli    .....  6 

Condition  indifferent            ........  2 

Leaving  in  condition  fair  and  good 31 


396  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  March 

It  must,  however,  be  observed,  that  in  the  presence  of  modern 
artillery,  such  as  is  to  be  found  in  all  the  navies  of  the  world,  4^-inch 
armour  plates  are  of  little  service,  and  even  six-inch  plates  can 
scarcely  be  considered  a  protection.  As  ten  of  the  ships  whose  con- 
dition is  given  as  fair  and  good  have  only  4^-inch  armour  or 
its  equivalent,  and  even  this  very  partially  distributed  over  the 
ship,  they  must  be  deducted,  as  well  as  the  two  ships  armoured  with 
six-inch  plates  (one  of  them  a  wooden  ship),  from  the  list  of  effective 
fleet  ships  intended  for  a  general  and  combined  action.  So  must 
four  small  turret-ships  designed  for  the  protection  of  ports  and  road- 
steads, but  not  for  sea-going  purposes.  So  also  must  two  special 
powerful  ships  designed  to  accompany  fleets,  not  to  act  alone,  but 
as  complementary  to  other  ships  to  which  they  would  be  attached. 
Deducting  these  eighteen  ships,  we  have  a  residuum  of  thirteen 
ironclads  fit  for  sea  service,  and  of  enormous  power.  These  thirteen, 
however,  are  not  all  of  equal  value,  and  must  be  divided  into  two  classes; 
the  six  forming  the  first  class  are  unequalled  by  the  like  number  in 
any  navy  of  the  world,  and  the  seven  composing  the  second  class, 
though  no  doubt  essentially  inferior  to  the  first,  are  yet  most  power- 
ful vessels  of  war.  It  will  be  understood  that  these  numbers  and 
classes  of  ships  comprised  all  the  ironclads  available  for  service  on 
the  1st  of  January,  1879,  and  that  several  of  the  thirty-one,  whose  con- 
dition was  good  and  fair,  were  not  in  commission  ;  while,  on  the 
other  hand,  some  of  the  ships  in  commission  required  new  boilers, 
and  are  not  included  in  the  effective  ships.  We  were  promised  that 
during  the  financial  year  expiring  on  the  31st  of  March,  1880,  there 
would  be  an  addition  to  the  list  of  armoured  ships  in  good  condition 
and  ready  for  sea — four  ships  which  were  not  completed  on  the  1st 
of  January,  1879,  and  six  that  were  under  repair.  It  is,  however, 
certain  that  all  these  promises  cannot  be  fulfilled,  and  that  some 
proportion  of  those  whose  condition  a  year  ago  was  called  fair  will 
have  fallen  out  of  the  list  of  effective  ships,  so  that  probably  the 
maximum  addition  to  the  fleet  will  consist  of  six  or  seven  ships, 
which  may  perhaps  carry  up  our  numbers  to  nineteen  or  twenty.  We 
cannot,  however,  with  much  confidence  rely  on  this  division  of  the 
fleet  exceeding  eighteen  at  the  commencement  of  the  financial  year 
1880-81.4 

Every  one  must  be  struck  by  the  great  number  of  ironclad  ships 
which  I  have  discarded  from  the  first  and  even  second  rank  of  fleet 
fighting  ships;  yet  a  little  reflection  will  show  that,  painful  as  such 
an  arrangement  may  be,  it  has  become  indispensable.  Six  very  large, 
very  important,  very  swift  ships,  with  good  sea-going  qualities, 
manoeuvring  excepted,  upon  which  we  have  spent  and  are  spending 

4  I  have  come  to  this  conclusion  because  year  after  year  the  work  proposed  to  be- 
done  in  building  and  repairing  ships  falls  far  short  of  the  expressed  intentions  of  the 
administrators  of  the  navy  and  of  the  amount  of  such  work  sanctioned  by  Parliament. 


1880.  ENGLAND  AS  A   NAVAL  POWER.  397 

large  sums  of  money,  are  protected  only — and  in  some  cases  very 
partially  protected — by  4^-inch  armour  or  its  equivalent.  These 
may  and  ought  to  serve  some  useful  purpose  in  a  navy,  but  they 
are  unfit  for  fighting  in  a  fleet  or  squadron.5  For  the  same  reason 
four  other  smaller,  slower,  less  efficient  ships  are  still  more  evidently 
unfit  for  that  purpose.  So  are  three  small  turret-ships  of  early 
design,  and  three  very  imperfectly  armoured  gunboats ;  none  of 
these  have  much  speed  or  heavy  armament,  and  they  are  all  clearly 
out  of  the  line  of  fleet  fighting  ships,  though  they  too  may  render 
service,  in  conjunction  with  other  ships  of  later  design  and  thicker 
armour,  in  the  defence  of  ports  and  securing  our  coasts  from  insult. 
It  is  difficult,  indeed  it  would  be  inexpedient,  to  enter  into  much 
further  detail  respecting  the  fighting  qualities  of  our  ironclads  in 
fleets  or  squadrons,  and  great  reserve  is  necessarily  imposed  on  any 
analysis  of  the  qualities  of  the  ships  that  may  be  opposed  to  us.  The 
naval  force  that  is  most  nearly  equal  to  our  own  is  undoubtedly  that 
of  France.  As  with  ourselves,  very  great  diversity  of  design  has  ruled 
the  construction  of  her  ships. 

A  leading  idea  with  the  French,  which  has  found  less  favour  with 
us,  is  that  of  giving  a  considerable  amount  of  sail  power  to  the  first-class 
ship.  Our  experience  has  been  adverse  to  doing  so,  especially  when 
two  propellers  are  used,  when  it  would  appear  that  little  use  can  be 
derived  from  sails.  At  all  times  in  action,  masts,  sails,  and  rigging  are 
serious  drawbacks  to  the  fighting  powers  of  a  ship.  It,  must  not  be 
imagined  that  in  the  choice  and  use  of  materials  there  is  any  essential 
difference  between  our  neighbours  and  ourselves.  Water-tight  com- 
partments, the  'modified  bracket  system'  of  construction,  'horizontal 
armour,'  '  the  use  of  steel,'  the  '  abandonment  of  wood,'  are  found  on 
both  sides  of  the  Channel,  and  in  some  respects  the  lead  has  not  been 
taken  by  us.  When  I  have  said  that,  as  a  general  rule,  in  their  latest 
designs  they  have  endeavoured  to  keep  their  displacements  below 
ours,  and  to  avoid  turret-ships  and  the  cellular  system,  like  some  of 
the  plans  adopted  by  ourselves  and  the  Italians,  I  have  indicated  the 
principal  differences  between  us.  The  original  ironclads  belonging  to 
France  were  much  better  calculated  to  act  together  than  ours,  and 
their  classification  was  easier  and  more  complete.  I  still  find  in 
official  lists  large  numbers  of  their  wooden  ironclads,  with  armour  only 
5'9  inches  thick,  reckoned  as  effective  ships.  I  cannot  speak  with 
any  certainty  as  to  the  fitness  for  work  of  all  these,  but  seven  such 
ships  which  were  formerly  considered  of  the  first  class  were  in  commis- 
sion and  at  sea  in  1878.  Three  of  them  were  in  reserve,  not  ready, 
at  any  rate,  for  immediate  service.  A  far  more  powerful  class  has 
taken  the  place  of  these  ships,  and,  as  they  are  the  latest  designs,  are 

5  I  am  the  more  free  to  make  this  assertion,  as  I  have  a  paternal  feeling  about 
three  of  these  ships  which  were  constructed  seventeen  vears  ago,  when  I  was  Con- 
troller of  the  Navv. 


398  TEE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  March 

really  worthy  of  the  name  of  first-class  ships.  Eight  have  been  com- 
pleted and  tried,  and  five  of  the  number  are  in  commission.  The 
displacement  of  the  two  earliest  ships  of  this  category  was  about 
7,604  tons,  and  the  maximum  thickness  of  armour  plating  was  just 
under  eight  inches.  Four  that  followed  varied  from  8,314  to  8,700 
tons  of  displacement,  the  armour  plating  being  about  8-65  inches 
thick,  and  the  displacement  of  a  fifth  reached  8,800  tons,  the  maximum 
thickness  of  the  armour  being  13*28  inches  at  the  water-line,  but 
only  9-5  inches  at  the  battery.  Two  ships  are  building  whose  dis- 
placement is  calculated  to  be  about  9,606  tons,  with  a  maximum 
thickness  of  armour  at  the  water-line  of  fifteen  inches.  All  the 
ships  that  have  been  tried,  with  one  exception,  realised  a  speed 
exceeding  fourteen  knots,  and  it  is  expected  that  those  under  con- 
struction will  do  the  same.  A  ship  commenced  still  more  re- 
cently will  have  a  displacement  of  about  10,500  tons,  with  a  maxi- 
mum thickness  of  armour-plating  at  the  line  of  flotation  of  21 '65 
inches.  The  displacement  being  taken  roughly  as  a  test  of  the  power 
of  carrying  armour  and  armament,  an  approximate  comparison 
between  the  first-class  ships  of  both  navies  may  be  obtained  by 
stating  that  the  displacement  of  the  first-class  English  ships  varies 
from  8,320  to  11,500  tons,  and  the  armour  carried  from  seven  inches 
(in  one  ship  only)  to  twenty-four  inches  (in  one  ship  only),  while  the 
displacement  of  the  first  class  of  French  ships  varies  from  7,604*  to 
10,500  (in  one  ship  only),  and  the  thickness  of  armour  from  7'87  to 
21 '65  inches. 

Such  comparisons  are,  of  course,  only  approximate  indications  of 
the  value  of  ships  as  fighting  machines,  and  no  doubt  in  some  respects 
very  serious  disadvantages  attend  the  use  of  large  displacements,  or, 
in  other  words,  of  huge  dimensions.  As  to  the  numbers  of  first-class 
ships,  as  fair  a  comparison  as  can  be  made  would  stand  thus.  Suppos- 
ing all  the  ships  (under  repair  and  requiring  repair)  of  both  powers 
were  ready  and  finished  by  June  1880,  England  would  number 
eight,  to  be  reinforced  very  soon  after  that  date  by  three  more ; 
France  would  number  eight,  to  be  reinforced  by  two  more  before  the 
end  of  1880. 

Comparing  the  ships  which  I  should  consider  of  the  second  class 
in  the  same  way,  we  find  twelve  English,  to  be  shortly  reinforced  by 
another,  against  twelve  French,  but  the  displacement  and  thickness  of 
armour  of  the  former  are  very  much  in  excess  of  the  latter.  The 
special  ships — that  is,  those  that  are  adapted  to  co-operate  with  fleets 
in  an  action,  and  for  defensive  purposes — are  about  equal  in  number 
and  value.  France  also  possesses  some  ironclad  floating  batteries 
and  ten  sea-going  small  ironclads  called  corvettes,  the  condition  of 
some  of  which  is  at  best  but  indifferent,  their  displacement  about 
3,400  tons,  maximum  armour  plating  5-8  inches  thick,  and  speed 
twelve  knots.  Ship  for  ship,  we  have  no  equivalent  on  our  side, 


1880.  ENGLAND   AS  A   NAVAL  POWER.  399 

but  instead  a  mass  of  ships  of  the  most  diverse  dimensions  and 
qualities,  only  defended  by  4^-inch  armour  or  its  equivalent,  forming 
a  force  incapable  of  acting  together,  and,  as  respects  fighting,  altogether 
of  an  unsatisfactory  nature. 

The  artillery  carried  by  the  ships  of  each  power  and  the  way  in  which 
it  is  mounted  and  protected  is  a  subject  on  which  I  prefer  to  say  nothing. 
I  am  very  sure  that  the  last  word  of  the  scientific  artillerist  has  not 
yet  been  spoken,  and  that  none  of  the  great  navies  of  the  world  have 
acquired  such  a  superiority  in  that  weapon  as  will  materially  affect 
the  position  which  is  due  to  them  from  the  number  .and  qualities 
of  their  war-ships.  Torpedoes  are  but  another  and  more  destructive 
form  of  artillery,  requiring  special  arrangements  and  vessels  for  their 
use.  No  one  need  flatter  himself  that  to  him  alone  is  confided 
the  secret  of  these  deadly  engines.  Certainly  both  France  and 
England  possess  enormous  stores  of  everything  that  can  be  required 
to  enable  them  to  destroy  incalculable  numbers  of  human  beings. 

This  part  of  my  subject  cannot  be  completed  without  a  glance  at 
the  ironclad  ships  of  the  other  navies  of  Europe,  which  possibly  may  be 
our  allies,  possibly  our  enemies.  Beginning  with  the  north-east  of 
Europe,  and  taking  the  nations  in  order,  we  find  Eussia  has  twenty- 
nine  armoured  ships,  of  which  one  is  of  the  first  class,  six  of  the  second, 
two  circular  ships,  and  the  remainder  of  inferior  value  and  principally 
rather  thinly  plated  monitors.  Sweden  has  no  ships  of  the  first  or 
second  class.  She  has  four  monitors  and  ten  gunboats.  Norway 
has  four  monitors  only.  Denmark  has  six  ironclads,  none  of  the 
first  or  second  class.  Germany  has  seventeen  ironclads,  three  of  the 
first  class,  four  of  the  second.  Holland  has  twenty-four  armoured 
vessels,  consisting  principally  of  monitors  and  gunboats  ;  two  of  these 
ships  are  of  the  second  class ;  of  the  monitor  class  the  Huascar  was  a 
fair  representative  of  those  first  constructed.  Spain  has  eight  iron- 
clads, none  of  the  first  class,  five  of  the  second.  Portugal  has  one  iron- 
clad. Italy  has  fifteen,  two  of  the  first  class,  exceptionally  powerful, 
and  four  of  the  second.  Austria  has  twelve,  none  of  the  first  class, 
five  of  the  second.  Greece  has  two  ironclads.  Turkey  has  twenty- 
one,  one  of  the  first  class,  and  five  of  the  second. 

Exclusive  of  France  and  England,  we  find  in  the  navies  of  Europe, 
from  the  first-class  ship  to  the  gunboat  inclusive,  153  armoured  ships, 
seven  of  which  are  of  the  first  and  twenty-nine  of  the  second  class.  No 
account  has  been  taken  in  these  numbers  of  ships  building,  and  it  is 
probable  that  a  considerable  proportion  of  the  smaller  ships  are  only 
in  an  indifferent  condition.6 

When  we  consider  what  lias  gone  before,  how  vast  and  scattered 

6  The  reader  will  observe  that  only  the  navies  of  Europe  have  been  dealt  with. 
In  America,  the  United  States,  Brazil,  and  Chili  have  a  certain  number  of  powerful 
ironclads.  The  United  States  especially  can  clevelope  an  immense  naval  force,  should 
circumstances  require  it. 


400  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  March 

are  the  possessions  we  may  have  to  defend,  the  alliances  which  the 
second  great  naval  power  in  Europe  may  be  likely  to  form,  and  the 
reinforcements  which  she  might  obtain  from  some  of  these  alliances, 
I  think  the  conclusion  is  not  a  strained  one  that  the  armoured  fleet 
of  England  is  not  yet  adequate  to  the  duty  it  may  be  called  on  to 
perform — the  duty  of  fighting  the  battles  of  England  on  the  high 
seas. 

Turning  to  the  unarmoured  ships,  we  find  that  this  division  of  the 
fleet  numbers  307  ships  and  vessels  of  all  classes,  serviceable  and 
unserviceable.  They  may  be  classified  thus : — 

Building  and  completing  for  sea 28 

Condemned  as  unfit  for  sea  service     ......     41 

Requiring  repairs 37 

Under  repair      .         . 19 

Condition  good  and  fair 182 

This  number  in  good  and  fair  condition  comprised  the  following 
classes : — 

Wooden  line-of-battle  ships 2 

Frigates,  iron 2 

„        wooden 1 

Corvettes  of  all  kinds 20 

Sloops  of  all  kinds 10 

Gun-vessels  of  all  kinds 37 

Gunboats  of  all  kinds .20 

Special  iron  gunboats         .......'  34 

Unadapted  for  fighting  purposes 50 

Total 182 

The  ships  building  and  completing,  numbering  28,  consisted  of 

Corvettes 8 

Sloops        7 

Despatch-vessels 2 

Gun-vessels  and  gunboats 11 

Total 28 

Among  the  ships  that  figure  in  the  list  of  those  in  good  and  fair 
condition  are  fifty-six  considered  unadapted  for^fighting  purposes  ;  they 
consist  of  coast-guard  tenders,  yachts,  troop  and  store  ships,  paddle- 
wheel  sloops  and  tenders,  despatch-vessels,  small  vessels  attached  to 
the  service  of  the  ports,  tank,  tug,  and  provision  vessels,  &c.  There 
are,  moreover,  ninety-one  gun-vessels  and  gunboats  (thirty-four  of 
the  latter  mere  floating  gun-carriages),  whose  speed  and  fighting 
powers  are  little,  if  at  all,  adapted  for  cruising,  and  who  are  out  of 
the  question  as  ships  for  the  protection  of  commerce  on  the  high  seas. 
Xo  reliance  for  such  a  purpose  can  be  placed  on  sloops  of  obsolete 


1880.  ENGLAND  AS  A   NAVAL  POWER.  401 

form  and  inferior  armament  and  speed.  The  whole  protection  of 
our  commerce  on  the  high  seas  must  fall  on  the  frigates  or  corvettes 
we  possess,  the  number  of  which  is  alarmingly  small.  In  good  condi- 
tion on  the  1st  of  January,  1879,  there  were  but  three  frigates,  one  a  very 
slow  ship,  and  twenty  corvettes ;  two  only  of  these  had  a  speed  of 
fifteen  knots,7  two  more  a  speed  of  14*5,  none  of  the  others  could  be 
depended  on  for  a  speed  exceeding  thirteen,  while  some  would  have 
found  it  difficult  to  exceed  twelve  knots. 

The  frigates  can  be  reinforced,  as  soon  as  the  repairs  in  hand 
are  effected,  by  one  wooden  ship,  which,  however,  can  only  take  the' 
place  of  a  ship  in  commission  requiring  repair ;  there  is,  therefore,  no 
increase  in  the  available  number  of  frigates,  and  none  are  construct- 
ing. One  first-class  and  five  second-class  corvettes  can  be  reckoned 
as  additions  to  the  twenty  already  enumerated. 

Practically  the  case  stands  thus.  Supposing  that  no  war  should 
break  out  until  we  have  completed  the  repairs  of,  and  put  new  boilers 
into,  the  ships  in  hand,  we  should  have  three  first-class  iron  frigates 
whose  speed  exceeds  fifteen  and  a  half  knots,  two  slow  wooden 
frigates,  four  first-class  corvettes  with  a  speed  of  about  fifteen,  two 
with  a  speed  exceeding  fourteen  knots,  eleven  others,  none  of  which 
exceed  thirteen  knots,  as  the  unarmoured  force  on  which  we  must  de- 
pend for  the  protection  of  our  commerce,  and  for  defending  us  from 
starvation,  so  far,  at  least,  as  that  could  be  done  by  keeping  the  high 
seas,  through  which  the  food-bringing  ships  must  pass,  open  and  free 
from  molestation.8 

If  we  did  not  suppose  that  even  in  peacetime  we  employ  as  a  precau- 
tion more  ships  than  are  required  for  the  police  of  the  seas,  it  would  be 
alarming  indeed  to  reflect  that,  without  the  arduous  duty  just  referred 
to  we  yet  are  obliged  to  keep  three  frigates  and  twenty-one  corvettes 
in  commission  (some  of  these  are  not  in  good  condition).  Yet,  even 
under  the  supposition  which  has  just  been  made,  we  must  anxiously 
ask  ourselves  whether,  if  the  armed  navy  of  England  is  to  protect 
her  commerce  at  all,  such  a  force  as  I  have  just  enumerated  is  in  any 
way  equal  to  the  task.  The  immense  merchant  fleet  of  England 
may  be  attacked  in  so  many  ways  and  at  so  many  points  while 
traversing  the  ocean,  and  above  all  is  so  liable  to  capture  when 
just  arriving  at  its  destination — for  example,  the  English  or  Irish 
Channels — that  a  searching  investigation  of  the  problem  of  its 
defence  is  out  of  the  question  within  the  limits  of  a  few  page?. 
We  know  that  the  question  of  attack  on  the  open  seas  has  been 
carefully  considered  by  more  than  one  mar-time  power,  and  that 

7  Two  others,  it  is  true,  were  in  commission,  whose  speed  was  about  fifteen  knots ; 
but  both  required  new  boilers. 

8  Corvettes,  of  which  we  have  many,  some  in  good,  others  in  bad,  condition, 
which  are  incapable  of  reaching  a  speed  of  thirteen  knots,  are  not  considered  adapted 
for  this  duty. 


402  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY.  March 

France  has  constructed  ships  specially  designed  for  that  purpose, 
not  omitting  the  power  of  beating  off  a  defending  force.  Two  ships 
of  war  have  recently  been  built  expressly  designed  to  surpass  in 
swiftness  and  power  our  first-class  iron  frigates,  in  which  aim  they 
appear  to  have  been  successful.  The  fastest  of  our  iron  frigates 
obtained  a  speed  of  16'5,  and  the  two  others  somewhat  less.  Our 
rivals  obtained,  in  both  ships,  a  speed  of  16*9  knots.  Moreover,  the 
design  of  their  first-class  corvette  contemplates  a  speed  of  16  knots, 
which  there  is  every  reason  to  believe  has  been  obtained.  Ten 
corvettes  styled  of  the  second  class,  eight  of  which  were  under  con- 
struction in  1878,  had  a  speed  of  15-5  knots,  and  two  of  the  third 
class  are  credited  with  a  speed  of  1 5  knots.  These  ships  are  in  addi- 
tion to  older  ships  called  first-class  cruisers,  whose  speed  is  probably 
of  the  same  style  as  that  of  our  old  wooden  frigates.  Thus  the  attack- 
ing power  of  the  unarmoured  ships  of  war  rather  seems  to  have  the 
superiority  over  the  defence.  Another  mode  of  attack,  the  distance 
at  which  it  can  operate  being  limited,  is  by  means  of  detached  iron- 
clads whose  speed  is  fourteen  knots  and  upwards,  who  would  drive 
off  or  destroy  the  unarmoured  protecting  force,  and  capture  the  mer- 
chant ships  that  were  slower  than  themselves.  This  apprehension  led 
to  the  construction  of  armoured  ships  which  on  our  side  might  be 
detached  to  counteract  such  a  proceeding  ;  three  have  been  specially 
so  designed.  Unfortunately  the  speed  of  these  ships  is  but  thirteen 
knots.  Three  ironclads  of  the  earliest  design — which,  notwithstanding 
some  very  good  qualities  as  single  ships,  I  have  been  obliged  to  declare 
totally  unfit  for  fleet  service  owing  to  thin  armour  and  great  unhandi- 
ness— might,  with  but  slight  alterations,  do  far  better  service  in  cruis- 
ing for  the  protection  of  trade  than  in  any  other  way  ;  and  there  are 
three  others  which,  with  more  serious  alterations,  might  usefully  be 
so  employed.  All  of  them  have  a  speed  exceeding  fourteen  knots,  and, 
as  single  ship  to  single  ship,  they  would  not  be  altogether  incapable 
of  defeating  in  a  stand-up  fight  those  ironclads  of  the  second  class 
before  mentioned. 

Another  side  of  the  problem,  which  has  been  much  discussed, 
has  recently  come  to  the  front.  No  ship  of  war,  up  to  a  very  recent 
date,  had  been  constructed  with  a  speed  and  coal-carrying  capacity 
combined  nearly  equal  to  the  fastest  merchant  ships  navigating  the 
ocean.  We  have  built,  and  so  have  our  neighbours,  faster  ships 
armed  than  any  of  the  great  lines  of  packet  and  other  steamers,  but 
neither  of  us  have  built  armed  ships  which  could  carry  a  coal  supply 
of  ten  or  twelve  days  at  a  speed  of  fifteen  knots.  The  commercial 
ships  of  England  (the  best  of  them)  have  done  that ;  and  their 
French  competitors  have  nearly,  if  they  have  not  quite,  equalled 
them.  Of  course,  in  the  event  of  hostilities  between  ourselves  and 
other  powers,  it  would  be  possible  for  the  Government  to  purchase 
a  whole  fleet  of  the  fastest  and  largest  coal-carriers  amongst  the 


1880.  ENGLAND  AS  A   NAVAL  POWER.  403 

splendid  merchant  ships  belonging  to  these  companies  ;  and  as  very 
unimportant  alterations  and  additions  would  suffice  to  convert  such 
ships  into  cruisers  for  the  protection  of  commerce,  only  against  such 
armed  merchant  ships  as  could  be  purchased  and  fitted  out  by  foreign 
powers  for  the  destruction  of  commerce,  we  may  find,  by  a  sacrifice  of 
a  part  of  our  merchant  shipping,  protection  for  the  remainder.  The 
example  given  us  by  Eussia  in  1878  may  show  us  how  to  deal  a 
counterstroke  to  the  well-defined  task  which  others  have  set  them- 
selves— '  the  destruction  of  our  commerce.'  °  It  has  been  much  debated 
whether  the  whole,  or  at  any  rate  a  large  part,  of  our  most  valuable 
unarmed  steamships  might  not  be  made  self-protecting,  and  the 
Whitehead  torpedo  certainly  offers  to  a  swift  steamship  extraordi- 
nary facilities  for  defence.  What  has  been  done  in  this  direction  has 
met  with  much  opposition.  A  strong  opinion  has  been  pronounced 
against  incurring  the  losses  and  accepting  the  commercial  impedi- 
ments of  such  a  system,  and  protection  by  the  Royal  Navy — and 
adequate  protection — instead,  has  been  warmly  advocated.  Both 
systems  or  methods  must  be  seriously  and  vigorously  employed ;  and 
when  all  is  done,  slow  steamers  and  sailing  ships,  in  which  is  still 
found  a  large,  though  decreasing,  percentage  of  our  trade,  will  even 
then  be  in  a  most  hazardous  and  insecure  position. 

It  cannot  be  too  clearly  stated  that,  powerful  as  the  armed  steamer 
I  have  described  may  be  for  attack  or  defence  against  a  merchant 
ship,  she  will  fall  an  easy  prey  if,  from  inferior  velocity,  she  has  to 
fight  even  a  third-class  corvette  or  sloop.  Against  such  ships  of  war 
as  a  neighbouring  nation  possesses,  the  only  defence  for  a  mercantile 
navy  which  can  be  relied  on  is  to  place  on  the  water  superior  ships 
in  greater  number.  We  have  failed  to  do  this.  The  reason  for  our 
failure  has  been  the  dread  of  cost.  We  took  the  lead  in  1866,  we  lost 
it  in  1874,  and  since  then  there  has  been  no  attempt  to  regain  the  posi- 
tion we  have  lost.  We  had  the  swiftest  and  most  powerful  unarmoured 
ships  in  the  world.  Errors  notwithstanding,  we  maintained  that 
distinction  till  1874.  Our  neighbours,  who  had  thoroughly  studied, 
under  all  circumstances  of  prosperity  and  adversity,  how  best  to  make 
a  war,  should  one  occur,  fatal  to  us,  understood  what  a  weak  point 
was  presented  by  our  gigantic  trade,  and,  finding  that  we  ignored  for 
eight  long  years  the  value  of  the  weapon  we  had  forged  for  its  defence, 
boldly  reversed  the  position — designed  and  have  launched  two  ships 
surpassing  our  great  achievement  of  eight  years  ago,  while  we  have 
gone  back  to  second-rate  speeds  and  inferior  ships !  Perhaps  an 
attempt  maybe  made  to  deny  this  assertion,  and  to  cite,  as  a  distinct 
contradiction  of  the  statement,  the  case  of  the  two  despatch  corvettes, 
which  have  realised  a  speed  of  seventeen  and  a  half  knots ;  but  we 
are  so  placed  in  comparison  with  our  rival,  that  our  fastest  ships  are 

9  The  '  Hecla  '  is  an  excellent  example  of  what  may  be  done  in  that  way 


404  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  March 

immeasurably  inferior  in  armament,  and,  when  the  armament  ap- 
proaches to  an  equality,  our  speed  is  seriously  less.  It  is  surely 
childish  to  say  that  England,  with  all  she  has  at  stake  upon  the  ocean, 
with  no  defeat  to  avenge,  no  hundreds  of  millions  recently  torn  from  her 
to  the  impoverishment  of  the  nation,  no  wounds  occasioned  by  foreign 
and  domestic  war  to  heal,  cannot  afford  the  cost  of  building  such 
ships  as  she  requires  which  shall  be  superior  to  all  others.  Would  it 
indeed  have  cost  more  to  have  kept  a  lead  that  we  had  obtained  in 
1866,  to  have  made  the  requisite  improvements  in  that  design 
which  time  would  have  pointed  out,  to  have  multiplied  the  numbers 
of  such  ships  year  by  year,  till  all  rivalry  should  have  become 
unavailing,  than  it  will  cost  to  accept  a  contest,  with  weapons  to  a 
certain  extent  inferior  as  to  quality,  and  by  no  means  numerous 
enough  to  make  up  for  less  efficiency  ?  Is  not  this  courting  defeat  ? 
We  have  not  acted  thus  with  our  first-class  war  ships  which  are  to 
fight  the  Trafalgars  and  Aboukirs  of  modern  days,  though  even  in 
this  direction  there  is  much  to  regret,  but  with  the  unarmoured  fleet 
that  regret  approaches  to  dismay.10 

Unwise  counsels  and  false  economy  have  prevailed,  and  England  as 
a  naval  power,  though  a  Colossus,  is  yet  found  to  have  feet  of  clay.  It 
is  painful  to  avow  such  conclusions,  but,  such  as  they  are,  there  is 
abundant  evidence  that  they  have  been  arrived  at,  perjhaps  in  exag- 
gerated proportions,  by  every  maritime  power  in  the  world.  I  have 
been  obliged  to  take  many  of  my  illustrations  and  comparisons  from 
France.  I  hasten  to  say  that  I  do  not  for  a  moment  attribute  to 
that  great  and  gallant  nation  any  concealed  or  meditated  hostility 
against  this  country.  I  believe,  on  the  contrary,  that  she  would  forego 
the  good  understanding  which  happily  exists  between  us  with  great 
reluctance  and  only  upon  great  provocation.  What  she  has  done  and 
what  she  will  do  in  this  matter,  is  to  secure  herself  the  means  of 
striking  hard,  and  perhaps  with  fatal  effect,  a  blow  against  England, 
should  the  chapter  of  accidents  convert  us  into  enemies.  I  regret 
the  chances  of  striking  successfully  which  we  have  left  open  to 
her  and  to  other  navies.  I  believe  that  if  the  statements  and  con- 
clusions which  I  have  advanced,  and  which  I  consider  unassailable, 
were  thoroughly  known  to  the  British  public,  they  would  insist  upon 

10  I  know  that  to  some  persons  reflections  like  thesa  have  been  somewhat  tem- 
pered by  the  declaration  following  the  Treaty  of  Paris  in  1S5G.  They  entertain  a 
confident  expectation  that  under  it  the  property  of  a  belligerent  will  be  respected  in 
a  neutral  ship,  and  that  a  belligerent  may  and  will  have  recourse  to  this  expedient 
for  protecting  his  trade.  I  do  not  concur  in  this  opinion,  and  the  many  efforts  made 
by  ourselves  to  set  aside  the  protection  so  given  to  neutral  flags  ought,  I  think,  to 
convince  us  that  the  declaration  in  question  will  not  be  respected  by  others.  The 
really  important  advantage  we  possess  over  other  maritime  powers  is  unfortunately 
much  neglected.  It  would  be  easy  for  us  to  establish  in  our  mimerous  and  scattered 
possessions  large  supplies'of  that  coal  which  in  many  ways  is  the  key  of  the  efficiency 
of  our  naval  power,  but  in  the  majority  of  instances  the  coal  is  not  where  it  ought 
to  be,  or,  if  there,  is  at  the  mercy  of  a  resolute  enemy's  gunboat. 


1880.  ENGLAND  AS  A   NAVAL  POWER.  405 

measures  being  taken  which  should  bar  out  those  chances  and 
strengthen  our  weak  points.  I  have  often  stated,  and  I  still  hold  the 
opinion,  that  the  defective  organisation  of  our  naval  administration 
is  responsible  for  the  shortcomings  of  our  naval  efficiency,  and  that 
our  present  system  never  can  produce  a  really  adequate  and  efficient 
navy  ;  but  it  is  not  now  possible  to  discuss  this  subject.  My  object  in 
this  paper  has  been  to  bring  home  to  ourselves  an  exact  knowledge 
of  our  strength  and  of  our  weakness  as  a  naval  power.  Unfortu- 
nately that  cannot  be  done  without  a  reference  to  the  other  navies 
of  the  world ;  and  the  second  naval  power  in  Europe — if  indeed 
it  be  the  second — naturally  comes  into  greater  prominence  than  any 
other.  Should  a  conflict  arise  between  us — which  I  deprecate  as 
a  calamity  to  the  human  race — as  in  its  earlier  stages  we  might  pos- 
sibly meet  with  the  fate  of  Entellus  : 

Ipse  gravis,  graviterque  ad  terram  pondere  vasto 
Ooncidit — 

let  us  hope  that  the  poet's  lines  might  prove  prophetic,  and  the  con- 
clusion be : 

At  non  tardatus  casu  neque  territus  heros 
Acrior  ad  pugnam  redit  .     .     . 
Prsecipitemque  Daren  ardens  agit  sequore  toto. 

ROBERT  SPENCER  ROBINSON. 


VOL.  VII.— No.  37.       E  E 


406  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  March 


THE   COMMON-SENSE   OF  HOME  RULE. 


WHO  first  applied  the  phrase  '  dismemberment  of  the  Empire  '  to  the 
Home  Rule  scheme  ?     Whoever  he  was,  he  may  consider  himself  a 
fortunate  man,  if  his  ambition  was  only  to  do  injury  to  the  proposed 
measure,  or  even  to  do  mischief  in  a  general  way.     For  a  practical 
people  the  English  are  strangely  governed  by  words  and  phrases.     In 
political  affairs   this  influence  of  phrases  is   specially  remarkable. 
With  certain  minds  a  phrase  settles  a  whole  question.     A  few  years 
ago  any  possible  suggestion  of  electoral  reform  was  made  odious  to  a 
vast  number  of  respectable  persons  by  the  terrible  words,  '  American- 
ising our  institutions.'     The  three  words  were  enough  ;  the  question 
was  settled  once  and  for  ever.     None  of  those  over  whom  a  phrase 
has  this   magical   influence  would   think  of  stopping   to   consider 
whether,  first,  the  proposed  reform  would  really  tend  to  Americanise 
our  institutions,  and  next,  whether  it  might  not  have  some  good 
points  in  it  even  though  it  had  such  a  tendency.     Then  again,  who 
can  have  forgotten  the  cabalistic  power  exercised  at  one  time  by  the 
words  t  setting  class  against  class '  ?     The  lightning  conductor  does 
not  draw  down  the  lightning  more  surely  than  the  recitation  of  these 
words  could  call  forth  a  burst  of  cheers  from  the  Conservative  benches 
of  the  House  of  Commons.     In  the  minds  of  thousands,  .Mr.  Bright 
was  for  a  long  time  only  a  man  engaged  in  the  reprehensible  task  of 
setting   class   against  class.     Any  proposal  coming  from   him  was 
settled  by  the  words,  i  I  am  opposed,  Mr.  Speaker,  as  an  Englishman, 
to  an  agitation  which  would  set  class  against  class.'     '  Dismember- 
ment of  the  Empire '  is  the  phrase  which  stands  in  the   place  of 
argument  against  Home  Rule.     It  appears  in  every  leading  article, 
it  is  repeated  in  every  speech.     In  drawing-room,  in  debating  society, 
club-room,  bar-room,  on    every  platform,   on    every   hustings,   the 
words  are  to  be  heard,  and  they  constitute  for  thousands,  probably 
millions,  of  people,  a  sufficient  and  unanswerable  argument. 

Let  us  see  what  is  this  proposal  which  is  to  dismember  the 
Empire.  Perhaps  it  will  be  well  to  find  out  in  the  first  instance 
what  is  meant  by  dismemberment  of  the  Empire.  What  is  the  Empire  ? 
Is  it  only  England,  Ireland,  and  Scotland  ?  Surely  not ;  we  must 
admit  the  right  of  the  colonies  to  be  considered  part  of  the  Empire. 


1880.         THE  COMMON-SENSE  OF  HOME  RULE.  407 

Was  then  the  Empire  dismembered  when  Home  Eule  was  given  to 
Canada  and  to  Australia  ?  One  after  another  the  colonies  develope 
into  States  with  a  complete  system  of  Home  Eule.  We  are  all  in 
the  habit  of  saying,  and  surely  those  of  us  who  have  any  capacity  for 
judging  must  believe,  that  the  Empire  is  strengthened  and  not 
weakened,  consolidated  and  not  dismembered,  by  the  changes  which 
reconcile  the  colonists  to  their  place  in  the  Imperial  system.  It  is  not 
so  very  long  since  the  Empire  was  near  being  dismembered,  in  that 
sense,  by  the  growing  discontent  of  Canada  and  the  strength  of  the 
feeling  among  Canadians  in  favour  of  annexation  to  the  United 
States.  Home  Eule  settled  so  completely  all  those  discontents,  that 
annexation  is  no  longer  reckoned  among  existing  political  questions 
in  Canada.  Empires  are,  in  truth,  much  more  likely  to  be  dis- 
membered by  concessions  refused,  than  by  concessions  granted,  to 
some  of  their  populations.  Again,  one  is  tempted  to  ask  whether 
the  Empire  has  only  existed  as  a  complete  organisation  since  the 
beginning  of  this  century.  That  is  the  length  of  time  during  which 
Ireland  has  been  without  Home  Eule.  I  dare  say  there  are  many 
Englishmen  not  unaccustomed  to  political  discussion  who  regard  the 
proposal  for  Home  Eule  in  Ireland  as  some  daring  and  monstrous 
innovation,  some  wild  new  idea  born  of  Fenianism  and  obstruction  or 
other  such  progenitors.  Even  Lord  Hartington,  speaking  of  Home 
Eule  during  the  autumn,  seemed  to  treat  it  as  some  portentous 
novelty  in  our  political  conditions.  Yet  there  are  many  men  still 
living  who  might  have  heard  O'Connell  denounce  the  Act  of  Union 
because  of  its  crude  newness,  and  because  of  the  manner  in  which  it 
had  been  thrust  upon  Ireland  to  the  subversion  of  the  ancient  con- 
stitutional system  of  the  country.  If  Home  Eule  would  mean 
dismemberment  of  the  Empire,  it  follows  that  the  Empire  has  only 
had  its  members  in  cohesion  for  exactly  eighty  years.  Chatham, 
Burke,  Fox,  were  the  statesmen  of  a  dismembered  empire. 

Let  us  see,  however,  what  is  Home  Eule.  I  hear  it  said  commonly 
among  Englishmen  that  no  one  can  explain  what  Home  Eule  means. 
The  other  day  a  friend  asked  me  what  the  Home  Eulers  proposed  to 
do  with  the  House  of  Commons.  He  thought,  I  believe,  that  I  was 
jesting  when  I  replied  that,  so  far  as  I  knew,  the  Home  Eulers 
proposed  to  leave  it  exactly  as  it  is.  '  But  there  would  be  no  Irish 
members  there,'  he  said.  I  asked  him  why  not.  He  said  :  '  Why, 
because  of  Home  Eule,  you  know.'  But  I  did  not  know.  I  knew  of 
no  reason  why  Irish  members  should  not  be  in  the  Imperial  Parlia- 
ment, while  at  the  same  time  a  domestic  legislature  was  managing 
Irish  business  in  Ireland.  Home  Eule,  as  I  understand  it,  would  leave 
the  Imperial  Parliament  constituted  exactly  as  it  is  at  present.  Irish 
members  would  be  elected  by  the  constituencies  which  elect  them 
now.  I  do  not  know  whether  Englishmen  would  be  glad  or  sorry 
to  hear  that,  even  after  Home  Eule,  there  would  still  be  Irish  repre- 

E  E  2 


408  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY.  March 

sentatives  addressing  the  Speaker  in  Westminster.     Even  with  Home 
Rule  in  Ireland,  Imperial  business  would  have  to  be  got  through 
in  London.     Better  still,  it  could  then  be  got  through.     The  Impe- 
rial  Parliament,   made  up  of  English,   Irish,    Scotch,    and  "Welsh 
members,  just  as  it  is  at  present,  would  have  to  discuss  and  de- 
cide all  questions  of  the  common  interest,  all  Imperial  questions, 
as  we  may  call  them — Imperial  taxation,  commercial  policy,  treaties 
of  all  kinds,  the  army,  the  navy,  foreign  policy,  all  subjects  that 
belong  to  the  making  of  war  or  the  conclusion  of  peace.     What  it 
would  not  have  to  trouble  itself  with,  are  the  questions  of  strictly 
domestic  interest  to  Ireland.    I  do  not  wish  Englishmen  to  understand 
that  all  we  want  for  Ireland  is  a  sort  of  overgrown  county  board. 
What  we  want  is  a  legislature  to  deal  with  questions  of  domestic 
interest.     Take  the  question  of  University  Education  for  Ireland. 
That  would  have  been  settled  long  ago,  and  with  the  most  perfect 
accord,  by  a  domestic  legislature.     The  Catholics  and  the  Protestants 
in  Ireland  have  long  been  agreed  as  to  the  general  principles  of  the 
arrangement.     The  Catholics  did  not  desire  to  interfere  with  the 
University  of  Dublin ;  the  Protestants,  as  a  whole,  would  have  been 
well  content  that  the  Catholics  should  have  a  university  of  their  own. 
The  difficulty  in  this  matter  of  education  has  come  altogether  from 
the  Dissenters  in  England.     It  has  not  come  from  the  Churchmen. 
English  Dissenters  have  set  up  for  themselves  a  fetish  in  the  shape  of 
a  principle  that  the  State  shall  not  endow  denominational  education, 
and  they  try  to  make  every  other  body  of  men  in  the  Empire  bow  down 
to  it.     Ireland  would  settle  for  herself  what  regulations  were  suitable 
for  public  houses  and  the  liquor  trade.    She  would  decide  for  herself 
whether  the  Ulster  tenant  system,  which  has  done  so  much  to  make  a 
province,  once  the  very  nursery  of  rebellion,  contented  and  prosperous, 
should  or  should  not  be  extended  to  other  provinces  as  well.    She  would 
make  the  arrangements  for  applying  relief  in  the  case  of  exceptional 
distress.     Of  course  it  is  needless  to  say  that  all  questions  affecting 
what  we  call  private  bill  legislation  for  Ireland  would  come  under  the 
jurisdiction  of  the  Home  Rule  Parliament.     The  House  of  Commons 
was  engaged  the  other  night  in  a  long  discussion  concerning  the 
terms  on  which  Poor  Law  guardians  in  Ireland  should  be  authorised  to 
assist  the  rural  population  of  Ireland  in  distressed  districts  to  obtain 
seed  potatoes  for  the  coming  season.     The   debate  was  carried  on 
during  parts  of  successive  evenings.     The  question  was  one  of  great 
practical  importance,  and  it  was  discussed  in  the  most  rigidly  practi- 
cal way ;  not  one  word,  so  far  as  I  heard,  was  wasted  on  any  subject 
not  belonging  to  the  strict  business  of  the  discussion.     As  I  listened,  I 
could  not  help  asking  myself:  'Is  it  possible  that  any  English  member 
could  fail  to  see  that  such  a  subject  as  this  is  purely  for  the  conside- 
ration of  an  Irish  legislature  ?     What  possible  advantage  can  it  be  to 
England  to  have  it  debated  in  Westminster  Palace  ?     No  English 


1880.         THE  COMMON-SENSE  OF  HOME  RULE.          409 

member,  except  the  Chief  Secretary  for  Ireland,  will  take  any  part 
in  the  discussion,  or  could  be  supposed  to  be  qualified  to  take 
part  in  it.  Irishmen  understand  it ;  it  is  their  business  altogether  ; 
they  are  discussing  it,  not,  as  comic  periodicals  in  London  assume  that 
Irishmen  discuss  everything,  with  wild  and  whirling  words,  furious 
recriminations,  and  discursive  eloquence,  but  in  the  quietest,  most 
practical,  driest  manner  possible.  Of  what  advantage  can  it  be  to 
Ireland  to  have  this  discussion  going  on  in  the  Imperial  Parliament? 
Of  what  advantage  can  it  be  to  England  to  have  the  time  of  the 
Imperial  Parliament  thus  occupied  ? ' 

The  order-book  of  the  House  of  Commons  is  overcharged  with  the 
titles  of  measures  of  strictly  Imperial  or  common  interest  which  could 
only  be  discussed  properly  by  representatives  of  the  three  countries ; 
and  every  one  knows  that  session  after  session  such  measures  have  to  be 
scamped  or  thrown  aside  because  there  is  not  time  to  pay  attention  to 
them.  In  the  list  of  public  bills  for  the  session,  thus  far,  there  are 
some  twenty-five  upon  Irish  domestic  subjects — questions  which  have 
absolutely  no  practical  interest  for  any  but  Irishmen  or  residents  in 
Ireland.  Some  of  them  are  not  only  of  great  practical  interest  to  Ire- 
land, but  of  urgent  and  immediate  interest.  They  could  be  dealt  with 
promptly  and  effectively  by  an  Irish  legislature.  In  the  Imperial  Par- 
liament they  are  jammed  up  with  a  crowd  of  other  measures,  jostling 
and  jostled,  each  stopping  the  way  of  the  other.  A  very  important  bill 
for  the  relief  of  Irish  distress  has  just  been  under  discussion.  It  was 
urgent,  if  any  measure  can  be  called  urgent.  The  Government  were 
sincerely  anxious  to  press  it  on  to  completion.  The  Irish  members 
were  naturally  anxious  for  the  same  thing.  It  was  easy  to  urge  on 
both  sides  that  speed  should  be  made  with  the  bill ;  it  was  easy  for 
one  side  to  charge  the  other  with  being  the  cause  of  delay.  But  the 
plain  fact  was  that  there  were  parts  of  the  bill  which  had  to  be  dis- 
cussed. Some  of  the  Irish  members  were  strongly  of  opinion  that  the 
guardians  in  Ireland  ought  to  be  allowed,  during  this  season  of  tem- 
porary distress,  to  give  outdoor  relief  occasionally  in  money  as  well  as 
in  food  and  fuel,  as  they  were  allowed  to  do,  I  believe,  in  Lancashire 
during  the  cotton  famine.  The  Government  did  not  see  their  way  to 
consent  to  this  demand.  Great  part  of  a  night  was  taken  up  with 
the  discussion.  Now  I  should  like  to  ask  any  reasonable  Englishman 
if  he  thinks  an  Imperial  Parliament  is  well  occupied  in  deciding  the 
question  whether  the  Poor  Law  guardians  of  certain  districts  in 
Ireland  should  or  should  not  be  allowed  to  give  outdoor  relief  in  the 
form  of  money  as  well  as  of  food.  Is  it  possible  to  think  of  any 
question  which  could  more  legitimately  and  more  effectively  be  de- 
cided by  local  authorities  ?  I  look  at  the  matter  naturally  from  the 
Irishman's-  point  of  view.  But  I  am  quite  willing  to  admit  that  there 
is  also  the  point  of  view  of  the  Englishman  and  of  the  Scotchman. 
I  can  easily  understand  the  impatience  of  an  Englishman  who 


410  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  March 

is   deeply    concerned   about   some   measure   affecting  the   interests 
of  the  whole  Empire,  and  knows  that  it  is  delayed  from  week  to 
week,  perhaps  from  session  to  session,  because  the  House  of  Com- 
mons is  occupied  with  legislation  which  is  strictly  the  business  of 
an  Irish  domestic  Parliament.     While  our  present  system  is  endured 
there  is  no  getting  out  of  this  difficulty.    If  the  Imperial  Parliament 
will  manage  the  domestic  affairs  of  Ireland,  it  is  clear  that  the  relief 
of  a  pressing  distress  must  be  more  urgent  than  the  best  criminal 
code  or  bankruptcy  bill  that  could  be  constructed.     If  the  passing  of 
the  Irish  relief  measures  were  to  stop  all  other  legislation  for  the 
Session,  it  is  right  that  all  other  legislation  should  be  stopped.     If 
any  similar  distress  should  appear  next  session  in  the  Highlands  of 
Scotland  or  in  the  South  of  England,  it  is  right  too  that  measures  of 
relief  should  take  precedence  of  criminal  codes  and  bankruptcy  bills 
again.     But  what  can  be  said  for  a  system  which  insists  that  the 
Imperial  Parliament  shall  neglect  the  business  which  it  alone  can  do, 
in  order  to  undertake  business  which  it  never  can  do  effectively,  and 
which  it  never  ought  to  have  undertaken  ?     The  order-book  for  the 
present  Session  has  the  titles  of  several  bills  on  subjects  of  a  strictly 
domestic  nature  in  Scotland.     It  has  several  also  which  only  concern 
English  localities.     I  am  not  speaking  now  of  private  bill  legislation ,. 
but  of  public  measures.     If  we  look  at  the  list  of  private  bills,  we 
shall  be  stricken  with  wonder  at  the  curious  appetite  for  unsuitable 
work  which  seems  to  have  taken  possession  of  the  Imperial  Parlia- 
ment.    Belfast,  Bristol,  Cardiff,  Glasgow,  Grravesend,  Huddersfield, 
Hull,  Cork,  Lancaster,  Northampton,  Nottingham,  Oldham,  Preston ,. 
Yarmouth,  Swansea — all  these  and  twenty  other  cities  and   towns 
have  to  come  before  the  Imperial  Parliament  and  ask  for  legislation 
to  enable  them  to  build  gasworks  and  waterworks,  new  bridges  and 
tramways.     It  may  be  said  that  all  this  private  bill  legislation  is 
managed  by  committees  of  the  two  Houses,  and  comes  only  as  a  mere 
matter  of  form  before  either  House  in  session.     Such  is,  of  course, 
the  general  practice.     But  it  is  hardly  necessary  to  point  out  that  if 
members  of  Parliament  are  employed  all  the  early  part  of  the  day  in 
hearing  evidence  to  prove  that  York  or  Preston  ought  or  ought  not 
to  be  allowed  to  have  a  new  tramway  in  its  streets,  these  same  mem- 
bers cannot  be  very  effective  coadjutors  in  the  work  of  Imperial 
legislation  all  the  evening  and  half  the  night.     Besides,  it  is  not  the 
fact  that  the  private  bill  legislation  is  always  got  through  without 
occupying  the  time  of  either  House  of  Parliament.     A  good  deal  of 
the  public  time  of  the  House  of  Commons  is  occupied  every  session 
in  discussing  some  private  bill.     After  a  bill  has  passed  through 
committee  upstairs,  it  often  happens  that  some  member  of  Parliament 
is  dissatisfied  with  it.     He  raises  an  objection  to  its  formal  third 
reading  in  the  House.     Then  the  third  reading  ceases  to  be  a  mere 
formality.     It  is  discussed  publicly  in  the  House  as  if  it  were  some 


1880.         THE  COMMON-SENSE  OF  HOME  RULE.          411 

question  of  Imperial  interest.  Hour  after  hour  is  often  thus  occupied. 
Sometimes  the  result  is  that  a  locality  is  refused  some  advantage 
which  it  desires  to  have,  and  is  willing  to  provide  out  of  its  own 
money,  because  a  combination  of  what  are  called  '  interests '  in .  the 
House  of  Commons  is  suddenly  arrayed  against  it.  I  remember  an 
occasion  when  a  scheme  of  railway  extension  on  which  the  whole  of 
the  Irish  members  on  both  sides  were  agreed — a  scheme  applying  only 
to  Ireland — was  defeated  by  a  general  combination  of  members  in  the 
English  railway  interest.  The  people  of  Birmingham  have  probably 
not  yet  quite  forgotten  how  the  force  of  a  different  kind  of  external 
combination  was  brought  into  operation  a  few  years  ago  to  oppose  a 
bill  of  strictly  local  interest,  and  of  which  the  Birmingham  people 
must  naturally  have  been  best  qualified  to  judge. 

It  will  be  seen  from  what  I  have  already  written  that  I  am  a 
Home  Kuler  for  England  as  well  as  for  Ireland.  I  not  merely  hope 
the  day  will  come,  but  I  am  convinced  that  it  must  come,  when 
some  legislative  body  concerned  with  purely  domestic  English  inte- 
rests will  sit  in  London  to  dispose  of  measures  applying  to  England 
only.  Scotland,  I  have  no  doubt,  will  before  long  begin  to  insist  that 
some  means  must  be  given  to  her  for  getting  legislation  on  domestic 
affairs  satisfactorily  accomplished.  Ireland's  necessity  is  more  urgent, 
because  the  difference  of  race,  religion,  history,  traditions,  and  habi- 
tudes between  her  and  other  parts  of  the  Empire,  makes  it  more 
difficult  for  her  to  be  satisfactorily  governed  by  a  centralised  system 
of  legislation.  But  I  trust  the  time  will  come  when  the  demand  for 
Home  Rule  will  be  made  by  each  of  the  different  parts  of  the  Empire 
that  are  now  combined  in  the  ineffective  system  of  centralised 
government  represented  in  Westminster  Palace.  Let  it  be  observed 
that  the  question  of  Imperial  government,  and  how  it  is  to  be  made 
a  reality,  is  likely  soon  to  be  raised  in  quite  a  different  way.  I  was 
present  not  long  since  at  a  very  interesting  discussion  which  took 
place  in  the  rooms  of  the  Colonial  Institute.  An  essay  was  read  on 
the  national  development  of  Canada.  The  author  of  the  essay  was 
Mr.  J.  (jr.  Bourinot,  Clerk  Assistant  of  the  Canadian  House  of 
Commons.  The  object  of  the  writer  was  to  show  that  the  present 
relations  of  the  Dominion  of  Canada  to  the  Imperial  Parliament 
cannot  long  continue  to  exist.  Canada  cannot  long  consent  to  be 
bound  up  in  our  Imperial  system,  to  share  its  responsibilities,  to 
become  perhaps,  in  case  of  war  between  England  and  some  foreign 
power,  the  chief  sufferer  ^  for  a  policy  on  which  she  was  never  con- 
sulted. She  will — such  was  the  opinion  of  Mr.  Bourinot,  who  can 
hardly  be  supposed  to  be  ignorant  of  the  public  feeling  of  Canada — 
demand  to  be  admitted  to  representation  in  the  Imperial  Parliament, 
or  she  will  either  drift  into  independence  or  be  annexed  to  the 
United  States.  This  latter  alternative  Mr.  Bourinot  regarded  as 
most  unlikely  to  be  adopted;  Home  Kule  has  extinguished  every 


412  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  March 

desire  among  Canadians  for  annexation  to  the  American  Republic. 
But  Mr.  Bourinot  declared  it  as  his  conviction  that  before  long 
Canada  must  be  represented  in  our  Imperial  Parliament,  or  she  will 
withdraw  from  our  system  and  seek  a  national  career  of  her  own. 
This  was  not  the  opinion  of  the  author  of  the  essay  alone.  Many 
speakers  expressed  the  same  conviction.  Almost  all  who  spoke,  and 
who  professed  to  represent  the  opinion  of  the  colonies,  were  in  favour 
of  colonial  representation  in  the  Imperial  Parliament.  The  president 
of  the  Institute,  the  Duke  of  Manchester,  declared  himself  strongly 
in  favour  of  it.  The  honorary  secretary  of  the  Institute,  Mr. 
Frederick  Young,  described  himself  as  an  enthusiast  for  it.  I  believe 
it  may  be  considered  a  pet  theory  of  the  Colonial  Institute.  Now  if 
that  idea  gains  force,  as  I  believe  it  will,  and  comes  into  the  region 
of  practical  politics,  as  I  also  believe  it  will,  observe  how  it  will 
affect  this  whole  question  of  Imperial  representation  in  the  House  of 
Commons.  What  Canada  demands  the  Australian  colonies  will  be 
pretty  sure  to  demand.  It  seems  only  reasonable,  on  the  face  of 
things,  that  if  the  colonies  are  to  be  bound  up  with  us  and  to  share 
our  responsibilities,  they  should  have  some  voice  in  directing  our 
foreign  policy.  If  England  and  the  United  States  had  quarrelled  on 
the  subject  of  the  Alabama  claims,  no  one  can  doubt  that  the 
Americans  would  have  made  Canada  the  battle-ground  of  the  dis- 
pute. The  great  Powers  of  Europe  are  nearly  all  becoming  smitten 
of  late  years  with  a  passion  for  setting  up  huge  and  strong  navies. 
The  late  Lord  Ellenborough  once  made  an  unlucky  joke  about  the 
desire  of  the  Prussians  for  a  navy.  '  Optat  ephippia  bos  piger,'  he 
said,  quoting  from  Horace.  That  was  in  the  days  when  it  was  an 
article  of  faith  with  Englishmen  that  Prussians  were  too  slow  and 
stupid  to  do  anything  but  smoke  and  talk  metaphysics.  The 
Prussians  were  madejvery  angry  by  the  joke.  They  can  afford  now 
to  forget  it.  They  have  seaports,  and  they  have  a  navy,  and  they 
know  how  to  use  both.  The  Austrians,  the  Russians,  the  Italians 
have  navies.  During  all  future  wars  in  which  England  bears  a  part 
the  English  colonies  will  be  exposed,  as  they  never  were  before,  to  be 
harassed  by  England's  enemiesi  It  is  only  natural  that  the  colonies 
should  feel  anxious  to  have  some  voice  in  tbe  direction  of  that 
Imperial  policy  which  may  bring  on  them  such  tremendous  responsi- 
bilities. But  if  Canada  and  Australia  come  to  be  represented  in  the 
House  of  Commons — and  he  is  no  mere  dreamer  who  believes  such  a 
thing  very  probable — observe  what  an  anomalous  state  of  things 
there  would  then  exist  if  our  present  arrangements  were  not  very 
much  altered.  We  should  have  Canadians  and  Australians  voting  on 
English,  Irish,  and  Scotch  domestic  affairs,  or  at  least  capable  of 
voting  on  them,  while  Canada  and  Australia  had  a  complete  system 
of  Home  Rule  for  themselves,  on  the  business  of  which  no  English  or 
Irish  member  could  possibly  intrude.  The  common-sense  of^the 


1880.         THE  COMMON-SENSE  OF  HOME  RULE.          413 

matter  would  surely  seem  to  be  that  England,  Ireland,  and  Scotland 
should  follow  the  example  of  Canada  and  Australia,  and  should  each 
manage  her  domestic  affairs  for  herself,  leaving  the  representatives  who 
sit  in  the  Imperial  Parliament  to  deal  with  the  common  affairs  of  the 
Empire.  Such  is  indeed  the  true  idea,  the  actual  principle,  of  an  Impe- 
rial Parliament.  It  would  represent  consolidation,  without  centralisa- 
tion. It  would  be  an  empire  reorganised,  not  an  empire  dismembered. 
One  thing  certain  is,  that,  even  as  a  piece  of  mechanism  for  the 
pushing  on  of  legislation,  the  centralised  Parliament  has  utterly 
broken  down.  It  is  unable,  by  any  process  of  work,  to  force  through 
the  legislation  it  foolishly  undertakes.  When  a  session  begins,  every 
one  knows  that  a  mass  of  work  will  be  undertaken  which  will  not  be 
accomplished,  which  nobody  expects  to  see  accomplished.  Some  of 
the  announcements  in  the  Royal  Speech  are  as  purely  pieces  of  for- 
mality as  the  words  '  your  obedient  servant '  at  the  close  of  a  letter. 
The  work  could  not  be  done  even -though  the  House  of  Commons 
were  to  sit  all  night  and  all  day.  I  do  not  speak  of  its  being  satis- 
factorily done  ;  it  would  be  absurd  to  suppose  that  a  motley  crowd  of 
English,  Irish,  Scotch,  and  Welsh  gentlemen  could  satisfactorily 
perform  the  local  business  of  England,  Ireland,  Scotland,  and  Wales. 
What  do  I  know  about  Wales  or  Scotland  which  should  qualify  me 
to  help  in  making  domestic  laws  for  either  place  ?  I  have  no  time 
to  study  thoroughly  the  interests  of  Scotland  or  Wales  ;  life  is  too 
short ;  I  have  other  concerns  to  attend  to.  Yet  I  venture  to  think  I 
have  had  better  opportunities  of  understanding  Scotch  and  Welsh 
affairs  than  the  ordinary  English  member  has  of  understanding  the 
affairs  of  Ireland.  I  have  at  least  been  very  often  in  Scotland  and  in 
Wales,  and  a  great  many  English  members  have  never  been  in  Ire- 
land. I  believe  the  Prime  Minister  has  never  been  in  Ireland ;  I 
believe  Mr.  Gladstone  was  never  there  until  his  visit  of  a  year  or  two 
back.  I  do  not,  therefore,  speak  of  doing  the  work  of  legislation 
satisfactorily  for  the  different  parts  of  the  Empire  in  one  centralised 
Parliament.  I  speak  of  doing  the  work  at  all ;  of  getting  through 
the  lists  of  measures  anyhow ;  the  physical  feat  of  revising  all  their 
various  clauses,  so  as  to  be  able  to  say  these  measures  have  at  least 
been  looked  at,  and  are  fit  to  be  read  a  third  time.  I  wonder 
whether  the  English  people  in  general  have  the  slightest  notion  of 
the  manner  in  which  their  Parliament  fails  to  do  its  work.  If  they 
had  any  clear  idea  on  the  subject,  is  it  possible  that  a  nation  of 
sensible  men  would  allow  such  a  condition  of  things  to  go  on  ?  I 
should  like  to  catechise  on  this  subject  some  quiet  English  man  of 
business  who  cares  little  about  politics.  I  should  like  to  put  it  to 
him  in  some  such  fashion  as  this :  '  Are  you  aware  that  there  are 
measures  of  legislation  which  all  your  statesmen  of  whatever  party 
admit  to  be  of  the  utmost  importance  for  your  practical  affairs,  and 
which  are  postponed  year  after  year  as  regularly  as  the  years  come 


414  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY.  March 

on  ?  Do  you  know  that  some  of  the  most  important  of  these  are 
now  so  commonly  recognised  as  hopeless  that  the  mention  of  their 
names  at  the  beginning  of  every  session  only  provokes  a  smile  ?  Do 
you  know  that  some  of  these  measures,  some  of  the  most  important  of 
them,  have  been  twenty  years,  many  of  them  ten  or  a  dozen  years, 
in  this  condition  ?  Do  you  know  that  every  one  admits  their  impor- 
tance, every  one  declares  himself  anxious  to  see  them  passed  into 
law  ?  Do  you  know  that  Parliament  never  can  find  time  to  pass 
them  ?  Do  you  know  that  the  reason  why  Parliament  cannot  find 
time  to  deal  with  these  important  measures  of  common  and  imperial 
interest  is  because  it  makes  it  a  point  of  honour  to  undertake  doing- 
all  the  local  business  of  Cork,  and  Belfast,  and  Aberdeen,  and  Glas- 
gow ?  '  Not  many  people,  probably,  have  any  idea  of  what  it  costs 
the  Empire  to  undertake  all  this  local  business.  The  mere  money 
loss  must  be  immense,  in  a  direct  form  ;  the  loss  occasioned  by  the 
postponement  from  year  to  year  of  necessary  legislation  is  beyond 
calculation.  Mr.  Plimsoll  complained  the  other  day  of  the  man- 
ner in  which  measures  necessary  for  the  safety  of  lives  at  sea  were- 
postponed,  obstructed,  and  crowded  out  by  the  perplexed  arrange- 
ments of  the  House  of  Commons.  Many  sessions  have  passed  since 
the  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  emphatically  declared  to  the  House 
that  the  legislation  just  adopted  for  the  preservation  of  the  lives  of 
our  seamen  was  incomplete,  and  could  hardly  be  of  any  real  use 
until  it  had  been  supplemented  by  other  legislation  which  the 
Government  were  then  prepared  to  introduce.  'Do  you  know,'  I 
should  like  to  ask  my  supposed  English  friend,  '  that  that  needful 
legislation  has  never  been  carried  any  further  ?  Do  you  know  that 
it  is  postponed  session  after  session  on  the  ground  that  there  is  not 
time  to  pass  it  into  law  ? '  I  wonder  how  many  stout  seamen  lie 
buried  under  the  waves  because  it  is  considered  a  point  of  honour 
that  the  Imperial  Parliament  shall  undertake  to  manage  the  local 
business  of  the  various  parts  of  the  Empire.  I  should  like  to  ask 
my  typical  Englishman  also  whether  he  is  aware  that  it  is  the  opinion 
of  his  rulers  that  the  British  Empire  would  be  dismembered  if  Ireland 
were  to  be  allowed  to  amend  her  grand  jury  laws  for  herself.  I 
wonder  what  would  be  his  opinion  as  to  the  wisdom  of  the  statesmen 
who  could  gravely  maintain  such  a  theory.  On  the  other  hand,  if 
they  were  really  in  the  right,  what  would  he  think  of  the  strength  of 
the  political  organisation  which  such  a  change  would  dismember  and 
disorganise  ? 

I  am  satisfied  that  the  English  people  have  as  yet  no  idea  what- 
ever of  the  real  meaning  of  the  controversy  going  on  with  regard  to 
this  question  of  Home  Rule.  The  true  bearings  of  the  question  are 
lost  in  a  cloud  of  inappropriate  altercation.  There  is  an  easy  way,  a 
fatally  easy  way,  of  preventing  an  Irish  claim  from  having  a  fair 
discussion,  or  indeed  from  reaching  the  general  public  of  England  at 
all.  That  way  is  to  raise  a  cry  of  sedition,  and  disloyalty,  and  trea- 


1880.         THE  COMMON-SENSE  OF  HOME  RULE.          415 

son,  and  all  the  rest  of  it.  I  sometimes  wonder  why  any  of  the 
occupants  of  the  Treasury  Bench  should  take  the  trouble  to  offer 
any  reply  in  the  form  of  argument  to  a  Home  Ruler.  Why  not 
simply  rise  and  say :  '  The  honourable  member ' — Mr.  Shaw,  for 
example — *  has  asked  her  Majesty's  Government  to  explain  why  it 
would  not  in  their  opinion  be  for  the  benefit  of  the  country  that 
Ireland  should  be  allowed  to  adjust  her  own  grand  jury  laws  and 
her  own  educational  system.  Mr.  Speaker,  I  have  only  to  reply  that 
the  question  is  in  itself  an  evidence  of  disloyalty  ;  that  the  suggestion 
is  sedition ;  that  any  proposal  to  adopt  it  is  high  treason.'  That 
would,  be  the  short  way  with  the  Home  Rulers.  It  would  be  quite 
as  appropriate  a  piece  of  argument  as  any  we  are  in  the  habit  of 
hearing;  and  it  would  come  to  the  point  at  once.  Such  is,  in 
substance,  the  manner  in  which  the  strength  of  the  majority  is  relied 
upon  to  manifest  itself  at  last ;  and  it  might  as  well  be  called  out  at 
first.  The  question,  therefore,  has  not  yet  fairly  reached  the  English 
public.  If  it  had,  I  am  convinced  that  the  common  sense  of  England 
would  soon  recognise  the  common-sense  of  Home  Rule.  Nothing 
could  have  been  more  unfortunate  for  England  and  Ireland  than  the 
tone  which  most  of  the  London  newspapers  and  some  leading  men  in 
Parliament  took  from  the  beginning  with  regard  to  the  question  of 
Home  Rule.  As  if  by  common  consent  there  came  forth  the 
declaration  :  '  We  will  not  argue  this  question  at  all  with  you  ;  it  is 
outside  the  range  of  argument ;  we  will  only  tell  you  at  once  that 
you  shan't  have  what  you  are  asking  for,  and  there's  an  end  of  the 
matter.'  If  I  had  half  an  hour's  conversation  with  my  typical 
English  friend,  I  think  I  should  be  able  to  show  him  that  nearly  all 
the  heat  and  bitterness  and  passion  of  the  past  few  years'  con- 
troversy, with  its  strange  incidents  and  painful  episodes,  came  directly 
from  that  fatal  and,  let  me  add,  that  very  fatuous  way  of  dealing 
with  the  Home  Rule  demand.  It  is  right  to  say  that  this  way  of 
treating  the  matter  was  much  less  common  inside  Parliament  than 
outside  it.  Not  many  responsible  statesmen  will  get  up  in  the 
House  of  Commons,  and  say  :  '  I  decline  to  argue  with  you  who 
make  this  demand ;  I  don't  care  what  your  arguments  may  be  ;  I  am 
determined  in  advance  not  to  be  influenced  by  anything  you  may 
urge.'  But  a  great  many  newspapers  kept  saying  this  sort  of  thing 
every  day,  and  rating  at  statesmen  because  they  did  not  also  say  it. 
Of  the  journals  that  wrote  in  such  a  fashion  I  shall  only  remark, 
adopting  certain  words  of  the  late  Mr.  Fonblanque,  that  it  has  seldom 
come  within  the  power  of  any  men  to  do  so  much  good  as  these 
journals  have  prevented. 

It  is  often  said  that  Irishmen  have  no  longer  any  reason  to 
complain  of  the  manner  in  which  the  Imperial  Parliament  deals  with 
purely  Irish  measures.  It  has  now,  people  say,  become  the  admitted 
principle  that  whatever  Ireland  demands  in  the  way  of  mere  local 
legislation  must  be  conceded  to  her.  Ireland  must,  in  this  sense,  be 


416  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  March 

governed  according  to  Irish  ideas.  If  the  representatives  of  the 
country  are  agreed  among  themselves  about  any  particular  measure 
concerning  Ireland  alone,  the  English  and  Scotch  majority  would  not 
think  of  opposing  such  legislation.  It  is  far  from  being  quite  the 
truth  that  such  entire  deference  is  shown  to  the  opinion  of  Irish 
representatives,  even  when  that  opinion  is  practically  unanimous. 
But  if  it  were  true,  that  would  only  be  another  and  a  stronger 
reason  why  the  Imperial  Parliament  should  not  have  the  task  of 
managing  Irish  business  imposed  upon  it.  Is  there  any  excuse  for 
giving  up  the  common  time  of  Parliament  to  discussions  in  which 
it  is  expressly  declared  that  three-fourths  of  the  members  are  not 
expected  to  interfere?  If  a  measure  is  only  to  be  discussed  and 
decided  by  Irish  members,  what  can  be  the  advantage  of  having  it 
discussed  in  St.  Stephen's  ?  For  a  long  time  the  Scotch  members 
did  thus  contrive  to  have  a  little  .Parliament  of  their  own  com- 
fortably established  in  Westminster  Palace.  I  suppose  that  to  some 
extent  they  have  it  still,  although  I  believe  it  does  not  work  quite 
so  satisfactorily  now  as  it  did  in  former  days.  It  was  the  habit  of 
the  Scottish  members  to  meet  together  and  consider  among  them- 
selves the  details  of  any  measure  affecting  Scotland ;  and  when  it 
•came  on  for  discussion  in  full  Parliament  the  other  members  of  the 
House  never  interfered.  Every  such  measure  was  quietly  carried 
through  in  accordance  with  the  previous  arrangements  made  among 
the  representatives  of  Scotland.  This  was  all  very  well  for  the 
Scotch  members,  if  the  Scotch  members  liked  it.  But  does  it  not 
seem  rather  unreasonable  that  any  part  of  the  time  of  the  Imperial 
Parliament  should  be  diverted  from  Imperial  business  merely  to 
allow  what  may  be  called  a  full-dress  rehearsal  of  a  performance  in 
which  only  Scotch  members  are  to  take  part  ?  In  plain  words,  if 
there  is  to  be  separate  legislation  for  any  of  the  kingdoms,  is  it  not 
the  common-sense  of  the  matter  that  that  legislation  should  be 
•carried  on  at  home  ?  The  Scotch  members,  I  believe,  are  finding 
out  of  late  that  Scotch  measures  do  not  move  forward  very  quickly, 
notwithstanding  all  their  efforts,  and  notwithstanding  the  general  spirit 
-of  agreement  among  them.  Many  complaints  and  remonstrances 
have  been  lately  made  in  Scotland's  name.  I  sincerely  trust  that  we 
shall  hear  many  more.  When  Scotch  members  begin  to  ask  for  Home 
Rule,  they  are  not  likely  to  be  put  off  with  talk  about  the  impossibility 
of  English  statesmen  condescending  to  argue  the  question  with  them. 
If  things  go  on  much  longer  as  they  are  going,  there  will  not  be 
time  left  to  the  Imperial  Parliament  to  pass  even  in  formal  review 
the  best  digested  measures  presented  by  Scotch  representatives. 

During  the  late  election  contest  at  Liverpool  there  was  a  good 
•deal  of  controversy  about  the  significance  of  the  words  in  the  Home 
Rule  resolution  which  referred  to  the  restoration  of  an  Irish  Parlia- 
ment. Lord  Ramsay,  the  Liberal  candidate,  refused  to  promise  to 
vote  even  for  an  inquiry  into  the  necessity  of  what  he  assumed  to  be 


1880.         THE  COMMON  SENSE  OF  HOME  RULE.          417 

a  restoration  of  the  old  Irish  Parliament.  I  do  not  believe  any 
practical  Irishman  now  really  thinks  of  a  restoration  of  the  old 
Irish  Parliament.  Eepeal  of  the  Union  would  leave  the  Irish  people 
in  a  very  peculiar  position.  It  would  put  them  in  possession  of  a 
Parliament  in  which  no  Catholic  could  sit,  and  for  the  election  of 
a  member  to  which  no  Catholic  could  vote.  The  restored  Parlia- 
ment would  have  to  begin  its  business  by  a  remarkably  sweeping 
series  of  reforms,  in  order  to  bring  itself  in  some  degree  into 
harmony  with  existing  institutions  and  ways  of  thought.  No  doubt 
the  independent  Irish  Parliament  was  in  many  respects  an  un- 
trustworthy and  incapable  body ;  but,  with  all  its  shortcomings,  it 
effected  an  immense  amount  of  practical  good  for  Ireland  during  its- 
short  existence.  But  it  is  of  special  importance  for  Englishmen  to 
remember  that  during  its  brief  career  it  was  thoroughly  loyal.  Only 
for  the  infatuation  of  the  English  Government  in  refusing  Catholic 
emancipation  when  the  whole  voice  of  the  Irish  people  demanded 
it  and  the  Irish  Parliament  was  perfectly  willing  to  grant  it,  the 
^Rebellion  of  1798  would  never  have  taken  place.  There  were  then, 
as  there  are  now,  two  parties  among  the  Irish  people  ;  I  mean  among 
those  who  in  one  way  or  other  professed  to  be  national  in  feeling. 
One  of  these  parties  was  represented  by  the  best  men  in  the  Irish 
Parliament.  It  was  loyal  to  the  Crown  and  the  English  connection, 
and  only  anxious  to  be  convinced  that  English  statesmen  meant  to 
deal  fairly  with  Ireland.  The  other  was  the  party  represented  by 
Wolfe  Tone  and  the  United  Irishmen.  It  was  made  up  of  men  who 
had  no  faith  in  England's  good  intentions,  and  were  convinced  that 
the  central  power  was  only  waiting  a  chance  to  overbear  the  autho- 
rity of  Irish  national  institutions.  The  intolerable  act  of  despotism 
by  which  the  English  Government  suddenly  made  use  of  its  authority 
to  reject  and  defy  the  appeal  for  Catholic  emancipation  drove  the 
whole  national  sentiment  of  the  country  to  the  side  of  the  party  of 
action.  The  influence  of  Grattan  and  the  Irish  Parliament  was  gone 
in  a  moment.  A  loyalist,  of  whatever  greatness  and  influence,  was 
silenced,  on  the  instant  of  his  opening  his  mouth  to  counsel  patience 
and  moderation,  by  the  reminder  that  the  latest  act  of  the  English 
Government  had  thrown  contempt  upon  his  former  teachings,  and 
had  proved  to  Ireland  that  nothing  was  to  be  expected  of  the  Im- 
perial power.  But  the  Irish  Parliament  was  thoroughly  loyal ;  and 
let  it  be  distinctly  added  that  the  Irish  people  would  have  been 
thoroughly  loyal  too  if  the  English  Government  would  only  have 
allowed  them.  Despite  all  the  dazzling  fascinations  of  the  revolu- 
tionary movement  in  France,  the  Irish  people  were  never  led  away 
into  rebellion  until  the  English  Government  drove  them  into  it. 
The  one  question  about  which  Grattan  strongly  differed  from  Fox 
was  the  view  which  Fox  had  taken  of  the  French  Eevolution.  An 
Irish  Parliament  like  that  of  1782  is, indeed,  impossible  now.  Anew 
principle  of  government  for  empires  [with  mixed  nationalities  has 


418  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  March 

come  up,  and  has  been  successful  wherever  it  has  been  tried.     It  is 
successful  in  the  Dominion  of  Canada  as  well  as  in  the  United  States. 
It  is  the  principle  which  alone  was  found  applicable  to  the  reorgani- 
sation of  Germany  under  the  leadership  of  Prussia.     It  has  superseded 
the  principle  on  which  the  old   Irish  Parliament  was  constructed. 
But  it  is  necessary  for  English  readers  to  bear  in  mind  that  that 
Irish  Parliament  was,  as  long  as  it  lasted,  the  instrument  of  peace 
and   loyalty.     Kebellion   arose   because   the    Irish   Parliament   was 
compelled  to  show  that  it  could  not  answer  for  the  fair  dealing  of 
the  English  Government.     Had  the  English  Government   allowed 
the  Irish   Parliament   its  own   way,  there  would  not  have  been   a 
shot  fired  in  anger  in  1798.     Since  the  extinction  of  the  Irish  Par- 
liament it  may  be  fairly  said  that  Ireland  has  not  known  a  quiet 
year.     During  the  debate  on  the  Irish  borough  franchise  lately,  the 
Attorney-General  for  Ireland   tried  to  make  an  argument  against 
household  suffrage  in  Irish  boroughs  out  of  the  fact  that  there  had 
been  no  petitions  from  the  Irish  people  in  favour  of  the  measure. 
This  showed,  he  contended,  that  Ireland  was  indifferent  and  apathetic 
on  the  subject.     It  showed,  however,  nothing  of  the  kind.     It  showed 
that  a  feeling  existed  which  the  Attorney-General's  wisdom  ought  to 
fear.     It  showed  that  the   people  of  Ireland  were  convinced  that 
there  was  not  the  slightest  use  in  making  any  appeal  to  the  Imperial 
Parliament  on  the  subject.     The  result  unfortunately  tended  to  prove 
that  the  Irish  people  were  in  the  right.     Truly,  if  there  were  a  Home 
Eule  Parliament  established  in  Ireland  to-morrow,  I  venture  to  think 
that  there  would  probably  be  no  petitions  on  the  subject  of  household 
suffrage   in   boroughs   addressed   to  it  either.     But   the  reason  for 
the  absence  of  petitions  in  that  case  would  not  be  precisely  the  same 
as   in   the   other.     The   Irish  people   did  not  take  the  trouble  to 
petition  the  Imperial  Parliament  for  household  suffrage  in  boroughs, 
because  they   knew   that   the   Imperial   Parliament  as  at   present 
constituted  would  not  grant  the  demand.     They  probably  would  not 
think  it  necessary  to  petition  a  domestic  Parliament,  because  they 
would  assume  as  a  matter  of  course  that  such  a  reform  would  be  one 
of  its  first  measures. 

I  hear  it  continually  said  that  an  Irish  Parliament  would  occupy 
itself  only  in  political  faction-fights  and  struggles  of  sect  against 
sect.  '  You  Irishmen  would  do  nothing  but  cut  one  another's  throats,' 
is  the  confident  assertion  of  gentlemen  who  have  probably  never 
thought  of  ascertaining  whether  during  the  existence  of  the  old  Irish 
Parliament,  such  as  it  was,  the  members  did  occupy  themselves  in 
any  such  pastime.  I  would  urge  my  English  friends  to  bear  in  mind 
that  the  discord  we  now  see  in  Ireland  and  among  Irishmen  is  about 
great  questions  which  would  be  settled  by  the  mere  fact  that  a  domestic 
legislature  had  come  into  existence.  '  What  would  a  Parliament  in 
Ireland  set  about  doing  ?  '  is  often  asked.  Assuming  that  the  land 
question  had  been  settled  on  some  satisfactory  basis  before  the  Irish 


1880.         THE  COMMON-SENSE  OF  HOME  RULE.          419 

Parliament  came  into  existence,  I  think  it  would  begin  by  undertaking 
a  variety  of  purely  domestic  reforms  for  which  it  has  been  vainly 
asking  the  Imperial  Parliament  year  after  year.  It  would  undoubt- 
edly alter  the  borough  and  county  franchise,  supposing  these  had  not 
already  been  properly  dealt  with.  It  would  frame  a  new  system  of 
grand  jury  laws  ;  the  grand  jury  system  in  Ireland  is  now  the  most 
absurd  anomaly  that  a  civilised  people  could  well  be  called  upon  to 
endure.  The  whole  system  of  county  government  and  county  finance 
and  of  election  to  parochial  boards  would  be  sure  to  undergo  im- 
mediate revision.  The  members  elected  to  the  domestic  Parliament 
would,  I  am  convinced,  be  for  [the  most  part  able  and  practical  men 
well  acquainted  with  the  actual  wants  of  the  country.  Many  men 
are  elected  to  the  Imperial  Parliament  from  Ireland  who  are  not 
particularly  acquainted  with  the  practical  condition  and  local  wants 
of  the  places  they  represent.  It  is  not  only  unavoidable  in  some  cases 
that  this  should  be  so,  but  it  is  natural  and  proper.  What  the  Irish 
people  want  at  present  is,  first  of  all,  representatives  who  will  express 
the  national  desire  on  two  or  three  great  questions — the  land  tenure 
system,  education,  and  Home  Rule.  A  man  who  will  do  this 
honestly  and  fearlessly  is  obviously  to  be  preferred,  even  though  he  be 
not  intimately  acquainted  with  the  exact  condition  and  circum- 
stances of  every  part  of  the  county  or  borough  he  represents,  to  the 
most  practical  local  resident  who  is  not  in  harmony  with  the  national 
sentiment  on  those  great  questions.  But  it  is  obvious  that  no  such 
considerations  would  govern  the  choice  of  the  local  representatives. 
The  Irish  are  a  shrewd  people  for  all  their  Celtic  fire  and  poetry  ;  and 
in  the  matter  of  an  election  to  a  domestic  Parliament  the  man  who 
knew  most  about  the  conditions  and  circumstances  of  his  constituency 
would  be  preferred  to  the  most  eloquent  stranger  who  could  only  talk 
generalities.  I  am  convinced  that  the  gentry  of  the  country  would 
have  their  fair  share  of  representation  in  such  a  Parliament.  The 
tenant-farmer  would  be  there,  with  the  well-to-do  shopkeeper  of  the 
towns,  the  banker,  the  manufacturer,  the  [shipper,  the  merchant.  I 
doubt  whether  impassioned  eloquence  would  be  the  vernacular  of  such 
an  assembly ;  I  rather  think  shrewd  common  sense  would  be  its  prin- 
cipal inspiration,  and  a  sincere  desire  to  set  the  country  permanently 
on  its  feet,  and  make  it  independent  of  the  chances  of  passing  seasons 
and  the  help  of  foreign  charity.  I  am  quite  sure  the  stout  men  of  the 
northern  province  would  very  soon  demonstrate  their  traditional  man- 
hood and  good  sense  by  accepting  thelcondition  of  things  and  working 
earnestly  and  vigorously  in  such  a  Parliament.  Any  one  who  fancies 
that  the  Catholic  majority  would  instantly  set  about  oppressing  their 
Protestant  brothers  must  be  curiously  ignorant  of  the  condition  of 
feeling  in  Ireland  of  our  day.  I  recommend  him  to  ask  for  an 
opinion  on  the  subject  from  such  Protestant  gentlemen  as  Mr.  Shaw, 
Mr.  Mitchell  Henry,  Lord  Francis  Conyngham,  Mr.  King-Harman, 
or  the  terrible  Mr.  Parnell. himself. 


420  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  March 

I  have  purposely  abstained,  throughout  the  greater  part  of  this 
article,  from  arguing  the  question  on  anything  like  high  ground.  I 
have  called  the  article  '  The  Common-sense  of  Home  Eule,'  and  I  have 
endeavoured  to  keep  to  the  strict  common-sense  of  the  matter.  My 
object  has  been  to  show  that  Home  Eule  describes  an  arrangement 
the  most  natural,  the  most  practical,  that  could  be  devised  for  the 
management  of  an  imperial  system ;  that  it  is  a  principle  which,  if 
we  were  not  bound  by  ancient  prejudices  and  blinded  by  servile  devo- 
tion to  mere  phrases,  would  assuredly  commend  itself  to  the  common 
sense  of  all  reasonable  persons  everywhere.  If  the  relations  of  the 
three  kingdoms  had  to  be  adjusted  now  for  the  first  time  under  a  free 
partnership,  this  is  the  arrangement  which  would  suggest  itself  as  a 
mere  matter  of  business  to  every  man  capable  of  forming  an  opinion 
in  the  various  parts  of  the  Empire.  No  statesman  now  would  think 
of  suggesting  as  a  beginning  that  all  the  local  affairs  of  England, 
Ireland,  Scotland,  and  Wales,  should  be  consigned  to  the  care  of  a 
miscellaneous  assembly  already  so  overburdened  with  the  common 
business  of  the  Empire,  that  it  is  physically  unable  in  any  session  to 
get  through  half  its  appointed  work.  An  Englishman  would  natu- 
rally say :  c  I  know  nothing  about  the  Irish  grand  jury  system  or  the 
Scotch  hypothec ;  I  don't  suppose  the  Irish  and  Scotch  members  are 
likely  to  know  much  about  English  county  boards.  It  would  be  ab- 
surd to  thrust  each  other's  domestic  business  in  each  other's  way.  If 
we  do  this,  we  shall  never  get  on  at  all :  the  only  sensible  thing  we 
can  do  is  to  leave  to  each  country  the  work  it  understands  and  really 
cares  about ;  and  let  us  meet  as  a  parliament  in  Westminster  for  the 
settlement  of  business  that  is  strictly  imperial,  and  concerns  all  parts 
of  the  three  kingdoms  alike/  This  is  the  view  that  I  have  en- 
deavoured to  impress  upon  my  readers.  But  I  do  not  forget  that 
there  is  a  far  higher  view  of  the  question.  I  hold  in  the  highest  re- 
verence that  undefined  but  most  subtle  and  strong  influence,  the 
national  sentiment,  which  has  been  the  inspiration  and  the  nurse  of  so 
much  that  is  great,  noble,  and  beautiful  among  all  populations  who 
have  been  allowed  to  give  it  expression  in  their  political  and  social  life. 
There  is  no  influence  I  dread  so  much  in  modern  legislation  as  that 
fatal  desire  to  run  the  steam-roller  of  monotonous  and  uniform  system 
over  all  the  characteristic  peculiarities  of  race  and  tradition  and  habit. 
If  Lord  Beaconsfield,  when  he  talked  of  cosmopolitanism,  had  had  in 
mind  the  kind  of  principle  which  finds  a  delight  in  effacing  all 
national  distinctions,  and  subduing  all  families  and  populations  to 
one  mournfully  monotonous  pattern,  so  that  every  part  of  the  world 
should  be  as  like  as  possible  to  every  other  part,  I  should  have  joined 
with  all  my  heart  in  his  denunciation.  To  insist  that  because  Eng- 
land and  Ireland  are  part  of  one  empire  they  should  necessarily  be 
governed  by  one  centralised  system  of  uniform  legislation  seems  to 
me  about  as  absurd  as  to  contend  that  the  mountains  of  Killarney, 
and  Connemara,  and  Donegal,  ought  to  be  removed  somehow  and  the 


1880.         THE  COMMON-SENSE  OF  HOME  RULE.          421 

ground  made  level  in  order  to  bring  it  into  uniformity  with  the  phy- 
sical exterior  of  most  of  the  English  counties.   There  is  something  dis- 
tinctly elevating  and  improving  in  the  sentiment  of  nationality.     An 
old  friend  of  mine,  who  is  now  high  in  the  service  of  the  Crown  in  a  far 
country,  was  reminding  me  lately  in  a  letter  of  the  days  when  we  were 
young  and  of '  the  sound  national  discussions,  the  healthy  union  of 
literature  and  of  nationality,'  that  formed  the  staple  of  the  talk  of 
young  men  and  boys  in  Ireland  then.     I  own  to  the  full  feeling  of  his 
words.    There  was  something  fresh  and  pure  in  that  strong  breath  of 
the  national  sentiment  which  began  to  reanimate  the  youth  of  Ireland 
at  that  time.     It  kept  them  from  idle  and  purposeless  reading,  from 
sickliness  of  sentiment,  from  tendency  to  anything  unwholesome  or 
vulgar  or  debasing.     Perhaps  my  friend  would  not  have  been  nearly 
so  useful  or  so  distinguished  a  servant  of  the  Crown  if  he  had  not  been 
brought  up  in  that  healthy  spirit  of  nationality  which  must  have 
made  him  think,  at  every  momentous  crisis  of  his  career,  whether  the 
part  he  was  about  to  take  was  worthy  of  his  country  as  well  as  of 
himself.     I  would  then  encourage  the  national  sentiment.     It  makes 
men  better  and  even  more  practical  in  the  true  sense  than  they  would 
be  without  it.     In  so  far  as  the  demand  for  Home  Rule  is  the  expres- 
sion of  that  sentiment,  it  is  a  demand  that  ought  to  have  the  respect 
of  all  Englishmen.     But  I  have  purposely  abstained,  throughout  the 
greater  part  of  this  article,  from  taking  that  higher  ground  in  my 
argument.     I  contend  for  Home  Kule  not  merely  because  it  would  be 
the  just  admission  of  an  honest  and  a  legitimate  desire  on  the  part 
of  a  distinct  population  for  the  management  of  the  business  that  is 
strictly  domestic.     I  do  not  contend  for  it  merely  because  it  would 
really  tend  to  reconcile  England  and  Ireland,  and  make  them,  for  the 
first  time  since  the  Union,  friendly  and  willing  copartners  in  one  great 
imperial  system.     I  now  take  the  lower  ground  purposely,  and  put  the 
question  as  one  of  common-sense.     The  machinery  at  present  exist- 
ing is  utterly  inadequate  to  the  purposes  it  is  meant  to  fulfil.     The 
centralised  system  is  a  failure.     It  has  collapsed.     Some  other  sys- 
tem must  be  tried  in  its  place.     I  point  attention  to  the  only  system 
which    appears   to   have   simplicity,   nature,   and   common-sense   to 
recommend  it — the  system  which  would  allow  Ireland  to  manage  for 
herself  the  business  which  the  Imperial  Parliament  is  not  capable  of 
managing  properly,  and  the  bare  attempt  to  manage  which  by  the 
Imperial  Parliament  only  confuses  and  obstructs  the  proper  business 
of  the  central  Legislature.     The  sooner  other  parts  of  the  Empire 
make  the  same  demand  for  themselves  that  Ireland  is  making  for 
herself,  the  better  pleased  shall  I  be  ;  but  for  the  present  I  am  con- 
cerned about  Ireland.     I  wish  to  show  that  Ireland's  demand  is  the 
demand  of  common-sense  ;  if  that  be  so,  I  have  no  doubt  that  the 
example  she  sets  will  soon  be  followed. 

JUSTIN  MCCARTHY. 
VOL.  VII.— No.  37.  F  F 


422  THE  NINETEENTH    CENTURY.  March 


SHAM  ADMIRATION  IN  LITERATURE. 


IN  all  highly  civilised  communities  Pretence  is  prominent,  and  sooner 
or  later  invades  the  regions  of  Literature.  In  the  beginning,  this  is 
not  altogether  to  be  reprobated;  it  is  the  rude  homage  which  Ignorance, 
conscious  of  its  disgrace,  offers  to  Learning ;  but  after  a  while,  Pre- 
tence becomes  systematised,  gathers  strength  from  numbers  and 
impunity,  and  rears  its  head  in  such  a  manner  as  to  suggest  it  has 
some  body  and  substance  belonging  to  it.  In  England,  literary 
pretence  is  more  universal  than  elsewhere  from  our  method  of  educa- 
tion. When  young  gentlemen  from  ten  to  sixteen  are  set  to  study 
poetry  (a  subject  for  which  not  one  in  a  hundred  has  the  least 
taste  or  capability  even  when  he  reads  it  in  his  own  language)  in 
Greek  and  Latin  authors,  it  is  only  a  natural  consequence  that  their 
views  upon  it  should  be  slightly  artificial.  The  youth  who  objected 
to  the  alphabet  that  it  seemed  hardly  worth  while  to  have  gone 
through  so  much  to  have  acquired  so  little,  was  exceptionally  saga- 
cious ;  the  more  ordinary  lad  conceives  that  what  has  cost  him  so  much 
time  and  trouble,  and  entailed  so  many  pains  and  penalties,  must 
needs  have  something  in  it,  though  it  has  never  met  his  eye.  Hence 
arises  our  public  opinion  upon  the  ancient  classics,  which  I  am  afraid  is 
somewhat  different  from  (what  painters  term)  the  private  view.  If  you 
take  the  ordinary  admirer  of  ^Eschylus,  for  example — not  the  scholar, 
but  the  man  who  has  had  what  he  believes  to  be  '  a  liberal  education r 
— and  appeal  to  his  opinion  upon  some  passage  in  a  British  dramatist, 
say  Shakespeare,  it  is  ten  to  one  that  he  shows  not  only  ignorance  of 
the  author  (the  odds  are  twenty  to  one  about  that),  but  utter  inability 
to  grasp  the  point  in  question ;  it  is  too  deep  for  him,  and  especially 
too  subtle.  If  you  are  cruel  enough  to  press  him,  he  will  unconsciously 
betray  the  fact  that  he  has  never  felt  a  line  of  poetry  in  his  life.  He 
honestly  believes  that  the  Seven  against  Thebes  is  one  of  the  greatest 
works  that  ever  were  written,  just  as  a  child  believes  the  same  of  the 
Seven  Champions  of  Christendom.  A  great  wit  once  observed,  when 
bored  by  the  praises  of  a  man  who  spoke  six  languages,  that  he  had 
known  a  man  to  speak  a  dozen,  and  yet  not  say  a  word  worth  hearing 
in  any  one  of  them.  The  humour  of  the  remark,  as  sometimes 
happens,  has  caused  its  wisdom  to  be  underrated ;  for  the  fact  is  that, 


1880.        SHAM  ADMIRATION  IN  LITERATURE.  423 

in  very  many  cases,  all  the  intelligence  of  which  a  mind  is  capable  is 
expended  upon  the  mere  acquisition  of  a  foreign  language.  As  to 
getting  anything  out  of  it  in  the  way  of  ideas,  and  especially  of 
poetical  ones,  that  is  almost  never  attained.  There  are,  indeed,  many 
who  have  a  special  facility  for  languages,  but  in  their  case  (with  a  few 
exceptions)  one  may  say  without  uncharity  that  the  acquisition  of 
ideas  is  not  their  object,  though  if  they  did  acquire  them  they  would 
probably  be  new  ones.  The  majority  of  us,  however,  have  much  diffi- 
culty in  surmounting  the  obstacle  of  an  alien  tongue  ;  and  when  we 
have  done  so  we  are  naturally  inclined  to  overrate  the  advantages 
thus  attained.  Every  one  knows  the  poor  creature  who  quotes  French 
on  all  occasions  with  a  certain  stress  on  the  accent,  designed  to  arouse 
a  doubt  in  his  hearers  as  to  whether  he  was  not  actually  born  in  Paris. 
He,  of  course,  is  a  low  specimen  of  the  class  in  question,  but  almost  all 
of  us  derive  a  certain  intellectual  gratification  from  the  mastery  of 
another  language,  and  as  we  gradually  attain  to  it,  whenever  we  find 
a  meaning  we  are  apt  to  mistake  it  for  a  beauty.1  Nay,  I  am  con- 
vinced that  many  admire  this  or  that  (even)  British  poet  from  the  fact 
that  here  and  there  his  meaning  has  gleamed  upon  them  with  all  the 
charm  that  accompanies  unexpectedness. 

Since  classical  learning  is  compulsory  with  us,  this  bastard  ad- 
miration is  much  more  often  excited  with  respect  to  the  Greek  and 
Latin  poets.  Men  may  not  only  go  through  the  whole  curriculum  of 
a  university  education,  but  take  high  honours^in  it,  without  the  least  in- 
tellectual advantage  beyond  the  acquisition  of  a  few  quotations.  This 
is  not,  of  course  (good  heavens  !),  because  the  classics  have  nothing  to 
teach  us  in  the  way  of  poetical  ideas,  but  simply  because  to  the 
ordinary  mind  the  acquisition  of  a  poetical  idea  is  very  difficult,  and 
when  conveyed  in  a  foreign  language  is  impossible.  If  the  same 
student  had  given  the  same  time — a  monstrous  thought,  of  course,  but 
not  impracticable — to  the  cultivation  of  Shakespeare  and  the  old 
dramatists,  or  even  to  the  more  modern  English  poets  and  thinkers, 
he  would  certainly  have  got  more  out  of  them,  though  he  would  have 
missed  the  delicate  suggestiveness  of  the  Greek  aorist  and  the  ex- 
quisite subtleties  of  the  particle  de.  Having  acquired  these  last, 
however,  and  not  for  nothing,  it  is  not  surprising  that  he  should 
esteem  them  very  highly,  and,  being  unable  to  popularise  them  at 
dinner  parties  and  the  like,  he  falls  back  upon  praise  of  the 
classics  generally. 

Such  are  the  circumstances  which,  more  particularly  in  this 
country,  have  led  to  a  wellnigh  universal  habit  of  literary  lying — of  a 

1  Since  the  above  was  written,  my  attention  has  been  called  to  the  following 
remark  of  De  Quincey  :  '  As  must  ever  be  the  case  with  readers  not  sufficiently 
masters  of  a  language  to  bring  the  true  pretensions  of  a  work  to  any  test  of  feeling, 
they  are  for  ever  mistaking  for  some  pleasure  conferred  by  the  writer,  what  is  in 
fact  the  pleasure  naturally  attached  to  the  sense  of  a  difficulty  overcome.' 

F  F  2 


424  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  March 

pretence  of  admiration  for  certain  works  of  which  in  reality  we  know 
very  little,  and  for  which,  if  we  knew  more,  we  should  perhaps  care 
less. 

There  are  certain  books  which  are  standard,  and  as  it  were  planted 
in  the  British  soil,  before  which  the  great  majority  of  us  bow  the 
knee  and  doff  the  cap  with  a  reverence  that,  in  its  ignorance,  reminds 
one  of  fetish  worship,  and,  in  its  affectation,  of  the  passion  for  High 
Art.  The  works  without  which,  we  are  told  at  book  auctions,  '  no 
gentleman's  library  can  be  considered  complete,'  are  especially  the 
objects  of  this  adoration.  The  Rambler,  for  example,  is  one  of  them. 
I  was  once  shut  up  for  a  week  of  snowstorms  in  a  mountain  inn,  with 
the  Rambler  and  one  other  publication.  The  latter  was  a  Shepherd's 
Guide,  with  illustrations  of  the  way  in  which  sheep  are  marked  by 
their  various  owners  for  the  purpose  of  identification :  '  Cropped  near 
ear,  upper  key  bitted  far,  a  pop  on  the  head  and  another  at  the  tail 
head,  ritted,  and  with  two  red  strokes  down  both  shoulders,'  &c. 
It  was  monotonous,  but  I  confess  that  there  were  times  when  I  felt 
it  some  comfort  in  having  that  picture-book  to  fall  back  upon,  to 
alternate  with  the  Rambler. 

The  essay,  like  port  wine,  I  have  noticed,  requires  age  for  its  due 
appreciation.  Leigh  Hunt's  Indicator  comprises  some  admirable 
essays,  but  the  general  public  have  not  a  word  to  say  for  them ;  it 
may  be  urged  that  that  is  because  they  had  not  read  the  Indicator. 
But  why  then  do  they  praise  the  Rambler  and  Montaigne  ?  That 
comforting  word,  '  Mesopotamia,'  which  has  been  so  often  alluded  to 
in  religious  matters,  has  many  a  parallel  in  profane  literature. 

A  good  deal  of  this  mock  worship  is  of  course  due  to  abject  cowardice. 
A  man  who  says  he  doesn't  like  the  Rambler,  runs,  with  some  folks, 
the  risk  of  being  thought  a  fool ;  but  he  is  sure  to  be  thought  that, 
for  something  or  another,  under  any  circumstances ;  and,  at  all  events, 
why  should  he  not  content  himself,  when  the  Rambler  is  belauded, 
with  holding  his  tongue  and  smiling  acquiescence  ?  It  must  be  con- 
ceded that  there  are  a  few  persons  who  really  have  read  the  Rambler, 
a  work,  of  course,  I  am  merely  using  as  a  type  of  its  class.  In  their 
young  days  it  was  used  as  a  school  book,  and  thought  necessary  as  a 
part  of  polite  education ;  and  as  they  have  read  little  or  nothing 
since,  it  is  only  reasonable  that  they  should  stick  to  their  colours. 
Indeed,  the  French  satirist's  boast  that  he  could  predicate  the  views 
of  any  man  with  regard  to  both  worlds,  if  he  were  only  supplied  with 
the  simple  data  of  his  age  and  his  income,  is  quite  true  in  the  general 
with  regard  to  literary  taste.  Given  the  age  of  the  ordinary  indi- 
vidual— that  is  to  say  of  the  gentleman  '  fond  of  books,  but  who  has 
really  no  time  for  reading ' — and  it  is  easy  enough  to  guess  his  literary 
idols.  They  are  the  gods  of  his  youth,  and,  whether  he  has  been 
'  suckled  in  a  creed  outworn  '  or  not,  he  knows  no  other.  These  per- 
sons, however,  rarely  give  their  opinion  about  literary  matters,  except 


1880.        SHAM  ADMIRATION  IN  LITERATURE.  425 

on  compulsion ;  they  are  harmless  and  truthful.  The  tendency  of 
society  in  general,  on  the  other  hand,  is  not  only  to  praise  the  Rambler 
which  they  have  not  read,  but  to  express  a  noble  scorn  for  those  who 
have  read  it  and  don't  like  it. 

I  remember,  as  a  young  man,  being  greatly  struck  by  the  inde- 
pendence of  character  exhibited  by  Miss  Bronte  in  a  certain  confes- 
sion she  made  in  respect  to  Miss  Austen's  novels.  It  was  at  a  period 
when  everybody  professed  to  adore  them,  and  especially  the  great  guns 
of  literature.  Walter  Scott  thought  more  highly  of  the  genius  of 
the  author  of  Mansfield  Park  even  than  of  that  of  his  favourite,  Miss 
Edgeworth.  Macaulay  speaks  of  her  as  though  she  were  the  Eclipse  of 
novelists — '  first,  and  the  rest  nowhere  ' — though  his  opinion,  it  is  true, 
lost  something  of  its  force  from  the  contempt  he  expressed  for '  the  rest,' 
among  whom  were  some  much  better  ones.  Dr.  Whewell,  a  very  dif- 
ferent type  of  mind,  had  Mansfield  Park,  I  believe,  read  to  him  on 
his  death-bed.  And,  indeed,  up  to  the  present  date,  some  highly  cul- 
tured persons  of  my  acquaintance  take  the  same  view.  They  may 
be  very  possibly  right,  but  that  is  no  reason  why  the  people  who 
have  never  read  Miss  Austen's  novels — and  very  few  have — should 
ape  the  fashion.  Now  the  authoress  of  Jane  Eyre  did  not  derive  much 
pleasure  from  the  perusal  of  the  works  of  the  other  Jane.  '  I  know  it's 
very  wrong,'  she  modestly  said,  *  but  the  fact  is  I  can't  read  them.  They 
have  not  got  story  enough  in  them  to  engage  my  attention.  I  don't 
want  my  blood  curdled,  but  I  like  it  stirred.  She  strikes  me  as 
milk-and-watery,  and,  to  say  truth,  as  dull.' 

This  opinion  she  has,  in  effect,  repeated  in  her  published  writings, 
but  I  had  only  heard  her  verbal  expression  of  it ;  and  I  admired  her 
courage.  If  she  had  been  a  man,  struggling,  as  she  then  was,  for  a 
position  in  literature,  she  would  not  have  dared  to  say  half  as  much. 
For,  what  is  very  curious,  the  advocates  of  the  classic  authors — those 
I  mean  whom  antiquity  has  more  or  less  hallowed — instead  of  pitying 
those  unhappy  wights  who  confess  their  want  of  appreciation  of  them, 
fly  at  them  with  bludgeons,  and  dance  upon  their  prostrate  bodies 

with  clogs. 

For  who  would  rush  on  a  benighted  man, 
And  give  him  two  black  eyes  for  being  blind  ? 

inquires  the  poet.  I  answer,  'lots  of  people,'  and  especially  those 
who  worship  the  pagan  divinities  of  literature.  The  same  thing 
happens — but  their  fury  is  more  excusable,  because  they  have  less 
natural  intelligence — with  the  lovers  of  music.  Instead  of  being 
sorry  for  the  poor  folks  who  have  '  no  ear,'  and  whom  '  a  little  music  in 
the  evening '  bores  to  extremity,  they  overwhelm  them  with  reproaches 
for  what  is  in  fact  a  natural  infirmity.  'You  (roth!  you  Vandal!' 
they  exclaim,  '  how  contemptible  is  the  creature  who  has  no  music 
in  his  soul ! '  Which  is  really  very  rude.  Even  persons  who  are  not 
musical  have  their  feelings.  '  Hath  not  a  Jew  ears  ?  ' — that  is  to  say, 


426  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  March 

though  they  have  *  no  ear,'  they  understand  what  is  abusive  language 
and  resent  it. 

I  am  not  saying  one  word  against  established  reputations  in 
literature.  The  very  fact  of  their  being  established  (even  the  Rambler, 
for  example,  has  its  merits)  is  in  their  favour  ;  and,  indeed,  some  of  the 
works  I  shall  refer  to  are  masterpieces.  My  objection  is  to  the  sham 
admiration  of  them,  which  does  their  authors  no  good  (for  their  circu- 
lation is  now  of  no  consequence  to  them),  and  is  injurious  not  only  to 
modern  writers  (who  are  generally  made  the  subject  of  base  compari- 
son), but  especially  to  the  utterers  of  this  false  coin  themselves.  One 
cannot  tell  falsehoods,  even  about  one's  views  in  literature,  without 
injury  to  one's  morals,  yet  to  '  tell  the  truth  and  shame  the  devil '  is 
easy,  as  it  would  seem,  compared  with  telling  the  truth  and  defying 
the  critics. 

I  have  alluded  to  the  intrepidity  of  Miss  Bronte  in  this  matter  ; 
and,  curiously  enough,  it  is  women  who  have  the  most  courage  in  the 
expression  of  their  literary  opinions.  It  may  be  said,  of  course,  that 
this  is  due  to  the  audacity  of  ignorance,  and  a  well-known  line  may 
be  quoted  (for  some  people,  as  I  have  said,  are  rude)  in  which  certain 
angels  (who  are  not  women)  are  represented  as  being  afraid  to  tread 
in  certain  places.  But  I  am  speaking  of  women  who  are  great  readers. 
Miss  Martineau  once  confessed  to  me  that  she  could  see  no  beauties 
in  Tom  Jones.  '  Of  course,'  she  said,  '  the  coarseness  disgusts  me, 
but,  apart  from  that,  I  see  no  sort  of  merit  in  it.'  '  What  ?  '  I  replied, 
'  no  humour,  no  knowledge  of  human  life?'  'No;  to  me  it  is  a  weari- 
some book.' 

I  disagreed  with  her  very  much  upon  that  point,  and  do  so  still ; 
yet,  apart  from  the  coarseness  (which  does  not  disgust  everybody,  let 
me  tell  you),  there  is  a  good  deal  of  tedious  reading  in  Tom  Jones.  At 
all  events  that  expression  of  opinion  from  such  lips  strikes  me  as  note- 
worthy. 

It  may  here  be  said  that  there  are  many  English  authors  of  old 
date,  some  of  whose  beauties  are  unintelligible  except  to  those  who 
are  acquainted  with  the  classics ;  and  Tom  Jones  is  one  of  them. 
Many  of  the  introductions  to  the  chapters,  not  to  mention  a  certain 
travestie  of  an  Homeric  battle,  must  needs  be  as  wearisome  to  those 
who  are  not  scholars, 'as  the  spectacle  of  a  burlesque  is  to  those  who 
have  not  seen  the  original  play.  This  is  still  more  the  case  with  our 
old  poets,  especially  Milton.  I  very  much  doubt,  in  spite  of  the 
universal  chorus  to  the  contrary,  whether  Lycidas  is  much  admired 
by  readers  who  are  only  acquainted  with  English  literature ;  I  am 
quite  sure  it  never  touched  their  hearts  as,  for  example,  In 
Memoriam  does. 

I  once  beheld  a  young  lady  of  great  literary  taste,  and  of  exquisite 
sensibility,  torn  to  pieces  (figuratively)  and  trampled  upon  by  a  great 
scholar  for  venturing  to  make  a  comparison  between  those  two  poems. 


1880.        S1IAM  ADMIRATION  IN  LITERATURE.  427 

Its  invocation  to  the  Muses,  and  the  general  classical  air  which  pervades 
it,  had  destroyed  for  her  the  pathos  ofLycidas,  whereas  to  her  antago- 
nist those  very  imperfections  appeared  to  enhance  its  beauty.  I  did 
not  interfere,  because  the  wretch  was  her  husband,  and  it  would  have 
been  worse  for  her  if  I  had,  but  my  sympathies  were  entirely  with  her. 
Her  sad  fate — for  the  massacre  took  place  in  public — would,  I  was 
well  aware,  have  the  effect  of  making  people  lie  worse  than  ever  about 
Milton.  On  that  same  evening,  while  some  folks  were  talking  about 
Mr.  Morris's  Earthly  Paradisz,  I  heard  a  scornful  voice  exclaim  '  Oh  ! 
give  ME  Paradise  LostJ  and  with  that  gentleman  I  did  have  it  out.  I 
promptly  subjected  him  to  cross-examination,  and  drove  him  to  that 
extremity  that  he  was  compelled  to  admit  he  had  never  read  a  word 
of  Milton  for  forty  years,  and  even  then  only  in  extracts  from  Enfield 's 
Speaker. 

With  Shakespeare — though  there  is  a  good  deal  of  lying  about 
him — the  case  is  different,  and  especially  with  elderly  people  ;  for  'in 
their  day,'  as  they  pathetically  term  it,  Shakespeare  was  played 
everywhere,  and  every  one  went  to  the  play.  They  do  not  read  him, 
but  they  recollect  him  ;  they  are  well  acquainted  with  his  beauties — 
that  is,  with  the  better  known  of  them — and  can  quote  him  with 
manifest  appreciation.  They  are,  intellectually,  in  a  position  much 
superior  to  that  of  a  fashionable  lady  of  my  acquaintance  who 
informed  me  that  her  daughters  were  going  to  the  theatre  that  night 
to  see  Shakespeare's  '  Turning  of  the  Screw.' 

The  writer  who  has  done  most,  without  I  suppose  intending 
it,  to  promote  hypocrisy  in  literature  is  Macaulay.  His  '  every 
schoolboy  knows '  has  frightened  thousands  into  pretending  to  know 
authors  with  whom  they  have  not  even  a  bowing  acquaintance.  It 
is  amazing  that  a  man  who  had  read  so  much  should  have  written  so 
contemptuously  of  those  who  have  read  but  little ;  one  would  have 
thought  that  the  consciousness  of  superiority  would  have  forbidden 
such  insolence,  or  that  his  reading  Avould  have  been  extensive  enough 
to  teach  him  at  least  how  little  he  had  read  of  what  there  was  to 
read  ;  since  he  read  some  things — works  of  imagination  and  humour, 
for  example — to  such  very  little  purpose,  he  might  really  have  bragged 
a  little  less.  One  feels  quite  grateful  to  Macaulay,  however,  for  avow- 
ing his  belief  that  he  was  the  only  man  who  had  read  through  the 
Faery  Queen ;  since  that  exonerates  everybody — I  do  not  say  from 
reading  it,  because  the  supposition  is  preposterous — but  from  the 
necessity  of  pretending  to  have  read  it.  The  pleasure  derived  from 
that  poem  to  most  minds  is,  I  am  convinced,  analogous  to  that  already 
spoken  of  as  being  imparted  by  a  foreign  author :  namely,  the  satis- 
faction at  finding  it — in  places — intelligible.  For  the  few  who 
possess  the  poetic  faculty  it  has  great  beauties,  but  I  observe,  from 
the  extracts  that  appear  in  Poetic  Selections  and  the  like,  that  the 
most  tedious  and  even  the  most  monstrous  passages  are  often  the 
most  admired.  The  case  of  Spenser  in  this  respect — which  does  not 


428  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  March 

stand  alone  in  ancient  English  literature — has  a  curious  parallel  in 
art,  where  people  are  positively  found  to  go  into  ecstasies  over  a 
distorted  limb  or  a  ludicrous  inversion  of  perspective,  simply  because 
it  is  the  work  of  an  old  master,  who  knew  no  better,  or  followed  the 
fashion  of  his  time. 

Leigh  Hunt  read  the  Faery  Queen,  by  the  bye,  as  almost  every- 
thing else  that  has  been  written  in  the  English  tongue,  and  even- 
Macaulay  alludes  with  rare  commendation  to  his  '  catholic  taste.'  Of 
all  authors  indeed,  and  probably  of  all  readers,  Leigh  Hunt  had  the 
keenest  eye  for  rcerit  and  the  warmest  appreciation  of  it  wherever 
found.  He  was  actively  engaged  in  politics,  yet  was  never  blind  to 
the  genius  of  an  adversary ;  blameless  himself  in  morals,  he  could 
admire  the  wit  of  Wycherley  ;  and  a  free-thinker  in  religion,  he  could 
see  both  wisdom  and  beauty  in  the  divines.  Moreover,  it  is  immensely 
to  his  credit,  that  this  universal  knowledge,  instead  of  puffing  him 
up,  only  moved  him  to  impart  it,  and  that  next  to  the  pleasure  he  took 
in  books  was  that  he  derived  from  teaching  others  to  take  pleasure  in 
them.  Witness  his  Wit  and  Humour  and  his  Imagination  and 
Fancy,  to  my  mind  the  greatest  treasures  in  the  way  of  handbooks 
that  have  ever  been  offered  to  students  of  English  literature,  and  the 
completest  antidotes  to  pretence  in  it.  How  many  a  time,  as  a  boy, 
have  I  pondered  over  this  or  that  passage  in  the  originals,  from 
Shakespeare  to  Suckling,  and  then  compared  it  with  the  italicised 
lines  in  his  two  volumes,  to  see  whether  I  had  hit  upon  the  beauties ; 
and  how  often,  alas  !  I  hit  upon  the  blots ! 2 

It  is  curious  that  Leigh  Hunt,  whose  style  has  been  so  severely 
handled  (and,  it  must  be  owned,  not  without  some  justice)  for  its 
affectations,  should  have  been  so  genuine  (although  always  generous) 
in  his  criticisms.  It  was  nothing  to  him  whether  an  author  was  old 
or  new ;  nor  did  he  shrink  from  any  literary  comparison  between  two 
writers  when  he  thought  it  appropriate  (and  he  was  generally  right), 
notwithstanding  all  the  age  and  authority  that  might  be  at  the  back 
of  one  of  them.  Thackeray,  by  the  way,  a  very  different  writer  and 
thinker,  had  this  same  outspoken  honesty  in  the  expression  of  his 
literary  taste.  In  speaking  of  the  hero  of  Cooper's  five  good  novels — 
Leather-Stocking,  Hawkeye,  &c. — he  remarks  with  quite  a  noble  sim- 
plicity :  '  I  think  he  is  better  than  any  of  Scott's  lot.' 

It  is  a  *  far  cry'  from  the  Faery  Queen  to  Childe  Harold,  which, 
reckoning  by  years,  is  still  a  modern  poem ;  yet  I  wonder  how  many 
persons  under  thirty — even  of  those  who  term  it  *  magnificent ' — have 

2  I  remember  (when  '  I  was  but  a  little  tiny  boy  ')  I  thought  that '  the  fringed 
curtains  of  thine  eye  advance,'  addressed  by  Prospero  to  Miranda,  must  needs  be  a 
very  fine  line  ;  imagine  then  my  confusion,  on  referring  for  corroboration  to  my 
'  guide,  philosopher,  and  friend,'  as  he  truly  was,  to  find  this  passage  :  '  Why  Shake- 
speare should  have  condescended  to  the  elaborate  nothingness,  not  to  say  nonsense, 
of  this  metaphor  (for  what  is  meant  by  "  advancing  curtains  "  ?)  I  cannot  conceive. 
That  is  to  say,  if  he  did  condescend  ;  for  it  looks  very  like  the  interpolation  of  some- 
pompous  declamatory  player.  Pope  has  put  it  into  his  Treatise  on  the  Bathos? 


1880.        SHAM  ADMIRATION  IN  LITERATURE.  429 

ever  read  Childe  Harold.  At  one  time  it  was  only  people  under  thirty 
•who  had  read  it ;  for  poetry  to  the  ordinary  reader  is  the  poetry  that 
was  popular  in  his  youth — '  no  other  is  genuine.' 

A  dreary,  weary  poem  called  the  Excursion, 
"Written  in  a  manner  which  is  my  aversion, 

is  a  couplet  the  frankness  of  which  has  always  recommended  itself  to- 
me (though  I  like  the  Excursion) ;  but,  except  for  the  rhyme,  it 
has  a  fatal  facility  of  application  to  other  long  poems.  Heaven  forbid 
that  I  should  '  with  shadowed  hint  confuse '  the  faith  in  a  British 
classic ;  but,  ye  gods,  how  men  have  gaped  (in  private)  over  Childe 
Harold  I 

Gil  Bias,  though  not  a  native  classic,  is  included  in  the  articles  of 
the  British  literary  faith ;  not  as  a  matter  of  pious  opinion,  but  de 
fide ;  a  necessity  of  intellectual  salvation.  I  remember  an  interview  I 
once  had  with  a  boy  of  letters  concerning  this  immortal  work  ;  he  is  a 
well-known  writer  now,  but  at  the  time  I  speak  of  he  was  only  budding 
and  sprouting  in  the  magazines — a  lad  of  promise,  no  doubt,  but 
given,  if  not  to  kick  against  authority,  to  question  it,  and,  what  was 
worse,  to  question  me  about  it,  in  an  embarrassing  manner.  The 
natural  affability  of  my  disposition  had  caused  him,  I  suppose,  to  treat 
me  as  his  Father  Confessor  in  literature ;  and  one  of  the  sins  of 
omission  he  confided  to  me  was  in  connection  with  the  divine  Le 
Sage. 

'  I  say — about  Gil  Bias,  you  know — Bias  [a  great  critic  of  that 
day]  was  saying  last  night  that  if  he  were  to  be  imprisoned  for  life 
with  only  two  books  to  read  he  would  choose  the  Bible  and  Gil  Bias.1 

'  It  is  very  gratifying  to  me,'  said  I,  wishing  to  evade  my  young 
friend,  and  also  because  I  had  no  love  for  Bias,  '  that  he  should  have 
selected  the  Bible ;  and  all  the  more  so,  since  I  should  never  have 
expected  it  of  him.' 

*  Yes,  papa '  (that  was  what  the  young  dog  was  wont  to  call  me, 
though  he  was  no  son  of  mine — far  from  it) ;  '  but  about  Gil  Bias  ? 
Is  it  really  the  next  best  book  ?  And  after  he  had  read  it — say  ten 
times — would  he  not  have  been  rather  sorry  that  he  had  not  chosen 
— well,  Shakespeare,  for  instance  ? ' 

The  picture  of  Bias  with  a  long  white  beard,  the  growth  of  twenty 
years,  reading  that  tattered  copy  of  Gil  Bias  in  his  cell,  almost 
affected  me  to  tears  ;  but  I  made  shift  to  answer  gravely :  '  Bias  is  a 
professional  critic ;  and  persons  of  that  class  are  apt  to  be  a  little 
dogmatic  and  given  to  exaggeration.  But  Gil  Bias  is  a  great  work. 
As  a  picture  of  the  seamy  side  of  human  life — of  its  vices  and  its  weak- 
nesses at  least — it  is  unrivalled.  The  archbishop ' 

4  Oh  !  I  know  that  archbishop — wellj  interrupted  my  young  tor- 
mentor. *  I  sometimes  think,  if  it  hadn't  been  for  that  archbishop,, 
we  should  never  perhaps  have  heard  of  Gil  Bias? 

«  Tchut,  tchut ! '  said  I ;  'you  talk  like  a  child.' 


430  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  March 

'But  to  read  it  all  through,  papa — three  times,  ten  times,  for 
all  one's  life  ?  Poor  Mr.  Bias  ! ' 

'  It  is  a  matter  of  opinion,  my  dear  boy,'  I  said.  '  Bias  has  this 
great  advantage  over  you  in  literary  matters,  that  he  knows  what  he 
is  talking  about ;  and  if  he  was  quite  sure 

'  Oh  !  but  he  was  not  quite  sure :  he  was  rather  doubtful,  he  said, 
about  one  of  the  books.' 

'  Not  the  Bible,  I  do  hope  ?  '  said  I  fervently. 

*  No,  about  the  other.  He  was  not  quite  sure  but  that,  instead 
of  Gil  Bias,  he  ought  to  have  selected  Don  Quixote.  Now  really 
that  seems  to  me  worse  than  Gil  Bias? 

i  You  mean  less  excellent,'  I  rejoined ;  '  you  are  too  young  to 
appreciate  the  full  signification  of  Don  Quixote."1 

The  scoundrel  murmured,  '  Do  you  mean  to  tell  me  people  read 
it  when  they  are  old  ? '  but  I  pretended  not  to  hear  him.  '  We  do  not 
all  of  us,'  I  went  on,  '  know  what  is  good  for  us.  Sancho  Panza's 
physician ' 

'  Oh !  I  know  that  physician — well,  papa.  I  sometimes  think,  if  it 
had  not  been  for  that  physician,  perhaps ' 

1  Hush! '  I  exclaimed  authoritatively;  '  let  us  have  no  flippancy,  I 
beg.'  And  so,  with  a  dead  lift  as  it  were,  I  got  rid  of  him.  He  left 
the  room  muttering,  '  But  to  read  it  through — three  times,  ten 
times,  for  all  one's  life  ? '  And  I  was  obliged  to  confess  to  myself 
that  such  a  prolonged  course  of  study,  even  of  Don  Quixote,  would 
have  been  wearisome. 

Eabelais  is  another  article  of  our  literary  faith,  that  is  cer- 
tainly subscribed  to  much  more  often  than  believed  in.  In  a  certain 
poem  of  Mr.  Browning's  (/  call  it  the  Burial  of  the  Book,  since 
the  Latin  name  he  has  given  it  is  unpronounceable,  even  if  it 
were  possible  to  recollect  it),  charmingly  humorous,  and  which  is 
also  remarkable  for  impersonating  an  inanimate  object  in  verse  as 
Dickens  does  in  prose,  there  occur  these  lines  : 

Then  I  went  indoors,  brought  out  a  loaf, 

Half  a  cheese  and  a  bottle  of  Chablis, 
Lay  on  the  grass,  and  forgot  the  oaf 

Over  a  jolly  chapter  of  Rabelais. 

Yet  I  have  known  some  wonder  to  be  expressed  (confidentially)  as 
to  where  he  found  the  'jolly  chapter,'  and  the  looking  for  the  beauties 
of  Kabelais  to  be  likened  to  searching  in  a  huge  bed  of  manure  for  a 
few  heads  of  asparagus. 

I  have  no  .quarrel  with  Bias  and  Company  (though  they  stick  a 
nothing,  and  will  presently  say  that  I  don't  care  for  these  books 
myself),  but  I  venture  to  think  that  they  are  wrong  in  making 
dogmas  of  what  are,  after  all,  but  matters  of  literary  taste ;  it  is  their 
vehemence  and  exaggeration  which  drive  the  weak  to  take  refuge  in 
falsehood. 


1880.        SHAM  ADMIRATION  IN  LITERATURE.  431 

A  good  woman  in  the  country  once  complained  of  her  stepson, 
i  He  \vill  not  love  his  learning,  though  I  beats  him  with  a  jack- 
chain  ; '  and  from  the  application  of  similar  aids  to  instruction  the 
same  result  takes  place  in  London.  Only  here  we  dissemble  and 
pretend  to  love  it.  It  is  partly  in  consequence  of  this  that  works, 
not  only  of  acknowledged  but  genuine  excellence,  such  as  those  I  have 
been  careful  to  select,  are,  though  so  universally  praised,  so  little  read. 
The  poor  student  attempts  them,  but  failing — from  many  causes  no 
doubt,  but  also  sometimes  from  the  fact  of  their  not  being  there — to 
find  those  unrivalled  beauties  which  he  has  been  led  to  expect  in 
every  sentence,  he  stops  short,  where  he  would  otherwise  have  gone 
on.  He  says  to  himself  '  I  have  been  deceived,'  or  '  I  must  be  a 
born  fool ; '  whereas  he  is  wrong  in  both  suppositions.  I  am  con- 
vinced that  the  want  of  popularity  of  Walter  Scott  among  the  rising 
generation  is  partly  due  to  this  extravagant  laudation ;  and  I  am 
much  mistaken  if  another  great  author,  more  recently  deceased,  will 
not  in  a  few  years  be  added  to  the  ranks  of  those  who  are  more 
praised  than  read  from  the  same  cause. 

The  habit  of  mere  adhesion  to  received  opinion  in  any  matter  is 
most  mischievous,  for  it  strikes  at  the  root  of  independence  of 
thought ;  and  in  literature  it  tends  to  make  the  public  taste 
mechanical.  It  is  very  seldom  that  what  is  called  the  verdict  ot 
posterity  (absurdly  enough,  for  are  not  we  posterity  ?)  is  ever  reversed ; 
but  it  has  chanced  to  happen  in  a  certain  case  quite  lately.  The 
production  of  The  Iron  Chest  upon  the  stage  has  once  more  brought 
into  fashion  Caleb  Williams.  Now  that  is  a  work,  though  by  no 
means  belonging  to  the  same  rank  as  those  to  which  I  have  referred, 
which  has  a  fine  old  crusted  reputation.  Time  has  hallowed  it.  The 
great  world  of  readers  (who  have  never  read  it)  used  to  echo  the 
remark  of  Bias  and  Company,  that  this  and  that  modern  work  of  fic- 
tion reminded  them — though  at  an  immense  distance,  of  course — of 
Godwin's  masterpiece.  I  remember  Le  Fanu's  Uncle  SUas,  for  example 
(from  some  similarity,  more  fanciful  perhaps  than  real,  in  the  isolation 
of  its  hero),  being  thus  compared  with  it.  Now  Caleb  Williams 
is  founded  on  a  very  fine  conception — one  that  could  only  have 
occurred,  perhaps,  to  a  man  of  genius  ;  the  first  part  of  it  is  well  worked 
out,  but  towards  the  middle  it  grows  feeble,  and  it  ends  in  tediousness 
and  drivel ;  whereas  Uncle  Silas  is  good  and  strong  from  first  to  last. 
Le  Fanu  has  never  been  so  popular  as,  in  my  humble  judgment,  he 
deserves  to  be,  but  of  course  modern  readers  were  better  acquainted 
with  him  than  with  Godwin.  Yet  nine  out  of  ten  were  always  heard 
repeating  this  cuckoo  cry  about  the  latter's  superiority,  until  the 
Iron  Chest  came  out,  and  Fashion  induced  them  to  read  him  for 
themselves  ;  which  has  very  properly  changed  their  opinion. 

I  remember,  in  my  own  case,  that,  from  that  mere  reverence  for 
authority  which  I  hope  I  share  with  my  neighbours,  I  used  to  speak 
of  Headlong  Hall  and  Crotchet  Castle — both  great  favourites  of  our 


432  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  March 

forefathers — with  much  respect,  until  one  wet  day  in  the  country  I 
found  myself  shut  up  with  them.  I  won't  say  what  I  suffered ;  better 
judges  of  literature  than  myself  admire  them  still,  I  know.  I  will 
only  remark  that  /  don't  admire  them.  I  don't  say  they  are  the 
dullest  novels  ever  printed,  because  that  would  be  invidious,  and 
might  do  wrong  to  works  of  even  greater  pretensions ;  but  to  my 
mind  they  are  dull. 

When  Dr.  Johnso.i  is  free  to  confess  that  he  c'oes  not  admire 
Gray's  Elegy,  and  Macaulay  to  avow  that  he  sees  little  to  praise  in 
Dickens  and  Wordsworth,  why  should  not  humbler  folks  have  the 
courage  of  their  own  opinions  ?  They  cannot  possibly  be  more  wrong 
than  Johnson  and  Macaulay  were,  and  it  is  surely  better  to  be  honest, 
though  it  may  expose  one  to  some  ridicule,  than  to  lie.  The  more 
we  agree  with  the  verdict  of  the  generations  before  us  on  these  mat- 
ters, the  more,  it  is  quite  true,  we  are  likely  to  be  right ;  but  the 
agreement  should  be  an  honest  one.  At  present  very  extensive 
domains  in  literature  are,  as  it  were,  enclosed  and  denied  to  the  public 
in  respect  to  any  free  expression  of  their  opinion.  *  They  are  splendid, 
they  are  faultless,'  cries  the  general  voice,  but  the  general  eye  has 
not  beheld  them.  Nothing,  of  course,  could  be  more  futile  than  that, 
with  every  new  generation,  our  old  authors  who  have  won  their  fame 
should  be  arraigned  anew  at  the  bar  of  public  criticism  ;  but,  on  the 
other  hand,  there  is  no  reason  why  the  mouths  of  us  poor  moderns 
should  be  muzzled,  and  still  less  that  we  '  should  praise  with  alien 
lips.' 

'  Until  Caldecott's  charming  illustrations  of  it  made  me  laugh  so 
much,'  said  a  young  lady  to  me  the  other  day,  '  I  confess — though  I 
know  it's  very  stupid  of  me — I  never  saw  much  fun  in  John  Gilpin? 
She  evidently  expected  a  reproof,  and  when  I  whispered  in  her  ear 
'  Nor  I,'  her  lovely  features  assumed  a  look  of  positive  enfranchise- 
ment. 

*  But  am  I  right  ?  '  she  inquired. 

'  You  are  certainly  right,  my  dear  young  lady,'  said  I,  *  not  to 
pretend  admiration  where  you  don't  feel  it ;  as  to  liking  John  Gilpin, 
that  is  a  matter  of  taste.  It  has,  of  course,  simplicity  to  recommend 
it ;  but  in  my  own  case,  though  I'm  fond  of  fun,  it  has  never  evoked 
a  smile.  It  has  always  seemed  to  me  like  one  of  Mr.  Joe  Miller's 
stories  put  into  tedious  verse.' 

I  really  almost  thought  (and  hoped)  that  that  young  lady  would 
have  kissed  me. 

*  Papa  always  says  it  is  a  free  country,'  she  exclaimed,  '  but  I 
never  felt  it  to  be  the  case  before  this  moment.' 

For  years  this  beautiful  and  accomplished  creature  had  locked 
this  awful  secret  in  her  innocent  breast — that  she  didn't  see  much 
fun  in  John  Gilpin.  '  You  have  given  me  courage,'  she  said,  '  to 
confess  something  else.  Mr.  Caldecott  has  just  been  illustrating  in 
the  same  charming  manner  Goldsmith's  Elegy  on  a  Mad  Dog,  and 


1880.        SHAM  ADMIRATION  IN  LITERATURE.  433 

— I'm  very  sorry — but  I  never  laughed  at  that  before,  either.  I  have 
pretended  to  laugh,  you  know,'  she  added,  hastily  and  apologetically, 
*  hundreds  of  times.' 

*  I  don't  doubt  it,'  I  replied ;  *  this  is  not  such  a  free  country 
as  your  father  supposes.' 

<  But  am  I  right  ?  ' 

'  I  say  nothing  about  "  right," '  I  answered,  '  except  that  every- 
body has  a  right  to  his  own  opinion.  For  my  part,  however,  I 
think  the  Mad  Dog  better  than  John  Gilpin  only  because  it  is 
shorter.' 

Whether  I  was  wrong  or  right  in  the  matter  is  of  no  consequence 
even  to  myself;  the  affection  and  gratitude  of  that  young  creature 
would  more  than  repay  me  for  a  much  greater  mistake,  if  mistake  it 
is.  She  protests  that  I  have  emancipated  her  from  slavery.  She 
has  since  talked  to  me  about  all  sorts  of  authors,  from  Sir  Philip 
Sidney  to  Washington  Irving,  in  a  way  that  would  make  some  people's 
blood  run  cold  ;  but  it  has  no  such  effect  upon  me — quite  the  reverse. 
Of  Irving  she  naively  remarks  that  his  strokes  of  humour  seem  to 
her  to  owe  much  of  their  success  to  the  rarity  of  their  occurrence ; 
the  flashes  of  fun  are  spread  over  pages  of  dulness,  -which  enhance 
them,  just  as  a  dark  night  is  propitious  to  fireworks,  or  the  atmo- 
sphere of  the  House  of  Commons,  or  a  Court  of  Law,  to  a  joke.  She 
is  often  in  error,  no  doubt,  but  how  bright  and  wholesome  such  talk 
is  as  compared  with  the  platitudes  and  commonplaces  which  one 
hears  on  all  sides  in  connection  with  literature ! 

As  a  rule,  I  suppose,  even  people  in  society  ('  the  drawing-rooms 
and  the  clubs ')  are  not  absolutely  base,  and  yet  one  would  really 
think  so,  to  judge  by  the  fear  that  is  entertained  by  them  of  being 
natural.  '  I  vow  to  Heaven,'  says  the  prince  of  letter-writers,  *  that 
I  think  the  Parrots  of  Society  are  more  intolerable  and  mischievous 
than  its  Birds  of  Prey.  If  ever  I  destroy  myself,  it  will  be  in  the 
bitterness  of  having  those  infernal  and  damnable  "  good  old  times  " 
extolled.'  One  is  almost  tempted  to  say  the  same — when  one  hears 
their  praises  come  from  certain  mouths — of  the  good  old  books.  It 
is  not  every  one,  of 'course,  who  has  an  opinion  of  his  own  upon  any 
subject,  far  less  on  that  of  literature,  but  every  one  can  abstain  from 
expressing  an  opinion  that  is  not  his  own.  If  one  has  no  voice,  what 
possible  compensation  can  there  be  in  becoming  an  echo  ?  No  one, 
I  conclude,  would  wish  to  see  literature  discoursed  about  in  the 
same  pinchbeck  and  affected  style  as  are  painting  and  music  ; 3  yet 
that  is  what  will  happen  if  this  prolific  weed  of  sham  admiration  is 
permitted  to  attain  its  full  growth. 

3  The  slang  of  art-talk  has  reached  the  '  ycrang  men  '  in  the  furniture  warehouses. 
A  friend  of  mine  was  recommended  a  sideboard  the  other  day  as  not  being  a  Chip- 
pendale, but  '  having  a  Chippendale  feeling  in  it.' 

JAMES  PAYN. 


THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY.  March 


NEWSPAPER   CORRESPONDENTS  IN 
THE  FIELD. 

MUCH  has  been  said  and  written  lately  on  the  position  of  war  corre- 
spondents with  an  army  in  the  field.  The  new  rules  relating  to  them 
have  raised  a  journalistic  storm.  Most  newspapers  have  accepted 
them  as  a  personal  insult  to  the  press.  A  few  have  taken  a  higher 
line,  have  been  above  a  class  prejudice,  and  have  recognised  what  was 
necessary  for  the  public  good.  Mr.  Archibald  Forbes,  in  the  January 
number  of  this  Eeview,  dissects  the  much-abused  rules  piecemeal, 
and  gives  to  the  public  what  he  presumably  supposes  to  be,  or  in- 
tends that  it  should  suppose  to  be,  a  fair  statement  of  the  case. 
Many  will  widely  differ  from  him. 

Journalism  has  adopted  the  r6le  of  the  injured  party.  It  has,  no 
doubt,  personally  suffered.  It  possesses  the  means  of  making  itself 
heard,  and  it  has  not  scrupled  to  use  them.  Few,  with  the  exception 
of  war  correspondents  and  soldiers,  have  been  behind  the  scenes  on 
active  service.  The  former  say  they  are  cruelly  ill-used,  and  have 
cried  out  indignantly  :  the  tongues  of  the  latter  are  tied.  They  may 
rush  into  print  if  they  like,  but  to  do  so  would  go  sorely  against  the 
grain,  while  their  opinions  would  be  considered  biassed.  Therefore 
it  turns  out  that  only  one  side  is  heard.  There  is,  however,  another. 

I  can  lay  claim,  like  Mr.  Forbes,  to  having  seen  something  of 
war.  I  have  even  acted  for  a  short  time  as  a  war  correspondent.  I 
am  not  a  soldier,  and  I  am  convinced,  from  personal  observation  in 
different  campaigns,  that  every  word  of  the  new  press  regulations  is 
necessary,  and  that,  if  they  are  withdrawn,  a  general  in  command  of 
a  force  in  the  field  will  have  either  to  incur  the  odium  of  enacting 
new  ones  for  the  guidance  of  correspondents  accompanying  him,  or 
to  adopt  some  other  means  for  their  control. 

Newspaper  correspondents  have  of  late  years  grown  to  be  acknow- 
ledged as  a  necessary  part  of  our  armies  during  a  campaign,  but 
their  position  with  such  forces  has,  in  many  ways,  been  that  of 
guests.  They  have  held  no  recognised  official  status.  The  amount  of 
reliable  news  given  to  them  from  head-quarters  has  depended  en- 
tirely on  the  inclination  of  the  general  in  command ;  therefore  their 
chief  sources  of  information  have  hitherto  been  the  general  conver- 
sation of  camps,  and  what  they  themsslves  have  seen,  the  conclusions 


1880.  WAR   CORRESPONDENTS.  435 

drawn  from  such  sources,  and  varying  according  to  the  common  sense 
of  the  writer,  forming  the  substance  of  their  home  news  ;  the  trust- 
worthiness of  it  depending  entirely  on  the  character  and  ability  of  the 
sender. 

The  reliance  placed  at  home  upon  information  so  derived,  and  in 
many  cases  the  results  from  it,  have  been  out  of  all  proportion  to  the 
sources  from  which  it  sprang. 

Now,  I  am  not  one  of  those  who  loathe  the  sight  of  a  war  corre- 
spondent. There  are  men  who  can  scarcely  be  civil  to  them  on 
service  ;  who  seem  unable  to  get  rid  of  the  feeling  that 

A  chiel's  amang  them  taldn  notes, 
And,  faith,  he'll  prent  it  ; 

who  look  upon  them  as  spies,  and  treat  them  with  offensive  curtness. 
I  have  had  many  friends  amongst  them.  It  is  impossible  not  to 
admire  their  spirit  of  adventure,  their  fund  of  anecdote,  their 
abundance  of  resource.  Mr.  Forbes's  Plevna  telegram,  which  he 
refers  to  in  his  article,  was  a  professional  triumph.  For  some  time  it 
was  adopted  as  the  Russian  official  report.  His  individual  energy, 
his  great  experience,  his  quick  perception,  fairly  entitle  him  to  rank 
amongst  the  best  military  critics  of  the  day.  We  must  not  gauge 
all  correspondents  by  his  standard,  neither  must  we  grant  to  any  of 
them,  however  able,  the  recognised  position  of  military  censors. 

It  is  this  position  of  capable  critic  and  censor  of  things  military 
which  they  assume  that  is  injurious  to  the  well-being  of  our  armies. 
Why  should  the  fact  of  a  man  being  a  war  correspondent  enable  him 
to  form  more  just  opinions  than  any  other  civilian  ? 

Nowadays  a  stipulated  form  of  preparation  is  deemed  necessary 
for  candidates  for  any  profession,  yet  anyone  is  at  liberty  to  go  fresh 
from  the  London  pavements  to  the  seat  of  war,  never  having  seen  a 
battalion  field-day  in  his  life,  and  to  write,  forsooth,  as  if  he  had 
studied  military  details  from  his  babyhood.  The  ol  iroXXol  take  the 
doctrines  of  his  '  prentice  hand  '  as  infallible,  and  on  the  strength  of 
them  scream  for  promotion  or  recall  as  he  recommends. 

By  all  means  jlet  us  have  letters  from  the  seat  of  war,  but  let 
them  remain  what  they  were  originally  intended  to  be,  the  everyday 
narrative  of  a  campaign,  but  of  no  professional  consequence. 

The  question  at  issue  is,  Is  the  presence  of  uncontrolled  and 
irresponsible  writers  with  an  army  in  the  field  injurious  to  its  effici- 
ency ?  Decidedly,  Yes  ;  and  chiefly  for  these  reasons,  viz.  Mr.  Forbes's 
supposed  objections  to  their  presence  :  — 

1.  That  they  may  detrimentally  affect  public  opinion  at  home, 
either  by  unpleasant  and  inopportune  truth-telling,  or  by  wanton 


2.  That  they  may  produce  discontent  and  want  of  confidence  in 
an  army  in  the  field,  by  hostile  criticisms  on  its  leader. 


436  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  March 

3.  That  they  may  give  information  to  the  enemy  by  revealing 
prematurely  intentions  and  combinations,  or  by  forwarding  for  pub- 
lication details  of  strengths,  fortifications,  means  of  or  shortcomings 
in  transport,  supplies,  &c.,  of  which  the  enemy  may  take  advantage. 

And  I  would  wish  to  add  two  more  : — 

4.  The  custom  of  parading  officers'  names  before  the  public  for 
admiration  on  no  official  authority. 

5.  The  danger  of  sensational  writing. 

Mr.  Forbes  almost  playfully  disposes  of  the  first  two,  and  seems 
to  think  the  third  of  little  importance,  as  it  is  the  recognised  custom 
of  correspondents  to  give  information  to  the  enemy. 

Now,  all  Mr.  Forbes's  objections,  and  most  of  the  remarks  of  the 
press,  are  based  on  the  assumption  that  without  the  presence  of  uncon- 
trolled correspondents  in  the  field  we  shall  never  get  fair  criticism. 
They  assume  that  newspaper  representatives  at  the  seat  of  war  are 
unprejudiced  judges;  they  assume  that  they  are  capable  military 
critics ;  and  they  assume  that  it  is  for  the  public  good  that  every 
military  detail  of  an  army  in  the  field  should  be  liable  to  ventilation 
in  the  public  press;  also  they  claim  for  correspondents  to  be  accepted 
by  the  public  as  critics,  thereby  placing  in  their  hands  much  of  that 
public's  power.  Nay,  more  than  this  ;  they  claim  for  them  to  be 
military  advisers.  The  correspondent  of  the  Daily  News,  telegraph- 
ing from  the  seat  of  war  in  Zululand,  dated  Durban,  July  14,  after 
making  the  most  violent  strictures  on  an  officer  then  holding  a  high 
command,  reports  that  he  has  made  certain  representations  as  to  a 
purely  military  matter  which  have  not  been  followed.  '  Three 
months  have  elapsed  since,  having  passed  down  the  Zulu  coast  from 
Mozambique,  I  made  strong  representations  in  favour  of  the  possi- 
bility of  effecting  a  landing  thereon,  and  the  project  has  only  just 
been  carried  into  effect.'  The  representative  of  a  London  journal 
telegraphs  home  that  a  general  of  division  has  neglected  his  advice  ! 
We  had  better,  forsooth,  make  over  the  command  of  our  armies  to 
our  correspondents. 

It  is  the  assumptions  upon  which  the  arguments  against  the  new 
rules  are  based  which  are  misleading ;  it  is  the  claims  which  are  put 
forward  which  are  dangerous. 

The  army  is  a  machine  employed  by  a  nation  to  gain  a  nation's 
ends ;  and  if  it  can  be  proved  that  under  certain  conditions  the  effi- 
ciency of  the  machine  suffers,  the  nation  suffers,  and  it  is  a  short- 
sighted, unpractical,  theoretical  policy  for  the  nation  to  insist  upon 
what  are  no  doubt  in  the  abstract  its  rights,  if  by  so  doing  it  cripples 
itself.  The  British  public  has,  without  doubt,  the  right  to  inquire 
into  every  detail  of  the  working  of  its  own  establishments,  to  require, 
should  it  deem  fit,  that  those  details  should  be  laid  before  the  world, 
and  to  form  its  own  j  udgments  accordingly ;  but  even  the  most  or- 
dinary events  of  campaigning  life  would  be  hardly  judged  by  the 


1880.  WAR   CORRESPONDENTS.  437 

multitude  cognisant  only  of  everyday  English  existence  :  the  neces- 
sary horrors  of  war  alone  if  laid  truly  bare,  still  more  if  helped  by 
effective  word-painting,  would  incapacitate  much  native  common 
sense.  Every  one  has  a  perfect  right  to  pick  his  own  watch  to  pieces, 
to  expose  every  part  of  its  intricate  machinery  to  the  air ;  but  he 
could  hardly  expect  it  to  go  well  on  such  terms.  He  had  better  leave 
its  works  to  the  watchmaker. 

The  English  press  is  a  great  power.  In  no  other  country  does  it 
possess  such  influence  over  the  public  mind  ;  in  this  respect  neither 
French  nor  Prussian  journals  can  compare  with  it,  and  therefore  the 
letters  of  correspondents  with  their  armies  are  deprived  of  much  of 
their  importance.  It  is  therefore  no  argument  to  say  that  because 
these  nations  permit  uncontrolled  criticism,  we  should  do  likewise  ; 
for  with  them  it  would  be  barren  of  consequences.  We  are  differ- 
ently situated. 

In  war,  our  newspapers  gain  much  of  their  knowledge  from  their 
correspondents,  and  that  knowledge,  as  laid  before  the  world,  has 
much  to  do  with  the  formation  of  English  opinion,  at  such  a  .time  at 
fever  heat,  quick  to  take  any  impression,  quicker  still  to  exaggerate 
it  and  jump  to  conclusions.  Events  pass  rapidly,  and  a  false  impres- 
sion once  created  is  difficult  to  remove. 

Few  men  will  deny  that  the  Bulgarian  atrocity  agitation  in  this 
country  had  its  rise  in  clever  letters  to  a  London  newspaper,  since 
proved  to  have  been  strangely  exaggerated,  that  they  roused  Mr. 
Gladstone's  eloquence,  and  wonderfully  influenced  the  course  of 
European  events.  Yet  now  the  60,000  massacred  Bulgarians  have 
dwindled  down  to  3,000. 

It  is  this  great  irresponsible  power  which  claims  to  be  allowed 
unfettered  to  have  the  surveillance  of  officers  and  armies  in  the 
field. 

Every  war  has  its  political  as  well  as  its  purely  military  aspect. 
Our  influential  newspapers  have  their  political  opinions,  and  approve 
or  disapprove  of  that  war  accordingly  ;  but  both  sides  send  their 
representatives  to  report  upon  it,  and  neither  would  for  choice 
employ  men  likely  to  write  directly  opposite  to  the  declared  senti- 
ments of  their  party.  The  telegram  announcing  the  success  of 
British  troops  does  not  appear  equally  prominent  in  all  journals,  and 
— shame  though  it  be  to  say  so — does  not  some  slight  British  re- 
verse, passed  over  by  some,  appear  glaringly  obtrusive  in  others  ?  But 
why  impute  blame  to  war  correspondents  for  the  narrow-mindedness 
of  their  home  authorities?  I  answer,  Why  should  there  be  more 
patriotism  at  one  end  of  a  wire  than  another  ? 

Early  in  July  1877,  1  was  with  a  Turkish  general  and  his  staff  in 
a  village  of  Roumelia.     The  village  had  been  looted  ;  ruin  and  mas- 
sacre reigned  supreme.     Suliman  had  not  yet  arrived  at  Adrianople, 
Gourko  had  just  crossed  the  Balkans,  and  Reouf  could  spare  few 
VOL.  VII.- -No.  37.  GO 


438  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  March 

men  from  his  wretched  force  to  save  the  life  of  Christian  or 
Turk.  His  business  was  to  fight  the  Russians ;  and  in  the  midst  of 
all  this  cruel  confusion  was  the  able  correspondent  of  a  London 
newspaper  openly  stating  that  he  would  give  1?.  for  every  Turkish 
dead  body  that  was  brought  to  him,  that  he  had  searched  the  gar- 
dens of  the  village,  that  he  had  found  nothing  but  dead  Bulgarians, 
that  the  blame  was  all  on  one  side,  that  there  was  not  a  dead  Turk 
amongst  them  :  let  them  bring  a  Turkish  corpse  if  they  could,  and  h.3 
would  give  them  II.  for  it.  The  journal  represented  was  ultra- 
Eussian. 

In  the  same  ransacked  little  town,  the  representative  of  another 
English  journal,  more  violently  Turkish  than  the  other  was  Russian, 
visits  the  same  scenes  of  slaughter,  and  what  does  he  see  ?  Nothing 
but  dead  Turks ;  if  he  could  find  a  murdered  Bulgarian  he  might- 
believe  in  Turkish  atrocities,  but  there  were  none,  he  said,  and  to 
make  sure  of  this,  and  satisfy  himself  of  Turkish  leniency,  he  bids 
IOL  for  every  dead  Bulgarian.  Here  were  two  war  correspondents 
of  two  London  newspapers  bidding  for  dead  bodies,  both  very  able 
men,  but  it  was  surely  strange  that  they  should  both  see  through  the 
spectacles  of  the  party  they  represented.  They  would  send  home 
different  stories. 

Again,  let  any  one  who  has  accompanied  an  army  in  the  field 
glance  over  the  letters  from  the  seat  of  war,  and  see  how  much  of 
praise  and  blame,  however  slight,  he  can  trace  to  personal  causes. 
A  name  mentioned  here,  another  omitted  there,  and  why  ?  Personal 
like  or  dislike  and  nothing  else.  There  are  hundreds  of  cases  of  it. 
I  believe  the  home-staying  public  have  little  inkling  of  the  extent  to 
which  it  has  been  carried.  The  editor  of  an  influential  newspaper  has 
been  known  to  go  to  an  officer  of  a  British  force,  and  thus  to  address 
him:  'I  want  news  from  your  column,  will  give  you  so  much  for  all 
you  send ;  but  remember  I  want  nothing  favourable  to  your  general :  so 
much  for  all  news,  so  much  more  for  anything  adverse  to  your  chief.' 
Needless  to  say  the  request  was  refused  ;  but  why  should  our  armies 
be  subject  to  the  possibility  of  such  infamy  ? 

It  is  unfair  that  the  public  should  be  told  that  the  evidence  of 
their  civilian  representatives  is  alone  unbiassed. 

Long  before  the  publication  of  the  press  regulations,  our  best 
generals  had  recognised  the  danger  of  irresponsible  writing,  and  much 
had  been  done  towards  the  taming  by  judicious  means  of  the  unrea- 
sonable war  correspondent.  The  personal  feeling  of  which  he  is  ?o 
susceptible  had  in  many  cases  been  worked  upon  for  his  own  subju- 
gation. 

Kindness  has  been  found  to  answer  well  with  him.  Well  fed, 
he  is  not  apt  to  be  so  vicious.  Human  nature,  when  hungry  and 
thirsting  not  only  for  information,  will  take  a  more  cheery  view 
of  passing  events  after  a  glass  of  champagne  at  head-quarters  than 


1880.  WAR  CORRESPONDENTS.  439 

after  a  few  words  from  an  A.D.C.  that  the  general  is  busy  and  cannot 
be  disturbed. 

But  this  general  who  refuses  to  be  disturbed  may  be  a  hard 
matter-of-fact  soldier,  caring  not  much  what  people  think  of  him, 
with  a  stern  sense  of  duty  which  he  feels  he  owes,  not  to  the  news- 
papers, but  to  his  Queen  and  country.  In  his  heart  he  looks  upon 
the  war  correspondent  as  an  interloper,  but  knows  that  according  to 
custom  he  must  accompany  his  force.  He  may  proudly  disdain  to 
buy  his  good  will  by  word  or  deed,  and  yet  for  the  sake  of  the  army 
he  commands  he  knows  that  the  man  must  not  have  'his  head  loose.' 
He  therefore  makes  rules  to  be  observed  by  correspondents  accom- 
panying him,  and  in  so  doing  makes  powerful  enemies  of  them,  until 
he  shows  that  he  is  the  stronger  of  the  two,  that  he  is  so  strong  that 
lie  can  fairly  beat  them.  Till  he  does  he  will  get  no  quarter ;  he  has 
made  himself  obnoxious  ;  no  stone  will  be  left  unturned  in  order  to 
write  him  down,  till  success  after  success  has  stamped  the  man  a 
thorough  soldier,  and  then  the  barking  cur  begins  to  fawn. 

Let  us  now  return  to  the  specified  objections  to  the  presence  of 
correspondents  with  an  army.  As  regards  the  first,  it  will  be  ad- 
mitted that  English  public  opinion  is  much  formed  in  time  of  war  by 
the  news  it  receives  from  its  newspapers — their  reports  being  usually 
the  first  which  are  laid  before  the  public  eye.  This  English  opinion 
is  a  great  power,  and  occasionally  loses  its  head,  when  it  may  become 
dangerous.  And  if,  as  I  have  endeavoured  to  show,  its  information  is 
frequently  biassed  and  false,  it  must  be  frequently  detrimentally 
affected.  '  Wanton  lying '  I  consider  an  unnecessarily  strong  word  in 
the  objection,  as  total  ignorance  of  all  things  military  would  be 
capable  of  producing  the  same  effect. 

The  second  objection  refers  to  the  effect  produced  on  an  army  by 
hostile  criticism  on  its  leader.  A  general  should  be  a  powerful 
autocrat  first  of  all — a  leader,  a  beloved,  infallible  leader,  to  his  men  ; 
cripple  that  feeling,  and  you  cripple  his  force.  It  will  not  be  in  the 
same  heart.  The  home  papers  arrive  in  camp  and  are  greedily 
devoured  by  all.  The  injustice  of  their  remarks  may  be  perceived ;  but 
a  little  of  the  mud  sticks,  and  in  proportion  is  the  loss  of  confidence 
in  the  commander.  Men  have  been  set  talking,  a  doubt  as  to  the 
competence  of  the  general  has  been  raised.  It  is  all  very  well  to  say 
'  an  army  in  the  field  does  its  own  criticism.' l  So  it  may;  but  it  is  a  bad 
habit  for  it  to  get  into.  I  have  witnessed  the  undercurrent  of  sore 
feeling  and  distrust  created  in  an  army  by  injudicious  writing.  Granted 
that  the  first-rate  man  will  right  himself;  is  it  fair  that  he  should  be 
harassed  by  false  assertions,  read  all  over  his  own  camp,  that  he  should 
have  to  spend  his  few  leisure  moments  in  contradicting  them,  and  should 
feel  that  he  loses  in  reputation  if  he  does  not  do  so  ?  A  day  may  come 

1  'War  Correspondents  and  the  Authorities,'  Nineteenth  Century,  January  1880, 
p.  187. 

G  G  2 


440  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  March 

when  things  may  go  hard  with  this  country,  when  we  may  have  to 
withstand  a  series  of  reverses.  Our  generals  will  have  to  be  men  of 
iron  nerves,  backed  by  the  strongest  of  governments,  if  in  such  a 
crisis  they  are  to  be  expected,  however,  capable  of  enduring  the 
presence  of  uncontrolled  writers  in  their  camps. 

The  third  objection,  which  refers  to  information  of  different  kinds- 
given  to  the  enemy,  has  been  exemplified  over  and  over  again. 
There  are  innumerable  glaring  cases  of  it. 

The  results  of  such  information  may  have  hitherto  been  pro- 
videntially small — but  is  the  evil  therefore  to  be  allowed  to  remain  ? 
Mr.  Forbes  himself  asserts  that  the  defences  of  Kars  and  Eustchuk 
were  unjustifiably  published  in  a  newspaper  during  the  Kusso- 
Turkish  war ;  Varna  may  surely  be  added  to  the  same  list.2  The 
fact  that  the  defences  of  Eustchuk  had  been  published  was  new  to 
me,  though  I  remember  that  there  was  an  attempt  at  the  commence- 
ment of  the  war  on  the  part  of  a  correspondent  to  procure  them  from 
a  friend  of  mine — in  whose  possession  they  were — for  the  use  of  a 
London  paper.  My  friend,  while  refusing  to  give  them,  added,  '  If 
you  succeed  in  obtaining  them,  and  publishing  them,  the  Turks  will 
certainly  hang  you,  and  no  Englishman  will  lament  your  fate.'  The 
fact,  then,  stares  one  in  the  face,  that  during  a  great  war,  with  the 
most  tremendous  issues  at  stake,  the  correspondents  of  London 
journals,  living  with  and  accepting  the  hospitality  of  the  Turks,  were 
found  base  enough  to  give  information  to  the  enemy,  by  the  publica- 
tion of  the  defences  of  their  three  greatest  fortresses.  Can  anything 
be  worse  than  this  ?  Is  it  necessary  to  rout  up  more  objections  to  the 
utter  freedom  of  the  pen  ? 

I  now  come  to  the  danger  of  sensational  writing,  with  its  vivid 
descriptions  of  the  necessary  horrors  of  war,  destined  to  excite  the 
humanitarian  mind  at  home,  and  raise  doubts  as  to  the  civilisation 
of  our  soldiery,  and  to  the  thoughtless  omission  and  insertion  of 
officers'  names  in  newspaper  letters  and  telegrams — inserted  or  omit- 
ted because  one  man  is  acquainted  with  the  correspondent,  and  the 
other  is  not. 

Is  this  as  it  should  be  ?  Is  this  unbiassed  writing  ?  Is  the 
exercise  of  a  little  good  fellowship,  a  little  hospitality  to  the  repre- 
sentative of  a  newspaper,  to  bring  our  young  officers  prominently 
before  the  public  ?  It  has  very  often  done  so.  Or  a  name  may  bring 
a  scene  more  vividly  home  to  the  reader,  and  it  is  no  business  of  the 
correspondent  to  weigh  the  worth  of  every  one  he  writes  ;  those  he 
knows  naturally  come  first  to  hand,  and  he  uses  them.  They  become 
historical  on  his  authority.  The  action  is  fought,  the  wire  flashes 
home  the  news,  reputations  are  made  and  marred  on  no  authority,  and 
after  a  time  appears  a  list  of  names  gloriously  mentioned  in  official 

2  The  Turks  liad  a  press  commissioner  at  Shumla  ;  but  he  was  not  ubiquitous. 


1880.  WAR   CORRESPONDENTS.  441 

despatches  only  to  fall  flat  on  the  public  ear,  for  the  correspondent  has 
already  given  away  the  laurel  wreath.  The  hero  of  a  campaign  now 
is  not  the  man  whose  name  is  mentioned  in  his  general's  despatches, 
but  in  a  sensational  telegram  to  some  leading  London  newspaper,  to 
be  afterwards  bandied  about  in  fulsome  paragraphs  in  society  journals. 

'  Great  heaven !  is  it  unreasonable  to  require  that  we  should 
learn  from  impartial  and  unbiassed  lips  how  goeth  the  day  with  our 
brothers,  our  heart's  blood,  the  fathers  of  our  children  ?  Is  it  in  the 
cold  official  words  alone  that  we  are  to  be  told  how  our  countrymen, 
our  dear  ones,  toil  and  thole,  vindicate  Britain's  manhood,  and 
joyously  expend  their  lives  for  Queen  and  fatherland  ?  ' 3  &c.  &c.  &c. 
Well,  it  would  be  just  as  well  if  we  did  not  hear  so  much  about  it. 
It  would  be  better  to  take  the  cold  official  words  to  heart  than  to 
overrate  the  theme '  that  throbs  and  glows,  and  dares  and  dies  under' 
the  '  very  hand '  of  the  war  correspondent. 

**•;  We  have  fought  many  a  hard  fight  before,  and  not  talked  so  much 
about  it  as  seems  the  custom  now.  England  used  to  expect  English- 
men to  do  their  duty,  and  was  not  surprised  when  they  did  it.  Of 
late  years  with  the  growth  of  the  war  correspondent  has  come  the 
thirst  for  notoriety. 

Surely  it  is  better  that  some  rules  should  be  framed  at  home,  in 
order  to  establish  a  recognised  position  for  correspondents  with  our 
armies  in  the  field,  than  that  the  responsibility  of  so  doing  should 
be  left  to  the  general  in  command ;  and  from  what  I  have  seen  of 
correspondents  in  more  than  one  campaign,  and  with  all  due  deference 
to  the  very  many  perfect  gentlemen  amongst  them,  I  cannot  say 
that  I  think  the  new  regulations  too  severe.  The  only  doubtful  one 
is  rule  10,  in  which  authority  is  given  to  stop  or  'alter'  newspaper 
communications. 

This  I  take  to  mean,  that  unless  the  correspondent  agrees  to  an  al- 
teration in  his  communication  it  will  not  be  sent.  In  this  sense  it  is 
fair.  He  need  not  agree  to  the  alteration  unless  he  likes,  he  is  not 
forced  to  send  anything  he  does  not  believe,  but  he  is  forbidden  to  send 
what  is  considered  by  a  competent  judge  detrimental  to  the  good  of 
the  army.  The  rule  seems,  however,  to  have  been  read  by  some  as 
giving  power  to  the  military  censor  to  send  off  doctored  communica- 
tions. It  is  absurd  to  suppose  that  it  was  intended  to  be  taken  in 
that  sense.  Rules  13  arid  14  very  rightly  bring  the  means  of 
transmitting  messages  under  the  control  of  the  censor,  and  insure  that 
official  shall  take  precedence  of  private  news.  The  remainder  seem 
to  call  for  no  comment,  but  it  would  have  been  well  if  another  had 
been  added,  obliging  the  signature  of  all  correspondents  to  be  pub- 
lished with  their  letters  and  telegrams.  Such  a  rule  would  have 
done  much  to  individualise  the  opinions  expressed  in  them,  and  to 

3  'War  Correspondents  and  the  Authorities,'  Nineteenth  Century,  January  1880, 
pp.  190,  191. 


442  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  March 

do  away  with  the  almost  inspired  importance  attached  to  all  news- 
paper communications. 

The  next  war  may  not  give  us  quite  so  much  pleasant  reading. 
We  may  miss  a  little  of  the  seasoning  of  bygone  days.  We  shall  not 
suffer  by  it.  About  a  year  ago  a  British  force  was  crossing  one  of 
our  Indian  rivers  on  its  way  to  the  front.  With  it  was  the  usual 
representative  of  the  press,  and  he  had  written  his  usual  letter.  He 
tells  how  crocodiles  and  palm  trees  people  the  water  and  adorn  the 
banks,  and  hands  the  eloquent  production  to  a  prosaic  English  officer., 
who  remarks  that  neither  crocodiles  nor  palm  trees  are  within  many 
miles.  Matter  of  fact  man !  The  correspondent  is  describing  India, 
and*he  replies — the  best  answer  ever  made,  the  secret  of  much  of  the 
discussion,  the  essence  of  what  our  soldiers  have  long  known  to  be  true 
— '  What  does  that  matter  ?  The  British  public  must  have  its 
crocodile,  and  it  must  have  its  palm  tree.' 

MELGUND. 


1880.  443 


THE  NEXT  REFORM  BILL. 


MANY,  I  believe,  will  agree  in  the  opinion  that  a  portion  at  least  of 
the  short  period  that  now  remains  before  the  general  election  may 
with  advantage  be  devoted  to  a  consideration  of  some  of  the  questions 
which  will  have  to  be  dealt  with  by  the  new  Parliament.  Whatever 
the  result  of  that  election  may  be,  there  seems  to  be  good  reason  for 
concluding  that  a  Keform  Bill  is  likely  to  be  one  of  the  earliest 
measures  to  engage  public  attention.  The  Liberal  party  has  pledged 
itself,  as  soon  as  it  has  the  power,  to  extend  household  suffrage  to  the 
counties,  and  to  redress  some  of  the  existing  inequalities  in  the  dis- 
tribution of  political  power.  The  almost  complete  unanimity  which 
exists  among  the  party  in  favour  of  an  extension  of  the  suffrage  and 
the  redistribution  of  seats  must  offer  an  additional  inducement  to  a 
Liberal  Government  to  give  a  Keform  Bill  precedence  to  almost  all 
other  proposals  of  domestic  legislation.  If,  however,  the  balance  of 
political  parties  should  not  be  turned  at  the  general  election,  and  the 
Conservative  Government  should  continue  in  power,  it  may  very  possibly 
happen  that  a  Eeform  Bill  will  be  introduced.  The  feeling  which 
induced  the  Conservatives  to  deal  with  the  question  of  Parliamentary 
reform  in  1867  may  not  improbably  again  prevail,  and  they  may 
say  to  themselves,  '  As  it  is  inevitable  that  the  suffrage  will  be  ex- 
tended, and  that  the  question  of  redistribution  will  have  to  be  dealt 
with,  it  is  better  that  we,  as  a  party,  should  have  the  arrangement  of 
the  measure,  rather  than  that  we  should  leave  it  in  the  control  of 
our  opponents.' 

Such  being  the  position  of  the  question,  I  cannot  help  thinking 
that  it  is  very  desirable  to  direct  attention  to  some  considerations 
connected  with  Parliamentary  reform  before  the  subject  is  involved 
in  the  vortex  of  a  keen  party  struggle.  It  is  the  more  important 
that  this  should  be  done,  because  in  recent  discussions  little  else  has 
been  attempted  except  to  prove  the  justice  and  expediency  of  ex- 
tending household  suffrage  beyond  the  existing  Parliamentary  boroughs 
and  to  bring  into  strong  relief  the  inequalities  in  the  present  distri- 
bution of  political  power.  It  is  needless  to  attempt  to  add  anything 
here  to  the  arguments  which  have  been  repeatedly  adduced  to  show 
that  there  are  no  valid  reasons  why  the  present  difference  in  the  county 


444  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY.  March 

and  borough  suffrage  should  be  maintained,  or  why  political  power 
should  be  so  unequally  distributed  that  47,000  people  living  in  ten 
small  English  and  Irish  boroughs  should  return  ten  members  to  the 
House  of  Commons,  while  only  nine  members  are  returned  by  Liver- 
pool, Glasgow,  and  Manchester  with  a  population  of  1,349,000,  and  only 
eight  are  returned  by  four  metropolitan  constituencies  with  a  popula- 
tion of  1 ,67 1 ,000.  It  is,  however,  easy  to  show  that  even  if  it  is  decided 
to  extend  household  suffrage  to  the  counties,  and  to  make  the  present 
distribution  of  political  power  more  equal,  little  more  will  really 
have  been  done  than  to  have  taken  the  first  step  towards  the  solution 
of  a  difficult  and  complicated  question.  It  may,  for  instance,  be  at 
once  asked  whether  it  is  intended  in  the  first  place  to  extend  the 
suffrage,  and  subsequently  to  bring  forward  a  scheme  of  redistribution; 
or  whether  the  extension  of  the  suffrage  and  redistribution  will  be 
regarded  as  inseparable  parts  of  a  single  measure.  If  household 
suffrage  is  to  be  granted  to  the  counties,  is  residence  to  be  insisted  on 
as  a  qualification  ?  If  not,  it  will  necessarily  happen  that  in  removing 
one  anomaly,  another  will  be  called  into  existence,  for  there  will  be 
residential  household  suffrage  in  the  boroughs,  and  non-residential 
household  suffrage  in  the  counties.  Again,  it  is  to  be  particularly 
remarked  that  little  consideration  has  yet  been  given  to  the  principles 
on  which  a  measure  of  redistribution  should  be  based.  It  is  not 
enough  to  say  that  the  small  boroughs  must  return  fewer  members 
in  order  that  more  may  be  returned  by  the  large  borough  and  county 
constituencies.  Are  we  going  to  move  in  the  direction  of  equal 
electoral  districts?  Are  Manchester  and  Liverpool  to  be  divided 
into  five  equal  wards,  each  returning  a  single  member  ?  Or  is  some 
arrangement  to  be  adopted  which  will  afford  a  constituency,  in  pro- 
portion to  the  additional  members  it  may  receive,  an  increased  oppor- 
tunity of  securing  the  representation  of  different  phases  of  opinion  ? 
Finally,  it  may  be  asked — and  no  question  can  be  deserving  of  more 
careful  consideration — whether  much  of  the  good  which  may  be  done 
by  the  one  hand  may  not  be  undone  by  the  other,  if,  as  a  result  of 
extending  the  suffrage,  the  cost  of  elections  be  increased,  and  thus 
a  seat  in  Parliament  becomes  more  difficult  of  attainment,  except 
by  those  who  are  either  wealthy  themselves  or  are  able  to  command, 
possibly  by  a  certain  sacrifice  of  independence,  the  resources  of  some 
political  organisation.  It  can  scarcely  be  necessary  to  say  a  single 
word  to  show  that  these  questions  ought  to  be  carefully  and  calmly 
considered,  before  contending  political  parties  are  once  more  en- 
gaged in  a  struggle  over  Parliamentary  reform.  In  the  hope  of 
rendering  some  assistance,  however  slight,  to  such  a  discussion,  I 
propose  in  the  following  paper  to  consider  the  subjects  above  referred 
•to,  in  the  order  in  which  they  have  been  enumerated. 

There  are  few  points  connected  with  Parliamentary  rei'orm   on 
which  a  greater  difference  of  opinion  is  likely  to  prevail  than  the 


1880.  THE  NEXT  REFORM  BILL.  445 

particular  mode  of  procedure  which  ought  to  be  adopted  in  dealing 
with  the  two  questions  of  an  extension  of  the  suffrage  and  redistribu- 
tion. There  are  many  who  are  certain  to  argue  that  the  two  subjects 
should  be  dealt  with  in  two  separate  Bills,  to  be  introduced  at 
different  times.  It  is  contended  that  an  extension  of  the  suffrage  is 
not  only  in  itself  more  important  than  redistribution,  but  is  a 
measure  which  could  be  much  more  easily  carried.  If  a  number 
of  boroughs  are  scheduled  for  disfranchisement,  a  considerable  pro- 
portion of  the  members  who  represent  these  boroughs  will  inevitably 
feel  a  disinclination  to  support  a  measure  which  dooms  to  extinction 
the  particular  constituencies  with  which  they  are  connected.  On  the 
other  hand,  however,  it  may  be  urged  that  the  opposition  which  will 
thus  come  from  the  representatives  of  the  boroughs  threatened  with 
disfranchisement  cannot  be  removed  by  postponing  the  introduction 
of  a  measure  of  redistribution  until  an  extension  of  the  suffrage  has 
been  secured.  Whether  this  arrangement  were  adopted  or  not,  it  is 
perfectly  certain  that  in  the  discussions  which  must  precede  the 
passing  of  a  measure  for  the  extension  of  the  suffrage,  constant 
reference  would  be  made  to  redistribution.  The  opponents  of  an 
extended  suffrage  would  know  the  support  they  would  be  likely  to 
receive  from  the  representatives  of  the  boroughs  to  be  disfranchised. 
A  direct  inducement  would  thus  be  offered  to  exaggerate  the  extent 
to  which  disfranchisement  would  be  carried.  Unfounded  alarm 
might  in  this  way  be  excited,  and  some  at  least  might  be  led  to 
oppose  an  extension  of  the  suffrage  who  would  not  do  so  if  they 
knew  the  details  of  the  measure  of  redistribution  which  it  was  in- 
tended subsequently  to  bring  forward.  I  think,  however,  it  can  be 
shown  that  there  are  other  and  much  more  weighty  reasons  why  the 
character  of  the  proposed  scheme  of  redistribution  should  be  known 
at  the  time  when  Parliament  may  be  asked  by  a  responsible  Govern- 
ment to  sanction  an  extension  of  the  suffrage.  Many  people  will 
undoubtedly  be  placed  in  a  most  unfair  and  embarrassing  position 
if  they  are  asked  to  decide  upon  an  extension  of  the  suffrage  without 
knowing  either  the  extent  to  which  disfranchisement  will  be  carried 
or  the  method  of  redistribution  which  will  be  proposed.  It  may 
easily  be  imagined  that  there  are  those  who  may  consider  that  the 
good  which  would  result  from  an  extension  of  the  suffrage  would  be 
wholly  or  almost  wholly  neutralised,  if  in  order  to  remove  the  pre- 
sent inequalities  in  representation,  the  whole  country  were  to  be 
divided  into  equal  electoral  districts,  returning  a  single  member 
each.  Under  such  an  arrangement  no  town  with  a  less  population 
than  48,000  would  be  entitled  to  a  member ;  such  towns  would 
simply  become  parts  of  certain  electoral  districts,  and  in  each  of 
these  districts  the  majority  would  exercise  almost  uncontrolled  power. 
I  shall  presently  consider  some  of  the  consequences  which  might  be 
produced  by  such  a  change  in  our  system  of  representation.  The 


446  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  March 

briefest  reference,  however,  to  the  subject  is  sufficient  to  show  that 
many  who  are  strongly  opposed  to  the  continuance  of  the  present 
arbitrary  distinction  between  the  county  and  the  borough  franchise, 
may  hesitate  to  pass  a  measure  for  the  extension  of  the  suffrage,  if 
they  are  ignorant  of  the  nature  of  the  scheme  of  redistribution  by 
which  it  is  to  be  accompanied.  It  is  also  to  be  borne  in  mind,  that 
if  in  the  first  instance  a  measure  simply  referring  to  the  suffrage 
were  passed,  it  might  very  possibly  happen  that  any  subsequent 
attempt  to  deal  with  the  question  of  redistribution  might  prove  to 
be  unsuccessful.  It  has  in  the  past  been  repeatedly  shown  that  the 
amount  of  popular  support  which  is  given  to  an  extension  of  the 
suffrage  is  sure  to  be  much  greater  than  that  which  can  be  enlisted  on 
behalf  of  any  scheme  of  redistribution.  The  sense  of  injustice  aroused 
in  constituencies  which  are  not  represented  in  proportion  to  their 
population  is  much  less  keen  than  that  which  is  excited  where 
thousands  who  are  denied  the  vote  feel  that  they  are  as  well  qualified 
to  exercise  it  as  those  who  enjoy  the  suffrage.  If,  therefore,  redis- 
tribution is  postponed  until  a  measure  of  enfranchisement  has  been 
passed,  there  will  be  left  a  smaller  reserve  of  popular  enthusiasm 
wherewith  to  surmount  the  difficulties  of  passing  that  particular  part 
of  the  measure  of  Parliamentary  reform  which  is  sure  to  meet  with 
the  greatest  amount  of  opposition. 

As  several  reasons  have  now  been  adduced  which  seem  to  me  to 
show  that  an  inseparable  connection  between  an  extension  of  the 
suffrage  and  redistribution  ought  to  be  maintained,  I  will  next  pro- 
ceed to  direct  attention  to  some  of  the  many  questions  which  suggest 
themselves  when  we  consider  in  what  practical  way  these  reforms  can 
be  carried  out.  With  regard  to  the  extension  of  household  suffrage 
to  the  counties,  it  seems  to  be  often  supposed  that  all  that  is  required 
to  be  done  is  to  pass  a  simple  enactment  declaring  that  the  county 
householder  shall  enjoy  the  same  electoral  rights  as  the  borough 
householder.  It  can,  however,  be  at  once  shown  that  the  problem 
does  not  admit  of  being  thus  easily  solved.  As  previously  remarked, 
the  borough  and  county  suffrage  at  the  present  time  rest  on 
entirely  different  bases.  Eesidence  is  an  indispensable  qualifica- 
tion for  the  exercise  of  a  borough  vote,  whereas  a  man  may  vote  for 
a  county,  and,  except  on  the  day  of  election,  never  spend  a  single 
hour  within  its  borders.  A  man  may  own  half  a  borough,  and,  if  he 
does  not  reside  within  seven  miles  of  it,  he  cannot  obtain  a  vote ;  but 
however  far  away  a  man  resides  from  a  county,  if  he  owns  within  it  a 
freehold  or  rent  charge  of  the  annual  value  of  40s.,  or  a  copyhold  or 
leasehold,  either  during  the  life  of  one  person  or  for  a  period  of  not 
less  than  sixty  years,  of  the  annual  value  of  5Z.,  he  obtains  a  vote 
for  the  county.1  It  will,  therefore,  be  at  once  seen  that  the  subject 

1  If  the  copyhold,  or  leasehold,  which  confers  the  suffrage,  is  situated  within  the 
limits  of  a  Parliamentary  borough,  it  must  be  either  land  or  some  tenement 


1880.  THE  NEXT  REFORM  BILL.  447 

cannot  be  dealt  with  in  any  such  rough  and  ready  -way  as  simply 
passing  a  Bill  to  extend  household  suffrage  to  the  counties.     If  this 
were   done,   far   from   securing  equality  between   the  franchise   in 
boroughs  and  counties,  the  suffrage  in  the  boroughs  would  be  much 
more  restricted  than  in  the  counties.     Residentfhouseholders  would 
be  able  to  vote  on  the  same  conditions  in  boroughs  and  counties ;  but 
in  addition,  the  non-resident  freeholder  or  householder  would  be  able 
to  vote  for  counties,  whereas  he  would  be  precluded  from  voting  for 
a  borough.     In  order  therefore,  to   secure  equality,  it  will  be  essen- 
tial either  to  curtail  the  privileges  now  enjoyed  by  the  non-resident 
county  voter,  or  to  give  property,  independent  of  residence,  a  right  to 
some  representation  in  boroughs.     It  is  of  the  first  importance  that 
a  clear  understanding  should  be  come  to  witrTregard  to  the  particu- 
lar direction  which  reform  ought  to  take.     Is  the  borough  franchise 
no  longer  to  be  continued  on  a  residential  basis  in  order  that  the  rights 
of  the  non-resident  county  voters  may  be  maintained  ;  or  are  these 
rights  to  be  curtailed,  and  thus  the  borough  and  the  county  franchise 
to  be  placed  on  the  same  footing  ?     At  the  present  time  the  question  of 
the  non-residential  suffrage  in   counties  has  been  brought   into   a 
position  of  much  prominence,  in  consequence  of  the  action  which  has 
been  taken  in  the  creation  in  Midlothian  of  what  are  known  as 
'  faggot  votes.'     It  is,  however,  very  desirable  that  the  subject  should 
be  considered  as  one  involving  important  principles  of  representation 
and  not  as  simply  affecting  any  particular  electoral  contest.     What 
is  now  being  done  in  Midlothian  has  been  done  in  other  constitu- 
encies, and  the  practice  of  creating  '  faggot  votes  '  may  of  course  be 
extended  to  every  county.     The  experience  of  the  past  shows  that  in 
a  period  of  great   political  excitement   the   expedient  of  creating 
county  votes  is  sure  to  be  resorted  to,  and  it   is,  moreover,  just  as 
likely  to  be  adopted  by  one  political  party  as  by  the  other.     A  refer- 
ence to  the  speeches  that  were  made  by  Mr.  Cobden,  and  other  pro- 
minent free-traders  during  the  period  of  the  Anti-Corn  Law  Agitation, 
shows  that  the  creation  of  county  votes  was  one  of  the  means  which 
they  recommended  for  securing  the  triumph  of  free-trade  principles 
at  the  polling  booths.     Mr.  Bright,  speaking  in  February  1845,  said 
that  already  in  that  year,  '  at  the  recommendation  of  the  council  of 
the  League,  their  friends  in  Lancashire,  Cheshire,  and  Yorkshire  had 
invested  a  sum  of  not  less  than  250,000£.  in  the  purchase  of  county 
qualifications.'     Mr.   Cobden,  in  a  speech  which  he  made  in  1849 
said : — 

other  than  a  dwelling  house.  The  object  of  this  is  that  the  same  property  should 
not  confer  two  votes.  In  the  case,  however,  of  a  dwelling  house  which  is  a  free- 
hold, a  borough  vote  is  conferred  upon  the  occupying  tenant,  and  the  owner  also 
obtains  a  vote  for  the  county.  As  affording  an  illustration  of  the  many  anomalies 
in  our  electoral  system,  it  may  be  mentioned  that  in  Scotland  a  county  vote  cannot 
be  obtained  from  any  property  whatever  which  is  situated  within  the  limits  of  a 
Parliamentary  borough. 


448  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  March 

In  the  West  Riding  of  Yorkshire,  at  present  containing  37,000  voters,  Lord 
Morpeth  was,  as  you  are  aware,  defeated  on  the  question  of  free  trade,  and  two  pro- 
tectionists were  returned.  I  went  into  the  West  Riding  with  this  40s.  freehold  plan. 
I  stated  in  every  borough  and  district  that  we  must  have  5,000  qualifications  made 
in  less  than  two  years.  They  were  made. 

No  doubt  the  qualifications  which  were  thus  created  were  very 
generally  held  by  residents  in  the  counties,  but  as  long  as  the  county 
suffrage  remains  on  its  present  basis  in  regard  to  non-residents, 
there  cannot  be  any  security  that  county  votes,  made  in  the  manner 
described,  will  not  be  possessed  in  large  numbers  by  those  who  have 
no  real  connection  with  the  county  whatever.  Thus,  attention  was 
lately  directed  to  the  fact  that  out  of  some  stables  in  the  parish  of 
St.  James's,  Westminster,  fifteen  separate  rent-charges  have  been 
created,  each  of  which  confers  a  vote  for  the  county  of  Middlesex. 
Four  cf  these  rent-charges  are  held  by  four  sons  of  a  Scotch  peer ; 
two  by  ^Rutlandshire  country  gentlemen;  three  by  members  of 
the  family  of  an  English  peer ;  and  six  by  different  members  of 
the  family  of  the  owner  of  the  stables.2  It  is,  therefore,  at  once 
evident  that  the  existence  of  the  n  on -residential  40s.  qualification 
in  counties  raises  questions  of  the  first  importance  connected  with 
our  representative  system,  and  we  are  at  once  brought  face  to 
face  with  these  questions  by  a  proposal  to  equalise  the  suffrage  in 
boroughs  and  counties.  There  may  be  some  slight  excuse  for 
postponing  the  consideration  of  this  subject  while  a  marked  differ- 
ence in  the  value  of  the  occupation  qualification  in  counties  and 
boroughs  is  maintained.  Thus,  it  may  be  said,  if,  as  is  the  case  at 
the  present  time,  a  man  who  lives  in  a  house  in  a  borough  the  rent 
of  which  is  only  21.  or  31.  a  year  obtains  a  vote,  whereas  he  does  not 
obtain  a  vote  for  a  county  if  he  pays  a  rent  of  less  than  121.  a  year, 
it  is  only  right  that  some  compensation  should  be  provided  for  this 
inequality  by  furnishing  means  of  access  to  the  county  registers 
which  are  closed  against  those  who  wish  to  become  borough  voters. 
Whatever  may  be  the  extent  to  which  the  40s.  freehold  qualification 
supplies  a  compensation  for  the  more  restricted  occupation  suffrage 
in  counties,  it  is  obvious,  as  previously  explained,  that  the  balance 
will  be  turned  in  the  opposite  direction,  and  that  counties  will  have, 
not  a  less,  but  a  more  extended  suffrage  than  boroughs  if,  in  addi- 
tion to  conferring  the  franchise  on  all  county  householders,  the 
present  40s.  freehold  qualification  is  retained  in  its  existing  form. 
It  can  scarcely  be  necessary  to  point  out  the  anomalies  which  would 
thus  be  created,  and  the  injustice  which  would  be  done  to  county 
representation.  If  a  person  owned  property  of  20,0001.  a  year 
in  a  borough,  he  would,  unless  he  resided  in  the  borough  or  within 
its  precincts,  be  unable  to  vote  for  the  borough  ;  but  if  he  owned  in 
the  same  borough  any  small  shed,  the  value  of  which  was  no  more 

*  See  letter  of  Mr.  Edmund  Kcll  Blyth  to  the  Daily  ]\\n-s,  December  8,  1879. 


1880. 


THE  NEXT  REFORM  BILL. 


449 


than  40s.  a  year,  he  would  have  a  vote  for  the  county  in  which 
the  borough  is  situated.  The  evils  which  might  result  from  such  a 
state  of  things  were  pointed  out  even  when  the  first  Reform  Bill  was 
under  discussion.  Thus,  in  a  debate  which  took  place  in  the  House 
of  Commons  on  the  17th  of  August,  1831,  when  the  Bill  was  passing 
through  committee,  it  was  shown  that  if  the  40s.  borough  freeholders 
were  allowed  to  vote  for  counties  they  would  exercise  an  undue  influ- 
ence in  determining  the  representation  of  counties.  It  was  urged  on 
the  other  side  that  if  they  voted  for  the  boroughs,  a  sufficient  number 
of  these  freehold  qualifications  might  be  created  to  swamp  the  resident 
borough  voters.  There  has  in  the  last  forty  years  been  a  remarkable 
growth  in  the  urban  population  as  compared  with  the  population  of 
the  rural  districts,  and  as  many  boroughs  are  more  populous  than  the 
electoral  divisions  of  the  counties  in  which  they  are  situated,  these 
borough  freeholders  can,  at  least  in  many  instances,  exercise  more 
influence  in  swamping  the  resident  county  voters  than  they  could 
exercise  if  they  were  permitted  to  vote  for  the  boroughs  in  which 
their  qualifications  were  situated.  Thus,  a  non-resident  freeholder  of 
Liverpool  now  votes  for  S.  W.  Lancashire,  a  constituency  numbering 
25,650.  If  he  voted  for  Liverpool  he  would  be  one  of  a  constituency 
numbering  61,026.  In  many  cases  it  undoubtedly  happens  that  the 
result  of  county  elections  is  determined  by  the  voters  who  derive 
their  qualifications  from  Parliamentary  boroughs.  The  extent  to 
which  the  results  of  county  elections  may  be  determined  by  the  votes 
of  those  who  derive  their  qualifications  from  property  situated  within 
the  limits  of  Parliamentary  boroughs,  is  shown  by  a  return  issued 
under  the  authority  of  the  Poor  Law  Board  in  1866, 3  which  contains 
the  latest  information  on  the  subject.  The  figures  in  the  following 
table 4  are  taken  from  this  return  : — 


Electors  whose 

Counties  and  Divisions  of  Counties. 

Electors  on 
Kegister,  1865. 

qualifying  property 
is  within  a  Parlia- 

mentary borough. 

Durham,  Northern  Division             .         . 

G,042 

3,189 

Hants,  Southern  Division       .... 

5,677 

2,858 

Kent,  Eastern  Division            .... 

8,250 

1,750 

Kent,  Western  Division          .... 

9,811 

2,711 

Lancashire,  Southern  Division 

21,555 

8,783 

Middlesex       ...... 

14,847 

6,137 

Warwick,  Northern  Division 

6,710 

1,928 

York,  West  Riding         

40,695 

6,707 

Of  the  large  number  of  electors  in  English  county  constituencies  who, 

3  See  Summary  of  Electoral  Returns  relating  to  Counties — England  and    Wales, 
1865-6. 

4  If  a  return,  similar  to  that  here  quoted,  were  prepared  at  the  present  time,  it 
would  no  doubt  show  that  the  number  of  county  electors  with  qualifications  derived 
from  property  situated  in  Parliamentary  boroughs  would  bear  a  less  proportion  to 
the  total  number  of  electors  than  in  1865.     With  the  increase  in  the  population  of 


450  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  March 

it  thus  appears,  possess  qualifications  in  Parliamentary  boroughs,  some 
of  course  are  resident  in  the  boroughs.  Many  of  these  will  also  be 
voters  for  the  borough,  for  if  a  man  owns  some  property  in  the 
borough  other  than  that  in  which  he  resides,  he  obtains  a  vote  both 
for  the  county  and  the  borough ;  whereas  if  he  resides  without  the 
precincts  of  the  Parliamentary  borough,  he  has  a  county  vote,  but  can 
by  no  possibility  obtain  a  vote  for  the  borough. 

•  In  referring  to  the  many  inequalities  in  the  county  and  borough 
suffrage,  it  is  important  to  direct  particular  attention  to  the  fact,  to 
which  allusion  has  already  been  incidentally  made,  that  a  considerable 
number  of  county  electors  are  non-resident,  in  many  instances 
possessing  no  property  in  the  county  except  what  is  just  sufficient  to 
give  them  a  vote,  and  never  spending  an  hour  within  its  borders  except 
when  they  visit  it  to  record  their  vote.  Thus,  in  North-Durham,  out 
of  13,079  electors,  1,837  are  non-resident ;  in  East  Surrey,  out  of 
17,903  electors,  2,111  are  non-resident;  and  in  Mid-Kent,  out  of 
8,602  electors,  1,144  are  non-resident.  If  the  fact  that  a  large  number 
of  county  electors  are  non-resident  is  considered  in  connection  with 
what  has  already  been  stated  in  reference  to  the  county  electors  who 
derive  their  qualifications  from  Parliamentary  boroughs,  it  will  be  at 
once  seen  that  the  result  of  a  county  election  may  not  be  decided 
according  to  the  wishes  of  the  true  county  voters,  but  may  be 
determined  by  the  votes  of  those  who  do  not  reside  in  the  county  at 
all,  or  who  reside  in  Parliamentary  boroughs  situated  in  the  counties, 
and  who  generally  have  a  share  in  also  determining  the  representa- 
tion of  these  boroughs.  Serious  as  is  the  injustice  involved  in  the 
present  state  of  things,  this  injustice  will  be  so  much  aggravated 
when  the  occupation  suffrage  in  counties  and  boroughs  is  placed  on 
the  same  footing,  that  it  is  almost  impossible  to  suppose  that  a  new 
Reform  Bill  will  not  remove  some  of  the  inequalities  to  which 
reference  has  just  been  made.  It  will,  no  doubt,  be  a  matter  of  so 
much  difficulty  to  determine  the  best  and  most  practicable  course  to 
adopt,  that  I  shall  not  presume  to  express  a  dogmatic  opinion  as  to  the 
remedy  that  ought  to  be  applied.  My  only  object  is  to  indicate  some 
of  the  solutions  of  the  problem  that  may  be  attempted,  in  the  hope 
that  adequate  consideration  may  be  given  to  it  before  the  subject  is 
obscured  by  the  heat  and  excitement  of  a  party  conflict.  Two  ques- 
tions are  at  once  suggested : .  if  the  existing  freehold  and  leasehold 
franchises  are  to  remain  on  their  present  footing,  ought  the  county 
voters  who  derive  their  qualifications  from  property  in  Parliamentary 
boroughs  to  vote  for  these  boroughs ;  or  ought  they  to  continue 

the  Parliamentary  boroughs  the  number  of  county  voters  whose  qualifying  property 
is  situated  within  these  boroughs  has  doubtless  increased  ;  but  the  reduction  by  the 
Reform  Act  of  1867  of  the  occupation  qualification  in  counties  from  501.  to  121.  has, 
of  course,  made  a  still  larger  addition  to  the  number  of  county  voters  whose  quali- 
fying property  is  situated  without  the  limits  of  Parliamentary  boroughs. 


1880.  THE  NEXT  REFORM  BILL.  451 

to  vote,  as  they  now  do,  for  the  counties  in  which  the  boroughs 
are  situated  ?  Another  question,  perhaps  even  more  important, 
will  have  to  be  determined.  If  the  suffrage  in  boroughs  is  to 
remain  residential,  ought  there  to  be  a  non-residential  suffrage 
in  counties  ?  So  long  as  non-residence  is  permitted  to  county  voters, 
it  seems  to  be  impossible  to  devise  any  means  to  prevent  the  votes  of 
those  who  are  resident  in  the  counties  being  to  a  considerable  extent 
neutralised  by  those  who,  as  previously  stated,  have  really  no  interest 
in  the  county,  who  simply  possess  the  minimum  amount  of  property 
necessary  to  entitle  them  to  vote,  and  who  may  never  spend  an  hour 
in  the  county  except  when  they  visit  it  to  record  their  votes.  A  well 
authenticated  case  was  mentioned  in  the  House  of  Commons  some 
years  since,  from  which  it  appeared  that  the  land  of  a  certain  pari?h 
was  owned  entirely  by  one  proprietor,  who  resided  upon  his  estate,  and 
all  the  cultivated  land  in  the  parish  was  divided  into  four  large  farms 
let  to  four  different  tenants.  A  small  piece  of  waste  of  the  nominal 
value  of  201.  a  year  came  into  the  possession  of  a  well-known  election- 
eering agent  who  resided  in  a  Parliamentary  borough  some  distance 
from  this  parish.  Out  of  this  waste  eight  county  votes  were  created, 
which  were  allocated  to  eight  trusted  friends  of  the  agent,  who  were 
thus  enabled  to  out-vote  the  owner  and  the  occupiers  of  all  the  re- 
maining land.  Whether  such  an  arrangement  is  carried  out  through 
a  Conservative  or  Liberal  organisation,  it  is  alike  indefensible,  and 
ought  not  to  be  permitted  to  continue.  The  restriction  of  the  non- 
residential  county  qualification  would  secure  a  collateral  advantage  to 
which  I  shall  presently  have  occasion  to  direct  more  special  attention. 
There  is  no  more  serious  evil  connected  with  our  representative  system 
than  the  increasing  cost  of  elections.  The  expenditure  of  money 
which  takes  place  in  an  electoral  contest  is  often  as  demoralising  to 
the  candidates  as  to  the  constituencies.  If  a  contest  requires  an  out- 
lay of  seven  or  eight  thousand  pounds,  the  choice  of  the  constituency  in 
selecting  a  candidate  is  confined  to  the  comparatively  few  who  are 
able  or  willing  to  bear  such  a  burden,  and  it  may  not  unfrequently 
happen  that  the  difficulty  of  finding  a  candidate  who  will  incur 
such  an  expenditure  prevents  the  real  opinion  of  the  constituency 
being  properly  ascertained.  It  is  well  known  that,  as  a  general 
rule,  an  election  in  a  county  is  far  more  expensive  than  in  a  borough, 
and  there  is  nothing  which  contributes  so  much  to  add  to  the  cost  of 
a  county  election  as  the  expense  which  has  to  be  incurred  in  bringing- 
the  non-resident  voters  to  the  poll.  They  are  often  scattered  over 
all  parts  of  the  kingdom ;  sometimes  even  they  are  fetched  from 
the  Continent ;  their  travelling  expenses  have  to  be  paid,  and  a  costly 
machinery  of  agencies  and  committees  outside  the  county  has  to  be 
set  in  motion,  in  order  to  search  out  the  non-resident  voters.  As, 
however,  I  shall  have  occasion  to  refer  to  this  subject  again,  when 
considering  ihe  advisability  of  adopting  some  means  to  diminish 


452  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  March 

election  expenses,  I  will  proceed  to  call  attention  to  some  questions 
connected  with  redistribution  which  are  perhaps  even  more  important 
than  those  which,  as  has  been  shown,  are  inseparably  associated  with 
the  proposal  to  assimilate  the  county  and  borough  franchise. 

It  can  scarcely  be  necessary  to  repeat  the  statistics  which  are  so 
often  quoted  to  prove  the  present  extraordinary  inequalities  in  the 
distribution  of  political  power.  When  it  can  be  shown  that  ten  small 
boroughs  with  a  population  of  47,000  return  ten  members  and  can 
thus  out- vote  the  eight  members  who  are  returned  by  three  such 
large  borough  and  county  constituencies  as  Liverpool,  Glasgow,  and 
South-East  Lancashire,  with  an  aggregate  population  of  1,373,000, 
enough  has  been  said  to  show  that  there  are  glaring  inequalities  in 
our  representative  system  which  urgently  demand  redress.  But, 
assuming,  as  I  think  we  fairly  may,  that  few  will  now  deny  that  the 
continuance  of  these  inequalities  cannot  be  defended,  we  at  once  have 
to  meet  the  practical  question — What  is  the  remedy  which  is  to  be 
applied,  and  what  are  the  principles  on  which  the  new  distribution  of 
seats  should  be  based  ?  In  attempting  to  adduce  some  considerations 
which  are  suggested  by  such  an  inquiry,  it  seems  to  me  very  desirable 
not  to  strive  after  any  unattainable  ideal  of  complete  symmetry  or 
perfect  equality.  In  an  old  country,  with  its  historical  associations 
and  its  ancient  traditions,  nothing  could  be  more  unwise  or  impracti- 
cable than  unnecessarily  to  widen  the  gulf  which  separates  the  new 
from  the  old  state  of  things.  Failure  would  inevitably  be  the  result  if 
any  attempt  were  made  to  arrange  our  representative  system  as  if 
England  were  a  new  country  about  to  enjoy  representative  institutions 
for  the  first  time.  It  is,  I  believe,  possible  to  effect  most  impor- 
tant reforms  without  any  such  violent  changes  as  those  which  are 
frequently  indicated.  The  present  Prime  Minister,  speaking  in  the 
House  of  Commons  on  the  13th  of  May,  1874,  said  : — 

I  will  take  the  whole  population  of  the  United  Kingdom  at  31, 450,000.  Now, 
divide  that  into  equal  electoral  districts.  It  may  never  be  divided  into  equal 
electoral  districts,  but  we  must  recollect  that  there  is  a  constant  tendency  to  that. 
You  would  have  one  representative  for  each  48,000  of  your  population.  What 
•would  be  the  effect  of  that  upon  particular  constituencies  ?  If  the  country 
were  divided  into  equal — or  anything  approaching  equal — electoral  districts,  the  re- 
sult would  be  this: — In  England  and  Wales,  147  boroughs  out  of  a  total  of  198 
would  lose  their  right  to  special  representation,  as  containing  fewer  than  48,000 
inhabitants.  Among  them  would  be  Carlisle,  I  am  sorry  to  say,  Gloucester,  the 
city  of  Oxford,  Cambridge,  Chester,  Tynemouth,  Coventry,  Chatham,  Exeter,  and 
Northampton.  In  addition  to  the  above  147  borough  constituencies,  four  counties 
in  England  and  Wales  would  cease  to  be  specially  represented.  In  Scotland,  out 
of  a  total  of  22  boroughs,  13  would  lose  special  representation,  including  Perth  and 
Stirling  ;  while  in  Ireland,  out  of  a  total  of  31  boroughs,  27  would  be  disfranchised, 
including  Derry  and  Waterford. 

If  the  picture  thus  drawn  represented  a  state  of  things  that  was 
at  all  likely  to  result  from  carrying  out  a  scheme  of  redistribution, 
not  a  few  among  those  who  are  now  most  desirous  to  introduce  greater 


1880.  THE  NEXT  REFORM  BILL.  453 

equality  into  our  electoral  system  would  not  unnaturally  hesitate  to 
press  on  reform.  It  can,  however,  I  think  be  shown  that  an  approxi- 
mation to  equality  sufficient  to  satisfy  all  reasonable  demands  may  be 
attained  without  any  such  wholesale  demolition  of  existing  consti- 
tuencies as  that  described  by  the  Prime  Minister.  As  it  ought  to  be 
the  chief  aim  of  all  representative  reform  to  make  Parliament  a  true 
reflex  of  the  nation,  it  would  be  extremely  undesirable  to  obliterate 
all  the  small  borough  constituencies.  Although  it  will  be  scarcely 
denied  that  at  the  present  time  an  unduly  large  number  of  members 
is  allotted  to  the  small  boroughs,  yet  it  would  be  going  to  the  oppo- 
site extreme  if  the  separate  political  existence  of  these  boroughs  were 
destroyed  by  merging  them  in  the  counties.  The  representative 
character  of  the  House  of  Commons  would  certainly  be  weakened  if 
the  opinions  which  may  happen  to  prevail  in  the  smaller  country 
towns  had  no  chance  of  obtaining  a  distinct  representation.  Far 
from  its  being  necessary  to  adopt  any  scheme  of  wholesale  disfran- 
chisement,  it  would  be  perfectly  easy  to  carry  out  a  scheme  of  redis- 
tribution on  a  sufficiently  extended  scale,  without  disfranchising  any 
existing  borough.  If  some  of  the  smaller  boroughs  were  grouped 
together,  constituencies  of  adequate  size  would  be  formed,  and  a 
number  of  seats  would  be  provided  sufficient  to  meet  the  wants  of  the 
large  constituencies  which  are  at  the  present  time  inadequately  repre- 
sented, or  are  not  represented  at  all.  It  would,  of  course,  be  most 
presumptuous  on  my  part  to  describe  in  detail  either  to  what  extent 
this  grouping  should  be  carried,  or  the  particular  number  of  addi- 
tional members  which  should  be  allotted  to  particular  constituencies. 
If  the  arrangement  just  suggested  were  carried  out,  it  is  evident  that 
the  necessity  of  disfranchisement  would  be  avoided ;  all  the  towns 
of  any  considerable  size  which  are  not  now  represented  would  be  in- 
cluded in  the  borough  representation,  and  a  number  of  seats  would 
be  obtained  sufficient  to  give  adequate  representation  to  the  large 
boroughs  and  counties  which  are  now  inadequately  represented.  The 
experience  of  Scotland  and  Wales  shows  that  the  plan  of  grouping 
boroughs  works  remarkably  well.  Many  of  the  smaller  Scotch  and 
Welsh  boroughs  have  been  grouped  since  the  Eeform  Bill  of  1832,  and 
I  believe  it  will  be  generally  admitted  that  there  are  no  better  or  more 
independent  constituencies  in  the  kingdom  than  these  grouped  Scotch 
and  Welsh  boroughs.  When  several  small  towns  are  combined  into 
a  single  constituency,  it  is  less  likely  that  merely  local  considerations 
will  prevail  in  determining  the  representation.  If  each  town  re- 
turned a  member,  some  wealthy  resident  might  possess  so  much 
influence  as  to  make  it  almost  a  nominee  borough.  When,  however, 
the  towns  are  aggregated,  there  is  a  reasonable  chance  that  these 
various  influences  will,  to  a  certain  extent,  neutralise  each  other, 
and  the  independence  of  the  constituency  be  proportionately 
increased. 

VOL.  VII.— No.  37.  H  H 


454  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  March 

Another  advantage  would  result  from  including  all  the  towns  of 
any  considerable  size  in  the  borough  representation  which  seems  to 
me  well  worthy  of  consideration.     As  already  remarked,  it  is  of  the 
first  importance,  with  the  view  of  Parliament  becoming  the  true  reflex 
of  the  nation,  that  all  sections  of  the  community  should  have  a  fair 
chance  of  obtaining  distinct  representation.     It  cannot  be  denied 
that  at  the  present  time  in  many  of  the  counties  the  votes  of  those 
who  live  in  the  rural  districts  are  to  a  considerable  extent  neutralized 
by  the  county  voters  who  reside  in  the  unrepresented  towns  situated 
in  these  counties.     It  will  certainly  happen,  and  especially  in  those 
counties  in  which  the  system  of  large  farms  prevails,  that  the  exten- 
sion of  household  suffrage  to  the  counties  will  produce  far  more  effect 
in  increasing  the  number  of  voters  in  the  towns  than  in  the  rural 
districts.     Thus,  scattered  over  Lancashire  and  Yorkshire  and  other 
counties  in  the  north  of  England,  there  are  many  manufacturing 
towns   that   at  the  present  time   are  not  Parliamentary  boroughs 
which   are  rapidly  increasing  in  population,  while   the   population 
of  the   rural   districts   remains   comparatively   stationary.     At   the 
last  census,   in   1871,   the   towns   of  Barrow-in-Furness,   Barnsley, 
and  Keighley  contained  an  aggregate  population  of  75,000.     Since 
the  previous  census  in  1861  the  population  of  Barrow  had  trebled, 
and   there   had   been   an  increase   in   the  population   of  Keighley 
and  Barnsley  of  more  than  30  per  cent.     It  is  certain  that  the  next 
census  will  show  a  still  further  marked  increase  in  the  population. 
None  of  these  towns  are  at  the  present  time  Parliamentary  boroughs, 
and  the  extension  of  household  suffrage  to  the  counties  will  probably 
treble  or  quadruple  the  number  of  voters  they  contain.    If,  therefore, 
these  towns  were  not  included  in  the  borough  representation,  either 
by  receiving  a   distinct  representation  of  their   own,  or  by  being 
grouped  with  some  existing  Parliamentary  borough,  they  would,  so 
long  as  they  remained  a  part  of  the  county  constituency,  exercise  so 
preponderating  an  influence  in  the  county  election  that  they  might 
very  possibly  be  able  completely  to  out-vote  the  farmers,  the  newly 
enfranchised  agricultural  labourers,  and  the  other  residents  in  the 
rural  districts,  and  thus  what  ought  to  be  the  distinctive  character  of 
the  county  representation  might  be  destroyed. 

In  considering  the  question  of  redistribution,  the  point  on  which 
there  will  probably  be  most  difference  of  opinion  is  the  determination 
of  the  method  of  representation  which  ought  to  be  adopted  in  those 
large  constituencies  which  will  receive  additional  members.  It  appears 
that  although  about  one-sixteenth  of  the  population  of  the  United 
Kingdom  resides  in  the  five  towns,  Liverpool,  Leeds,  Manchester, 
Glasgow  and  Birmingham,  these  towns  return  only  one  forty-third 
part  of  the  House  of  Commons,  while  the  metropolis  is  still  less 
adequately  represented  in  proportion  to  its  population.  It  may 
therefore  be  concluded  that  whenever  an  attempt  is  made  to  introduce 


1880.  THE  NEXT  REFORM  BILL.  455 

greater  equality  into  our  electoral  system,  additional  members  will  be 
allotted  to  the  more  populous  borough  and  county  constituencies. 
Although  there  can  be  no  use  in  attempting  now  to  determine  the 
precise  number  of  additional  members  that  should  be  allotted  to  the 
larger  constituencies,  yet  the  attention  of  the  public  cannot  be  too 
soon  or  too  seriously  directed  to  the  consideration  of  the  principles 
which  should  regulate  the  method  of  voting  in  those  constituencies 
where  more  than  two  members  are  to  be  returned.  The  problem 
which  will  have  to  be  solved  can  be  at  once  understood  if  it  is 
assumed  that  two  additional  members  are  given  to  Manchester,  and 
we  then  proceed  to  inquire  whether  Manchester,  returning  five 
members,  shall  be  divided  into  five  equal  electoral  districts.  One  of 
the  most  certain  consequences  of  the  adoption  of  such  an  arrangement 
would  be  that  merely  local  questions  would  exercise  an  increased  influ- 
ence in  determining  the  result  of  an  election.  If,  instead  of  appeal- 
ing to  the  inhabitants  of  a  great  constituency,  it  became  simply 
necessary  to  consult  the  electors  of  a  single  ward,  there  is  only  too 
much  reason  to  fear  that  the  consideration  of  subjects  of  national  im- 
portance would  be  subordinated  to  the  discussion  of  topics  of  local 
interest.  A  very  serious  deteriorating  effect  might  thus  be  exerted 
upon  the  tone  and  character  of  the  House  of  Commons.  It  is  not 
unfrequently  said  that  Parliament  does  not  occupy  the  same  high 
position  in  the  estimation  of  the  nation  as  it  formerly  did.  Whether 
this  be  so  or  not,  all,  I  think,  must  agree  that  nothing  could  be  more 
unfortunate  than  to  bring  into  operation  any  influence  which  would 
tend  to  weaken  the  respect  which  is  felt  for  Parliamentary  institu- 
tions. Before  any  proposal  to  adopt  equal  electoral  districts  is 
accepted,  the  encouragement  which  would  have  been  given  to  some 
of  the  worst  forms  of  electioneering,  as  it  became  necessary  at 
frequent  intervals  to  readjust  the  boundaries  of  the  districts,  ought 
to  be  most  carefully  considered.  The  fluctuations  in  population  and 
its  varying  rates  of  increase  or  decrease,  not  only  in  different 
localities,  but  in  different  parts  of  the  same  town,  would  necessitate, 
in  order  to  maintain  the  equality  of  the  electoral  districts,  a  constant 
change  in  their  boundaries.  Whenever  these  changes  had  to  be 
carried  out,  a  tempting  opportunity  would  be  afforded  to  rival 
political  agents  for  the  exercise  of  their  electioneering  skill ;  there 
would  be  a  keen  struggle  to  manipulate  the  boundaries  in  such  a 
way  as  to  secure  the  maximum  advantage  for  each  rival  party — and 
it  is  well  known  from  the  experience  of  the  United  States,  that  this 
manipulation,  which  is  there  recognised  under  the  distinctive  appella- 
tion of  '  gerrymandering,'  has  been  the  fruitful  source  of  much  which 
is  only  too  certainly  calculated  to  exercise  a  demoralising  influence 
on  politics.  But  it  will  naturally  be  asked — If  we  are  not  to  have 
equal  electoral  districts,  what  method  of  election  ought  to  be  adopted 
when  several  members  have  to  be  returned  for  the  same  constituency  ? 

H  H  2 


456  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY.  March 

It  is  scarcely  necessary  to  remark  that  by  the  last  Reform  Bill,  in 
every  case  where  more  than  two  members  have  to  be  elected,  each 
voter  is  only  permitted  to  vote  for  a  number  of  candidates  less  by  one- 
than  the  number  of  members  to  be  returned.  Thus,  in  the  City  of 
London,  which  has  four  members,  each  elector  can  vote  for  three  candi- 
dates, and  in  the  constituencies  which  have  three  members,  each  elector 
votes  for  two  candidates.  It  is  obvious  that  by  this  arrangement  a 
minority  just  exceeding  one-fifth  of  the  constituency  where  four 
members  are  returned,  and  one-fourth  where  three  are  to  be  returned,  are 
able  to  secure  a  share  in  the  representation.  If  each  voter  were  allowed 
to  vote  for  as  many  candidates  as  there  were  members  to  be  chosen,  it  is 
manifest  that  the  entire  representation  would  be  vested  in  the  majority, 
and  the  unlimited  control  which  the  majority  could  exercise  would  not 
be  in  the  slightest  degree  affected  by  giving  any  number  of  additional 
members  to  the  constituency.  Thus  if  the  Liberals  were  in  the  ascend- 
ant in  Manchester,  and  the  Conservatives  in  Liverpool,  not  a  single 
Conservative  might  be  returned  for  Manchester,  nor  a  single  Liberal  for 
Liverpool — even  if  seven  or  eight  members  were  allotted  to  each  of 
these  towns.  The  representation  of  these  two  constituencies  might, 
in  fact,  be  precisely  the  same  as  it  would  be  if  not  one  Conserva- 
tive resided  in  Manchester,  and  as  if  Liberalism  had  become  extinct 
in  Liverpool.  It  seems  difficult  to  maintain  that  an  arrangement 
which  might  lead  to  such  a  result  is  calculated  either  to  increase 
the  representative  character  of  Parliament  or  to  introduce  greater 
equality  and  justice  into  our  electoral  system.  From  what  has- 
happened  in  many  School  Board  elections,  it  may  with  certainty  be 
concluded  that  if  uncontrolled  power  were  conferred  upon  majorities 
that  power  would  be  exerted  to  the  full,  however  many  members  had 
to  be  returned.  Thus,  in  the  first  School  Board  election  at  Bir- 
mingham after  the  passing  of  the  Elementary  Education  Act,  the 
supporters  of  undenominational  education  endeavoured  to  secure  the 
entire  representation  for  themselves.  Fifteen  members  had  to  be 
returned ;  they  started  fifteen  candidates,  and,  as  the  party  were  in 
a  great  majority,  the  entire  number  of  these  fifteen  candidates 
would  have  been  returned,  had  not  a  share  in  the  representation  been 
secured  to  the  minority  through  the  operation  of  the  cumulative 
vote.  Although  I  would  yield  to  no  one  in  my  attachment  to  the 
principles  of  undenominational  education,  and  although  no  one  can  be 
more  anxious  to  promote  the  general  adoption  of  those  principles, 
yet  it  seems  to  me  to  be  alike  contrary  to  common  sense  and  to  com- 
mon fairness  to  maintain  that  in  a  great  community  where  many 
differences  of  opinion  exist,  a  board  could  be  considered  as  in  any 
way  representing  the  wishes  of  that  community  if  no  voice  in  its 
counsels  could  be  heard  except  that  of  the  dominant  majority.  An 
attempt  is  not  unfrequently  made  to  give  to  any  proposal  for  the 
representation  of  minorities  the  character  of  an  artful  device  to 


1880.  THE  NEXT  REFORM  BILL.  457 

deprive  the  majority  of  its  legitimate  power.  Some  plausibility 
was  given  to  this  description  by  the  result  of  the  election  at  Birming- 
ham to  which  reference  has  just  been  made.  As  previously  stated, 
the  majority  endeavoured  to  secure  the  entire  representation.  As 
the  cumulative  vote  was  in  operation,  the  simplest  arithmetical  cal- 
culation would  have  shown  that  it  would  be  necessary,  for  the  majority 
to  effect  their  object,  to  poll  more  than  fifteen-sixteenths  of  the 
entire  number  of  votes  recorded.  The  result  of  the  election  proved 
that,  although  the  undenominational  party  had  a  great  majority,  they 
did  not  possess  this  preponderating  influence,  and  in  their  attempt  to 
possess  themselves  of  the  entire  representation  they  wasted  so  much 
voting  power  that  they  only  returned  six  members  out  of  fifteen,  and 
the  party  with  a  majority  in  the  constituency  were  thus  in  a  minority 
on  the  board.  But  nothing  could  be  more  unreasonable  than  to 
hold  the  system  of  voting  responsible  for  an  untoward  result  which 
•was  solely  due  to  an  arithmetical  miscalculation.  When  the  next 
election  occurred  it  was  clearly  proved  that  neither  the  cumulative 
vote  nor  any  other  scheme  of  minority  representation  could,  unless 
there  were  mismanagement  or  miscalculation,  prevent  a  party  that 
was  in  a  majority  securing  a  majority  at  the  poll. 

It  can  easily  be  shown  that  far  from  a  system  of  minority  voting 
depriving  the  majority  of  its  just  influence,  one  of  the  chief  advan- 
tages that  it  secures  is  that  in  this  respect  it  compares  most  favour- 
ably with  the  old  method  of  voting.  Thus  suppose  in  a  constituency 
of  50,000  electors,  returning  five  members,  a  considerable  number,  say 
8,000,  were  resolved  to  make  some  subject  a  test  question,  and  not  to 
vote  for  any  candidate  unless  he  would  pledge  himself  to  support  it. 
From  the  pledges  that  are  now  attempted  to  be  forced  from  candi- 
dates about  Home  Rule,  local  option,  and  the  interests  of  the  licensed 
victuallers,  it  appears  that  there  is  every  year  an  increasing  tendency 
to  create  these  test  questions.  It  will  not  improbably  happen  that 
in  such  a  constituency  as  that  to  which  I  am  now  referring,  which- 
ever party  obtains  these  8,000  votes  would  be  able  to  secure  the 
entire  representation  to  itself,  if  there  were  no  minority  voting ;  and 
it  is  obvious  that  the  greater  the  number  of  members  returned  by  such 
a  constituency,  the  greater  would  be  the  prize  to  be  gained,  and  the 
greater  consequently  would  be  the  temptation  to  each  party  to  bid 
for  the  support  of  the  8,000.  Under  this  temptation  the  candidates 
on  each  side  might  accept  the  test,  and  thus  the  small  minority  of 
8,000  out  of  50,000  would  force  its  will  upon  the  entire  constituency. 
Under  a  minority  system  of  representation  a  minority  would,  if  it 
were  sufficiently  numerous,  secure  a  single  member  out  of  the  five 
to  be  returned,  and  this  would  be  in  every  respect  unobjectionable ; 
whereas  nothing  can  be  more  demoralising  than  to  give  a  minority 
an  opportunity  of  exercising  such  an  influence  on  candidates  and  con- 
stituencies as  that  which  has  just  been  described. 


458  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  March 

As  it  seems  probable  that  some  form  of  minority  representation 
will  be  retained  in  those  constituencies  where  more  than  two  members 
are  to  be  returned,  it  becomes  of  much  practical  importance  to  con- 
sider what  is  the  best  method  of  minority  voting  to  adopt.  As 
already  stated,  a  different  mode  of  minority  voting  prevails  at  the 
present  time  at  Parliamentary  and  School  Board  elections.  In  the 
former,  while  each  voter  can  only  vote  for  a  number  of  candidates 
less  by  one  than  the  entire  number  to  be  returned,  he  has  at  a  School 
Board  election  as  many  votes  as  there  are  candidates  to  be  elected, 
and  he  can  distribute  these  votes  in  any  way  he  pleases.  Thus,  as  is 
well  known,  if  there  are  six  members  to  be  chosen,  an  elector  can 
give  six  votes  to  a  single  candidate ;  or  he  can  give  a  single  vote  to 
each  of  six  candidates ;  or  any  other  method  of  distribution  may  be 
adopted.  As  each  of  these  systems  of  voting  has  now  been  in  opera- 
tion for  some  years,  it  is  possible  to  arrive  at  some  conclusion  with 
regard  to  their  comparative  advantages  and  disadvantages.  The 
most  serious  practical  difficulty  which  has  arisen  with  regard  to  the 
working  of  the  first  system  has  occurred  in  those  instances,  which  are 
extremely  few,  where  the  minority  does  not  constitute  a  sufficiently 
large  portion  of  the  constituency  to  secure  a  member.  In  the 
general  election  of  1868,  although  the  minority  vote  was  in  operation, 
the  Liberal  majority  in  Glasgow  and  Birmingham  was  so  great  that 
three  Liberals  were  returned  in  each  of  these  constituencies.  It  is 
of  course  only  fair  that  a  minority  should  not  return  a  member 
when  the  numbers  who  compose  it  do  not  form  a  sufficiently 
large  proportion  of  the  aggregate  constituency.  It  can,  however, 
be  readily  shown  that  under  the  existing  system  of  minority 
voting  at  parliamentary  elections,  a  majority  that  ought  by  numbers 
to  return  all  the  members  cannot  do  so  without  having  to  make 
costly  and  troublesome  arrangements.  Thus,  if  A,  B,  and  C  are  three 
candidates  whom  a  majority  supports,  it  may  very  possibly  happen 
that  an  unnecessarily  large  number  of  votes  may  be  given  to  A  and 

B,  and  not  a  sufficient  number  to  C.     C  may  therefore  not  be  re- 
turned, although  A  and  B  have  both  so  many  spare  votes  that  if  a 
portion  of  these  had  been  given  to  C,  A,  B,  and  C  might  all  have 
been    returned.     In  order    to    meet     this  difficulty,    an  expensive 
organisation  has  to  be  brought  into  operation.     The  constituency  is 
divided  into  different  districts,  and  each  elector  who  is  supposed  to 
belong  to  the  party  is  instructed  to  distribute  his  votes  in  a  parti- 
cular manner.     Those  who  live  in  one  district  are  told  they  must 
vote  for  A  and  B,  while  others  are  told  they  must  vote    for  B  and 

C,  and  others  for  A  and  C.     It  is  obvious    that    such  an  arrange- 
ment, even  if  it  succeeds  in  securing  the  necessary  equality  in  the 
distribution  of  votes,  cannot  be  carried  out  without  great  expense  and 
trouble.     It  is,  moreover,  very  undesirable  to  have  a  constituency 
under  such  severe  drill  that  they  vote  strictly  according  to  order  and 


1880.  THE  NEXT  REFORM  BILL.  459 

sacrifice  all  individual  preferences.  The  difficulty  to  which  allusion 
has  just  been  made  is  manifestly  obviated  by  the  system  of  cumu- 
lative voting.  If  three  members  are  to  be  chosen  and  a  party  is  in 
such  a  large  majority  as  to  be  able  to  secure  more  than  three-fourths 
of  the  votes  recorded,  the  three  candidates  of  the  party  will  be  re- 
turned if  each  voter  who  wishes  to  support  them  adopts  the  simple 
expedient  of  distributing  his  votes  equally  amongst  them.  There  are, 
however,  practical  difficulties  in  the  working  of  the  present  system  of 
cumulative  voting,  to  which  it  is  desirable  that  some  attention  should 
be  directed.  It  may  very  possibly  happen  that  a  section  of  the  consti- 
tuency may  be  deprived  of  a  considerable  part  of  the  influence  it  is  en- 
titled to  exercise  through  a  certain  risk  which  has  to  be  incurred  in  the 
distribution  of  their  votes.  This  may  be  shown  by  an  example  which 
not  inaccurately  illustrates  the  position  in  which  many  people  found 
themselves  in  the  recent  School  Board  election  in  London.  In  one  of 
the  divisions,  where  six  members  were  to  be  returned,  it  was  believed 
from  the  result  of  the  previous  election  that  the  supporters  of  the 
School  Board  policy  were  in  a  large  majority.  It  was,  therefore, 
naturally  desired  to  return  a  majority  of  members  pledged  to  this 
policy,  and  four  candidates  were  consequently  voted  for.  Those 
electors  who  had  no  particular  preference  for  any  one  of  these  can- 
didates over  the  other,  but  who  simply  wished  to  secure  the  triumph 
of  a  principle,  were  perplexed  to  know  how  to  divide  their  six  votes 
among  the  four  candidates.  With  the  ballot  there  was,  of  course,  no 
means  of  ascertaining,  as  the  poll  went  on,  which  of  the  four  candi- 
dates wanted  the  votes  most ;  all  had  to  be  left  to  blind  chance,  and 
although  the  result  showed  that,  if  the  votes  could  have  been  equally 
distributed,  the  four  might  have  been  easily  returned,  yet  one  re- 
ceived so  many  more  votes  than  were  necessary  that  only  three  were 
returned.  This  difficulty  could  obviously  be  avoided  if  the  votes 
which  each  elector  could  give  were  equally  divided  among  the  candi- 
dates whose  names  were  written  down  on  his  voting-paper.  Thus,  if 
six  members  were  to  be  returned,  and  a  thousand  electors  wished  to 
divide  their  votes  equally  among  four  candidates,  each  of  these  can- 
didates would  obtain  1,500  votes.  Without  expressing  a  positive 
opinion  that  this  particular  arrangement  is  the  best  to  be  adopted,  I 
believe  it  will  be  found  that  the  present  method  of  carrying  out 
minority  voting  in  Parliamentary  and  School  Board  elections  might 
be  easily  improved,  and  that  the  obstacles  which,  as  has  been 
shown,  now  impede  the  efficient  working  of  the  system  might  be  got 
rid  of. 

There  is  one  other  subject  to  which  special  attention  ought  to  be 
directed  whenever  the  question  of  Parliamentary  reform  is  again  taken 
into  consideration.  No  danger  can  more  seriously  threaten  the  effi- 
ciency of  Parliamentary  government  than  the  increasing  costliness  of 
elections.  All  attempts  that  have  been  hitherto  made  to  check  tfcis 


460  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  March 

evil  have  met  with  little  or  no  success,  and  there  is  reason  to  fear  that, 
unless  great  care  is  taken,  the  evil  may  grow  with  each  fresh  exten- 
sion of  the  suffrage.  A  veteran  reformer,  Mr.  Baines,  who  for  years 
devoted  himself  with  unflagging  zeal  to  secure  a  reduction  of  the 
borough  franchise,  speaking  in  the  House  of  Commons  soon  after  the 
last  Keform  Act  was  passed,  said  that  as  the  constituency  of  Leeds, 
the  borough  he  represented,  had  increased  from  7,000  to  35,000,  a 
great  addition  would  be  made  to  the  necessary  expenses  of  an  election ; 
and  he  expressed  his  conviction  that  this  increase  of  election  expenses 
would  be  more  prejudicial  to  the  constituencies  than  to  candidates, 
for  '  a  greater  evil  could  not  be  inflicted  on  the  constituencies  than 
to  reduce  the  number  of  those  who  might  be  fairly  and  justly  called 
upon  to  represent  them.' 5  Various  proposals  have  from  time  to  time 
been  brought  forward  with  the  object  of  reducing  the  cost  of  elections. 
Hardly  any  of  these,  however,  have  been  adopted  by  the  House  of 
Commons,  and  it  is  probable  that  Parliament  will  not  take  the 
question  seriously  in  hand  until  the  public  more  generally  recognise 
the  importance  of  the  subject.  It  has  often  been  suggested  that  the 
necessary  expenses  of  conducting  a  Parliamentary  election  should  be 
borne,  as  is  now  the  case  in  municipal  and  School  Board  elections,  by 
the  constituencies  and  not  by  the  candidates.  Although  the  direct 
saving  which  would  result  to  the  candidates  would  be  considerable, 
yet  other  and  more  important  advantages  might  not  improbably  be 
secured,  if  such  an  arrangement  were  adopted.  What  is  required  in 
order  to  diminish  the  cost  of  elections  is  not  so  much  a  change  in  the 
law  as  a  change  in  public  opinion,  and  such  a  change  in  the  law  as  is 
here  suggested  might  gradually  produce  a  marked  change  in  the 
relations  existing  between  constituencies  and  their  representatives. 
It  is  almost  hopeless  to  expect  that  anything  really  effectual  in  the 
matter  can  be  done  so  long  as  the  idea  generally  prevails  that  a 
candidate  for  a  seat  in  Parliament  is  asking  a  favour  from  a  constitu- 
ency for  which  he  ought  to  be  willing  to  pay.  Such  a  sentiment  is 
undoubtedly  encouraged  by  the  existing  law,  for  if  the  candidates  have 
to  pay  the  expenses  of  a  Parliamentary  election  while  the  constituencies 
pay  the  expenses  of  a  municipal  election,  the  conclusion  is  not  un- 
naturally drawn  that  in  the  former  instance  the  candidates  are  trying 
to  obtain  some  advantage  for  themselves  for  which  they  may  be  called 
upon  to  pay,  whereas  in  the  latter  case  the  constituencies  are  en- 
deavouring to  obtain  some  one  to  discharge  a  public  service,  and  con- 
sequently the  expense  is  borne,  not  by  those  who  do  the  work,  but  by 
those  for  whom  the  work  is  done.  It  has  been  sometimes  objected  that 
if  the  necessary  expenses  of  an  election  were  borne  by  the  constituen- 
cies, fictitious  candidates  who  were  anxious  to  advertise  themselves 
might  come  forward,  and  that  this  would  lead  to  vexatious  and  un- 
necessary contests.  Such  a  contingency,  however,  might  easily  be 
provided  against.  At  the  time  each  candidate  was  nominated,  he 

5  Hansard,  July  18,  1868. 


1880.  THE  NEXT  REFORM  BILL.  461 

might  be  called  on  to  deposit  a  certain  sum — say  1 00£.  or  200£. — on 
the  condition  that  this  deposit  would  be  forfeited  by  a  candidate  who 
failed  to  obtain  a  sufficient  number  of  votes  to  show  that  he  had  a 
reasonable  chance  of  success.  The  real  obstacle,  however,  which  has 
stood  in  the  way  of  the  adoption  of  this  proposal  by  the  House  of 
Commons  is  the  fear  which  members  seem  to  entertain  of  the  un- 
popularity they  might  incur  if  they  transferred  a  charge  from  them- 
selves to  their  constituents.  It  would  of  course  be  possible  to 
represent  the  conduct  of  any  member  who  voted  for  such  a  proposal 
in  this  light,  but,  having  myself  brought  forward  the  question  on 
several  occasions  in  the  House  of  Commons,  I  can  with  confidence 
say  that  members  have  little  or  nothing  to  fear  if  their  motives  should 
be  thus  misrepresented.  The  charge  which  would  be  thrown  upon 
jhe  ratepayers  would,  with  proper  economy,  be  most  insignificant. 
Thus  in  the  borough  of  Cambridge,  although  there  was  a  close  contest 
at  the  last  election,  it  was  shown  from  the  published  returns  that  the 
returning  officer's  expenses,  spread  over  the  average  period  which 
elapses  from  one  election  to  the  other,  would,  if  borne  by  the  consti- 
tuency, require  a  contribution  from  the  occupier  of  a  101.  house  of  less 
than  one  halfpenny  a  year — even  supposing  the  expenses  remained 
as  large  as  they  now  are.  They  would,  however,  in  all  probability  be 
greatly  reduced  if  the  money  were  contributed  by  the  ratepayers,  who 
would  thus  have  a  direct  interest  in  economy.  It  is,  I  believe,  doing 
the  people  of  this  country  great  injustice  to  suppose  that,  in  order 
to  avoid  making  so  infinitesimal  a  contribution,  they  would  oppose  a 
measure  which  can  be  defended  alike  on  grounds  of  fairness  and  ex- 
pediency. Those  who  have  voted  for  the  enfranchisement  of  all 
ratepayers  cannot  think  that  those  thus  enfranchised  are  so  little 
qualified  to  exercise  the  suffrage  as  to  be  incapable  of  appreciating  the 
importance  of  allowing  no  barriers  to  impede  the  return  to  Parliament 
of  those  who  may  not  happen  to  be  able  or  willing  to  spend  a  large 
sum  of  money  in  an  election.  This  is  a  question  in  which  many  of 
the  poorest  electors  have  a  special  interest.  Whatever  may  be  said  about 
the  disadvantages  of  having  members  returned  as  mere  class  repre- 
sentatives, no  satisfactory  reason  has  ever  yet  been  given  why,  when 
almost  every  great  interest  in  the  country  is  represented,  when 
bankers,  shipowners,  manufacturers,  the  army,  the  navy,  railways, 
gas  and  water  companies,  have  all  their  representatives,  the  interests  of 
labour  should  not  be  far  more  largely  represented  than  they  are. 
Working  men  when  they  have  to  listen  to  the  many  homilies  that 
are  addressed  to  them  about  the  evils  of  class  representation  may 
fairly  ask — How  would  the  manufacturers  of  Lancashire  and  York- 
shire like  to  be  entirely  represented  in  Parliament  by  operatives  ? 
How  would  the  owners  of  land  like  to  entrust  their  interests  solely  to 
tenant  farmers  ?  Experience  shows  that  the  working  men  who  may 
be  returned  to  the  House  of  Commons  need  not  in  any  single  respect 
be  more  influenced  by  mere  class  considerations  than  are  other 


462  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  March 

members.  In  one  of  the  most  important  debates  which  have  taken 
place  in  recent  years  in  the  House  of  Commons — I  refer  to  the  occasion 
•when  the  Afghan  policy  of  the  Government  was  considered — I  believe 
it  will  be  generally  admitted  that  few  more  effective  speeches  were 
made,  and  certainly  none  that  were  conceived  in  a  broader  spirit,  than 
the  speech  that  was  delivered  by  Mr.  Burt. 

Besides  the  change  in  the  law  with  regard  to  the  necessary  ex- 
penses of  elections  which  has  been  just  considered,  it  is  possible  to 
suggest  many  other  ways  in  which  the  present  cost  of  elections  might 
be  reduced.  When  the  ballot  was  first  introduced,  many  confidently 
hoped  that  there  would  be  so  little  use  in  canvassing  that  paid  can- 
vassers and  paid  agents  would  in  future  scarcely  ever  be  employed. 
The  expectations  thus  formed  have  unfortunately  been  so  entirely 
disappointed,  that  it  is  believed  that  in  many  constituencies  at  the 
last  election  a  larger  amount  was  spent  than  had  ever  been  expended 
before  on  paid  canvassers  and  paid  agents.  It  not  unfrequently 
happens  that  the  payments  which  are  thus  made  simply  represent 
a  legalised  form  of  bribery,  for.  although  any  elector  who  is  paid  as 
a  canvasser  or  an  agent  is  unable  to  vote,  yet  the  money  which  he 
receives  often  prevents  him  voting  on  the  other  side,  and  secures  many 
votes  from  his  family  and  connections.  So  far  as  I  am  aware,  no- 
valid  reason  has  ever  been  given  why  the  number  of  paid  agents 
which  a  candidate  should  be  allowed  to  employ  should  not  be  re- 
stricted within  very  narrow  limits,  and  why  the  use  of  paid  canvassers 
should  not  be  prohibited  altogether.  If  a  man  has  any  claim  to  re- 
present a  constituency,  he  ought  to  have  no  difficulty  in  making  his 
qualifications  known,  either  by  his  own  speeches  or  through  the 
efforts  of  his  friends,  and  there  is  something  derogatory  both  to  the 
candidate  and  to  the  constituency  in  the  fact  that  it  should  be 
thought  necessary  to  employ  canvassers  at  two  or  three  guineas  a  day 
who,  often  having  no  interest  in  the  election  except  as  to  the  amount 
of  money  which  they  receive,  are  perfectly  reckless  in  the  assertions 
they  make  and  the  pledges  they  give  on  behalf  of  the  candidate  by 
whom  they  are  employed. 

Keference  has  already  been  made  to  another  circumstance  which 
exercises  a  very  powerful  influence  in  increasing  the  cost  of  county 
elections.  In  boroughs  it  is  not  legal  to  pay  the  travelling  expenses 
of  any  absent  voter.  As  many  of  the  electors  in  a  county  con- 
stituency are  non-resident,  the  law  with  regard  to  counties  is  different. 
The  travelling  expenses  of  any  elector  may  be  paid  at  a  county  election y 
and  the  published  returns  show  that  the  charges  thus  thrown  upon  the 
candidate  for  a  county  seat  often  amount  to  as  much  as  2,0001.  or 
3,OOOL  One  advantage  of  imposing  some  limitation  upon  the  ease 
with  which  those  who  are  non-resident  can  now  obtain  votes  for 
counties,  would  be  that  it  would  destroy  one  of  the  chief  arguments 
which  are  adduced  in  favour  of  maintaining  the  legality  of  the  pay- 
ment of  the  travelling  expenses  of  county  voters,  and  in  this  way  a 


1880.  THE  NEXT  REFORM  BILL.  463 

very  important  diminution  in  the  cost  of  county  elections  would  be 
effected. 

In  endeavouring  to  direct  attention  to  some  of  the  questions 
which  will  have  to  be  considered  whenever  a  measure  is  brought 
forward  for  the  extension  of  household  suffrage  to  the  counties  and 
the  redistribution  of  seats,  I  have  carefully  avoided  discussing  the 
subject  with  any  party  bias.  It  is  not  possible,  I  believe,  to  foresee 
the  effect  which  many  of  the  changes  which  have  been  suggested 
would  have  upon  the  balance  of  political  parties.  Whenever  any 
such  attempt  has  been  made  thus  to  anticipate  the  future  it  has 
generally  signally  failed.  Some  of  those  who  were  regarded  as  the 
shrewdest  political  observers  confidently  supposed,  when  the  last 
Reform  Act  was  passed,  that  the  newly  enfranchised  borough  house- 
holders would,  prompted  by  a  feeling  of  gratitude,  give  a  large 
majority  to  the  Conservative  Government.  The  general  election  of 
1868,  however,  resulted  in  the  greatest  triumph  for  the  Liberal  party 
that  had  been  won  for  nearly  forty  years.  During  the  Reform  debates 
in  1867  the  opinion  was  very  generally  expressed  that  the  minority 
vote  would  prove  of  great  advantage  to  the  Conservative  party.  At 
the  general  election  of  1874,  however,  there  is  every  reason  to  con- 
clude that  through  the  operation  of  the  minority  clause  the  Liberals 
only  lost  a  seat  in  one  constituency,  Glasgow ;  while  they  gained  a 
seat  in  each  of  the  four  boroughs  of  Liverpool,  Leeds,  Manchester, 
and  the  City  of  London,  as  well  as  a  seat  in  each  of  the  following 
seven  counties  :  Berkshire,  Bucks,  Cambridgeshire,  Dorsetshire,  Hert- 
fordshire, Herefordshire,  and  Oxfordshire.  Again,  it  was  always 
contended  that  the  ballot  would  be  a  great  advantage  to  the  Liberals, 
and  that  one  of  its  most  certain  effects  would  be  to  free  the  counties 
from  the  influence  of  the  landowners.  In  the  first  election  that  was 
fought  under  the  ballot  the  Liberals  sustained  a  signal  defeat,  and  in  no 
previous  election  did  the  power  of  the  landed  interest  more  decisively 
assert  itself  in  the  county  constituencies.  But  even  if  it  were  possible 
to  foresee  what  would  be  the  immediate  party  result  of  any  proposed 
change  in  our  representative  system,  other  considerations  incalculably 
more  important  have  to  be  taken  into  account  in  determining  what 
principles  ought  to  regulate  a  measure  of  Parliamentary  reform. 
Electoral  arrangements  which  one  year  may  prove  advantageous  to 
Conservatives  may  next  year  prove  equally  advantageous  to  Liberals. 
There  is,  however,  no  fluctuation  and  no  uncertainty  in  the  benefit 
which  will  be  conferred  on  the  nation  in  having  its  system  of  repre- 
sentation placed  upon  a  just  basis.  All  who  care  more  for  the  perma- 
nent efficiency  of  Parliamentary  institutions  than  for  a  temporary 
party  triumph  should  unite  in  trying  to  give  to  every  section  of 
opinion  in  the  community  the  opportunity  of  being  represented  by 
those  who  are  most  able  and  independent. 

HENRY  FAWCETT. 


464  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  March 


BURNS  AND  B&RANGER. 


THE  second  half  of  the  eighteenth  century,  which  produced  several 
poets  of  the  highest  genius,  whose  works  promise  to  be  the  imperish- 
able heritage  of  future  generations,  also  gave  birth  to  two  poets  of  a 
secondary  rank,  who  exercised  over  the  minds  of  their  contemporaries 
a  far  greater  influence  and  achieved  a  wider  popularity  than  their 
gigantic  compeers.  Not  that  popularity  is  either  the  test  or  the  re- 
ward of  genius.  Punch  and  Judy  is  a  more  popular  play  than  Hamlet 
or  Othello,  and  the  waxen  figures  at  Madame  Tussaud's  excite  more 
admiration  from  the  multitude  than  the  masterpieces  of  Phidias  or 
Canova.  But  these  two  poets  were  popular  on  their  merits,  and  not 
only  adorned  the  literature  of  the  age  in  which  they  lived,  but  left 
their  works  as  monuments  for  a  future  time.  The  first  was  Robert 
Burns,  the  idol  of  the  Scotch,  and  representative  of  all  that  is  most 
manly  in  the  Scottish  character.  The  second  was  Jean-Pierre  de  Be- 
ranger,  the  idol  and  representative  of  the  French.  Wordsworth  says 
of  the  Sonnet  that  '  with  that  key  Shakespeare  unlocked  his  heart.' 
With  a  less  elaborate  but  more  perfect  instrument,  the  Song,  Burns 
unlocked  the  hearts  of  his  countrymen  of  every  rank  and  condition  ; 
and  Beranger  charmed  the  fancy  and  guided  the  judgment  of  a  less 
earnest  but  highly  accomplished  and  generous  people. 

These  remarkable  men  owed  nothing  to  parentage  or  fortune ;  and 
if  they  owed  something  to  culture  it  was  not  to  scholastic  training, 
but  to  the  education  which  they  painfully  acquired  for  themselves  in 
the  school  of  poverty  and  suffering,  and  to  the  innate  force  of 
character  which  enabled  them  not  only  to  triumph  over  obstacles  that 
to  inferior  men  would  have  been  insurmountable,  but  to  turn  them  to 
account  in  the  formation  of  their  minds  and  the  development  of  their 
genius.  The  one  was  the  son  of  a  sturdy,  independent  gardener  and 
farm-labourer,  the  other  of  a  thriftless  idler  inhabiting  the  slums 
of  Paris,  too  poor  to  support  a  household,  and  dependent  on  his 
father  for  the  board  and  shelter  he  ought  to  have  provided  for  himself. 
Born  under  such  adverse  circumstances,  they  had  both  of  them  to  toil 
from  boyhood  to  manhood  for  the  scanty  bread  that  did  not  always 
come  when  earned,  fighting  a  desperate  battle  for  bare  subsistence 
against  a  world  in  which  their  presence  did  not  appear  to  be  needed, 


1880.  BURNS  AND  BERANGER.  465 

and  which,  if  it  did  not  deny  them  food,  gave  them  very  little  of  it. 
The  one  lived  into  his  thirty-eighth  year,  amid  continuous,  sometimes 
all  but  crushing,  adversity,  and  died  lamented  by  conscience-stricken 
Scotland,  which  had  done  nothing  for  its  greatest  man,  even  when  it 
knew  him  to  be  great,  but  which  could  not  find  regrets  enough  to  strew 
upon  his  grave  when  regrets  were  unavailing.  The  other  lived  to 
double  the  age  of  his  predecessor,  and,  by  his  death  and  the  extra- 
ordinary manifestations  of  national  feeling  that  it  excited,  alarmed 
the  most  magnificent  monarch  that  ever  governed  France,  and  com- 
pelled him  to  prop  the  insecure  foundations  of  his  throne  by  giving 
the  poet's  body  an  escort  to  the  grave  of  a  hundred  thousand  armed 
men,  not  so  much  to  honour  his  memory  as  to  keep  the  peace  and 
prevent  the  proclamation  of  a  Republic  in  the  streets.  Never  since 
the  beginning  of  the  world  did  a  poor  poet  create  such  a  terror  by  his 
death ;  and  never  was  poet,  rich  or  poor,  honoured  by  such  tremendous 
obsequies ! 

Such  writers  as  Burns  and  Beranger,  destined  to  exercise  their 
greatest  and,  in  the  case  of  Beranger,  their  sole  influence  through 
the  agency  of  the  Song,  could  not  have  appeared  in  any  country 
where  an  ancient  popular  music  was  not  in  existence  to  serve  as  the 
ocean  on  which  their  little  argosies  were  to  float.  Scotland,  Ireland, 
and  France  possessed  such  music,  graceful,  tender,  passionate,  and 
inspiriting  ;  but  England  and  the  Teutonic  and  semi-Teutonic  nations, 
then  as  now,  were  more  or  less  cosmopolitan  in  their  musical  tastes, 
and  had  few  or  no  indigenous  melodies  that  struck  any  deep  chord 
in  the  popular  heart,  or  appealed  to  anything  higher  than  the  con- 
ventional sentiment  or  transitory  fancy  of  the  half- educated.  But  in 
Scotland,  Ireland,  and  France,  and  wherever  the  warm  Celtic  blood 
predominated  in  the  veins  of  the  people,  the  national  music  was  part 
of  the  national  mind ;  and  thus  the  work  of  the  poet  who  made  this 
music  the  messenger  of  his  thought  was  certain  of  a  favourable  if  not 
of  an  enthusiastic  reception.  And  this  was  the  great  secret  of  the 
success  of  Burns  and  Beranger,  and  procured  for  them  a  ready  access 
to  the  heart  of  that  large  generous  public  which  underlies  the  small 
minority  of  the  educated  and  literary  classes. 

Burns,  toiling  in  low  estate,  with  his  hand  to  the  plough  or  the 
reaping-hook,  had  an  observant  mind,  a  clear  intellect,  and  a  passion- 
ate heart ;  and  the  passionate  heart  burst  into  song  at  the  early  age 
of  sixteen,  when  the  budding  charms  of  a  lovely  companion  in  the 
labours  of  the  harvest,  a  year  younger  than  himself,  awakened  him  to 
the  knowledge  that  he  too  was  a  poet,  and  could  celebrate,  as  well  as 
any  of  the  bygone  bards  of  his  country,  the  glories  of  a  bright  respon- 
sive eye,  a  winsome  smile,  and  the  glamour  that  the  beauty  of  one 
sex  throws  over  the  susceptible  youth  of  the  other.  From  that  time 
forward  for  more  than  twenty  years,  and  to  the  closing  months  of  his 
life,  his  imagination  was  continually  inflamed  by  the  seductive  love- 


466  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  March 

liness  of  some  rural  goddess  or  queen  of  beauty — a  goddess  to  him, 
though  she  were  but  a  servant-girl  or  a  herd  lassie,  and  scarcely  even 
beautiful  to  the  common  eye,  whose  perceptions  were  not  glorified,  as 
his  were,  by  the  light  of  imagination.  And  in  many  of  these  instances 
it  was  not  only  his  imagination,  but  his  heart,  that  was  fired,  leading 
too  often  to  results  that  cast  a  shadow  over  what  might  have  been  the 
happiest  periods  of  his  existence,  besides  doing  irreparable  injury  to  the 
fair  objects  of  his  adoration.  Had  he  but  laid  to  heart  the  warning  of 
Lucrece  in  Shakespeare's  beautiful  poem,  not  to  buy  the  mirth  of  a 
minute  at  the  price  of  a  week's  wailing,  or  '  to  sell  eternity  for  a  toy,' 
he  might  have  spared  many  fair  young  women  a  sharp  sorrow,  and 
himself  even  more  than  them,  for  he  knew  when  he  went  wrong,  and 
always  bitterly  repented.  The  love  songs  which  he  continued  to  pour 
out  in  marvellous  profusion,  inspired  sometimes  by  perfervid  admira- 
tion for  the  sex,  and  as  often  by  the  irrepressible  force  of  his  genius, 
were  modelled  for  the  most  part  on  the  older  Scottish  songs  in  Allan 
Ramsay's  Tea-table  Miscellany  and  other  collections.  But  the 
modelling  was  never  slavish,  and  if  he  imitated  or  paraphrased  the 
often  objectionable  lyrics  of  the  past,  he  invariably  chastened  and 
refined  them,  transmuting  their  ancient  and  tarnished  brass  into 
modern  gold  of  the  purest  mintage. 

It  is  to  be  noticed  that  his  songs,  even  at  this  early  period, 
betrayed  nothing  of  the  peasant,  and  little  of  the  scholar,  and  that 
they  immeasurably  surpassed  in  simple  grace,  unaffected  tenderness, 
and  natural  passion,  all  the  pre-existing  love  lyrics  in  English  or 
Scottish  literature,  even  those  of  Shakespeare  and  Ben  Jonson.  But 
his  imagination  soared  to  more  ambitious  heights  than  the  com- 
position of  songs,  and  his  fame  soon  spread  over  Ayrshire  and  all  the 
west  of  Scotland  as  the  writer  of  many  poems,  written  in  the  soft, 
euphonious,  and  copious  dialect  of  the  Scottish  people,  a  dialect 
spoken  at  that  time  not  only  by  the  peasantry,  but  by  the  upper 
classes,  and  that  was  more  frequently  heard  in  the  pulpit  and  the 
forum  than  the  correcter  English  of  the  south.  His  humorous 
and  satirical  pieces,  such  as  Death  and  Dr.  Hornbook,  the  Holy 
Fair,  the  Address  to  the  Deil,  the  Unco  Quid  and  the  Rigidly 
Righteous,  the  Twa  Dogs,  Holy  Willies  Prayer,  and'  others  in  the 
same  style,  found  especial  favour,  and  were  passed  from  hand  to 
hand  in  manuscript,  and  recited  amid  hearty  applause  and  appre- 
ciation in  every  e  howff,'  or  public  house,  and  tavern  in  the  district. 
These  '  howffs '  were  frequented  by  a  peasantry  very  superior  to 
men  of  a  similar  class  in  Anglo-Saxon  England,  because  they  had 
had  the  inestimable  advantage  of  the  excellent  parochial  school  sys- 
tem established  in  Scotland  in  1 646,  and  were  able  not  only  to  read 
and  write,  but  to  think,  and  to  discuss  the  knotty  points  of  their 
Calvinistic  theology,  as  well  as  the  public  events  of  the  time. 

Although  the  Rev.  Sydney  Smith,  who  ought  to  have  known  better 


1880.  BURNS  AND   BERANGER.  467 

after  having  lived  for  so  many  years  in  the  witty  society  of  Edinburgh, 
asserted  that  it  required  a  surgical  operation  to  drive  a  joke  into  a 
Scotsman's  head,  there  is  no  people  in  the  world  that  have  a  keener 
sense  of  wit  and  humour  than  the  Scotch.    Although  they  are  intensely 
intolerant  of  what  the  English  call  'chaff,'  and  very  often  resent  it, 
they  are  in  no  sense  impervious  to  real  wit,  to  which  vulgar  chaff  or 
silly  banter  has  no  pretensions.     The  rural  contemporaries  and  com- 
rades of  Burns  very  highly  appreciated  and  enjoyed  the  merciless 
shafts  of  satire  which  he  levelled  at  sanctimonious  hypocrisy  in  the 
poems  above  cited,  especially  in  the  magnificent  satire  of  Holy  Willie. 
Nor  were  his  tenderer  compositions  less  admired,  such  as  the  Cotter's 
Saturday  Night,  that  faithful  picture  of  the  true  piety  of  humble 
Scottish  rural  life,  or  the  Death  and  Dying  Words  of  Poor  Mailie, 
the  unsurpassable  ode  to  a  Mouse  on  turning  her  up  in  her  nest  with 
the  plough,  or  that  equally  pathetic  to  A  Mountain  Daisy.     So 
highly  were  these  esteemed,  while  as  yet  only  known  in  manuscript 
or  by  the  chance  quotations  of  fine  passages  that  had  fixed  themselves 
in  the  memory  of  his  associates  and  friends,  that  Burns,  beset  by  the 
law  which  he  had  outraged  in  the  case  of  poor  Jean  Armour,  whom 
he  had  loved  not  wisely  but  too  well,  threatened  with  dire  penalties 
by  her  angry  father,  and  sinking  up  to  the  chin  in  the  deep  morass  of 
hopeless  poverty  and  litigation,  bethought  himself  to  escape  from  all 
his  troubles  by  accepting  the  situation  of  an  overseer  or  bookkeeper 
in  a  sugar  plantation  in  the  West  Indies,  and  bidding  farewell  to  his 
native  land  for  ever.     Not  being  able  to  pay  or  borrow  the  small  sum 
of  nine  guineas,  the  amount  of  his  passage  to  Jamaica,  it  was  sug- 
gested by  his  friend,  Gavin  Hamilton,  a  '  writer '  or  solicitor  in  Ayr, 
that  he  should  publish  a  small  collection  of  his  best  poems  and  songs. 
A  printer  at  Kilmarnock  having  been  found  to  undertake  the  venture, 
the  little  book  was  given  to  the  world,  and  found  immediate  accept- 
ance.    The  result,  besides  the  fame  he  acquired  from  a  wider  circle 
than  had  hitherto  been  acquainted  with  his  genius,  was  a  net  profit 
of  nearly  twenty  pounds.     So  many  friends  gathered  round  him,  and 
urged  him  to  the  publication  of  a  new  edition,  not  this  time  in  the 
small  town  of  Kilmarnock,  but  in  the  Scottish  capital,  that  the  idea 
of  expatriation,  though  not  wholly  abandoned,  was  for  a  time  suffered 
to  remain  in  abeyance,  and  he  proceeded  to  Edinburgh  on  foot,  armed 
with  letters  of  introduction  to  the  leading  literati.     To  one  of  these, 
Dr.  Modre,  author  of  Zeluco  and  editor  of  the  Lounger,  the  last  of 
the  periodicals  modelled  on  the  style  and  plan  of  Addison  and  Steele  in 
the  Taller  and  Spectator  of  a  bygone  day,  he  was  already  known  by 
his  Kilmarnock  volume,  and  had  received  high  critical  commendation 
from  his  pen  in  that  periodical.     Under  the  date  of  December  1786, 
Dr.  Moore  prepared  the  way  for  the  poet's  arrival  in  Edinburgh  by 
pronouncing  him  a  poet  of  no  ordinary  rank,  and  winding  up  a  genial, 
though  strictly  impartial  resume  of  his  work  by  saying : — 


468  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY.  March 

Burns  possesses  the  spirit  as  well  as  the  fancy  of  a  poet.  That  honest  pride 
and  independence  of  soul  which  are  sometimes  the  muse's  only  dower,  break  forth 
on  every  occasion  in  his  works.  It  may  be,  then,  I  shall  wrong  his  feelings,  while 
I  indulge  my  own,  in  calling  the  attention  of  the  public  to  his  situation  and  cir- 
cumstances. That  condition,  humble  as  it  was,  in  which  he  found  content,  and 
wooed  the  muse,  might  not  have  been  deemed  uncomfortable ;  but  grief  and  mis- 
fortune have  reached  him  there  ;  and  one  or  two  of  his  poems  hint,  what  I  have 
learnt  from  some  of  his  countrymen,  that  he  has  been  obliged  to  form  the  resolution 
of  leaving  his  native  land  to  seek  under  a  West  Indian  clime  that  shelter  and 
support  which  Scotland  has  denied  him.  But  I  trust  means  may  be  found  to 
prevent  this  resolution  from  taking  effect,  and  that  I  do  my  country  no  more  than 
justice  when  I  suppose  her  ready  to  stretch  out  her  hand  to  cherish  and  retain 
this  native  poet,  whose  '  wood-notes  wild  '  possess  so  much  excellence.  To  repair 
the  wrongs  of  suffering  or  neglected  merit — to  call  forth  genius  from  the  obscurity 
in  which  it  has  pined  indignant,  and  place  it  where  it  may  profit  or  delight  the 
world — these  are  exertions  which  give  to  wealth  an  enviable  superiority,  to  great- 
ness and  patronage  a  laudable  pride. 

Burns  on  his  arrival  was  cordially  received,  not  only  by  Dr.  Moore, 
but  by  Professor  Dugald  Stewart,  the  Eev.  Dr.  Blair,  Dr.  Adam  Fer- 
guson, Henry  Mackenzie,  Henry  Erskine,  Lord  Monboddo,  and  other 
leading  spirits,  and  introduced  to  the  highest  society  of  the  capital. 
Edinburgh  was  not  at  that  time  a  provincial  city  wholly  or  even 
greatly  eclipsed  by  London,  but  the  veritable  metropolis  of  the 
Scottish  nation,  in  which  the  leading  members  of  the  aristocracy  did 
not  disdain  to  dwell,  and  where  the  wealth,  learning,  intellect,  and 
beauty  of  Scotland  were  proud  to  congregate.  By  that  brilliant 
society  Burns  was  received  with  open  arms.  It  was  not  so  much  for 
the  wit,  the  humour,  and  the  beauty  of  his  poetry — though  these 
were  fully  acknowledged — but  for  the  extent  of  his  information,  the 
sparkle  of  his  conversation,  and  more  than  all  for  the  unusual  and, 
to  the  Edinburgh  people,  the  extraordinary  fact  that  all  these  rare 
gifts  were  concentrated  in  the  person  of  a  ploughman.  The  big  folk 
gathered  around  him  with  the  same  sort  of  idle  curiosity  that  the 
Brobdingnagians,  in  Swift's  immortal  story,  gathered  around  Gulliver. 
It  was  not  the  case  of  the  fly  in  amber,  for  the  thing  which  they 
flocked  to  see  was  indubitably  '  rich  and  rare  ; '  but  the  wonder  was 
that  such  wealth  of  genius  and  such  rare  charm  of  manner  should 
have  been  bestowed  upon  a  peasant  with  no  other  heritage  than  his 
strong  right  arm,  his  clear  intellect,  and  his  proud  heart.  In  that 
fastidious  society  he  held  his  own  as  equal  to  equal,  with  possibly  a 
slight,  though  unavowed,  consciousness  in  his  mind  that,  humble  as  he 
was,  he  was  superior  in  natural  gifts  to  most  of  its  members.  Easy  but 
never  forward,  unabashed  but  never  presumptuous,  equal  to  the  dis- 
cussion of  every  subject  that  was  mooted,  he  made  a  favourable  im- 
pression upon  every  man  with  whom  he  came  into  contact,  and  cast 
upon  the  women  a  perfect  glamour  of  fascination.  Tender  and 
deferential  in  his  manner  towards  them,  with  a  witchery  of  eloquence 
that  is  more  potent  with  the  majority  of  their  sex  than  grace  and 


1880.  BURNS  AND  BERANGER.  469 

beauty  of  person — though  Burns  was  not  deficient  in  these — he 
shone  like  the  moon  amid  the  stars,  the  brightest,  though  perhaps  not 
the  greatest,  of  them  all.  The  lovely  Duchess  of  Gordon,  among  the 
rest,  declared  that  she  had  never  met  a  man  who  had  so  l  completely 
lifted  her  off  her  feet  as  Kobert  Burns.'  The  wonder  and  admiration 
of  the  Edinburgh  folks  were  on  a  par,  though  occasionally  the 
wonder  predominated.  They  saw,  when  closely  looked  at,  that  he 

was  not 

A  creature  of  another  kind, 
Some  coarser  substance  undefined, 
Placed  for  their  lowly  uses,  far  and  vile  below, 

but,  on  the  contrary,  one  who,  in  every  respect  but  wealth  and  title, 
stood  as  high  as  themselves.  But  amid  all  this  dazzling  homage  his 
keen  eye,  after  a  short  time,  was  quick  to  discover  that  there  was  a 
great  deal  of  condescension  in  it — that  his  newly  found  friends  and  ad- 
mirers gave  themselves,  perhaps  unwittingly,  the  airs  of  patronage,  as  if 
they  would  have  said,  '  Poor  fellow  !  we  must  do  something  for  you  ; 
it  is  not  right  that  you  should  continue  to  be  a  ploughman,  though 
what  else  you  are  to  be  Grod  only  knows.'  But  they  subscribed  for 
his  poems.  The  Caledonian  Hunt,  under  the  influence  of  the  Earl  of 
Glencairn,  took  a  hundred  copies  at  a  guinea  each  ;  and  all  the 
wealth,  beauty,  and  intellect  of  the  west  and  south  of  Scotland, 
merchants,  manufacturers,  lawyers,  doctors,  lairds,  professors,  clergy- 
men, teachers,  officers  in  the  army  and  navy  and  excise,  and  everybody 
who  aspired  to  be  anybody,  followed  the  example  of  the  aristocracy. 
Upwards  of  fifteen  hundred  persons  put  down  their  names  on  the  list, 
many  of  them  for  two,  three,  four,  six,  and  twelve  copies,  and  some 
for  still  greater  numbers.  The  result  was,  after  a  protracted  attempt 
at  a  final  settlement  with  his  somewhat  close-fisted  publisher,  William 
Creech,  that  Burns  received  a  clear  sum  of  5001.  Though  this  was  a 
little  fortune  to  a  man  whose  greatest  previous  haul  into  the  sea  of 
chance  and  literature  had  only  been  rewarded  with  201.,  Burns  was 
not  sanguine  enough  to  expect  another  such  harvest  from  the  seed- 
corn  of  his  poems.  He  had  long  had  a  hankering  for  employment 
under  the  Board  of  Inland  Revenue  ;  and  while  resolving  to  use  his 
money  in  taking  and  stocking  a  farm,  he  kept  this  secondary  object 
in  view,  and  made  friends  among  those  gentlemen  whose  influence 
he  thought  might,  at  the  proper  moment,  be  useful  in  procuring  him 
an  appointment. 

He  did  not  remain  long  enough  in  Edinburgh  to  exhaust  his 
welcome,  and  took  advantage  of  the  first  symptoms  of  the  lukewarmness 
which  some  of  his  over-fervent  friends  began  to  display,  to  show  them 
that  he  could  manage  to  live  without  the  factitious  sunshine  of  their 
favour,  and  that  '  a  man,'  as  he  afterwards  sang,  '  was  a  man  for  a' 
that.'  Refreshing  his  mind  and  body  with  a  tour  in  the  Highlands, 
which  he  had  never  before  visited,  and  finally  renouncing  all  idea  of 
VOL.  VII.— No.  37.  1 1 


470  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  March 

emigrating  to  Jamaica,  lie  took  the  lease  of  the  farm  of  Ellisland, 
near  Dumfries,  and  settled  himself  down  to  the  sober  business  of  a 
farmer.  He  was  an  excellent  ploughman,  but  not  much  of  an  agri- 
culturist. Nevertheless  he  toiled  on  hopefully  enough  for  three  or  four 
years,  with  his  hand  on  the  plough,  and  his  heart  in  his  poems,  and  found 
year  by  year  that  he  was  either  unfortunate  in  the  choice  of  a  farm,  or 
that  he  had  mistaken  his  vocation.  Under  these  unfavourable  cir- 
cumstances he  thought  he  could  combine  the  labours  of  the  farm  with 
the  duties  of  an  officer  of  Excise  ;  and,  having  by  dint  of  influence, 
especially  that  of  the  Earl  of  Glencairn,  obtained  an  appointment, 
he  wrought  zealously  in  the  double  capacity.  Ultimately  the  farm 
had  to  be  given  up,  and  he  became  an  exciseman  only.  But  whether 
farmer  or  exciseman,  or  both  in  one,  his  best  energies  and  dearest 
thoughts  were  given  to  poetry  ;  and  during  the  period  between  his 
return  from  Edinburgh  and  his  premature  death,  nearly  all  the  songs 
for  which  he  is  most  celebrated  were  produced,  and  presented  without 
fee  or  reward,  and  for  the  pure  love  of  music  and  song,  to  Johnson's 
Musical  Museum  and  George  Thomson's  collection  of  the  Popular 
Melodies  of  Scotland.  This  period  produced  but  one  poem,  his 
grandest  and  best,  the  immortal  Ta/m  o'  Shanter,  a  masterpiece  of 
literature,  and  worthy  to  rank  with  anything  in  Shakespeare  or 
Goethe.  It  issued  complete  from  his  brain  in  one  day  in  one 
magnificent  burst  of  inspiration.  He  was  observed  by  his  wife,  the 
Jean  Armour  of  his  sorrow  and  his  joy,  to  walk  hastily  along  the 
bank  of  the  Nith,  and  to  mutter  as  he  went.  She  knew  by  these 
signs  that  he  was  engaged  in  composition,  and  watched  him  from  the 
window.  She  afterwards  went  out  to  meet  him,  but  he  saw  her  not, 
and  still  walked  rapidly  along  (  crooning '  to  himself.  She  stepped 
aside  among  the  broom  and  bracken  to  let  him  pass,  which  he  did 
with  a  flushed  brow  and  downcast  eye,  heedless  of  the  outer  world, 
and  wholly  absorbed,  body  and  soul,  in  the  transports  of  composition. 
No  correction  was  afterwards  necessary ;  the  poem  emerged  from  his 
mind  complete,  without  a  flaw,  inimitable  and  unsurpassable. 

His  life  became  harder  and  more  uncongenial  than  ever  as  soon 
as  he  left  his  farm  and  devoted  himself  to  the  Excise ;  but  it  was 
cheered  even  in  these  dark  days  by  the  work  which  he  was  never 
tired  of  doing  for  George  Thomson.  It  was  also  cheered  by  the 
hope,  which  proved  unfounded,  that  he  might  receive  promotion  under 
the  Board  of  Inland  Eevenue,  and  attain  the  great  object  of  his  am- 
bition— the  well-paid  post  of  supervisor.  He  had  forgotten — but  his 
political  enemies  remembered  but  too  well — the  hard  things  he  had 
said  and  sung  not  only  of  the  immediately  ruling  powers  that  were  set 
above  him,  but  of  the  Tory  Government  under  which  he  lived,  and 
which  was  the  sole  bestower  of  place  and  office.  He  had  also  soared 
higher  in  his  invective,  and  attacked  the  House  of  Hanover  itself. 
Though  he  was  sentimentally  a  Jacobite,  and  reverenced  the  name 


1880.  BURNS  AND   BERANGER.  471 

and  the  cause  of  the  Stuarts,  and  had  nothing  better  to  say  of  the 
reigning  house  than  that  its  members  were  •  an  idiot  race,'  and  that 
those  who  '  knew  them  best  despised  them  most,'  he  was  practically 
a  radical  reformer  and  an  ultra-democrat,  if  not  a  republican.  Like 
other  wits  whose  wit  is  irrepressible,  and  must  have  vent  though  the 
heavens  should  crack,  his  epigrams  and  epitaphs  had  wounded  the 
susceptibilities  of  some  of  his  powerful  neighbours  ;  and  his  bitter 
attacks  on  such  men  as  the  Duke  of  Queensberry  and  the  Earl  of 
Galloway,  whom  he  might  have  well  afforded  to  let  alone,  were  all 
remembered  against  him  by  his  official  superiors  whenever  an  occult 
interest  was  exerted  in  his  behalf  to  expedite  his  promotion.  Per- 
haps he  would  have  learned  discretion  had  he  lived  longer,  and 
perhaps  his  peccadillos,  if  not  renewed,  would  have  been  gradually 
forgotten,  for  even  his  political  foes  acknowledged  and  admired  his 
genius.  But  disappointments  sat  so  heavy  on  his  heart,  that  he 
endeavoured  to  lighten  their  load  by  bacchanalian  excesses  in  the 
company  of  people  who  were  not  worthy  to  black  his  boots,  and 
he  gradually  undermined  a  constitution  that  was  naturally  robust. 
Issuing  from  a  drinking  bout  in  a  tavern  in  Dumfries  on  a  winter's 
night,  when  the  ground  was  covered  with  snow,  he  was  overtaken  by 
drowsiness,  and  sat  down  on  a  doorstep  and  fell  asleep.  This  expo- 
sure brought  on  his  last  illness.  As  he  lay  on  his  death-bed,  his  final 
hours  were  embittered  by  mental  anxiety,  and  by  the  dread  that  a 
hard-hearted  tailor,  to  whom  he  owed  a  small  sum,  would  either  seize 
his  last  blanket  from  under  him,  or  consign  him  to  the  degradation 
and  horrors  of  a  gaol.  From  this  last  indignity,  which  did  not 
actually  impend,  but  which  assumed  to  his  disturbed  fancy  the  only- 
too  palpable  shape  of  a  terrible  reality,  he  was  saved  by  remittances- 
from  a  cousin  at  Montrose  and  from  George  Thomson,  to  whom  he- 
appealed,  with  a  sense  of  shame,  for  a  small  sum  that  Thomson 
would  have  paid  him  twenty  times  over  had  he  been  permitted  to- 
do  so.  The  little  town  of  Dumfries,  the  scene  of  his  closing  years, 
and  of  his  death,  and  which  he  has  rendered  classic  ground  for  ever- 
more, did  its  best  to  honour  his  memory.  The  people  of  Dumfries 
knew  that  he  was  great  and  noble  while  he  lived  among  them,  but 
they  did  not  know,  until  they  stood  sorrow-stricken  around  his  grave, . 
how  infinitely  more  great  and  noble  he  was  than  they  had  imagined 
him  to  be.  Thus  lived  and  thus  died  Eobert  Burns,  by  far  the 
greatest  genius  that  Scotland,  up  to  his  day,  had  produced,  and 
whose  literary  fame  overshadows  that  of  every  other  Scotsman  before-: 
or  since,  that  of  Sir  Walter  Scott  alone  excepted. 

Of  a  different  character  and  complexion  were  the  life  and  songs  of 
Beranger,  the  great  lyrist  of  the  French.  The  career  of  Burns  was  all 
storm  and  gloom ;  that  of  Beranger  was  one  of  Epicurean  ease, 
such  solid,  almost  stolid,  indifference  to  the  world,  that  not  even 
the  abjectest  poverty  had  power  to  ruffle  the  heavy  serenity  of 

II  2 


472  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  March 

his  nature.     Beranger  came  into  the  world  nineteen  years  after  Burns, 
on  the  19th  of  August,  1780,  and  was  sixteen  years  of  age  when  his 
great  predecessor  passed  into  the  glorious  company  of  the  immortals. 
His  father,  who  was  unable  to  support  him,  and  who  seems  to  have 
been  what  the  French  call  a  vaurien,  and  the  Scotch  *  a  ne'er-do-weel,' 
though  a  man  of  some  wit  and '  abilities,  left  him  to  the  care  of  his 
grandfather,   a    poor    tailor,   with  whom    his    early    childhood    was 
passed.     At  the  age  of  nine  or  ten  he   was   consigned  to  the   care 
of  his  father's  sister,  the  wife  of  an  aubergiste,  or  small  innkeeper,  at 
Peronne.    Here,  as  at  his  grandfather's  house,  he  had  contrived  some- 
how to  acquire  the  art  of  reading,  and  up  to  the  age  of  sixteen  had 
managed  to  store  his  mind  with  a  great  deal  of  useless  but  agreeable 
knowledge,  derived  from  Telemaque  on  the  one  hand  and  the  corre- 
spondence of  Voltaire  on  the  other,  with  a  wilderness  of  miscellaneous 
reading.     There  was  at  Peronne  an  institution  for  the  benefit  of  the 
youth  of  the  town,  founded  by  a  M.  de  Bellanglise,  some  of  the 
classes  of  whic1!  he  attended,  and  made  a  vain  attempt  to  master  the 
rudiments  of  Latin.     As  it  was  necessary  that  he  should  earn  his 
bread  in  some  way,  and  as  he  neither  cared  for  his  grandfather's  nor 
his  aunt's  business,  he  was,  with  his  own  consent,  bound  apprentice  to 
a  M.  Laisnez,  a  printer  at  Peronne,  who,  he  afterwards  said,  '  not 
being  able  to  teach  me  how  to  spell,  encouraged  my  taste  for  poetry, 
gave  me  lessons  in  versification,  and  corrected  my  first  attempts.' 
He  also  made  time  in  the  evenings  to  attend  the  institution,  and 
acquire,  in  default  of  Latin,  some  other  knowledge  to  fit  him  for  mak- 
ing his  way  in  the  larger  world  of  Paris,  whither  his  impulse  led  him. 
Long  before  the  age  of  eighteen,  while  still  working  at  the  compositor's 
case,  the  spirit  of  poetry  took  almost  entire  possession  of  him,  and 
caused  him  to  blossom  out  into  verse,  which  invariably  assumed  the 
form  of  songs,  though  he  had  the  ambition  to  write  an  epic  poem,  and 
had  gone  so  far  as  to  choose  his  hero  in  Clovis.  He  did  not  then  suspect, 
though  he  afterwards  knew,  that  his  genius  was   not  in  the  faintest 
degree  epic  ;  that  a  modern,  not  an  ancient,  hero  was  to  inspire  his 
verse ;    and  that  Napoleon  Bonaparte,  when  he  had  ceased  to  be 
master  of  Europe,  and  was  defeated,  dethroned,  and  exiled,  was  to 
share,  with  an  imaginary  Lisette  and  the  pleasures  of  the  table,  the 
principal  honours  of  his  verse.    At  the  age  of  eighteen  he  left  Peronne 
for  Paris,  where  he  was  once  more  domiciled  with  his  good  old  grand- 
father.    His  father's  partiality  saw  in  him  the  *  makings '  of  a  great 
banker !      But   the   young   man's   acquaintance    with   bankers   was 
destined  all  his  life  to  be  of  the  slenderest,  if  he  ever,  which  is 
•doubtful,  had  dealings  with  a  banker  at  all.     He  betook  himself  to 
the  compositor's  case  as  a  means  of  livelihood,  without  the  slightest 
love  for  the  vocation,  or  for  any  vocation  whatever,  except  that  of 
writing  songs.     As  may  be  surmised,  his  songs  did  not  bring  him  salt 
to  his  soup,  though  they  brought  him  the  joy  of  composition,  and  the 


1880.  BURNS  AND  BERANGER.  473 

pride  that  the  born  artist,  whether  poet,  painter,  sculptor,  or  musician, 
always  feels  in  his  work.  In  his  twentieth  year,  with  the  love  of 
poetry  and  with  the  desires  of  all  the  pleasures  of  youth  and  health 
strong  upon  him,  he  wrote :  '  I  was  so  poor !  The  expense  of  the 
smallest  party  of  pleasure  forced  me  to  live  for  eight  days  afterwards 
on  the  most  meagre  panade  (soaked  bread),  which  I  prepared  myself, 
all  the  while  heaping  rhyme  upon  rhyme,  and  full  of  the  hope  of  future 
glory.  Even  now,  when  speaking  of  that  smiling  epoch  of  my  life, 
when,  without  friends,  without  certain  bread,  without  instruction,  I 
dreamed  of  a  brilliant  future  without  neglecting  the  pleasures  of  the 
present  day,  my  eyes  are  moistened  with  involuntary  tears.' 

In  his  twenty-third  year,  when  his  fortunes  were  at  the  lowest  ebb, 
when  he  was  all  but  reduced  to  desperation  by  the  failure  of  many 
previous  efforts  to  attract  the  notice  of  any  one  high  enough  placed 
in  the  world  to  advance  his  literary  interests,  he  packed  up  some  of 
his  best  songs,  and  sent  them  with  an  explanatory  letter  to  Lucien 
Bonaparte,  brother  of  Napoleon,  then  First  Consul.  Thirty  years 
afterwards  he  told  the  result  for  the  first  time.  '  In  1803,'  he  wrote  in 
a  dedicatory  preface  to  a  new  edition  of  his  poems,  '  deprived  of 
resources,  weary  of  hopes  deceived,  making  verses,  without  object, 
without  encouragement,  without  instruction,  and  without  counsel,  I 
formed  the  idea  (and  how  many  similar  ideas  have  remained  fruitless  !) 
to  enclose  my  raw  poems  in  an  envelope  and  forward  them  to  M. 
Lucien  Bonaparte,  already  celebrated  for  his  oratorical  power  and  his 
love  of  literature  and  the  arts.  My  epistle,  I  well  remember,  worthy 
of  a  young  and  ardent  republican,  bore  the  impress  of  the  pride  that 
had  been  wounded  by  the  necessity  of  having  recourse  to  a  protector. 
Poor,  unknown,  and  very  often  disappointed,  I  did  not  dare  to 
speculate  on  the  success  of  an  appeal  that  nobody  supported.  But 
on  the  third  day,  with  joy  unspeakable,  M.  Lucien  asked  me  to  call 
upon  him,  informed  himself  of  my  necessities,  which  he  speedily 
relieved,  spoke  to  me  as  poet  to  poet,  and  lavished  upon  me  his 
encouragements  and  good  advice.  Unfortunately  he  was  soon  after- 
wards compelled  to  leave  France.  After  a  time  I  began  to  think 
that  I  was  forgotten,  when  I  received  from  Eome  a  power  of  attorney 
(procuration)  to  draw  the  salary  (with  arrears)  due  to  him  as  a 
member  of  the  Institute,  with  a  letter  which  I  have  reverently  pre- 
served. "  I  beg  you,"  he  said,  "  to  accept  this  sum,  as  I  do  not  doubt 
that  if  you  continue  to  cultivate  your  talent,  you  will  one  day  become 
one  of  the  ornaments  of  our  Parnassus.  Attend  carefully  to  the 
delicacies  of  your  rhythm.  Do  not  cease  to  be  bold,  but  strive  to  be 
elegant."  Never,  I  said  to  myself,  was  a  good  deed  done  with  more 
encouraging  graciousness  ;  never,  in  snatching  a  young  poet  from 
misery,  was  more  pains  more  delicately  taken  to  lift  him  in  his  own 
estimation.' 

Twelve  years  afterwards,  during  the  Hundred  Days,  M.  Lucien 


474  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  March 

Bonaparte,  still  his  friend,  endeavoured  to  fire  his  ambition  to  loftier 
efforts  than  the  trifling,  although  graceful,  lyrics  which  he  continued 
to  pour  forth  ;  but  Beranger  knew  both  his  strength  and  his  weakness, 
and  never  attempted  a  long  poem.  In  the  meanwhile  he  found  an 
admirer,  a  comrade,  and  a  friend,  in  Marc-Antoine-Madeleine 
Desaugiers,  eight  years  his  senior,  and  the  then  acknowledged  head 
of  the  lyric  literature  of  France.  Desaugiers  was  in  some  respects  a  far 
better  poet  than  Beranger,  but,  with  the  sympathy  and  generosity  of 
all  superior  spirits  in  literature  in  all  times  and  in  all  countries,  he  was 
quick  to  recognise  and  encourage  the  genius  of  a  younger  writer,  and 
to  lend  him  a  helping  hand  to  climb  the  rugged  steeps  that  lead  to 
the  Temple  of  Fame.  He  was  too  poor  himself,  and  too  little  con- 
nected with  the  rich  and  powerful,  to  be  of  much  use  to  Beranger  in 
the  furtherance  of  his  fortunes ;  but  it  was  a  kindly  act  to  introduce 
him  to  the  leading  spirits  of  the  time,  even  though  they  were  Bohe- 
mians, and  to  extend  the  circle  of  his  acquaintance  among  kindred 
spirits  who  might  thereafter  be  useful.  This  he  did  by  initiating  him 
in  the  mysteries  of  the  '  Caveau,'  a  social  club  of  poets,  dramatists, 
journalists,  painters,  and  musicians,  of  which  Desaugiers  was  '  presi- 
dent '  de  facto, [as  well  as  presiding  spirit  de  jure,  and  who  met  almost 
•every  evening  at  a  cafe  near  the  Palais  Eoyal.  At  that  time  (1809) 
Beranger  was  almost  wholly  unknown,  but  Desaugiers  had  read  his 
"little  satire  Le  Roi  d'Yvetot,  a  harmless  potentate  who  was  only 
'•crowned  with  a  nightcap,  and  who,  unlike  the  great  Napoleon,  lived 
very  comfortably  without  glory.  In  presenting  Beranger  to  the  club, 
Desaugiers  predicted  that  at  no  distant  day  his  protege  would  become 
•  one  of  the  literary  magnates  of  his  country.  In  this  same  year 
Beranger  was  for  the  first  time  relieved  from  the  haphazard  life  of 
writing  songs  for  the  poor  reward  which  the  publishers  could  afford, 
:and  was  presented  by  M.  Arnault,  of  the  Ministerial  Department  of 
Public  Instruction,  to  a  clerkship  in  his  office.  The  salary  was 
1,800  francs  (72£.)  per  annum.  This  was  not  a  large  sum,  but  it 
•was  sufficient  for  the  modest  wants  of  the  song-writer,  who,  how- 
ever much  he  may  have  loved  and  admired  the  fair  sex,  had 
taken  care  not  to  entangle  himself  with  any  of  them,  and  who  had 
nobody  but  himself  to  feed,  clothe,  and  look  after.  '  Enough  to  live 
upon,  and  a  little  leisure  to  write  songs  ' — this  had  been  his  dream  for 
many  weary  but  not  altogether  desolate  years,  and  when  the  dream 
at  last  became  a  reality  he  was  more  than  satisfied.  He  was  enabled 
for  the  first  time  to  give  free  play  to  his  genius,  and  to  write  only 
when  he  was  in  the  humour. 

All  went  well  with  him  under  the  regime  of  Napoleon  the  First ;  for 
he  had  learned  to  sing  of  worthier  themes  than  had  hitherto  occupied 
his  frivolous  pen — the  infidelities  of  married  women,  the  immoralities 
of  single  ones,  and  the  vulgar  pleasures  of  the  table — and  had 
soared  to  the  height  of  celebrating  the  military  glories  of  France 


1880.  BURNS  AND  BERANGER.  475 

and  inculcating  the  noblest  spirit  of  patriotism.  And  if  he  satirised 
at  times  the  great  Emperor,  the  satire  was  like  lambent  summer 
lightning,  and  launched  no  bolt.  But  the  restoration  of  the  Bour- 
bons wrought  a  change  in  his  feelings,  his  style,  and  his  fortunes. 
He  had  never  flattered  the  Emperor  in  the  splendour  of  his 
fame  and  power,  when  nearly  all  Europe  lay  at  his  feet,  but  in  the 
evil  day  that  sent  the  great  man  to  St,  Helena  the  poet's  heart 
was  touched,  and  he  lavished  upon  adversity  the  homage  which 
prosperity  had  never  been  able  to  extort.  A  collection  of  his 
eongs  was  published  in  1815,  some  of  which  -\\ere  so  displeasing 
to  the  ministry,  that  he  received  a  very  significant  notification  that, 
if  he  did  not  walk  more  warily,  his  situation  would  be  in  danger. 
But  Beranger  was  not  of  a  nature  either  to  conceal  or  modify  his 
thought,  and  he  continued  to  write  songs,  though  he  was  prudent 
enough  not  to  publish  them,  and  thus  kept  himself  during  five  years 
free,  if  not  from  suspicion,  at  least  from  any  overt  act  of  which  authority 
could  take  cognisance.  A  second  collection  was  given  to  the  world  in 
1821,  containing  many  spirited  songs  which  stung  the  ministers  of 
Louis  the  Eighteenth  to  the  quick,  though  not  perhaps  the  good  easy 
King  himself,  who  was  willing  to  forgive  much  in  the  author  of  the 
Roi  d'Yvetot.  His  ministers,  however,  were  not  so  tolerant,  and 
determined  to  retaliate  upon  the  poet  by  dismissing  him  from  his 
office.  One  of  the  finest  songs  he  ever  wrote,  Les  Adieux  a  la  Oloire, 
Decembre  1820,  was  too  scathing  in  its  Epicurean  elegance  to  be 
forgiven  by  the  small  men  who  were  then  at  the  head  of  affairs  : — 

Chantons  le  vin  et  la  beaute" : 

Tout  le  reste  est  folie. 

Voyez  comme  on  oublie 
Les  hymnes  de  la  liberte" ! 

Ln  peuple  brave 

Eetombe  esclave  : 
Fils  d'Epicure,  ouvrez-moi  votre  cave  ! 

Adieu  done,  pauvre  Gloire  ! 
D6sheriton3  1'histoire  ! 
Veuez,  Amours,  et  versez-nous  a  boire  ! 

This  showed  that  the  gloved  hand  had  a  sharp  stiletto  in  it,  and  the 
blow  went  home.  It  was  not,  however,  thought  sufficient  punishment 
that  he  should  be  deprived  of  his  daily  bread  after  twelve  years  of 
honest  drudgery,  but  he  was  prosecuted  for  attacks  on  the  royal 
family  and  on  public  morality.  Though  eloquently  defended  by 
the  celebrated  M.  Dupin  aine,  he  was  sentenced  to  three  months'  im- 
prisonment in  the  debtors'  prison  of  Ste.  Pelagie  and  to  a  fine  of  five 
hundred  francs.  Here  the  loss  of  his  liberty  was  the  worst  that  befell 
him.  The  rules  of  the  establishment  did  not  admit  of  severity. 
His  friends,  like  those  of  mere  debtors,  were  permitted  to  see  him ; 


476  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  March 

hts  table  was  spread  with,  all  the  luxuries  which  sympathy,  wealth, 
friendship,  and  admiration  can  bestow  upon  those  whom  they  delight 
to  honour  ;  and  the  bacchanalian  revels  of  his  captivity  were  often 
far  more  bacchanalian  than  those  he  had  enjoyed  outside  the  prison 
walls.  In  1825,  having  subsisted  meanwhile  on  the  profits  of  his 
works,  which  daily  grew  in  public  favour,  he  published  a  third  col- 
lection, about  which  the  government  ofM.  deVillele,  for  some  reason 
or  other,  did  not  think  fit  to  trouble  themselves.  But  this  was 
only  a  truce.  The  book  was  received  with  such  acclamation  by  the 
public  of  all  classes,  except  the  friends  of  the  ancien  regime  and  the 
clerical  party,  who  were  in  a  woful  but  tyrannical  minority,  that  it 
was  thought  absolutely  necessary  by  M.  Martignac,  the  successor  of 
the  mild  M.  de  Villele,  that  another  and  more  severe  example  should 
be  made  of  the  too  daring  poet.  Three  songs  were  especially  brought 
under  the  notice  of  the  public  prosecutor — The  Coronation  of 
Charles  the  Simple,  The  Infinitely  Little,  and  the  Guardian  Angel. 
It  was  only  the  first  two  of  these  compositions  that  contained  venom 
to  sting  the  government ;  but  as  the  ministry  did  not  wish  to  make 
the  prosecution  too  political,  and  as  it  desired,  moreover,  to  conciliate 
the  Ultramontane  clergy,  the  third  song  was  selected  to  show  its 
impartiality,  and  to  make  believe  that  it  cared  as  much  for  religion 
as  for  politics.  The  Guardian  Angel  was,  in  effect,  a  silly  song,  only 
worthy  of  contempt,  but  its  political  brothers  were  of  the  highest 
order  of  satirical  poignancy  and  more  than  calculated  to  make  such 
ministers  as  those  who  served  the  poor  obstinate  and  benighted 
Charles  the  Tenth  wince  in  their  uncertain  and  uneasy  seats.  Con- 
demnation was  certain  before  trial,  and  Beranger  was  sentenced  to  pay 
a  fine  of  10,000  francs  and  the  expenses  of  the  prosecution,  and  to  be 
imprisoned  for  nine  months  in  La  Force,  a  prison  where  the  discipline 
was  not  quite  so  lax  as  it  was  in  Ste.  Pelagic.  The  fine  was  speedily 
paid  by  his  sympathising  friends  and  by  the  enemies  of  the  stupidly 
reactionary  government  that,  in  making  a  martyr  of  a  soDg-writerr 
had  made  him  a  hero,  and  increased  the  number  of  his  admirers  a 
hundred-  or  a  thousandfold. 

At  last  the  throne  of  Charles  the  Tenth  disappeared  under  the 
barricades  of  July  1830,  and  Louis-Philippe  of  Orleans  reigned  in 
his  stead.  It  appeared  as  if  the  turn  of  Berangar  had  now  come  either 
to  be  reinstated  in  his  old,  or  in  a  better  office,  or  to  be  otherwise 
rewarded  with  power  and  emolument  by  the  victorious  party  which 
he  had  served  so  well.  His  friends  became  ministers,  ambassadors, 
prefects,  functionaries  of  all  kinds,  but  nothing  was  done  for  Beranger. 
He  found  that  the  modest  profits  of  his  songs  were  enough  for  him  to 
live  upon ;  he  hated  routine  work  and  the  compulsory  hours  of  an 
office,  and  longed  to  be  as  free  as  the  birds,  and  to  sing  when  he 
pleased,  as  they  did.  He  was  accused  of  pride  by  some  of  his  friends 
for  refusing  the  rewards  that  were  his  due,  but  he  retorted  by  saying 


1880.  BURNS  AND  BERANGER.  477 

that  lie  hated  sinecures  as  much  as  he  hated  work,  and  that  the  true 
reason  of  his  refusals  of  office  was  idleness  and  nothing  else.  He 
found  that  1,200  francs  a  year,  the  revenue  derived  from  the  sale  of  his 
songs,  with  nothing  to  do  for  the  money,  was  better  than  1,800  francs 
to  be  earned  by  hard  work  at  a  governmental  desk,  and  he  was 
content.  With  such  a  man  his  friends  could  do  nothing.  He  had 
outlived  his  fancies  for  Lisettes  and  Chloes  of  all  kinds,  and  had 
nobody  to  spend  his  scanty  francs  upon  but  himself.  He  arranged 
his  mode  of  life  on  this  humble  scale — half  Epicurus,  half  Diogenes — 
and  gave  full  scope  to  his  literary  powers  whenever  the  humour  was 
on  him,  and  sought  for  no  society  but  that  of  men  of  letters,  and  the 
wits,  vaudevillists,  and  philosophers,  who  admired  his  independent 
poverty,  and  who  were  only  too  happy  to  be  now  and  then  permitted 
to  send  to  his  humble  lodgings  the  bottles  of  Volnay  and  other  choice 
wines  which  they  knew  he  enjoyed,  and  to  be  privileged  to  drink 
in  his  company.  By  degrees,  as  his  fame  consolidated  and  ex- 
tended, his  friend  M.  Charles  Perrotin,  the  most  generous  and 
unselfish  of  publishers,  found  that  he  was  able  to  increase  the 
poet's  annuity  from  1,200  to  2,000  francs,  and  ultimately,  for 
some  years  before  he  died,  to  3,000  (120£.).  Beranger  was  not  only 
at  his  ease,  but  in  his  own  quiet  way  rich,  and  neither  asked  nor 
desired  anything  from  anybody.  After  the  Revolution  of  February 
1848,  which  he  predicted  months  previously,1  he  was  elected  with- 
out his  consent,  by  one  of  the  electoral  divisions  of  the  city  of 
Paris,  a  member  of  the  Constituent  Assembly.  He  took  his  seat, 
but  found  himself  wholly  out  of  his  element,  and  very  speedily  re- 
signed his  parliamentary  honours.  After  the  successful  issue  of  the 
coup  d'etat  and  the  consequent  slaughter  of  the  poor  Republic  in  the 
streets  of  Paris,  Napoleon  the  Third,  who  knew  how  much  Beranger's 
songs  had  done  to  keep  alive  in  the  hearts  of  the  people  the  memory 
of  Napoleon  the  First,  and  to  prepare  the  way  for  the  Second  Empire, 
was  anxious  to  show  his  appreciation  of  the  poet's  genius  and  charac- 
ter by  the  tangible  mode  of  place  or  pension.  But  to  all  overtures 
leading  to  this  result  Beranger,  though  not  ungrateful,  was  callous, 
and  politely  but  resolutely  declined  them.  The  Emperor,  who  had  the 
unkingly  virtue  of  never  forgetting  a  kindness  or  a  benefit  conferred 
upon  himself  or  his  cause,  resolved,  in  default  of  his  own  efforts,  to  try 
the  effect  of  feminine  beauty,  grace,  persuasion,  and  tact,  and  deputed 
the  Empress  Eugenie  to  charm  away,  if  possible,  the  poet's  reluctance 
to  accept  a  favour.  But  it  was  all  in  vain.  Beranger  was  not  surly 
or  ungracious,  but  he  was  independent,  and  would  not,  even  for  a 
bewitching  Empress,  fetter  his  free  thought  if  at  any  future  time  he 
should  feel  the  necessity  of  gushing  out  into  a  song  to  ease  his  con- 
science in  disapproval  of  the  public  acts  of  the  Emperor  or  his 

1  To  the  writer  of  this  article,  and  the  Abbe  de  Lamennais,  who  breakfasted  with 
him  by  invitation  at  Passy. 


478  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  March 

ministers.     So  he  remained  unpensioned,  but  not  unhonoured,  even 
by  the  powerful  sovereign  whose  favours  he  refused. 

He  died  at  the  ripe  old  age  of  seventy-five  and  upwards,  beloved  and 
lamented  by  the  whole  French  people,  and  all  but  idolised  by  those 
of  Paris,  among  whom  the  larger  portion  of  his  life  had  been  passed. 
As  already  remarked,  he  was  honoured  by  a  funeral  which  love  would 
not  have  thought  of,  but  which  fear  extorted,  and  disguised  under  the 
semblance  of  respect.  The  living  poet  had  caused  the  unteachable 
Bourbons  to  tremble  upon  their  thrones ;  the  dead  poet,  within  four- 
and-twenty  hours  after  the  breath  had  left  his  body,  caused  the  astute 
and  subtle  heir  of  the  Bonapartes  to  wince  upon  his,  and  conjured  up 
before  his  affrighted  eyes  the  spectre  of  the  Red  Republic  that  he 
thought  he  had  laid  for  ever  in  a  sea  of  blood.  It  was  not,  however, 
any  songs  of  the  dead  Beranger  that  Napoleon  the  Third  had  to  fear. 
The  Marseillaise,  more  awful  and  more  potent,  slept  in  the  people's 
remembrance,  and  awaited  but  the  time  to  burst  forth  on  their  tongues 
and  let  loose  the  pent-up  passions  of  the  multitude.  That  time  was 
not  until  fifteen  years  afterwards ;  and  then  Napoleon  might  have 
said,  '  Behold  the  deluge ! ' 

In  comparing  the  genius  of  these  two  great  lyrists,  and  tracing 
the  influence  which  each  exercised  in  his  own  sphere — and  in  the  case 
of  Burns  a  far  wider  sphere  than  the  limits  of  the  British  Isles — the 
impartial  critic  must  endeavour  to  divest  them,  as  far  as  possible,  of 
the  extraneous  aids  to  popularity  which  they  derived  from  their  local 
politics,  and  judge  them  solely  on  their  literary  merits.  If  the  great 
duty  of  literature,  and  especially  of  poetry,  '  is  not  so  much  to  amuse 
the  people  as  to  exalt  and  refine — if  its  privilege  is  to  inspire,  like 
religion,  the  humble  with  dignity,  the  sad  with  comfort,  the  oppressed 
with  hope — to  show  the  abundant  and  overflowing  blessings  of  familiar 
things,  the  riches,  the  beauty,  and  the  beneficence  of  Nature — to  fill 
all  men  with  the  love  of  God  and  one  another,  and  to  encourage 
society  in  its  onward  career  from  bad  into  good,  and  from  good  into 
better,  through  all  time  into  eternity ' — Burns's  best  poems,  and  a  large 
number  of  his  songs,  will  bear  the  severe  test.  And  it  is  not  alone 
in  his  serious,  but  in  his  satirical  and  humorous  pieces,  that  he  soars 
to  the  highest  flight.  His  Cotter's  Saturday  Night  deserves  the 
first  mention,  as  a  noble  picture  of  humble  Scottish  piety,  and  of  the 
hopes  and  consolations  of  the  true-hearted,  honest,  and  industrious 
poor.  Burns  describes  in  it  a  scene"  of  no  unusual  kind,  but  one  of 
those  from  which  he  truly  says  that  *  Scotland's  grandeur  springs,' 
and  the  lessons  inculcated  in  which  make  her  sons  beloved  at  home 
and  revered  abroad.  Of  a  different  order  of  excellence  are  A  Winter 
Night  and  Man  is  made  to  mourn,  in  which  he  laments  the  multi- 
farious evils  inflicted  on  the  world  by  man's  inhumanity  to  man,  by 
the  lordly  insolence  of  wealth,  by  the  greediness  of  ambition,  and  the 


1880.  BURNS  AND  BERANGER.  479 

iron  grip  of  oppression.  And  even  in  the  lowest  vein  of  satire  bis 
purpose  was  always  dignified.  Although  he  launched  the  most  scathing 
thunderbolts  of  his  wit  and  anger  against  religious  hypocrisy,  he 
never  published  a  line  or  a  word  attacking,  or  even  sneering  at,  sacred 
things.  It  suited  some  of  the  transparent  impostors  against  whom 
his  merciless  ridicule  was  directed,  to  represent  that  his  attacks  upon 
them  were  attacks  upon  the  religion  which  they  dishonoured,  and 
their  loud  outcry  when  they  felt  the  rod  upon  their  backs  deceived 
for  a  while  some  of  the  weaker  brethren ;  but  it  did  not  deceive  even 
them  for  a  long  time.  It  was  speedily  recognised  that  Holy  Willie, 
The  Unco  Guid,  and  other  masterly  productions  were  but  wholesome 
castlgations  of  shamefaced  Vice  that  masqueraded  in  the  garments 
and  pretended  to  speak  the  language  and  inculcate  the  sentiments  of 
Virtue.  Nurtured  as  Burns  was,  he  hesitated  to  print,  though  he  did 
not  hesitate  to  write,  Holy  Willie ;  and  it  was  not  included  in  any 
edition  of  his  poems  in  his  lifetime.  He  might  well,  however,  have 
been  bolder,  and  would  certainly  have  won  the  gratitude,  while  he  yet 
lived,  of  all  the  good  and  true  by  so  splendid  a  portraiture  of  hypo- 
crisy, as  fully  as  his  memory  won  it  after  his  death.  Through  all  his 
poems,  even  the  most  fanciful  and  imaginative,  a  broad,  beautiful 
common-sense  shines  out  pre-eminently ;  and  any  one  of  them,  rendered 
into  plain  prose  and  divested  of  all  the  graces  of  rhythm  and  rhyme, 
would  still  commend  itself  to  critical  admiration.  His  most  trenchant 
satire  was  reserved  for  saintly  hypocrisy ;  but  in  a  milder  vein,  when 
he  held  up  to  ridicule  the  fashions  and  the  small  vices  of  society,  he 
was  equally  admirable.  The  dialogue  between  Caesar  and  Luath,  the 
rich  man's  and  the  poor  man's  dogs,  and  their  sagely  human  remarks 
upon  the  manner  in  which  their  masters  lived,  and  the  concluding 
expression  of  gratitude  to  Heaven  that  they  were  not  men  but  dogs, 
form  a  masterpiece  of  good-humoured  raillery.  The  advice  of  Polonius 
to  his  son  in  Hamlet,  so  perfect  a  piece  of  worldly  wisdom,  is  sur- 
passed by  Burns's  Epistle  to  a  Young  Friend.  The  epistle  con- 
tains more  than  the  wisdom  of  Shakespeare's  old  courtier,  which  was 
that  of  the  head  alone,  whereas  that  of  Burns  comprised  the  wisdom 
both  of  the  heart  and  the  head,  and  laid  down  in  a  few  compact 
and  beautiful  sentences  the  law  by  which  a  young  man  should 
guide  himself  in  the  opening  years  of  his  bodily  and  mental  vigour, 
and  the  seductive  errors  that  he  ought  to  avoid  under  the  penalty 
of  petrifying  the  feelings.  Nor  is  the  pathetic  close — 
And  may  you  better  reck  the  rede 
Than  ever  did  the  adviser  ! — 

the  least  striking  part  of  this  fine  composition,  thrown  off  at  a  heat 
like  a  spark  from  the  anvil.  Even  more  beautiful  is  The  Bard's 
Epitaph,  where  the  poet,  with  rare  self-examination,  draws  his  own 
portrait  without  exaggeration  and  without  flattery,  and  points  the 
moral  of  his  own  sad  fate,  which  he  saw  too  vividly  impending,  as  a 


480  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY.  March 

warning  to  over-impulsive  and  too  careless  genius.  In  another  and 
very  exquisite  vein  of  true  poetry  are  his  touching  lines  on  The  Mouse, 
and  The  Daisy,  and  The  Old  Farmer's  Address  to  his  Auld  Mare, 
Maggie,  all  of  which  point  the  moral  of  Coleridge's  Ancient  Mariner 
in  a  far  more  touching  and  natural  manner. 

He  prayeth  best  who  loveth  best 
All  things,  both  great  and  small. 

Two  other  of  his  poems,  The  Address  to  the  Deil  and  Tarn 
d1  Shanter,  stand  alone  in  literature,  unrivalled  for  the  mingling  of 
the  grotesque,  the  tender,  the  horrible,  and  the  sublime.  If  it  had 
not  been  for  Tarn,  o'  Shanter,  the  Address  to  the  Deil  would  have  been 
considered  a  unique  and  noble  specimen  of  imaginative  poetry,  coming 
to  its  climax  in  the  unexpectedly  pathetic  stanza  at  the  close,  in  which 
he  has  a  word  of  kindly  sympathy  even  for  the  devil.  But  Tain 
o'  Shanter  eclipsed  the  earlier  composition  by  its  superior  glory,  and 
shines  resplendent  in  his  poetic  crown,  the  brightest  jewel  of  the 
many  that  glitter  on  the  forehead  of  his  fame. 

Though  the  songs  of  Burns,  as  distinguished  from  his  poems,  were 
for  the  most  part  written  on  the  old  topics  which  some  critics  have 
affirmed  to  be  the  only  fit  subjects  of  song — Love,  Wine,  and  Glory — 
he  never  treated  these  well-worn  themes  in  a  conventional  fashion, 
but  banished  from  his  honest  verse  all  the  classical  fripperies  and 
trumperies  of  the  Muses  and  the  Graces,  the  Cupids  and  the  Hymens, 
in  which  inferior  poets  had  so  long  and  so  wearily  delighted.  The 
love  in  his  songs  was  always  natural,  even  when  sometimes  it  was  too 
erotic  and  carnal ;  the  wine  or  the  whisky  was  not  celebrated  for  its 
own  sake,  but  for  that  of  the  conviviality,  good  fellowship,  and 
brotherly  feeling  which  gathered  around  the  glass  ;  and  the  '  glory ' 
that  he  celebrated  was  the  glory  of  patriotism  and  honest  love  of 
country.  His  love-songs  are  deliciously  fresh,  and  breathe  all  the 
odours  of  the  woods,  the  streams,  the  gardens,  and  the  meadows, 
without  a  particle  of  meretricious  adornment  or  stilted  affectation. 
His  drinking  songs  ignore  Bacchus  altogether,  and  celebrate  the 
bottle  not  for  the  liquor  it  contains,  but  for  the  sparkle  of  wit,  for  the 
kindly  mirth,  and  for  the  more  abiding  good  fellowship  that  it  draws 
forth  in  the  social  circle,  and  with  which  it  lubricates  the  intercourse 
between  friends  and  comrades  and  even  passing  acquaintances.  The 
song  of  Auld  Lang  Syne,  known  and  admired  wherever  the  English 
language  is  spoken,  is  a  drinking  song  of  the  very  highest  excellence, 
and  worth  a  whole  wilderness  of  such  Bacchanalian  songs  as  pleased 
both  the  English  and  the  Scotch  before  Burns  appeared,  in  which 
Care  was  continually  called  upon  to  drown  himself  in  liquor;  or 
such  once  popular  trash  as 

What  is  love  without  the  bowl  ? 
'Tis  a  languor  of  the  soul. 


1880.  BURNS  AND  BERANGER.  481 

Bacchus,  give  rue  love  and  wine : 
Happiness  is  only  thine  ! 

Burns  wrote  but  one  good  patriotic  song,  but  its  goodness  was 
superlative — the  spirit-stirring  Scots  who,  hae  wtf  Wallace  bled,  every 
line,  every  word  of  which  is  full  of  fire  and  energy,  and  goes  direct  to 
every  Scotsman's  heart — a  song  to  which  English  literature  can  supply 
no  equals,  unless  it  be  Campbell's  magnificent  Battle  of  the  Baltic  and 
Ye  Mariners  of  England,  songs  which  Scotland  may  claim,  because 
Campbell  was  a  Scotsman.  One  other  song  of  Burns,  that  celebrated 
neither  beauty,  wine,  nor  glory,  but  something  that  perhaps  was 
better  than  either — the  spirit  of  sturdy,  honest,  manly  independence — 
was  of  itself  sufficient  to  immortalise  his  name.  In  sending  this  song, 
A  Man's  a  Man  for  a*  that,  to  Greorge  Thomson,  he  wrote  :  '  This 
being  neither  on  the  subject  of  love  nor  wine,  which  a  great  critic 
(Aikin)  says  are  the  exclusive  themes  for  song- writing,  is  conse- 
quently no  song,  but  will  be  allowed,  I  think,  to  be  two  or  three 
pretty  good  prose  thoughts  invested  with  rhyme.'  It  may  be  supposed 
that  the  modesty  in  this  passage  was  not  quite  real,  and  that  Burns 
knew  perfectly  well  how  fine  a  song  he  had  written.  But,  whether 
he  did  or  not,  the  fact  remains  that  the  sentiment  inculcated  has  done 
more  to  encourage  a  spirit  of  manly  dignity  and  independence  of 
character  among  the  Scotch,  botli  high  and  low,  than  all  the  sermons 
that  were  ever  preached  in  the  Highlands  or  the  Lowlands,  or  all  the 
books  that  were  ever  written  on  the  same  subject. 

It  is  unfortunately  true  that  Burns  wrote  many  songs  that  cannot 
stand  the  test  of  decency  and  good  taste,  such  as  the  Jolly  Beggars, 
and  others  that  need  not  be  particularised  ;  but  it  must  be  urged  in 
the  poet's  defence  that  he  never  published  them,  and  that  it  was  left 
to  the  officious  and  unwise  zeal  of  his  posthumous  editors  and  biogra- 
phers to  rake  out  of  the  oblivion  to  which  Burns's  better  judgment 
would  have  consigned  them  the  obscenities  and  depravities  of  which 
his  better  nature  was  ashamed.  The  songs  which  he  himself  gave  to 
the  world,  though  sometimes  free,  were  never  coarse.  He  never 
made  a  mockery  and  a  laughing-stock  of  matrimony ;  never  ridiculed 
true  love ;  never  glorified  the  wrong ;  never  sang  approval  of  the 
untrue,  or  prostituted  his  genius  to  base  uses.  If  led  astray  too  often 
by  the  violence  of  his  youthful  passions,  his  heart  was  in  the  right, 
and  if  he  sinned  he  paid  the  penalty  with  more  bitterness  of  suffering 
than  sometimes  falls  to  the  lot  of  sinners  who  have  not  the  tenderness 
of  his  conscience  or  the  loveableness  of  his  nature. 

If  the  genius  of  Beranger  is  to  be  tested  by  the  high  standard 
applied  to  that  of  Burns,  the  difference  of  nationality,  faith,  manners, 
and  political  circumstances  must  be  taken  into  account.  Burns  was 
born  among,  and  was  one  of,  an  earnest  people,  a  people  who  had  for 
ages  been  engaged  in  the  struggle  for  civil  and  religious  liberty,  and 
had  won  both  by  the  sacrifice  of  their  best  blood — a  people  who,  much 


482  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  March 

as  they  enjoyed  wit,  humour,  and  conviviality  in  their  hours  of  leisure, 
were,  above  all  things,  serious  and  in  earnest  in  the  great  business  of  life. 
And  Burns  himself  was  no  frivolous  youth,  but  one  who  from  his  earliest 
years  had  to  look  at  the  dark  side  of  life,  and  to  fight  a  grim  fight  not 
only  with  adversity,  but  with  his  own  passions.     Beranger,  on  the 
contrary,  had  no  passions  ;  he  was  one  of  a  people  who,  however  terrible 
they  had  shown  themselves  in  the  spasms  of  their  great  Eevolution, 
were  at  heart  gay,  careless,  and  volatile,  who  had  no  depth  of  religious 
conviction,  and  who,  for  the  most  part,  as  far  as  the  male  sex  was 
concerned,  were  of  no  religion  at  all,  unless  it  were  the  religion  of 
the  ancient  Greeks.     Beranger  took  the  world  easily.     He  allowed  no 
grief  to  ruffle  the  even  course  of  his  life's  current.    He  loved  himself; 
he  loved  his  ease ;  he  loved  calm  enjoyment  and  the  dolcefar  niente. 
He  admired,  and  fancied  he  loved,  some  nameless  and  unknown  beauty, 
whom  he  called  Lisette,  and  wrote  some  of  his  most  graceful  poems 
in  her  praise — and  dispraise  ;  but  he  had  not  sufficient  love  for  any  of 
her  sex  to  marry,  though  he  never  tired  of  singing  the  praises  of  many 
real,  and  perhaps  of  a  greater  number  of  imaginary,  beauties.     Burns 
possessed  a  rich  and  powerful  imagination,  but  Nature  bestowed  upon 
Beranger  nothing  but  a  graceful  fancy  and  a  delicate  ear  for  the 
melody  and  the  harmony  of  verse ;  and  of  these  admirable  gifts  he  made 
the  most,  though  it  cannot  be  said  that  much  originality  accompanied 
his  use  of  them.     His  love-songs  might  have  been  written  upon  the 
charms  of  Lais,  Phryne,  or  Aspasia,  in  the  palmy  days  of  Athens,  with 
as  much  propriety,  and  with  scarcely  a  change  in  phraseology,  as  upon 
the  Lisettes  and  Suzons  of  Paris.     In  like  manner  his  Bacchanalian 
lyrics  betray  no  trace  of  the  many  centuries  that  have  rolled  over  the 
world  since  the  days  of  Anacreon,  and  would  have  been  as  appropriate 
in  the  mouth  of  that  ancient  poet  as  in  the  pages  of  a  modern 
Sybarite  who  flourished  between  1780  and  1855.     "Whatever  he  may 
have  been  in  his  private  life,  Beranger  in  his  songs  was  a  pagan,  and 
might  call  Horace  and  Catullus  his  poetical  brothers,  the  equal  of 
either,  and  as  little  indebted  as  they  were  to  Christianity  for  influence 
on  his  thought.     The  songs  in  which  he  celebrates  the  beauties  and 
the  frailties  of  the  young  Parisian  women  of  the  demi-monde  who 
charmed  his  fancy  are  choice  specimens  of  the  verse,  miscalled  poetry, 
that  pleases  the  readers  of  the  Journal  pour  rire  or  the  Charivari, 
and  the  cocottes,  gommeux,  and  petits  creves,  who  form  the  clientele 
of  those  publications ;  but  no  literature  but  that  of  France  would 
tolerate  them.     The  erotic  verses  of  the  juvenile  Thomas  Moore, 
when  he  signed  himself  '  Thomas  Little,'  were  angelic  purity  compared 
with  some  of  the  most  popular  songs  of  Beranger,  in  which  he  did 
not  always  attempt  to  conceal  the  grossness  of  his  thoughts  by  the 
elegance  of  his  language.     The  law  of  France,  that  punished  Beranger 
for  disaffection  to  the  ruling  powers,  had  no  punishment  to  inflict 
for  such  hideous  outrages  on  common  decency  as  he  committed  in 


1880.  BURNS  AND  BERANGER.  483 

La  Bacchante,  Madame  Gregoire,  La  Bonne  Fille,  L>  Education  des 
Demoiselles,  and  Ma  Grand'mere.  It  is  difficult  to  say  which  of 
these  is  most  offensive  to  a  pure  mind  ;  but  if  the  palm  of  demerit 
is  to  be  accorded  it  must  certainly  be  given  to  the  Grandmother,  an 
odious  old  woman  who  confides  to  her  granddaughters  the  story  of  her 
youthful  amours — how  she  had  deceived  her  husband  before  marriage 
and  been  false  to  him  afterwards — how  much  she  regretted  that  she 
had  lost  time  and  opportunity  for  intrigue  in  the  freshness  of  her 
charms,  and  that  she  had  not  been  fortunate  enough  to  secure  thrice 
the  number  of  lovers  that  she  had  enjoyed  and  cheated — and,  when 
her  granddaughters  ask  if  they  should  imitate  her  abominable  ex- 
ample, ends  the  doggerel  by  a  shameless  libel : — 

'  Comme  vous,  maman,  faut-il  faire  ? ' 

'  Et,  mes  petits  enfants,  pourquoi, 
Quand  j'ai  fait  comme  ma  grand'mere, 

Ne  feriez-vous  comme  moi  ?  ' 

English  literature  happily  offers  no  parallel  to  such  indecency  as  this, 
and  the  filthiest  effusions  of  Allan  Eamsay,  written  a  century  previous, 
were  clean  and  respectable  in  comparison. 

Beranger  never  sang  of  marriage,  except  to  ridicule  it,  and  to 
gloat  over  the  frailties  of  false  wives  and  the  misfortunes  of  deluded 
husbands.  The  only  '  love '  which  he  ever  celebrated  was  undeserving1 
of  the  name — the  shameless,  marketable  lust  of  the  demi-monde  and 
the  bagnio.  Among  the  lower  Parisians  all  these  songs  were  highly 
popular;  though  it  is  to  be  doubted  whether  the  quiet,  honest,  decent 
people  of  the  provinces,  with  whom  the  family  relations  are  sacred, 
did  not  look  upon  them  with  the  loathing  they  deserved.  In  his 
philosophical  songs  Beranger  took  a  higher  range.  There  are  few 
finer  things  in  French  literature  than  Les  Etoiles  qui  filent,  Treize 
a  Table,  Le  Grenier,  La  Sainte  Alliance  des  Peuples,  Les  Adieux 
de  Marie  Stuart,  La  Vieillesse,  Les  Petits  Coups,  L'Habit  de  Cour, 
Ma  Vocation,  Mon  Habit,  Mon  Ame,  La  Bonne  Vieille,  and,  not- 
withstanding an  illiberal  and  uncharitable  mention  of  England  which 
ought  not  to  have  found  a  place  in  it,  Le  Dieu  des  Bonnes  Gens. 
But  even  in  this  comparatively  elevated  composition,  in  which  he 
humbly  confides  in  the  mercy  and  lovingkindness  of  the  great 
Creator  of  the  universe,  the  pagan  rather  than  the  Christian  idea 
takes  possession  of  his  mind,  and  breaks  out  into  the  Anacreontic 
chorus — 

Le  verre  en  main,  gaiement  je  me  confie 
Au  Dieu  des  bonnes  gens — 

as  if  he  could  not  acknowledge  God's  goodness  without  a  glass  in  his 
hand! 

But  it  is  not  upon  these  or  his  amorous  or  drinking  songs 
that  the  fame  of  Beranger  principally  rests,  nor  is  it  by  means  of 
these  that  he  endeared  himself  to  the  French  people,  and  made 


4*4  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  March 

himself  a  power  in  the  State.  He  knew  how  to  touch  the 
strong  chord  in  the  people's  heart  (perhaps  it  might  be  called  the 
weakness  in  the  people's  brain),  the  love  of  conquest  and  of  military 
glory  ;  and  he  played  upon  that  string  till  France  responded,  and 
hung  entranced  upon  the  melodies  that  he  drew  from  it — melodies 
sometimes  soft  and  tender,  sometimes  bold  and  defiant,  sometimes 
sublime.  And  when  the  representative  and  the  agent  of  that  con- 
quest and  l  glory '  fell  upon  evil  days — when  the  throne  of  the  mighty 
Napoleon  was  levelled  in  the  dust — when  he  consumed  his  fiery  heart 
with  disappointment  and  vexation  on  the  lonely  rock  of  St.  Helena — 
and  when  the  great  nations  of  Europe  leagued  themselves  together  to 
impose  upon  conquered  France  the  wretched  Bourbons,  who  had 
forfeited  their  illustrious  inheritance  by  their  treachery,  their 
cowardice,  and  their  incapacity — all  the  pride,  all  the  anger,  and  all 
the  resentment  of  France  settled  upon  the  tongue  or  the  pen  of  the 
song-writer.  His  heart  and  that  of  all  France  beat  in  unison,  and  he 
spoke,  as  no  song-writer  ever  spoke  before  or  since,  with  an  authority 
that  wielded  at  will  the  fierce  democracy,  and  made  his  utterances 
the  utterances  of  a  nation.  No  longer  idly  masquerading  as  a  modern 
Horace,  he  became  a  man  of  his  own  time,  thought  with  it,  spoke 
with  it,  identified  himself  with  it  in  all  its  hopes  and  fears,  regrets 
and  exultations.  His  fondest  thoughts  clung  around  the  deeds  and 
misfortunes  of  the  great  Napoleon.  Whether  he  wept  for  the  Bona- 
partes  or  denounced  the  Bourbons,  he  found  his  truest  inspiration  in 
his  grief  or  scorn,  and  became  an  immeasurably  greater  poet  than  he 
was  when  he  tinkled  his  lyre,  the  laureate  of  the  flaneurs  and  grisettes 
and  all  the  vicious  idlers  of  the  capital.  Such  songs  as  Le  Vieux 
Sergent,  Les  Souvenirs  du  Peuple,  Le  Cinq  Mai,  Le  Vieux  Drapeau, 
Les  Enfans  de  la  France,  and  the  terrible  Esclaves  Gaulois,  placed 
him  in  the  very  front  rank  of  literature,  and  atoned  for  all  the  poor 
vanities  and  inanities  of  his  earlier  flights.  These  belonged  to  the 
Parisians  only;  his  patriotic  and  political  songs  belonged  to  all 
France,  and  all  France  honoured  him  for  them. 

Burns  and  Beranger  were  both  great  and  popular,  and  both  exer- 
cised great  influence  over  the  minds  of  their  countrymen.  Burns 
found  the  lyrical  literature  of  Scotland  corrupt  and  licentious,  and  left 
it  pure.  Beranger  found  the  lyrical  literature  of  France  both  impure 
and  frivolous,  and  left  it  impurer  and  more  frivolous  still.  Both 
sang  of  love  ;  but  the  love  that  found  favour  with  Burns  was  natural, 
genuine,  and  fresh  from  the  heart;  that  celebrated  by  Beranger 
was  meretricious  and  theatrical,  and  dependent  wholly  upon  a  prurient 
fancy.  It  was  impossible  for  Scotland  to  produce  a  Beranger ; 
it  was  equally  impossible  for  France  to  produce  a  Burns.  Both 
were  patriots,  and  drew  inspiration  from  the  remembrance  of  the  past 
glories  of  their  country.  Burns  kept  up  in  the  minds  of  his  country- 


1880.  BURNS  AND  BEE  ANGER.  485 

men  an  intense  love  of  Scotland  without  hate  of  any  other  land ; 
while  Beranger,  though  he  inculcated  a  love  of  France,  inculcated 
still  more  strongly  a  love  of  military  glory,  only  to  be  achieved  by 
warfare  with  other  nations.  Both  were  philosophers,  but  the  philo- 
sophy of  Burns  was  imbued  with  a  deeply  religious  and  Christian 
spirit,  while  that  of  Beranger  was  a  mild  Epicureanism,  based  upon 
no  higher  principle  than  that'of  the  duty  of  present  enjoyment  ex- 
pressed by  the  phrase  '  Dum  vivimus  vivamusj  or  '  Let  us  eat  and 
drink,  for  to-morrow  we  die.' 

More  than  three-quarters  of  a  century  have  elapsed  since  the 
death  of  Burns,  and  his  fame,  small  at  that  time  and  scarcely  reaching 
to  .England,  has  gradually  increased  until  it  has  made  the  circuit  of 
the  globe.  Every  year,  on  the  2oth  of  January,  the  anniversary  of 
his  birth  is  celebrated  as  if  he  were  the  patron  saint  of  Scotland. 
In  every  quarter  of  the  earth,  in  the  British  Isles,  in  the  United 
States,  in  Canada,  in  South  Africa,  in  India,  in  Australia,  in  New 
Zealand,  wherever  half  a  dozen  Scotsmen  can  be  gathered  together  to 
repeat  the  song  of  Auld  Lang  Syne,  and  to  assert  with  honest  pride 
the  truth  which  they  have  proved  in  their  lives  that  '  a  man's  a  man 
for  a'  that,'  a  festival  is  held  in  his  honour,  and  patriotism  shines  with 
redoubled  fervour  at  the  mention  of  his  name.  It  may  be  said  of  his 
renown,  as  Daniel  Webster,  the  great  American  orator,  said  of  the 
power  of  Great  Britain,  that  '  it  follows  the  sun  in  its  course,  and, 
keeping  pace  with  the  hours,  circles  the  earth  with  one  unbroken 
strain  '  of  wholesome,  invigorating,  and  patriotic  song. 

And  while  scarcely  a  quarter  of  a  century  has  elapsed  since  the 
death  and  public  funeral  of  Beranger,  his  fame,  which  then  over- 
shadowed the  land,  has  been  gradually  diminishing.  In  our  day  it  is 
almost  wholly  confined  to  France  and  to  a  small  section  of  his  coun- 
trymen. He  has,  in  fact,  been  elbowed  out  of  popular  favour  by 
Madame  Therese  and  the  vulgar  lyrics  of  La  Fille  de  Madame  Angot 
and  the  Grande-Duchesse.  Even  his  patriotic  songs,  if  not  quite 
forgotten,  have  ceased  to  be  heard.  They  have  had  their  day  and 
served  their  purpose,  and  have  become  almost  as  obsolete  as  those  of 
Clement  Marot  and  Ponsard.  The  French  seem  to  have  room  in  their 
hearts  but  for  one  truly  national  song  ;  that  song  is  the  Marseillaise, 
and  nothing  that  Beranger  ever  wrote  approaches  it  in  popularity. 
Its  poetry  and  music  are  in  perfect  accord ;  and  it  reigns  supreme 
in  the  heart  of  the  French  people — the  more's  the  pity  !  because  it 
glorifies  aggressive  war,  which  is  out  of  date,  and  takes  no  account 
of  the  progress  of  humanity. 

CHARLES  MACKAT. 


VOL.  VII. -No.  37.  K  K 


486  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY.  March 


THE  PROPER    USE   OF   THE   CITY 
CHURCHES. 


IT  is  reported  that  to  the  accomplished  and  intended  destruction  of 
City  churches  will  shortly  be  added  the  demolition  of  Sion  College, 
one  of  the  most  interesting  buildings  in  the  heart  of  London. 

The  City  has  too  few  ancient  monuments  that  we  should  part  with 
one  of  them  without  regret,  and  too  few  open  spaces  to  give  up  even 
so  small  a  one  as  the  quadrangle  of  Sion  College  without  at  least  a 
protest  against  the  ground  being  covered  by  warehouses  for  buttons 
and  tape.  If,  indeed,  the  clergy  of  Sion  College  need  a  larger  room 
in  which  to  meet,  it  would  seem  far  better  that  they  should  occasion- 
ally take  a  public  hall  for  their  purpose  away  from  the  rest  of  their 
building. 

The  value  of  such  a  quiet  nook,  of  so  peaceful  a  library,  of  the 
time-worn  building,  seems  far  to  outweigh  any  mere  utilitarian  argu- 
ments which  may  be  brought  forward  on  the  other  side.  The  in- 
terest that  attaches  to  such  a  spot  may  perhaps  be  sentimental,  but 
it  is  surely  much  when  sentiment  can  cling  round  a  space  in  the 
busy  City,  which  certainly  does  not  suffer  from  an  excess  of  that 
quality.  It  is  to  be  feared  that  if  Sion  College  goes,  so  will  also  go 
its  neighbour,  the  precious  relic  of  old  London  Wall,  which  stands 
opposite  its  gateway ;  and  two  more  links  which  connect  London  with 
its  past  will  be  swept  away  for  ever  beyond  recovery. 

No  amount  of  money,  even  for  a  deserving  charity,  no  extended 
room  for  the  irritating  volumes  of  modern'  theological  controversy, 
no  amount  of  space  in  which  parsons  of  different  schools  should 
exercise  their  lungs,  can  weigh  for  one  moment  in  my  mind  against 
the  arguments  for  retaining  the  building  where  and  as  it  now 
is.  But  the  reckless  spirit  of  destruction  which  sweeps  away  every 
old  monument  because  its  use  is  not  at  the  moment  apparent,  is 
unlikely  to  stay  its  hand  at  the  gateway  of  Sion  College.  It,  too, 
will  probably  have  to  disappear,  as  well  as  many  of  the  churches,  the 
incumbe  nts  of  which  havebeen  ex  officio  fellows  of  the  College. 

Attached  to  almost  every  church  in  the  City  has  been  its  small 
churchyard,  and  with  the  demolition  of  the  church  there  comes,  only 
too  often,  the  block  of  buildings  over  not  only  its  site,  but  its  neigh- 
bouring consecrated  enclosure,  so  that  another  of  the  rare,  if  small,  open 
spaces  is  lost  to  the  City. 


1880.       PROPER    USE  OF  THE  CITY  CHURCHES.        487 

Now  these  spaces  are  not  only  ventilating  shafts  through  which 
a  purer  air  may  drop  into  the  midst  of  the  crowded  town,  but  the 
actual  trees  or  shrubs  which  are,  or  may  be,  planted  in  them,  are 
a  rest  to  the  tired  brain  and  eye,  none  the  less  real  because  those 
who  benefit  by  them  are  perhaps  unconscious  of  their  subtle 
influence.  To  many  who  daily  pass  through  Stationers'  Hall  Court, 
the  great  plane  tree  in  the  middle  of  that  otherwise  sordid  enclosure 
brings  precisely  the  same  rest,  in  kind,  though  not,  of  course,  in 
degree,  that  the  Alps  bring  to  the  tired  worker  on  his  yearly  holiday. 
There  are  many  who,  on  their  way  from  station  or  omnibus  to 
places  of  business,  deliberately  go  a  few  steps  aside,  in  order  to  pass 
that  and  other  trees  which  grow  in  the  few  quiet  corners  still  left  to 
London.  In  the  churches  themselves  there  are  to  be  found  old 
monuments,  old  decorations,  precious  relics  of  past  years^  old  pictures, 
and,  not  least,  old  customs.  The  churches  have  curiously  tended  to 
preserve  the  memory  of  days  when  they  were  almost  in  the  fields,  when 
even  the  City  of  London  was  not  unlike  some  of  our  larger  country 
villages,  in  that  the  streets  and  lanes  still  preserve  the  old  church 
paths,  and  mark  the  boundaries  of  parishes. 

To  the  archaeological  student  these  are  of  the  highest  value, 
and  they  link  us  with  the  past  in  perfectly  unexpected  ways. 
It  may  not  be  generally  known  that  there  are  shrines  in  the  City, 
to  which,  in  spite  of  the  Protestantism  of  300  years,  Catholic  pilgrim- 
ages are  even  now,  though  secretly,  performed;  and  Pilgrim  Street 
is  still  worn  by  the  steps  of  those  who  are  devoutly  led  to* where  once 
stood  the  shrine  of  St.  Paul,  as  well  as  by  the  hundreds  who  hurry  to 
Ludgate  Hill  Terminus. 

London  is  again,  in  spite  of  the  many  exaggerations  of  modern 
architects,  tending  to  become  what  once  it  was,  a  singularly  beautiful 
town.  Sir  Christopher  Wren  knew  perfectly  well  what  he  was  about 
when,  in  rebuilding  the  City  after  the  great  fire,  he  designed  the 
steeples  of  his  various  churches  to  harmonise  with  his  great  work  at 
St.  Paul's,  the  effect  of  which  on  the  mind  Mr.  J.  J.  Stevenson,  in 
his  recent  work  on  House  Architecture,  compares  to  that  of  a  great 
mountain. 

It  is  the  most  reckless  Vandalism  to  destroy  what  of  beauty  is 
left,  and  it  would  seem  little  to  ask,  but  more  than  has  been  granted, 
that  at  least  those  who  pull  down  the  churches  might  leave,  for 
beauty's  sake,  the  towers  and  spires  still  standing. 

It  is  not,  however,  on  these  grounds,  strong  as  they  are,  that  I 
would  rest  my  real  argument  for  the  preservation  of  City  churches  and 
City  parishes.  The  reason  for  which  they  have  been  condemned 
has  been  a  plausible  one.  The  population,  we  are  told,  has  left  the 
City  :  there  is  no  one  to  go  to  church.  All  round  the  City  there  has 
grown  up  a  ring  of  dense  population,  for  whom  there  is'no  church 
accommodation.  Pull  down,  therefore,  the  useless  buildings  ;Tunite 

K  K  2 


488  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY.  March 

three  or  four  parishes  into  one  ;  apply  the  funds  to  the  erection 
of  churches  in  the  suburbs ;  replace  what  is  now  a  sham  by  a  reality. 

These  arguments  seem  to  break  down  on  every  point.  The  popu- 
lation has  not  left  the  City  ;  on  the  contrary,  there  is  no  spot  in  the 
world  where  so  many  human  beings  are  crowded^  for  the  greater  part 
of  each  week  as  the  City  of  London. 

If  the  bishops  and  other  supporters  of  this  spoliation  scheme  are 
going  in  for  the  extreme  Protestant  notion  that  Sunday  is  the  only 
day  on  whicb  men  have  souls  to  be  saved,  or  can  worship  Grod,  let 
them  by  all  means  be  consistent  and  abolish  the  Prayer  Book,  which 
speaks  of  daily  prayer,  and  has  singularly  little  recognition  of  Sun- 
day. 

I  maintain  that  there  is  absolutely  no  place  on  earth  in  which  a 
multiplicity  of  church  services  might  be  so  well  attended,  or  prove 
such  a  refreshment  to  the  weary,  such  a  healing  to  the  worn  spirit, 
as  the  City  of  London  ;  that  there  is  scarcely  any  place  in  which  a 
wise  clergyman  would  have  so  great  opportunities  of  usefulness 
among  the  young,  the  active,  the  intellectual,  the  sceptical,  and  the 
curious— in  fact,  among  just  those  classes  at  whom  the  parson  hardly 
ever  gets. 

Of  course,  if  a  London  incumbent  sticks  to  his  dreary  routine  of 
4  Dearly  beloved  brethren,'  and  his  no  less  dreary  sermon,  he  can  do 
nothing ;  but  he  will  do  much  if  he  chooses  to  adapt  himself  to  the 
needs  of  his  strange,  abnormal,  gigantic  population. 

Not  long  ago  an  experiment  of  the  kind  I  mean  was  tried  at  St. 
Ethelburga's  in  Bishopsgate  Street  on  Wednesdays  and  Fridays,  and, 
I  think,  every  day  during  Lent  and  Advent.  There  was  a  short 
choral  service  at  a  quarter  past  one,  lasting  from  twenty  minutes 
to  half  an  hour.  The  church  was  crammed  at  every  one  of  these 
services ;  and  such  also,  I  believe,  has  been  the  result  in  like  cases. 
But  there  came  a  foolish  outcry  about  Eitualism,  to  which  the 
parson  no  less  foolishly  yielded,  and  the  church  was  closed. 

What  I  want  to  see  is  the  same  sort  of  thing  done  in  many 
churches.  There  are  congregations  for  them  all,  and  not  only  for  one, 
but  for  several  services  at  each.  Let  any  City  incumbent  honestly 
try  the  experiment  of  having  a  short  service  at  one  or  more  hours 
in  the  middle  of  every  day,  between  twelve  and  two  o'clock.  Such 
service  might  consist  of  a  couple  of  chanted  psalms,  a  short  lesson, 
two  or  three  collects,  and  a  metrical  hymn. 

Let  the  parson  send  round  to  the  houses  of  business  within  the 
parish  a  short  circular  stating  what  he  means  to  do,  and  his  wish 
to  gather  about  him  a  voluntary  choir.  Let  him,  I  should  say, 
carefully  eschew  anything  in  the  way  of  a  sermon,  except  that 
perhaps  occasionally,  and  not  as  of  set  purpose,  he  might  speak  a 
very  few  words  of  explanation  or  exhortation  after  the  lesson. 
Let  him  also  allow  it  to  be  distinctly  understood  that,  for  an  hour 


1880.      PROPER   USE  OF  THE  CITY  CHURCHES.        489 

before  and  an  hour  after  his  service,  he  is  in  the  vestry,  or  in  some 
room  off  the  church,  to  give  advice  or  instruction  or  help  of  any 
kind  to  those  who  would  speak  to  him ;  and  so  soon  as  he  has  gained 
the  confidence  of  persons  by  his  mode  of  conducting  the  service,  and 
by  the  few  words  he  may  say  from  time  to  time,  he  would  find  not 
only  tens  but  hundreds  of  young  men  whom  he  might  gather  round 
him  for  good  works  of  various  kinds,  and  for  their  own  mutual 
profit. 

With  them,  if  need  be,  he  might  make  a  raid  upon  the  sin  and 
misery,  the  ignorance,  and  the  apathy  of  the  parishes  for  which 
the  new  churches  were  to  be  built — of  which  more  hereafter. 

Of  course  all  these  services  would  not  be  conducted  on  one  and 
the  same  plan.  The  Low  Churchman,  the  High  Churchman,  the 
Broad  Churchman,  would  each  have  his  own  way,  and  would  gather 
round  him  his  own  special  congregations,  and  he  would  also  have  his 
particular  good  works  in  which  he  would  get  his  congregation  to 
take  part.  One  man  might  carry  on  a  teetotal  association  through 
and  by  means  of  his  services,  another  night-refuge  work,  another  the 
reclaiming  of  the  fallen,  and  so  on  ;  and  then,  if  need  be,  he  might 
fairly  shut  up  his  church  on  Sundays,  and  take  his  holiday,  or  occupy 
his  day  in  such  way  as  he  pleased. 

And  remember  it  is  not  alone  the  orthodox,  or  those  who  might 
be  called  the  religiously  disposed,  that  would  value  these  services. 
There  is  a  religious  sentiment  which  has  to  be  satisfied  totally 
apart  from  all  questions  of  dogma.  There  is  a  rest  to  the  spirit  that 
is  to  be  gained  where  others  are  praying,  even  by  those  who  do  not 
pray. 

One  who  well  knew  boy-nature  spoke  of  the  advantage  of  the 
services  in  Eton  Chapel,  when  describing  the  assembling  of  the  boys, 
in  these  words : — 

They  come  from  field,  and  wharf,  and  street, 

With  dewy  hair  and  veined  throat ; 
One  floor  to  tread  with  reverent  feet — 

One  hour  of  rest  for  bat  and  boat. 

It  was  simply  the  rest  that  he  valued  in  a  quiet  place,  quite 
independently  of  the  prayers  and  the  aspirations  which  might  be 
offered  there ;  and  this  I  believe  to  be  most  true  to  nature.  I  know 
that  the  services  [at  St.  Ethelburga's  were  often  the  greatest  refresh- 
ment to  a  wearied  brain,  and  that  one  who  turns  with  disgust  from 
the  ordinary  Sunday  services  was  often  glad  of  the  ten  minutes  or 
twenty  minutes  spent  there. 

Again,  why  should  not  the  parson,  when  he  has  once  gathered  his 
congregation  round  him,  put  his  church  at  their  disposal  ?  We  often 
see  abroad,  in  Southern  Germany  for  instance,  a  congregation  without 
a  priest,  led  perhaps  by  the  village  schoolmaster,  or  some  other  acting  as 


490  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  March 

representative,  reciting  their  own  litanies,  singing  their  own  hymns,  as 
though  no  priest  were  wanted  to  come  between  man  and  his  God. 
Why,  if  the  City  incumbent  does  not  always  choose  to  leave  his  plea- 
sant home  in  the  suburbs  to  come  and  look  after  those  few  sheep  in 
the  wilderness  of  London,  might  he  not  at  least  allow  the  sheep  to 
bleat  within  the  enclosure  ? 

It  has  been  said, '  Keep,  then,  the  churches  in  the  great  thorough- 
fare, and  let  us  destroy  the  little  out-of-the-way  churches  which  no 
one  can  use.'  Not  so,  say  I ;  these  are  just  among  the  places 
which  are  most  precious.  Open  them  as  homes  of  quiet  prayer  and 
retirement ;  hang  up  in  them  a  few  good  pictures ;  let  an  organist,  a 
volunteer  it  may  be,  play  some  quiet  and  lovely  music  for  an  hour ; 
give  the  tired  a  corner  in  which  they  may  rest ;  give,  again,  the  young 
man  who  wishes  to  devote  himself  to  some  religious  work  and  life,  but 
who  has  not  as  yet  the  courage  to  turn  into  the  church  in  the  great 
thoroughfare — give  him,  I  say,  a  chance  of  strengthening  himself  in 
his  convictions  in  the  secluded  church. 

Jt  may  be  urged  that,  in  the  strain  and  stress  of  London  life,  no 
one  would  have  time  to  attend  such  services.  Quite  the  contrary. 
Almost  every  one  engaged  in  business  in  the  City  takes  a  full  hour  in 
the  middle  of  the  day,  of  which  little  more  than  a  quarter  is  occupied 
in  the  necessary  meal.  This  enormous  population  is  composed  mainly 
of  young  men.  It  is  essential  to  them  that  the  hour  be  taken  in  full, 
partly  as  a  rest  to  themselves,  and  partly  because  they  would  not  feel 
it 'fair  to  their  companions  to  give  up  freely  time,  which,  if  they 
did  not '  take  it,  might  afterwards  be  demanded  from  them  and  their 
fellows. 

Now  how  is  a  young  man  who  wants  perhaps  a  light  dinner, 
despatched  in  less  than  half  an  hour,  to  employ  the  rest  of  his  time  ? 
This  might  be  to  many  the  opportunity  of  instilling  those  religious 
principles  which  the  clergy  wish  to  instil,  and  which,  so  brought 
about,  would  be  far  more  real  than  any  which  are  induced  by  the 
stereotyped  services  of  the  Sunday,  when  in  fact  the  young  men  of 
whom  I  am  thinking  would  do  far  better  to  escape,  if  they  could,  into 
pure  country  air,  and  listen  to  the  song  of  the  birds,  and  see  the 
springing  of  the  grass,  rather  than  be  shut  up  in  a  church  for  two 

long  hours. 

The  great  Metropolitan  Cathedral  ought  of  course  to  lead  the  way. 
At  present,  in  spite  of  some  indications  to  the  contrary,  it  is  far  from 
meeting  the  needs  of  the  City.  The  deadly  shade  of  canonical  hours 
is  over  the  whole  thing  ;  the  services  are  too  long,  and  at  times  when 
they  are  not  really  useful  for  the  class  for  whom  I  am  now  speaking. 
By  all  means  keep  these,  if  any  one  likes  them ;  but  what  is  the  use  of 
&  dean,  four  canons,  and  minor  canons,  if  they  cannot  keep  up  a 
series  of  services  all  the  year,  and  generally  without  sermons  at  the 
hours  at  which  these  might  really  be  useful  ? 


1880.      PROPER    USE  OF  THE  CITY  CHURCHES.        491 

Stroll  into  St.  Paul's  on  a  week  day,  between  twelve  and  two, 
except  during  Lent,  and  note  the  crowds  who  enter  and  retire,  treble 
or  quadruple  the  number  that  enter  during  any  other  time,  and  ask 
what  is  the  good  of  the  cathedral  to  all  these.  If,  indeed,  the  central 
dome  is  wanted  for  mere  sight-seers,  by  all  means  keep  it  free,  but 
have  such  a  service  as  that  of  which  I  spoke  in  a  side  aisle,  or  in 
one  of  the  numerous  chapels  which  at  present  serve  no  purpose  -what- 
ever. Let  the  organ  play  during  these  hours.  I  know  that  there 
are  difficulties.  So  long  as  the  canons  and  minor  canons  have  other 
•work  than  that  of  the  cathedral,  so  long  as  the  organist  is  a  music 
master,  and  is  not  obliged  to  give  his  whole  time  and  attention  to 
his  cathedral,  so  long  as  the  organ  is  a  thing  sacred  and  apart,  to  be 
touched  only  by  the  fingers  of  its  legitimate  master,  there  will  be 
difficulties.  .But  they  are  not  insuperable. 

At  the  service  at  St.  Ethelburga's  of  which  I  spoke,  the  whole 
cost  of  the  services  was  defrayed  by  the  voluntary  offerings  of  the 
people.  I  see  no  reason  why  all  such  services,  except  perhaps  at  the 
cathedral,  should  not  be  defrayed  by  voluntary  offerings ;  the  mere 
halfpence  which  I  verily  believe  would  be  saved  from  dinner  beer 
would  amply  provide  a  whole  staff. 

But  even  now  I  have  not  exhausted  the  arguments  in  favour  of  the 
retention  of  City  churches.  If  the  Church  of  England  is  indeed 
unable  to  use  these  edifices,  do  not  pull  them  down  in  a  dog-in-the- 
manger  spirit  till  you  have  at  least  offered  them  to  other  denomina- 
tions. If  there  be  churches  which  the  Establishment  will  not  use, 
offer  them  to  the  Cardinal  Archbishop  of  Westminster — offer  them,  if 
you  will,  to  Mr.  Spurgeon,  or  to  Mr.  Baldwin  Brown.  At  least  let 
them,  if  they  please,  see  what  they  can  do  for  the  masses. 

I  said  that  the  argument  for  the  demolition  of  the  churches 
broke  down  at  every  point.  I  know  none  at  which  it  so  breaks  down 
as  the  providing  what  is  called  additional  accommodation  for  the 
suburbs.  What  is  wanted  there  is  not  so  much  the  multiplication  of 
buildings  as  the  multiplication  of  services.  The  same  sort  of  argu- 
ment which  pleads  for  the  retention  of  many  places  in  the  City  where 
the  population  is  enormous,  and  yet  no  one  has  time  to  go  more  than 
a  very  short  distance  from  his  house  of  business,  applies  conversely  to 
the  multiplication  of  services  in  one  large  building  in  the  suburbs, 
where  every  one  has  time  to  go  some  distance  from  home,  where  large 
buildings  are  wanted,  and  yet  not  services  all  at  the  same  time  or  of 
the  same  length.  I  fully  believe  that  in  Hoxton,  or  Shoreditch,  or 
Brixton,  more  good  would  be  done  by  cne  central  church,  with  a 
staff  of  ten  clergy  who  would  have  short  hearty  services  at  every  hour 
through  the  day,  than  by  any  ten  scattered  churches  each  with  its 
incumbent  and  curate,  and  with  its  whole  apparatus  of  the  ordinary 
morning  and  evening  prayer. 

Believe  me,  I  would  say  to  bishop  and  clergy,  I  feel  earnestly 


492  THE  .NINETEENTH    CENTURY.  March 

and  even  -passionately  on  this  subject.  I  who  speak  to  you  am  not 
one  who  takes  in  any  degree  the  views  that  you  do  on  these  subjects, 
I,  who  am  not  a  leliever  in  your  sense,  am  pleading  with  you,  who 
are,  for  what  ought  to  be  more  to  you  than  to  me.  Surely  the 
London  clergy  should  not  allow  it  to  be  said  that  one  who  has 
deliberately  abandoned  the  faith  they  hold  should  be  more  earnest 
to  see  their  churches  filled,  more  anxious  that  they  should  do  their 
work  in  the  world,1'  than  they  are  themselves,"Vho  are  officially  bound 
to  do  it,  and,  we  may  charitably  hope,  are  inclined  as  well  as  bound. 
If  my  plan  really' were  carried  out,  the  influence  on  society  would 
be  considerable.  It  would  make  men  more  thoughtful,  more  earnest, 
more  inquiring,  more  religious  than  they  are  now;  and  when  that  is 
once  done,  I  care  little  what  particular  development  their  opinions 
may  take.  They  may  or  may  not  come  through  orthodoxy  to  the 
position  I  now  hold.  I  know  not,  and  I  care  not ;  but  what  I  do 
care  about  is  to  see  opportunities  for  quiet  rest,  refreshment,  thought, 
provided  in  the  midst  of  this  bustling  town.  I  do  wish  to  see  those 
who  are  professors  of  a  great  and  august  religion,  the  priests  of  a 
grand  historic  Church,  at  all  events  make  an  effort  after  real  life 
before  they  die,  if  die  they  must,  and  attempt  at  least  to  cope 
with  the  apathy,  the  indifference,  and  the  vice  of  the  largest  popula- 
tion in  the  world,  instead  of  saying  what  is  absolutely  untrue,  that 
they  must  needs  pull  down  their  churches  because  the  population  has 
left  them. 

C.  KEGAN  PAUL.. 


1880.  493 


IRISH  LAND  AGITATION. 


IN  undertaking  to  reply  to  the  article  by  Mr.  O'Connor  Power  which 
appeared  in  the  December  number,  I  do  not  think  I  am  guilty  of 
undue  assumption  in  saying  that,  if  he  had  not  had  the  fortune  to 
obtain  a  footing  in  this  Eeview,  no  man  of  common  sense,  who  happened 
to  light  upon  it,  could  for  a  moment  have  thought  of  bestowing  on  it 
half  an  hour's  consideration. 

Had  Mr.  Power  taken  up  the  important  subject  of  which  he  pro- 
fesses to  treat,  supported  it  with  anything  in  the  nature  of  sound 
argument,  and  brought  forward  facts  which  he  had  reason  to  believe  to 
be  true,  we  should  have  had  to  acknowledge  our  obligation  to  him.  But 
when  he  chooses  to  pour  forth  an  avalanche  of  assertion  unsustained 
by  a  single  argument,  and  to  launch  against  a  large  and  important 
body  of  his  fellow-countrymen  accusations,  not  only  without  one 
particle  of  evidence,  but  without  adducing  facts  with  which  the 
accused  can  grapple,  it  is  evident  that  he  degrades  an  all-important 
public  question  into  a  personal  matter,  and  would  impose  it  as  a 
duty  on  the  readers  as  well  as  the  writers  of  the  Nineteenth  Century 
to  make  it  a  subject  of  discussion,  whether  they  are  or  are  not  to 
believe  in  Mr.  O'Connor  Power.  As  for  me,  self-respect  forbids  me 
to  characterise  his  assertions  and  his  accusations  in  the  manner 
which  truth  would  justify,  and  I  feel  sufficiently  magnanimous  to 
hand  him  over  to  the  tender  mercies  of  a  more  friendly  critic.  The 
Echo,  a  newspaper  of  very  advanced  Liberal  opinions,  with  no  appa- 
rent antipathy  to  Mr.  O'Connor  Power,  and  rather  disposed  to  range 
itself  on  a  line  with  him  in  hostility,  and,  as  it  seems  to  me,  some- 
what unjust  hostility,  to  the  landlords  of  Ireland,  in  the  publication  of 
the  2nd  of  December  is  compelled  by  English  honesty  thus  to  speak  of 
Mr.  Power  and  his  remarkable  production : '  He  seems  to  have  mistaken 
vituperation  for  facts,  and  reiterated  assertions  for  powerful  argu- 
ments.' When  this  mild  gall  drops  from  a  friendly  pen,  it  is  scarcely 
necessary  to  ask  what  must  be  the  general  verdict.  And  with  re- 
ference to  these  sweeping  accusations  made  against  the  landlords  of 
Ireland,  if  even  they  had  come  through  a  more  formidable  channel, 


494  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  March 

Irish  landlords  still  might  have  taken  comfort  in  the  reflection  that 
they  were  never  in  a  better  position  for  repelling  such  an  onslaught. 
It  is  impossible  to  doubt  that  the  long-coatinued  and  honest  exertions 
of  far  the  greater  part  of  their  number  for  the  improvement  of  their 
tenants  must  at  length  have  come  to  be  appreciated  by  all  that  is  best 
in  Irish  public  opinion ;  and  they  have  moreover  recently  received  very 
valuable  testimony  from  unexpected  quarters.  The  admirable  letter 
of  Sir  George  Bowyer,  M.P.,  coming,  as  it  did,  at  the  very  nick  of 
time,  revealed  to  us  much  of  the  views  on  this  subject  of  the  late 
Cardinal  Cullen,  and  a  letter  of  mine  to  the  Times  made  known  the 
•emphatic  opinion  in  favour  of  the  landlords  of  Ireland  of  a  man 
equally  eminent — the  late  Bishop  Moriarty.  Finding  these  views 
thoroughly  supported  by  the  very  best  of  the  .Irish  Eoman  Catholic 
hierarchy  and  clergy,  I  venture  to  say  that  Messrs.  Parnell^  Power, 
and  Co.  may,  without  detriment,  be  allowed  for  some  time  to  con- 
tinue knocking  their  heads  against  authorities  such  as  these.  On  a 
review  then  of  the  position,  I  should  here  be  very  glad  to  drop  Mr. 
O'Connor  Power,  leaving  him  in  the  humiliating  position  in  which 
he  has  chosen  to  place  himself,  and  to  consider  the  important  subject 
we  have  before  us  in  a  somewhat  larger  and  more  philosophical  spirit ; 
but  having  taken  him  in  hand,  it  may  be  my  unpleasant  duty  to 
deal  with  him  a  little  more  in  detail,  and  at  least  to  make  more 
evident  the  purpose  of  his  article. 

What  surprises  me  on  this  occasion  is,  not  finding  a  man  who  has 
fallen  into  a  great  number  of  errors,  but  finding  one  who  appears 
to  be  afflicted  with  an  intellectual  incapacity  even  to  understand 
what  the  truth  is,  and  who,  like  the  colour-blind,  not  even  perceiving 
the  deceptive  condition  of  his  optic  nerve,  fails  to  understand  how 
he  can  all  the  time  be  thinking  in  red  while  he  is  seeing  in  green. 
These  are  no  doubt  severe  words  to  apply  to  any  man ;  but  are  they 
too  hard  for  one  who  in  December  1879,  at  the  end  of  the  ninth  year 
of  Mr.  Gladstone's  Land  Act,  tells  his  fellow-countrymen  in  England 
that  we  have  at  this  moment  in  Ireland  landlords  without  sense  of 
justice,  'grasping,  rack-renting'  (p.  955),  'guilty  of  unjust  exactions ' 
(p.  955),  with  all  the  'natural  selfishness  of  proprietors'  (p.  956), 
bankrupt  of  the  means,  even  had  they  the  inclination,  to  do  good 
(p.  957),  who  on  the  rarest  occasions  avail  themselves  of  the  means 
placed  at  their  disposal  for  improvements  (p.  957)— yet,  strange  to 
say,  the  records  of  the  Board  of  Works  tell  us  that  they  have  borrowed 
for  this  purpose  within  a  very  few  pounds  of  three  millions  sterling — 
and  who,  with  regard  to  the  farming  population  of  Ireland,  ventures 
to  assert  that  at  the  present  day  a  very  large  proportion  of  their 
number  consists  of  what  he  is  pleased  to  call  tenants-at-will  (meaning, 
we  may  presume,  a  very  different  thing,  viz.,  tenants  from  year  to 
year),  whom  he  further  describes  as  '  essentially  demoralised  and  de- 
graded '  (p.  957),  'of  blasted  hopes  and  ruined  homes' (p.  957), 


1880.  IRISH  LAND  AGITATION.  495 

*  bereft  of  comfort,  encouragement,  and  aspiration '  (p.  959)  ?  How 
then  are  we  to  meet  allegations  which  we  know  to  be  absolutely 
contrary  to  the  facts  ?  Am  I  not  justified  in  offering  the  very 
flattest  possible  contradiction,  and  in  opposing  the  very  strongest 
counter-assertion — remembering  that  my  assertions  are  not  lightly 
formed,  but  that  they  are  the  outcome  of  a  life-long  struggle  with 
the  difficult  problem  which  the  adverse  position  of  the  Irish  land 
presented  to  the  landlord  ?  I  have  already  frequently,  and  notably 
in  a  former  number  of  this  Eeview  (June  1878),  stated  that  the 
main  evil  resulted  from  the  overwhelming  mass  of  the  most  pauperised 
tenants  bequeathed  to  us  at  the  expiration  of  the  middlemen's  leases. 
A  detail  of  the  manner  in  which  I,  and  I  believe  the  great  majority 
of  Irish  landlords,  encountered  these  difficulties,  would  be  the  most 
crushing  and  substantive  contradiction  to  Mr.  Power's  misstatements 
both  as  affecting  the  landlord  and  as  affecting  the  tenant ;  but  as 
this  would  occupy  a  great  deal  of  space  and  have  somewhat  the 
appearance  of  self-glorification,  I  gladly  adopt  a  shorter  means  to 
refute  the  most  important  part  of  Mr.  Power's  assertions,  viz.,  that 
which  has  regard  to  the  present  '  miserable  '  condition  of  the  Irish 
tenant. 

We  have  connected  with  the  Land  Act  three  facts  undisputed  and 
indisputable,  which  not  even  Mr.  Power  himself  will  venture  to  ques- 
tion, and  which  it  will  at  once  be  seen  are  absolutely  incompatible 
with  his  description  of  the  Irish  farmer.  1.  The  Land  Act  gave  to 
the  Irish  tenant  privileges  far  in  excess  of  any  remedial  measure 
-ever  asked  for  by  the  tenant  himself  or  his  most  ardent  advocate. 
2.  We  find  that  whereas  there  exist  alongside  of  the  Irish,  and  at  no 
very  enormous  distance,  the  Scotch  nineteen-year  leaseholder  and  the 
English  tenant  from  year  to  year,  men  who  are  admitted  to  be  the  first 
of  their  class  among  all  the  occupiers  of  Europe,  the  Land  Act  was 
not  content  with  placing  the  Irish  farmer,  in  point  of  privileges,  on  a 
line  with  those  of  Scotland  and  England,  but  raised  him  to  a  position 
by  many  degrees  in  advance.  3.  We  see  that  the  Land  Act  conferred 
on  the  Irish  farmer  boons  new  and  valuable,  which  no  occupier  of  the 
soil,  as  distinguished  from  owner,  up  to  this  time  had  ever  possessed  ; 
the  compensation  for  improvements,  even  when  executed  without  the 
landlord's  consent,  was  an  immense  step  in  advance,  and  not  unfre- 
quently  did  very  serious  injustice  to  the  landlord;  compensation  for 
disturbance  was  a  stride  still  more  enormous.  We  have  it  on  official 
record  that  it  gave  to  360,000  of  the  smaller  occupiers  a  lien  to  the 
extent  of  one  quarter  of  the  landlord's  property;  and  we  find  on  the 
authority  of  the  late  Sir  John  Gray,  who,  though  he  generally  appeared 
in  the  character  of  'Oliver  asking  for  more,'  and  was  not  in  such  a  case 
likely  to  be  reticent — we  have,  I  say,  his  assurance  that  the  signing  of 
the  Land  Act  transferred,  by  a  single  stroke  of  the  pen,  seventy  millions 
of  property  from  the  landlord  to  the  tenant.  We  may  leave  it  to  Mr. 


496  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  March 

Power  to  reconcile  his  description  of  the  state  of  the  Irish  tenant  with 
the  recent  acquisition  of  boons  and  privileges  such  as  these. 

I  shall  now  proceed  to  deal  with  a  few  separate  items  which  strike 
me  as  most  important  or  most  characteristic  in  Mr.  Power's  article. 
He  commences  by  treating  in  rather  an  offhand  manner  two  quotations 
which  he  makes,  one  from  Mr.  Lowther,  one  from  Lord  Salisbury, 
which  he  pronounces  to  be  absurdly  exaggerated  and  mere  electioneer- 
ing clap-trap.  He  states  that  Mr.  Lowther  applies  the  term  '  undi- 
luted Communism  '  to  recent  Irish  agitation,  while  Lord  Salisbury 
holds  it  guilty  of  '  doctrines  which  have  never  before  been  seriously 
raised  in  any  civilised  State.'  As  to  Mr.  Lowther's  words  it  happens 
that  I  was  under  the  gallery  of  the  House  of  Commons  when  he  made 
use  of  the  expression ;  and,  if  my  memory  does  not  altogether  lead  me 
astray,  Mr.  Power  must  be  aware  of  two  things— -firstly,  that  Mr. 
Lowther  never  applied  the  term  to  recent  Irish  agitation,  but  to  some 
of  the  provisions  of  Mr.  Butt's  Land  Bill  then  before  the  House ; 
secondly,  that  if  he  had  applied  it  as  Mr.  Power  asserts,  he  must 
have  known  that  these  words  so  applied,  as  well  as  those  used  by  Lord 
Salisbury,  were  not  only  not  an  exaggeration,  but  were  very  much  of 
an  understatement.  Communism,  if  I  understand  it  rightly,  means 
that  my  property  should  be  shared  with  A,  B,  C,  and  D,  but  I  am  at 
least  allowed  a  share;  while  the  recent  Irish  agitation  would  end  in 
handing  over  my  entire  property  to  A,  B,  C,  and  D,  reserving  nothing 
for  the  former  owner,  who,  if  he  remonstrates,  is  to  be  compensated 
by  an  ounce  of  lead. 

One  of  the  most  important  points,  if  not  the  most  important,  i* 
his  charge  of  exceesive  rent.  Had  he  made  good  his  general  accusa- 
tions of  high  rent  throughout  Ireland,  or  even  made  any  serious 
approach  to  doing  so,  I  should  have  had  to  admit  a  defeat.  But,  as 
it  is,  on  this  subject  I  consider  myself  to  be  impregnable.  I  have 
considered  it  deeply  from  every  point  of  view,  both  practically  and 
theoretically,  tested  it  with  every  test,  and  debated  it  with  so  many 
able  antagonists  that  I  scarcely  think  it  possible  I  can  be  mistaken  ; 
but  I  never  yet  have  relied  solely  on  my  own  opinion,  or  indeed  on 
any  Irish  opinion,  as  such,  however  valuable,  might  be  suspected  of 
undue  bias,  either  on  the  side  of  the  tenant  or  of  the  landlord,  and  I 
have  always  looked  upon  it  as  a  most  fortunate  circumstance  that  at 
the  most  critical  moment,  in  the  very  throes  of  the  Land  Act, 
there  came  to  Ireland  from  various  parts,  and  of  various  classes,  a 
number  of  men  the  very  best  qualified  to  pronounce  on  every  ques- 
tion connected  with  land.  They  came  with  no  very  favourable  dis- 
positions towards  the  '  tyrannical '  Irish  landlord,  to  investigate  his 
conduct,  and  to  pronounce,  if  necessary,  its  condemnation.  Speaking 
from  memory,  I  can  only  enumerate  as  follows :  Mr.  Caird,  Mr. 
McLagan,  M.P.,  Sir  George  Campbell,  M.P.,  Mr.  O'Connor  Morris 
(known  as  the  Times  Commissioner),  Mr.  Samuelson,  M.P.,  Mr. 


1850.  IRISH  LAND  AGITATION.  497 

Sanderson,  M.P.,  and  last,  but  very  far  indeed  from  least,  Mr.  H.  S. 
Thompson,  formerly  M.P.  for  "Whitby,  of  whom  I  shall  by-and-by 
have  to  speak  some  special  words.  The  opinion  of  each  individual 
of  this  number  would  carry  the  greatest  weight,  but  taken  collectively 
their  verdict  would  be  quite  overwhelming.  These  men,  we  are 
assured  with  a  unanimity  almost  complete,  pronounced  that  the  land 
of  Ireland  was,  as  a  rule,  let  very  much  below  its  intrinsic  value.  If 
this  verdict  is  not  to  be  held  conclusive,  how  are  we  to  arrive  at  a 
decision  ?  But  I  wish  to  say  one  word  as  to  Mr.  Thompson,  who,  as 
I  have  indicated,  stands  facile  princeps  among  the  above  authorities. 
Thoroughly  steeped  in  the  knowledge  of  agriculture  in  all  its  branches, 
President  of  the  Royal  Agricultural  Society  of  England,  connected 
with  the  most  important  railway  interests,  specially  trained  on  Irish 
questions  by  having  made  a  tour  of  inquiry  in  1839  and  another  in 
1869,  he  was  moreover  the  trusted  friend,  and,  in  reference  to  the 
Land  Act,  the  private  commissioner  of  Mr.  Gladstone.  It  was,  there- 
fore, with  the  utmost  pleasure  that  I  accepted,  in  October  1869,  an 
invitation  to  meet  him  at  the  house  of  my  friend,  Mr.  EdmondDease, 
since  M.P.  for  Queen's  County.  The  party  besides  our  host  consisted 
of  Mr.  Thompson  and  his  son,  Mr.  Dease's  brother,  and  myself.  We 
found  that  before  our  arrival  Mr.  Dease  had  arranged  to  take  us  to 
Mountrath,  some  twenty  miles  distant,  to  confer  with  the  two  parish 
priests,  Rev.  Mr.  O'Shee  and  Rev.  Mr.  O'Keefe,  men  well  known  (as 
since  recorded  by  Mr.  A.  M.  Sullivan)  as  the  originators  of  the  tenant 
movement  in  Ireland.  These  gentlemen  entertained  us  most  hospi- 
tably, and,  the  moment  the  decks  were  cleared,  we  set  to  at  the  Land 
Act  then  impending.  Had  there  happily  been  a  reporter  present,  a 
most  valuable  addition  would  have  been  made  to  the  literature  of 
this  question.  Our  hosts  were  both  very  well-tempered,  one  of  them 
a  little  loud,  neither  of  them  argumentative,  but  both  full  of  the  best 
intentions.  They  vented  all  the  grievances  to  which  the  tenant  was 
subject,  and  when  encountered  by  Mr.  Thompson,  in  the  mildest  voice 
and  meekest  manner,  with  a  little  bit  of  logic  which  they  found  it  im- 
possible to  upset  or  to  surmount,  they  invariably  sought  refuge  by  saying, 
4  Oh,  Mr.  Thompson,  that  is  a  matter  of  detail' — so  much  so  that  at  Mr. 
Dease's  hospitable  mansion  these  words  became  a  household  phrase. 
Would  that  I  could  remember  more  of  those  'details' !  but,  failing  to  do 
so,  I  must  fall  back  on  my  own  passage  with  these  gentlemen,  which  I  can 
only  excuse  for  its  practical  bearing.  They  had  all  through  expressed 
their  desire  that  ample  justice  should  be  done  to  the  landlord,  that  he 
should  receive  the  full  value  of  his  land.  I  said  to  them :  '  Are  you  aware, 
gentlemen,  that  we  have  in  Dublin  a  Government  valuation  carried  out 
by  Sir  Richard  Griffith,  which  professes  to  be  taken  25  per  cent,  under 
the  full  letting  value  ?  If  you  were  now  called  upon  to  make  a 
valuation  of  any  estate,  would  you  think  it  just  to  restore  that  25  per 
cent.  ? '  '  Perfectly  so,'  was  their  reply.  I  continued  :  '  Are  you  also 


498  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  March 

aware  that  the  valuation  was  based  on  a  scale  of  the  prices  of  all  farm 
produce  which  has  been  recorded  in  the  Government  valuation  office  to 
this  day  ?  Would  it  then  be  fair,  if  now  making  a  valuation,  to  vary  the 
rents  upwards  or  downwards  in  exact  proportion  to  the  degree  in  which 
prices  of  the  last,  say,  three  years  have  varied  from  the  prices  on 
which  that  Government  valuation  was  based  ?  '  They  replied :  '  Per- 
fectly fair.'  '  Then,'  said  I,  l  gentlemen,  I  will  undertake  to  say  that 
in  so  doing  you  will  add,  not  a  million,  but  millions  a  year  to  the 
pockets  of  the  landlords  and  to  the  burdens  of  the  tenants.'  Of  course 
my  view  was  disputed,  but  I  have  only  to  say  that  the  very  instant  I 
returned  home  I  proceeded  in  the  most  careful  and  elaborate  way  to 
test  the  question.  These  calculations  I  have  retained,  and  they  are 
at  the  service  of  any  who  desire  to  see  them.  They  are  quite 
sufficient  to  establish  the  result  of  my  principle.  This  principle 
I  have  since  found  of  the  greatest  value  in  several  debates  in  which  I 
have  been  engaged.  It  is  easy  to  see  that  it  may  be  the  means  of 
closing  numberless  controversies  ;  and  it  amply  confirms  the  opinion 
of  the  English  and  Scotch  gentlemen  above  alluded  to  as  to  the  gene- 
ral moderate  letting  of  Irish  l?nd. 

With  regard  to  the  6  reclamation  of  land,'  Mr.  Power  treats  it 
in  his  usual  asserting  style,  insisting  that  Government  is  bound 
everywhere  to  undertake  it  without  either  limit  or  discrimination  ; 
whereas  any  practical  man  knows  that  we  have  to  deal  with  re- 
clamation and  reclamation.  In  some  cases  it  may  be  amply  remu- 
nerative, but  more  frequently  as  nearly  as  possible  ruinous.  To 
paint  all  in  the  same  colour  and  with  the  same  brush  can  be  but  the 
work  of  an  ignorant  empiric.  At  page  957  he  comes  into  collision 
with  an  opinion  recently  given  in  the  Times  that  we  have  in  Ireland 
a  population  more  than  is  needed  for  agricultural  purposes  alone,  and 
that  encouragement  to  emigration  is  therefore  desirable.  We  may 
safely  leave  him  in  the  grasp  of  that  journal.  In  a  similar  way  he 
takes  upon  himself  to  talk  of  the  famine  of  1846  (p.  958).  No  one 
who  remembers,  as  I  do,  that  awful  period,  can  even  now  speak  of  it 
but  with  bated  breath  and  the  keenest  feeling.  He  does  not  for  a 
moment  hesitate  to  assert  that  the  '  people  perished  in  the  midst 
of  food  twice  sufficient  to  sustain  them.'  What  does  he  mean? 
Where  was  the  food,  and  whom  did  it  belong  to  ?  If  I  were 
to  live  a  hundred  years,  I  could  not  forget  what  we  suffered  in 
those  agonising  times.  Toiling  by  day  and  frequently  by  night 
at  relief  committees,  at  the  soup  kitchen,  at  the  relief  work  meet- 
ings, it  would  indeed  have  been  like  a  waft  of  good  news  from 
heaven,  to  learn  that  we  had  abundance  of  food  which  we  could 
have  honestly  used  for  the  purpose  that  was  weighing  us  to  the 
ground ;  but  even  had  we  had  the  advantage  of  being  educated  in 
the  doctrine  that  pressing  need  at  once  justifies  the  appropriation 
of  other  men's  property,  we  havdly  think  it  would  have 


1880.  IRISH  LAND  AGITATION.  499 

to  authorise  the  hungry  band  to  possess  themselves  of  the  reserves 
of  the  meal  merchant. 

He  treats  of  the  peasant  proprietors  of  France  and  Belgium,  and 
contrasts  them  with  the  Irish  tenants-at-will.  As  to  the  first  he 
exaggerates  and  misleads ;  as  to  to  the  last  he  presents  us  with 
the  offspring  of  a  vivid  imagination,  and  the  results  of  his  inner 
consciousness.  He  fails  to  see  how  much  of  French  and  Belgian 
success  is  dependent  on  soil  and  climate,  and  still  more  on  the  early 
training  and  habits  of  the  people.  I  am  myself  as  favourabl  e  as  he 
can  be  to  peasant  proprietors.  I  go  very  much  with  Lord  Lifford, 
who  as  a  landlord  entirely  desires  their  introduction,  but  as  an  Irish- 
man fears  for  the  success  and  even  doubts  the  benefit — I  cannot  close 
my  eyes  to  the  failures  which  we  have  already  experienced.  When  I 
began  to  write  this  article  a  few  days  since,  I  was  staying  within  a 
few  hundred  yards  of  the  '  commons  of  Ardfert,'  bits  of  land  consist- 
ing of  some  1 30  lots  scattered  over  a  considerable  area,  but  not  exceed- 
ing in  the  whole  250  acres,  occupied  by  some  80  small  proprietors, 
monarchs  of  all  that  had  been  surveyed  for  them,  and  who  had  not 
for  over  100  years  been  approached  by  a  tyrannical  landlord.  I  do 
not  believe  that  in  any  part  of  Ireland  more  squalid  misery,  more 
abject  degradation,  could  be  found  than  exists  among  this  peasant 
proprietary.  Again,  let  us  look  at  a  very  different  case,  that  of  the 
statesmen  of  Cumberland.  A  few  months  ago  I  was  staying  in  that 
county,  where  I  knew  that  at  one  time  the  whole  or  a  very  great  portion 
of  the  land  belonged  to  statesmen,  each  absolute  owner  of  his  small 
plot.  I  made  it  my  business  to  inquire  from  a  most  intelligent 
resident  gentleman  how  the  system  had  thriven,  and  learned  that  no 
failure  could  be  more  complete  ;  that  in  point  of  temperance,  intelli- 
gence, education,  these  absolute  owners  were  below  the  ordinary  day 
labourer ;  generally  steeped  in  debt,  their  little  estates  were  daily 
being  bought  up,  greatly  to  their  advantage,  by  the  neighbouring  pro- 
prietors, and  absorbed  into  their  lands.  We  are  thus  compelled  to 
learn  that  peasant  proprietary  may  be  often  disappointing  and  occa- 
sionally injurious,  and,  if  it  were  carried  out  by  a  system  such  as 
Mr.  Power's,  would  certainly  be  the  latter.  The  body  with  whom  he 
contrasts  the  peasant  proprietors  he  calls  'tenants-at-will.'  I  am 
bound  to  explain  tbat,  so  far  as  I  know,  we  have  no  such  thing  in 
Ireland ;  but  I  have  no  wish  to  quarrel  merely  about  words.  Mr. 
Power  probably  means  tenants  who  have  no  prolonged  tenure  by 
lease — tenants,  in  fact,  from  year  to  year.  Can  he  be  ignorant  that 
these  men,  instead  of  being  in  the  state  he  describes,  are  some  of  the 
most  important  and  powerful  in  our  country  ?  It  is  constantly  cast 
in  our  teeth,  and  with  great  truth,  that  they  '  are  our  masters,'  and 
it  is  to  be  considered  that  even  in  their  feeblest  aspect  these  men, 
if  dispossessed  '  capriciously,'  would  be  entitled  to  the  very  substantial 
satisfaction  of  walking  away  with  a  third  or  a  fourth  of  the  landlord's 


500  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  March 

property.  It  will  scarcely  be  believed  that  at  this  moment  we 
have  large  numbers  of  this  class  who  refuse  to  escape  from  the  '  help- 
less and  degraded'  position  which  Mr.  Power  attributes  to  them,  and 
positively  refuse  to  accept  thirty-one  year  leases  to  which  a  short 
time  since  they  had  gladly  assented.  Look  at  a  case  of  my  own.  In 
or  about  the  year  1854,  I  was  obliged  to  terminate  by  ejectment,  for 
non-payment  of  rent,  a  middleman's  lease,  made  59  years  previously 
by  my  father  to  one  tenant,  of  about  1 ,800  acres  in  the  island  of 
Valencia.  I  found  it  with  a  population  of  about  540  souls,  a  large 
portion  of  whom  held  '  in  Kundale,'  that  is  to  say,  a  group  of  a  dozen 
or  more  tenants  clustered  into  an  aggregation  of  the  most  miserable 
hovels,  holding  all  their  land  in  common.  Of  every  field  every  one  of 
the  twelve  had  his  share.  After  two  years'  enjoyment  of  their  separate 
potato  ridges,  a  scanty  handful  of  oats  was  scattered  over  the  '  lazy 
beds,'  and  the  land  was  allowed  to  struggle  back  to  pasture  as  best  it 
might.  I  took  these  wretched  farmers  in  hand,  enclosed  for  them 
twenty-five  acre  lots  from  the  most  reclaimable  parts  of  the  common 
pasture.  I  built  them  good  slated  dwellings  with  suitable  offices  for 
their  cows,  and  gave  them  more  easy  access  to  their  farms  by  making 
new  roads.  I  agreed  to  give  them  thirty-one  year  leases  on  terms 
which  involved  but  a  very  small  money  payment,  the  greater  portion 
of  the  rent  having  to  be  laid  out  on  works  of  improvement.  I  now 
find  these  tenants  one  and  all  anxious  to  remain  in  the  miserable, 
downtrodden,  helpless  state  described  by  Mr.  Power,  and  resolutely 
refusing  to  accept  the  leases  to  which  they  had  gladly  consented,  so 
much  so  that  I  am  at  this  moment  reluctantly  obliged  to  enforce  by 
legal  steps  the  carrying  out  of  our  agreement.  Were  this  a  solitary 
instance,-  it  would  be  idle  to  refer  to  it ;  but  I  happen  to  know  that 
just  now  this  state  of  feeling  is  not  only  general,  but  almost  universal 
in  the  country. 

As  to  what  he  says  concerning  marriages  (p.  960),  I  hope  he 
does  not  understand  the  meaning  of  the  expression  which  he  uses, 
and  if  he  will  take  the  trouble  to  make  further  inquiries  he  will  find 
that  his  statement  is  unsupported  by  facts. 

But  not  one  of  his  assertions  convicts  him  of  such  ignorance  as 
does,  that  relating  to  the  money  loss  to  Ireland  caused  by  absentee- 
ism. Without  a  moment's  hesitation  or  compunction,  he  dashes  off 
with  an  assertion  of  the  loss  of  six  millions  sterling  (p.  960). 
(This,  by  the  way,  it  will  be  remembered,  was  the  amount  recently 
considered  necessary  for  preparing  us  to  enter  into  a  European  war.) 
Let  us  then  look  into  this  enormous  amount.  On  referring  to  the 
pages  of  the  invaluable  '  Thorn,'  I  find  that  the  outside  Government 
valuation  of  the  entire  absentee  property  in  Ireland  amounts  to 
2,470,8 IQl.  sterling.  Adding  to  this  a  more  than  liberal  percentage, 
to  learn  what  the  rent  would  amount  to,  let  us  take  it  at  three 
millions  :  Mr.  O'Connor  Power  then  is  already  cut  down  by  half.  But 


1,880.  IRISH  LAND  AGITATION.  501 

is  it  not  further  clear  that  a  large  proportion  of  every  man's  income  is 
spent  identically  in  the  same  way,  whether  he  be  in  Ireland  '  or  else- 
where '  ?  The  expenses  of  management,  the  rent-charges,  poor-rates, 
county-rates,  family  charges,  instalments  due  to  the  Board  of  Works, 
all  go  on  while  I  am  living  abroad,  just  the  same  as  if  I  were  at 
tome ;  and  it  is  a  matter  of  just  calculation  that  on  the  average  not 
more  than  half  of  the  nominal  income  of  Irish  estates  is  free.  We 
are  thus  compelled  again  to  halve  Mr.  Power,  bringing  him  down 
this  time  to  1,500,000?. ;  but  if  the  unfortunate  arithmetician 
expects  even  to  make  that  sum  good,  he  is  sorely  mistaken.  Let  us 
ask  ourselves  what  that  sum  represents :  it  represents  what  is  paid 
by  absentee  proprietors  to  their  butchers,  bakers,  grocers,  wine  mer- 
chants, dressmakers,  tailors,  &c.,  what  they  spend  on  amusements 
and  aesthetics.  Is  the  cessation  of  expenditure  such  as  this,  and 
amounting  to  1,500,000?.,  equivalent  to  a  loss  of  that  amount  ?  Test 
it  by  a  single  example.  Suppose  I  have  been  in  the  habit  of  spending 
100Z.  a  year  with  my  wine  merchant  in  Dublin,  whom  I  abandon  for 
one  at  Cannes :  does  Ireland  or  the  wine  merchant  lose  the  whole  of 
that  100L  ?  It  is  clear  that  he  loses  no  part  of  it  which  consists  of 
capital ;  he  can  only  lose  that  portion  which  results  from  profit,  and, 
taking  these  profits  at  five,  ten,  fifteen,  or  even  twenty  per  cent.,  the 
very  outside  of  money  loss  to  Ireland  does  not  exceed  300,000?.,  that 
is  to  say,  one-twentieth  of  the  amount  claimed  by  Mr.  Power. 

The  last  and  most  important  point  is  that  which  relates  to  rights 
of  property  in  land.  Mr.  Power,  as  usual,  deals  with  it  in  a  very 
summary  manner,  telling  us  that  the  Land  Act  extinguished  those 
rights  altogether.  He  does  not  explain  how,  but  within  a  few 
lines  he  gives  himself  the  flattest  contradiction  in  claiming  the 
same  rights  in  the  most  unrestricted  manner  for  the  tenant.  Now  it 
has  always  seemed  to  me  that,  in  a  question  of  this  sort,  the  interests 
of  the  human  race  should  be  considered  in  their  largest  sense,  and 
therefore  from  the  simplest  point  of  view,  and  that  all  minor  compli- 
cations should  be  at  once  eliminated.  I  shall  now  proceed  to  discuss 
the  matter  in  this  spirit.  Since  land  is  the  only  machine  for  the 
creation  of  food,  it  is  tolerably  clear  that  as  much  as  possible  of  it 
should  be  brought  into  a  productive  state,  and  that  its  productive- 
ness should  be  maintained,  and,  if  possible,  further  stimulated.  Is 
it  not  also  clear,  from  the  analogy  of  property  of  every  other  kind, 
that  absolute  right  of  property  in  soil,  if  allowed,  will  be  most  con- 
ducive to  this  end,  and  that,  if  in  any  way  restricted,  it  will  tend  to 
lessen  the  productiveness  referred  to  ?  Certainly  the  restriction  of 
these  rights  may  at  any  time  be  necessitated  by  some  adequate  cause, 
some  matter  concerning  the  public  good.  But  is  this  to  overthrow 
my  views  ?  No !  We  cannot  too  strongly  condemn  the  common  but 
pernicious  fallacy,  that,  because  these  rights  have  been  restricted 
on  some  special  occasion,  they  are  therefore  abrogated  for  ever. 
VOL.  VII.— No.  37.  L  L 


502  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  March 

True  philosophy,  it  appears  to  me,  leads  us  to  an  entirely  opposite 
conclusion,  viz.  that  having,  for  a  great  and  sufficient  object,  inter- 
fered with  certain  rights  or  laws,  you  should  all  the  more  anxiously 
and  speedily,  for  the  general  good,  restore  their  just  supremacy  the 
moment  that  object  is  attained. 

In  conclusion  I  desire  to  take  leave  of  all  subjects  such  as  these. 
Broken  health  constrains  me  to  do  so ;  and  if  we  could  hope  to 
obtain  from  this  controversy  any  practical  beneficial  result  I  shall  be 
quite  willing  that  every  point  at  issue  should  be  left  to  the  arbitra- 
tion of  Mr.  W.  Shaw,  M.P.,  the  head  of  that  Home  Eule  party  to 
which  Mr.  Power  professes  to  belong.  With  Mr.  Shaw  I  have  but 
a  very  slight  personal  acquaintance,  but  I  have  every  reason  to  believe 
him  to  be  a  man  of  integrity,  intelligence,  and  of  very  good  inten- 
tions ;  and  I  have  now  only  to  ask  his  forgiveness  for  here  introduc- 
ing his  name  without  having  obtained  his  permission  to  do  so. 

PETER  FITZGERALD,  Knight  of  Kerry. 


1880.  503 


GOD  AND  NATURE. 


AN  elderly  clergyman,  dying  some  years  ago  in  the  East  of  London, 
bequeathed  his  silver  spoons  and  the  like  to  his  nephews  and 
nieces.  But  the  spoons  could  nowhere  be  found.  Ultimately  they 
were  discovered  in  a  closet  beneath  a  pile  of  sermons  ;  the  good 
clergyman  having,  for  the  sake  of  safety,  chosen  for  his  little  stock  of 
plate  the  place  in  which,  as  he  imagined,  it  was  most  likely  to  be 
permitted  to  remain  undisturbed. 

I  fear  that  I  committed  a  mistake  not  long  since  by  doing 
something  analogous  to  that  which  was  done  by  him  whose  provi- 
dence I  have  just  now  chronicled,  though  with  a  different  intention. 
I  printed,  in  the  form  of  an  Appendix  to  a  volume  of  Oxford  and 
Cambridge  'Sermons,  a  Note  on  Matter,  for  some  portion  of  which, 
at  least,  I  should  like  to  crave  more  consideration  than  perhaps  it 
has  already  received.  The  following  paragraph  contains  the  thought 
which  I  wish  just  now  to  put  before  the  reader  and  to  developein  this 
essay : — 

'  I  have  referred  to  Cudworth's  discussion  of  theories  of  matter 
with  regard  to  the  possible  atheistic  tendencies  of  some  of  them  ; 
and  the  time  has  not  gone  by,  perhaps  it  never  will,  when  the  fear  of 
atheism,  as  growing  out  of  physical  theories,  will  have  ceased  to  exist. 
I  am  by  no  means  prepared  to  say  that  there  is  no  ground  for  such 
fear ;  but  I  think  that  some  portion  at  least  of  the  danger  of  science 
being  found  to  have  atheistic  tendencies  would  be  got  rid  of,  if  a 
clearer  view  could  be  obtained  of  the  manner  in  which  it  is  possible 
to  establish  a  connection  between  physical  theories  and  atheistic  con- 
clusions. It  seems  to  me  that  we  want  a  new  word  to  express  the 
fact  that  all  physical  science,  properly  so  called,  is  compelled  by  its. 
very  nature  to  take  no  account  of  the  being  of  G  od :  as  soon  as  it 
does  this,  it  trenches  upon  theology,  and  ceases  to  be  physical  science- 
If  I  might  coin  a  word,  I  should  say  that  science  was  atheous,  and 
therefore  could  not  be  atheistic ;  that  is  to  say,  its  investigations  and 
reasonings  are  by  agreement  conversant  simply  with  observed  facts 
and  conclusions  drawn  from  them,  and  in  this  sense  it  is  atheous,  or 
without  recognition  of  God.  And  because  it  is  so,  it  does  not  in  any 
way  trench  upon  theism  or  theology,  and  cannot  be  atheistic,  or  in 
the  condition  of  denying  the  being  of  God.  Take  the  case  of 

L  L  2 


504  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY.  March 

physical  astronomy.  To  the  mathematician  the  mechanics  of  the 
heavens  are  in  no  way  different  from  the  mechanics  of  a  clock.  It  is 
true  that  the  clock  must  have  had  a  maker ;  but  the  mathematician, 
who  investigates  any  problem  connected  with  its  mechanism,  has 
nothing  to  do  with  him  as  such.  The  spring,  the  wheels,  the  escape- 
ment, and  the  rest  of  the  works  are  all  in  their  proper  places  some- 
how, and  it  matters  nothing  to  the  mathematician  how  they  came 
there.  As  a  mathematician  the  investigator  of  clock-motion  takes  no 
account  of  the  existence  of  clockmakers  ;  but  he  does  not  deny  their 
existence  ;  he  has  no  hostile  feeling  towards  them ;  he  may  be  on  the 
very  best  terms  with  many  of  them ;  it  may  be  at  the  request  of  one 
of  them  who  has  invented  some  new  movement  that  he  has  under- 
taken his  investigations.  Precisely  in  the  same  way  the  man  who 
investigates  the  mechanics  of  the  heavens  finds  a  complicated  system 
of  motion,  a  number  of  bodies  mutually  attracting  each  other  and 
moving  according  to  certain  assumed  laws.  In  working  out  the 
results  of  his  assumed  laws,  the  mathematician  has  no  reason,  to 
consider  how  the  bodies  came  to  be  as  they  are ;  that  they  are  as 
they  are  is  not  only  enough  for  him,  but  it  would  be  utterly  beyond 
his  province  to  inquire  how  they  came  so  to  be.  Therefore,  so  far  as 
his  investigations  are  concerned.,  there  is  no  God ;  or,  to  use  the 
word  above  suggested,  his  investigations  are  atheous.  But  they  are 
not  atheistic ;  and  he  may  carry  on  his  work,  not  merely  without 
fearing  the  Psalmist's  condemnation  of  the  fool,  but  with  the  full 
persuasion  that  the  results  of  his  labours  will  tend  to  the  honour  and 
glory  of  God.'1 

The  thought  contained  in  this  paragraph,  and  which  may  be  said 
to  be  compressed  in  the  word  atheous,  appears  to  me  to  be  interesting 
intellectually,  and  valuable  morally.  It  is  not  desirable  that  the 
reproach  of  atheism  should  be  thrown  about  rashly.  That  there  is 
such  a  thing  as  atheism,  and  that  the  atheistic  condition  of  mind 
may  be  not  only  a  very  miserable,  but  also  a  very  immoral  one,  I 
would  not  venture  to  deny ;  but  that  charges  of  atheism  are  not 
unfrequently  rashly  made,  and  the  attitude  taken  up  by  scientific 
investigators  is  sometimes  regarded  as  atheistic  when  it  is  not  fairly 
to  be  described  by  that  terrible  epithet,  is  also  true.  Physical  science 
is  not  more  essentially  atheistic  than  arithmetical  or  geometrical : 
all  three  are  atheous,  not  one  is  atheistic. 

Yet  God  and  nature  are  very  close  the  one  to  the  other:  the 
natura  naturans  and  the  natura  naturata  must  necessarily  be 
contiguous.  We  need  a  'scientific  frontier'  between  them,  a  line 
which  shall  on  no  condition  be  transgressed  by  those  who  occupy  the 
territory  on  one  side  or  the  other. 

The  necessity  of  keeping  this  frontier  line  sacred  is  perhaps  not 
sufficiently  recognised,  and  there  is  a  great  tendency  to  transgress  it ; 
1  Oxford  and  Cambridge  Sermon?,  p.  280.  (George  Bell  &  Sons.) 


1880.  GOD  AND  NATURE.  505 

but  it  is  not  a  mere  arbitrary  line  to  be  laid  down  by  treaty,  as 
the  boundaries  of  adjacent  States  are  settled,  but  is  like  one  of  the 
great  waterscheds  of  nature,  which  no  human  arrangement  can  alter : 
it  is  like  the  '  great  divide '  in  the  Eocky  Mountains,  one  side  of 
which  means  for  every  drop  of  rain  that  falls  a  passage  to  the  Pacific, 
and  the  other  side  means  a  passage  to  the  Atlantic.  On  a  smaller  scale 
there  are  similar  edges  on  Snowdon  and  Helvellyn ;  you  may  stand 
upon  them  and  throw  two  pebbles  with  the  right  hand  and  with  the 
left,  which  will  be  miles  apart  before  they  come  to  rest. 

For  in  truth  the  difference  between  the  two  territories,  separated 
by  our  supposed  scientific  boundary,  is  greater  than  that  which 
is  expressed  by  the  terms  natura  naturans  and  natura  naturata.2 
The  conception  of  a  natura  naturans  might  be  merely  that  of  a  first 
cause,  a  logical  beginning  of  nature,  without  any  of  those  moral 
attributes  which  men  with  almost  one  consent  associate  with  the 
name  and  conception  of  Grod.  If  the  transgression  of  the  legitimate 
boundaries  of  the  field  of  physical  science  merely  introduced  the 
inquirer  to  metaphysical  speculations,  no  harm  would  ensue,  though 
possibly  not  much  advantage.  The  condition  and  quality  of  mind 
which  make  a  man  a  successful  investigator  of  nature,  either  by  the 
way  of  observation  or  by  that  of  mathematical  analysis,  are  seldom 
associated  with  those  mental  powers  which  enable  a  man  to  get 
beneath  the  surface  of  phenomena  and  speculate  with  any  success  as 
to  the  ground  and  underlying  conditions  of  things.  I  do  not  say  that 
a  mind  may  not  possess  both  kinds  of  power,  but  the  combination  is 
rare.  Still,  a  man  at  the  worst  can  only  fail,  and  a  brilliant  observer 
or  analyst  may  prove  himself  to  be  a  poor  philosopher,  and  that  is 
the  worst  result  that  can  come.  But  this  is  not  in  reality  the  result  of 
crossing  the  scientific  frontier ;  if  on  the  one  side  is  (rod  and  on  the 
other  nature,  this  means  that  on  the  one  side  you  have  a  moral  and 
religious  region,  and  on  the  other  a  purely  physical  region  ;  and  the 
passage  from  one  to  the  other  is  quite  certain  to  be  fraught  with 
danger,  not  to  say  mischief. 

Let  me  illustrate  my  meaning  by  reference  to  a  passage  in  Ernst 
Haeckel's  History  of  Creation. 

Creation  (he  writes),  as  the  coming  into  existence  of  matter,  does  not  concern 
iis  here  at  all.  This  process,  if  indeed  it  ever  took  place,  is  completely  beyond 

2  I  have  used  this  phraseology  as  expressing  the  difference  between  the  cause 
and  the  phenomena  of  the  material  universe.  Bacon  writes  in  the  lirst  aphorism  of 
the  second  Book  of  the  Novum  Oryanum  :  '  Datae  natune  Forinam,  sive  differen- 
tiam  veram,  sive  naturam  naturantem  .  .  .  invenire,  opus  et  intent 5o  est  humanre 
Scicntia:.'  But  upon  this  Mr.  Ellis  remarks  in  a  note  :  '  This  is  the  only  passage  in 
which  I  have  met  with  the  phrase  natura  nuturans  used  as  it  is  here.  With  the 
later  schoolmen,  as  with  Spinoza,  it  denotes  God  considered  as  the  cauxa  immanent 
of  the  universe,  and  therefore,  according  to  the  latter,  not  hypostatically  distinct 
from  it.'  As  employed  by  me,  the  phrase  is  not  intended  (I  need  hardly  say)  to  have 
any  pantheistic  tendency. 


506  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  March 

liuman  comprehension,  and  can  therefore  never  become  the  subject  of  scientific 
inquiry.  Natural  science  teaches  that  matter  is  eternal  and  imperishable,  for  ex- 
perience has  never  shown  us  that  even  the  smallest  particle  of  matter  has  come 
into  existence  or  passed  away.  .  .  .  Hence  a  naturalist  can  no  more  imagine  the 
coming  into  existence  of  matter  than  he  can  imagine  its  disappearance,  and  he 
therefore  looks  upon  the  existing  quantity  of  matter  in  the  universe  as  a  given 
fact.  If  any  person  feels  the  necessity  of  conceiving  the  coming  into  existence  of 
this  matter  as  the  work  of  a  supernatural  creative  power,  of  the  creative  force  of 
something  outside  of  matter,  we  have  nothing  to  say  against  it.  But  we  must 
remark  that  thereby  not  even  the  smallest  advantage  is  gained  for  the  scientific 
knowledge  of  nature.  Such  a  conception  of  immaterial  force,  which  at  the  first 
creates  matter,  is  an  article  of  faith  which  has  nothing  whatever  to  do  with  human 
science.  Where  faith  commences  science  ends.  Both  these  arts  of  the  human  mind 
must  be  strictly  kept  apart  from  each  other.  Faith  has  its  origin  in  the  poetic 
imagination ;  knowledge,  on  the  other  hand,  originates  in  the  reasoning  intelli- 
gence of  man.  Science  has  to  pluck  the  blessed  fruits  from  the  tree  of  knowledge, 
unconcerned  whether  these  conquests  trench  upon  the  poetical  imaginings  of  faith 
.or  not.3 

With  much  which  is  contained  in  the  preceding  quotation  I 
-'entirely  agree.  Where  faith  commences,  science  ends ;  this  is  perfectly 
true ;  but  I  miss  any  recognition  of  the  truth  that  the  supernatural 
power  which  most  persons  *  feel  the  necessity  of  conceiving  '  is  some- 
thing much  beyond  a  '  creative  force  outside  of  matter.'  It  is  difficult, 
I  think,  for  most  of  us  to  keep  our  minds  clear  of  the  conception  of 
such  force  outside  of  matter,  though  I  quite  agree  with  the  author 
that  nothing  is  gained  for  the  scientific  knowledge  of  nature  by 
adopting  the  conception.  But  what  I  think  the  mind  feels  chiefly 
the  necessity  of  conceiving  is  the  existence  of  a  Being  who  is  the 
ground  of  all  the  moral  phenomena  of  the  world  ;  and,  if  a  writer  on 
natural  history  goes  beyond  his  subject  at  all,  he  should  recognise  the 
fact  that  the  passing  of  the  boundary  carries  the  mind  into  a  region  of 
moral  philosophy  and  religion,  and  not  merely  into  a  speculation 
•concerning  the  possible  origination  of  matter. 

That  this  criticism  is  not  unfair  and  not  unimportant  may  be,  I 
*thdsik,  concluded  from  the  results  to  which  Ernst  Haeckel  is  himself 
*led,  and  to  which  he  wishes  to  lead  his  readers.  He  tells  us  that  he  has 
no  fault  to  find  with  the  hypothesis,  if  we  feel  it  to  be  necessary,  of  an 
origin  of  matter  ;  but  he  tells  us  subsequently  that  there  is  no  purpose 
in  nature,  and  no  such  thing  as  beneficence  on  the  part  of  a  Creator. 

Every  one  (he  writes)  who  makes  a  really  close  study  of  the  organisation  and 
mode  of  life  of  the  various  animals  and  plants,  and  becomes  familiar  with  the 
reciprocity  or  interaction  of  the  phenomena  of  life,  and  the  so-called  '  econonsy  of 
nature,'  must  necessarily  come  to  the  conclusion  that  this  '  purposiveness '  no  more 
exists  than  the  niuch-talked-of  '  beneficence '  of  the  Creator.  These  optimistic 
views  have,  unfortunately,  as  little  real  foundation  as  the  favourite  phrase,  '  moral 
order  of  the  universe,'  which  is  illustrated  in  an  ironical  way  by  the  histoiy  of  all 
nations.  The  dominion  of  '  moral '  popes,  and  their  pious  Inquisition,  in  the 
mediaeval  times,  is  not  less  significant  of  this  than  the  present  prevailing  militarism, 
with  its  'moral'  apparatus  of  needle-guns  and  other  refined  instruments  of  murder.4 

3  Vol.  i.  p.  8  (English  translation).  4  Vol.  i.  p.  19. 


1880.  GOD  AND  NATURE.  507 

This  passage,  as  will  be  seen,  takes  us  into  the  region  of  morals. 
There  is  no  question  here  of  permitting  the  hypothesis  of  an  originating 
force  outside  of  matter,  if  we  feel  such  an  hypothesis  intellectually 
necessary  ;  but  we  have  instead  a  denial  ex  cathedra  of  the  existence 
of  such  a  thing  as  a  moral  order  or  of  such  a  person  as  a  beneficent 
Creator.  This  is  not  merely  atheous ;  it  is  atheistic.  An  investigator 
of  nature  has  a  right  to  say  that  the  question  of  the  existence  of  a 
beneficent  Creator  or  the  non-existence  of  such  a  Being  does  not 
affect  his  investigations ;  but  he  has  no  right,  upon  the  strength  of 
investigations  purely  physical,  to  deny  the  existence  of  beneficence  as 
an  attribute  of  the  Creator,  if  a  Creator  there  be. 

But  I  am  not  surprised  to  find  utterance  given  to  some  expression 
of  opinion  as  to  the  moral  character  of  the  Creator,  when  once  the  legi- 
timate boundary  of  physical  science  has  been  transgressed.  If  a  man 
can  be  satisfied  with  examining  nature  as  he  finds  it,  whether  as  an 
observer  or  as  a  mathematician,  the  question  of  a  Creator  need  no 
more  trouble  him  than  it  troubles  the  man  who  is  busied  with  inte- 
grating equations  or  devising  a  new  calculus  ;  but  if  he  is  not  satisfied 
with  this,  then  he  can  scarcely  stop  short  of  a  complete  investigation 
of  the  whole  question  of  Theism ;  and  the  elements  necessary  to  this 
complete  investigation  are  certainly  not  to  be  found  in  physics,  any 
more  than  you  can  find  in  physics  the  material  for  a  complete  treatise 
on  poetry  or  music  or  painting. 

For,  in  truth,  physical  science  does  not  afford  the  basis  even  for  a 
complete  investigation  of  ourselves.  When  anthropology  is  classed 
amongst  the  physical  sciences,  it  is  necessary  to  confine  the  investiga- 
tions comprehended  under  the  title  to  the  consideration  of  man  as  a 
creature  having  certain  material  attributes  and  leaving  certain 
material  marks  of  his  existence  in  past  ages :  a  study  of  the  highest 
interest,  and  one  which  students  have  a  right  to  call  anthropology,  if 
they  please :  but  manifestly  anthropology  cannot  be^ translated  by  the 
words  '  the  science  of  man,'  for  the  science  of  necessity  leaves  out  of 
consideration  all  that  is  most  interesting  to  man  or  which  makes  man 
most  interesting. 

To  say  that  physical  science  does  not  include  the  study  of  man  is 
perhaps  nearly  the  same  thing  as  saying  that  man  is  not  a  part  of 
nature  ;  and  though  such  an  assertion  may  seem  paradoxical,  there  is 
a  sense  in  which  it  is  quite  true,  and  it  is  important  to  observe  what 
that  sense  is.  Putting  aside  all  question  of  immortality,  it  is  not 
difficult  to  conclude  that  mankind  possess  attributes  which  do  not 
belong  to  other  creatures,  and  which  make  it  necessary,  in  examining1 
the  world,  to  put  man  in  a  class  by  himself. 

Take  a  few  examples.  Let  the  first  be  that  of  will.  The  ques- 
tion is  whether  a  human  being  has  a  command  of  his  actions  in  a 
manner  in  which  no  other  creature  has.  Simple  experience  seems  to 
me  to  prove  that  he  has :  I  do  not  feel  that  I  need  the  help  of  philo- 


o08  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  March 

sophers  to  solve  the  question.  A  dog  or  a  horse  has  in  a  certain 
sense  a  will,  but  I  can  calculate  how  a  dog  or  a  horse  will  act,  if  I 
know  the  conditions  to  which  it  is  subjected ;  whereas  I  positively 
know  from  actual  experience  that  I  can  do  as  I  choose,  independently 
of  all  external  influences.  Bring  me  to  the  test :  tell  me  in  any  given 
circumstances  what  those  circumstances  will  lead  me  to  do,  and  I  will 
undertake  to  do  something  different.  And  the  power  of  will  implies 
the  capacity  for  self-sacrifice.  Every  animal  is  by  its  very  nature 
selfish.  Doubtless  there  are,  in  this  as  in  other  things,  faint  reflections 
of  humanity  in  the  humbler  creatures,  just  as  the  crropjr}  of  the 
animal,  which  lasts  for  a  short  time  and  utterly  dies  out  when  it  has 
served  its  purpose,  is  the  faint  reflection  of  that  human  love  which 
lasts  through  life  and  grows  with  years ;  but  there  is  nothing  in  the 
life  of  animals  which  can  be  seriously  named  as  being  of  the  same 
kind  as  that  feeling  which  inspired  a  Howard,  or  a  Wilberforce,  or  a  St. 
Vincent  de  Paul.  The  man  who  deliberately  puts  aside  that  which 
is  most  pleasant  to  men  in  general,  and  which  he  himself  has  every 
capacity  to  enjoy,  and  does  something  quite  different  from  the  dictates 
of  his  nature  because  he  judges  that  something  to  be  right  or  good, 
exhibits  a  quality  and  a  power  which  is  simply  lacking  in  every  other 
living  creature  except  the  human  race. 

Again,  regard  man  as  a  being  of  purpose.  I  quoted  a  passage 
not  long  ago  from  Ernst  Haeckel,  in  which  he  denies  the  existence 
of  purpose  in  nature.  Can  purpose  be  denied  to  exist  in  man  ?  If  I 
am  not  mistaken,  the  whole  history  of  civilisation  may  be  described 
as  a  development  of  purpose.  Every  other  creature  is  apparently 
content  with  the  condition  in  which  it  finds  itself.  Birds  build  nests 
as  their  ancestors  did  thousands  of  years  ago ;  fishes  have  no  ambi- 
tion ;  possibly  the  time  may  have  been  when  ants  did  not  know  the 
luxury  of  keeping  aphis-cows,  or  being  waited  upon  by  slaves  of  their 
own  race ;  but,  speaking  generally,  it  may  be  said  that  unprogressive- 
ness  marks  all  other  animals,  as  distinctly  as  progressiveness  does  man. 
I  put  out  of  consideration,  as  not  belonging  to  the  argument,  tke- 
question  of  evolution,  and  the  progression  of  living  things  in  that 
sense  of  the  word.  I  am  speaking  only  of  nature  as  we*  see  it  now, 
and  not  as  it  may  possibly  once  have  been  ;  and  certainly,  as  things 
are  now,  it  seems  impossible  to  deny  that  while  the  animals  about  us 
are  as  fixed  in  their  habits  and  instincts  as  the  plants,  or  nearly  so, 
there  is  one  race,  namely,  the  human,  which  is  not  fixed  at  all,  but 
is  constantly  devising  something  new,  regarding  nothing  as  gained 
while  anything  remains  to  be  achieved. 

Once  more,  take  the  more  general  attribute  of  thought.  Much 
has  been  written  of  late  concerning  the  minds  of  animals ;  it  is  a 
curious  and  interesting  subject,  and  certainly  I  for  one  do  not  grudge 
our  humbler  friends  in  the  great  world-family  of  life  any  gift  of  mind 
with  which  they  have  been  endowed.  The  brain  of  the  ant  is,  as- 


1880.  GOD  AND   NATURE.  509 

some  one  has  truly  said,  perhaps  the  most  wonderful  little  morsel  of 
matter  in  existence.  But  certainly  the  mind  of  man  is  so  incomparably 
more  powerful  and  effective  a  machine  of  thought,  that  any  comparison 
between  it  and  the  mind  of  the  most  gifted  animal  appears  almost 
ridiculous.  The  fact  is  that  our  natural  tendency  is  so  much  to  assume 
the  utter  non-existence  of  mind  in  animals,  that,  when  we  find  evi- 
dence of  mind  which  we  cannot  resist,  we  stand  amazed  at  the  discovery. 
In  many  things,  as  we  know,  the  inferior  creatures  are  much  more  clever 
than  ourselves  ;  we  could  never  build  a  nest  like  a  bird,  or  make  a  comb 
like  a  bee,  or  do  ten  thousand  things  which  are  being  done  every  day 
by  spiders  and  beetles.  But  still  thought  in  the  highest  sense  belongs 
to  man.  A  dog  sometimes  looks  as  though  he  was  thinking  a  thing- 
out,  and  dog-stories  are  very  wonderful ;  but,  after  all,  the  cleverest 
dog  that  ever  lived  yet  has  never  been  able  to  get  beyond  '  Bow-wow,' 
and  we  may  safely  predict  that  no  dog  will  ever  acquire  even  the 
simplest  elements  of  human  knowledge.  I  cannot  believe  that  this 
power  of  thought  can  properly  be  described  as  the  mere  result  of 
phosphorus  in  the  brain.  That  epigram,  *  No  phosphorus,  no  thought,' 
strikes  me  as  having  in  it  more  of  smartness  than  of  wisdom.  It  is 
of  course  true  that  the  brain  is  in  some  manner  the  organ  of  thought, 
and  phosphorus  may  be  the  most  important  element  in  the  formation 
of  the  brain ;  but  is  not  thought  conceivable  independently  of  this 
particular  machinery  for  making  it  possible  to  a  material  creature, 
just  as  motion  is  conceivable  apart  from  horses  or  steam,  or  any  of 
the  causes  to  which  it  is  commonly  due  ?  Is  there  not  a  kind  of 
absurdity  in  regarding  thought  as  the  result  of  phosphorus,  as  real 
as  if  we  should  say,  what  upon  the  same  principle  of  philosophy  we 
might  say,  that  truthfulness,  kindness,  modesty  were  all  functions  of 
phosphorus  ?  Nay,  I  do  not  know  why  we  should  not  go  further,  and 
assert  that  there  could  be  no  thought  without  carbon  or  without  any 
other  element  of  which  the  human  body  is  composed  ;  for  you  can'have 
no  actual  thought  without  a  living  creature,  and  no  living  creature 
without  a  body,  and  no  body  without  carbon,  .•.  &c. — Q.  E.  D.5 

All  these  examples  lead  up  to  one  sovereign  attribute  which 
comprehends  and  implies  both  them  and  others  equally  important, 
namely,  the  attribute  of  personality.  A  man  can  say,  with  a  full 
sense  of  the  meaning  of  what  he  says,  not  merely  ( I  eat,  drink,  and 
sleep,'  nor  even  '  I  am  conscious  of  will,  purpose,  and  thought,'  but '  I 
am :  I  am  a  conscious  person,  not  a  mere  machine,  though  the  pro- 
prietor of  a  wonderful  piece  of  machinery.  My  body,  my  brain,  my 
mind,  are  not  merely  things  which  work  with  a  living  innate  power, 

5  I  had  not  observed,  when  this  was  written,  that  the  Archbishop  of  York  had 
said  nearly  the  same  thing.  '  Without  time,  no  thought ;  without  oxygen,  no 
thought ;  without  water,  no  thought.  All  these  are  true,  and  they  import  a  well- 
known  fact,  that  man  who  thinks  is  a  creature  in  a  material  world,  and  that  certain 
forms  of  matter  are  needful  to  his  existence  as  an  organised  being.' — Design  in 
Nature,  '  Word,  Work,  and  Will,'  p.  244. 


510  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY.  March 

but  they  are  mine,  they  work  for  me,  they  do  what  7  tell  them.  If 
they  are  out  of  order,  I  know  it,  and  I  complain  of  it :  I  say,  for  in- 
stance, "  I  have  overtasked  my  brain,  I  must  give  it  some  rest  before 
I  can  do  this  or  that ;  I  know  what  I  wish  to  do,  and  feel  myself 
competent  to  do  it,  but  my  brain  will  not  obey  me  because  it  is  tired, 
just  as  my  horse  may  be  overworked,  or  as  my  knife  will  not  cut  when 
it  has  been  blunted  by  too  much  use."  '  So  of  the  moral  feelings.  I  can 
discuss  them,  I  can  guide  my  conduct  by  means  of  them,  I  can  feel 
ashamed  of  this  or  that  failure  in  upright  or  high  conduct.  A  man 
knows  that  he  is  responsible  for  his  actions.  Sometimes  a  murderer  is 
convicted  twenty  years  after  the  offence  has  been  committed,  or  he 
gives  himself  up  after  as  many  years  because  his  memory  and  his 
conscience  make  his  life  intolerable.  He  has  no  doubt  as  to  the  fact 
that  the  person  who  did  the  deed  of  darkness  years  ago  is  the  same 
person  as  he  who  feels  the  pangs  of  remorse  to-day.  Every  material 
particle  in  his  body  may  have  changed  since  then ;  but  there  is  a 
continuity  in  his  spiritual  being  out  of  which  he  cannot  be  argued, 
even  if  any  ingenious  sophist  should  attempt  the  task.  No  ingenuity 
will  prevent  the  conscience-stricken  murderer  from  pleading  guilty. 

There  are,  undeniably,  anomalies  of  a  very  remarkable  kind  con- 
nected with  the  sense  of  personality,  and  cases  are  recorded  in  which 
men  and  women  have  had  (as  it  were)  a  different  personality  at  dif- 
ferent times.  An  instance  is  recorded  of  a  young  woman  who  habi- 
tually passed  from  one  state  of  existence  or  consciousness  to  another, 
so  distinct  that  when  in  the  second  state  she  knew  nothing  of  what 
had  happened  when  she  was  in  the  first.  For  example,  having  returned 
upon  one  occasion  from  a  funeral,  she  fell  asleep,  and  awoke  in  a  few 
moments  in  her  second  state ;  all  remembrance  of  the  funeral  was 
gone,  and  she  wondered  why  she  was  in  mourning.  This  case  appears 
to  have  been  carefully  and  scientifically  watched  for  many  years,  and 
to  have  given  undeniable  evidence  of  what  may  be  described  as  a 
double  existence  or  double  consciousness  ;  so  that  the  being  in  ques- 
tion would  have  no  true  sense  of  personality,  and  certainly  would  not 
be  admissible  in  a  witness-box  as  evidence  of  any  event  said  to  have 
taken  place.6  Instances  more  or  less  of  the  same  kind  may  probably 
be  produced  without  limit.  What  they  prove  is  that  we  are  dependent 
for  the  proper  use  of  our  faculties  upon  material  conditions ;  the 
corpus  sanum  is  one  condition  of  the  mens  sana ;  but  they  do  not 
prove  the  unreality  of  the  attribute  of  personality  any  more  than  the 
existence  of  idiocy  and  insanity,  or  even  the  possibility  of  getting 
drunk  and  so  losing  all  sense  of  who  and  what  we  are,  prove  it.  Un- 
doubtedly everything  depends,  in  the  case  of  a  human  being  whose 
powers  are  exerted  through  material  organs,  upon  the  proper  working 
condition  of  those  organs,  and  a  pressure  of  blood  upon  the  brain  may 
make  a  man  of  the  holiest  life  and  the  most  philosophical  temper 
6  I  take  this  from  the  Causcries  Scientifiques,  1877  (Rothschild,  Paris). 


1880.  GOD  AND  NATURE.  511 

commit  suicide,  as  experience  proves.  But  all  such  morbid  exceptions 
to  the  general  rule  cannot  destroy  the  belief  which  a  man  in  his  nor- 
mal condition  feels  compelled  by  the  conditions  of  his  existence  to 
hold,  namely,  that  he  is  himself  and  no  one  else,  that  he  is  responsible 
for  his  actions,  and  that  what  he  does  now  will  bear  fruit  in  his  subse- 
quent experience  either  for  good  or  for  evil,  unless  he  becomes  deranged. 
The  author  from  whom  I  have  taken  the  above  case  of  double  person- 
ality exclaims  very  naively :  '  Ah !  comme  il  faut  avoir  un  peu  de 
saine  complaisance  pour  les  sept  peches  capitaux  !  Jugez  :  un  peu  de 
sang  de  trop,  peut-etre  un  centieme  de  gramme  mal  dirige  au  contact 
d'une  pauvre  petite  resille  de  nerfs,  et  le  voila  fait,  Forgueilleux,  le 
vaniteux,  le  superbe  ! '  True  :  we  must  be  cautious  in  forming  opinions 
of  actions  ;  and  in  any  human  court — we  may  believe  also  in  the  court 
divine — every  circumstance  connected  with  an  action  must  be  taken 
into  account  in  order  that  a  just  judgment  of  it  may  be  formed ; 
but  all  this  does  not  prove  that  there  is  no  such  thing  as  haughtiness, 
or  vanity,  or  pride,  or  that  sane  men  are  not  responsible  for  their 
temper  of  mind  and  the  quality  of  their  actions. 

To  come  back  then  to  the  conception  of  personality.  I  cannot  but 
feel  sure  that  this  is  the  highest  conception  that  I  can  possess  of  my  own 
being,  or  of  any  kind  of  being.  All  history  seems  to  transmute  itself 
into  a  kind  of  phantasmagoria  or  illusive  pantomime,  unless  the 
attribute  of  personality  be  conceded  to  the  actors.  Socrates,  Alex- 
ander, Julius  Csesar,  Cromwell,  Napoleon,  must  be  studied  without 
reference  to  phosphorus,  and  upon  principles  lying  altogether  out- 
side the  territory  of  physical  science.  And  this  postulate  of  personality 
seems  to  me  to  lead,  by  an  intellectual  necessity,  to  the  conception  of 
personality  in  a  region  not  of  (j)co<r(f)6pos,  but  of  <&a)s  itself,  the  con- 
ception of  the  Person,  6  &v,  of  whom  persons  like  ourselves  are,  as  it 
were,  a  faint  reflection. 

The  study  of  the  being  and  doings  of  this  Person  would  seem  to  be 
of  necessity  one  of  the  most  interesting  that  can  be  suggested  to  the 
mind  of  man.  The  study  may  be  conducted  upon  different,  though 
not  crossing,  lines  ;  the  chief  lines  being  the  physical,  the  meta- 
physical or  philosophical,  the  moral,  the  religious.  Each  of  these 
branches  has  its  own  method  and  its  own  sources  of  illumination ;  each 
also  has  its  own  peculiar  difficulties  and  its  own  anomalies  and  contra- 
dictions. A  really  complete  scientific  Theism,  such  a  Theism  as 
Bacon  would  have  delighted  to  map  out  in  detail,  would  comprehend 
all  the  different  departments  of  which  I  have  spoken ;  and  in  the 
unity  of  such  a  system  physicists  and  philosophers  and  divines  would 
be  able  to  meet  and  shake  hands. 

It  is  a  curious  subject  of  inquiry,  and  the  reader  will,  I  think, 
pardon  me  for  here  introducing  it,  how  far,  upon  the  theistic  view  of 
nature,  we  can  discriminate  between  that  which  is  necessary  in  the 
nature  of  things  and  that  which  is  to  be  regarded  as  being  such  as  it 


512  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  March 

is  in  virtue  of  a  divine  purpose  or  choice.  It  seems  clear,  for  example, 
that  when  once  matter  is  assumed  to  be  the  subject  of  a  divine  opera- 
tion, as  in  the  case  of  the  universe  with  which  we  are  acquainted  and 
of  which  we  form  a  part,  certain  necessary  conditions  are  imposed 
upon  the  creative  work  or  upon  the  system  of  nature.  These  condi- 
tions may  be,  in  a  certain  sense,  limitations  of  divine  power ;  but  they 
are  not  limitations  in  any  more  objectionable  sense  than  are  the 
truths  of  geometry  or  number,  to  which  all  created  things  must  be 
conformable.  Sometimes  a  condition  of  this  kind  exists  which  is  not 
at  all  obvious  at  first  sight,  and  which,  nevertheless,  is  as  necessary 
to  be  taken  into  account  as  the  truth  that  two  and  two  make  four  and 
cannot  make  five.  Thus,  for  example,  Laplace  suggests  that  the 
utility  of  the  moon  is  not  as  great  as  it  might  have  been,  and  he  points 
out  an  arrangement  according  to  which,  as  he  shows,  the  earth  would 
have  received  much  more  light  than  it  actually  does  ;  but  I  remember 
having  read  a  memoir  by  Liouville  in  one  of  the  numbers  of  his 
Journal,  in  which  he  shows  that  the  arrangement  proposed  by  Laplace 
would  not  be  stable — that  is,  that  it  would  only  be  possible  in  the  sense 
in  which  it  is  possible  to  make  a  pin  stand  upon  its  point.  An  example 
of  this  kind  shows  the  necessity  of  caution  in  any  suggestions  which 
may  be  made  for  the  improvement  of  natural  arrangements.  But  it 
does  more  than  this :  it  helps  to  illustrate  the  point  which  I  am  now 
endeavouring  to  discuss,  with  reference  rather  to  the  philosophy  of  the 
arrangements  which  we  see,  than  to  any  suggestions  for  improving 
them. 

Let  us  consider  for  a  moment  what  is  called  by  mathematicians 
the  principle  of  least  action.  Putting  this  principle  into  popular 
language,  it  may  be  described  as  asserting  that  the  motion  of  bodies 
generally  takes  place  in  such  a  manner  that  the  energy  expended  in 
the  motion  is  the  least  possible.  From  this  principle,  when  enun- 
ciated in  a  strict  mathematical  form,  the  equations  of  motion  of  a 
system  may  be  deduced,  or,  in  other  words,  the  problem  of  the  motion  of 
a  system  may  be  solved.  The  remarkable  fact  connected  with  this 
principle  is,  that  its  truth  was  evolved  by  a  speculative  mind  out  of 
the  general  principle  that  nature  would  use  the  least  effort  possible  to 
produce  a  given  result,  before  it  was  demonstrated  in  its  strict  form 
by  mathematicians ;  and,  looking  upon  it  thus,  we  should  be  disposed 
to  regard  the  form  of  motion  which  involves  least  effort  as  being 
chosen  out  of  all  possible  forms,  much  in  the  same  way  as  a  man  who 
has  to  perform  a  journey  or  to  do  a  certain  piece  of  work  inquires  how 
the  journey  or  piece  of  work  can  be  reduced  to  a  minimum  of  trouble 
or  expense.  But  the  fact  of  the '  principle  of  least  action '  being  mathe- 
matically deducible  from  the  principles  of  motion  would  seem  to  prove 
that  there  is  in  reality  no  choice  in  the  matter,  but  that  least  action 
is  as  necessary  a  truth  as  is  that  of  the  least  distance  between  two  points 
on  a  sphere  being  that  which  is  traced  by  the  great  circle  joining  them. 


1880.  GOD  AND  NATURE.  513 

Just  consider  this  question  of  two  points  on  a  sphere.  As  a 
matter  of  geometry  it  is  easy  to  show  that  the  shortest  path  between 
them  is  that  given  by  the  great  circle ;  and  this  principle  is  now  well 
recognised  in  navigation.  But  change  the  problem  from  geometry  to 
dynamics  by  supposing  a  particle  to  move  on  the  surface  of  a  smooth 
sphere  under  the  action  of  a  force  tending  to  the  centre,  as  that 
exerted  by  an  elastic  string  in  a  state  of  tension  :  then  it  is  equally 
easy  to  prove  that  this  particle,  when  started  in  any  direction,  will 
describe  a  great  circle — that  is,  its  motion  will  be  such  that  the 
distance  traversed  by  it  in  passing  from  its  point  of  departure  to  any 
point  in  its  path  will  be  the  shortest  distance  between  those  points. 
It  might  be  said  that  the  particle  chose  the  easiest  path,  but  in 
reality  there  was  no  choice,  nothing  but  necessity :  in  other  words, 
the  dynamical  minimum  stands  on  the  same  footing  as  the  geo- 
metrical. 

In  truth  the  question  of  minimum  comes  under  our  notice  very 
frequently  and  very  curiously  in  nature.  The  path  of  a  ray  of  reflected 
light  may  be  determined  upon  the  principle  that  it  is  the  shortest 
possible  ;  and  this  is  not  the  only  case  in  which  the  law  of  minimum 
is  illustrated  by  optics.  But  take  a  very  different  case,  that  of  the 
cells  made  by  the  bee.  It  is  well  known  that  the  bee  is  a  wonderful 
geometer.  The  cells  consist  of  hexagonal  prisms  closed  at  the  ends  with 
three  tiles  having  exactly  the  angles  which  with  a  given  amount  of 
material  will  make  the  cells  most  capacious,  or  with  a  given  capacity 
will  use  the  smallest  amount  of  material.  This  has  been  long  known, 
and  has  given  rise  to  much  speculation  as  to  the  manner  in  which  the 
bee  is  guided  to  so  remarkable  a  result.  I  am  not  aware  that  any 
satisfactory  solution  lias  been  yet  proposed  ;  but  the  intellectual  con- 
ception of  the  problem  is  much  simplified  if  we  bear  in  mind  that 
the  transverse  section  is  the  nearest  form  possible  to  a  circle,  and  the 
form  of  the  end  of  the  cell  the  nearest  possible  to  a  sphere  :  so  that  it 
may  be  said  that  the  instinct  of  making  circular  prismatic  cells  with 
spherical  ends,  and  then  clearing  away  unnecessary  wax,  is  all  the 
instinct  which  the  bee  requires.  Let  the  reader  observe  that^this  is 
said  not  with  a  view  to  depreciate  the  bee's  architectural  skill,  but  only 
for  the  purpose  of  pointing  out  that  the  application  of  the  wax  in  the 
most  economical  manner,  making  it  go  as  far  as  possible,  subject  to 
the  condition  of  forming  prismatic  cells,  is  a  geometrical  result  from 
adopting  the  simplest  plane  and  solid  figures,  namely,  the  circle  and 
the  sphere.  Let  me  illustrate  this  by  a  simple  example.  Suppose  I 
gave  a  coppersmith  a  lump  of  copper,  and  said,  '  Make  this  into  a 
bowl  of  given  thickness,  having  a  maximum  of  capacity :'  my  copper- 
smith would  undoubtedly  be  posed.  But  suppose  I  said,  '  Make  this 
into  as  simple  a  bowl  as  you  can,  and  let  the  material  be  of  such  a 
thickness  : '  he  would  almost  certainly  make  it  hemispherical,  or  nearly 
so,  because  that  is  the  simplest  form ;  but  his  hemispherical  bowl 


514  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY.  March 

would,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  possess  the  property  of  maximum  content 
which  I  wished  it  to  have. 

It  seems  to  me,  therefore,  that  there  may  be  not  a  few  cases  in 
which  arrangements,  that  appear  at  first  sight  to  be  the  result  of  a 
choice  amongst  many  that  might  be  possible,  are  in  fact  arrangements 
which  are  necessitated  by  geometrical  conditions,  or  what  may  be 
equivalent  to  them.  This  consideration  should  make  us  cautious  in 
attributing  to  an  arbitrary  will  facts  which  might  seem  at  first  sight 
to  warrant  this  conclusion.  Then  again  there  are  phenomena  in  the 
ordinary  functions  of  nature,  having  the  appearance  of  chance,  which 
yet  are  not  chance  in  the  true  sense  of  the  word,  but  which  have 
strongly  the  appearance  of  it,  and  for  which  it  is  difficult  to  give  any 
account.  The  manner  in  which  plants  turn  towards  the  light  is  to  me 
a  profound  mystery  ;  there  must  be  a  force  to  produce  the  motion, 
but  I  do  not  perceive  whence  it  can  arise.  And  the  instinct  of  seeking 
the  light  sometimes  assumes  the  most  wonderful  form :  I  think  I 
have  read  of  a  potato  in  a  dark  cellar  throwing  out  a  long  sprout 
which  extended  itself  till  it  emerged  at  a  hole  at  a  distance  through 
which  light  entered.  The  power  which  living  matter  has  to  adapt 
itself  to  unforeseen  circumstances,  of  which  this  potato  may  be  taken 
as  a  humble  instance,  has  very  much  of  the  appearance  of  choice. 
A  limb  is  broken,  or  a  skull  is  trepanned,  and  the  limb  becomes  as 
strong  as  ever,  and  the  skull  retains  whatever  brain  it  may  have  had 
within  it,  in  virtue  of  new  efforts  of  nature  exactly  adapted  to  the 
wants ;  but  these  wants  are  such  as  could  not  have  been  foreseen,  and 
could  scarcely  have  been  included  in  the  original  idea  (so  to  speak) 
of  the  man  to  whom  the  accident  has  happened. 

Therefore  I  feel  that  we  are  on  very  difficult  and  mysterious 
ground  when  discussing  the  place  which  should  be  assigned  in 
nature  to  choice.  I  think  that  we  ought  to  recognise  the  fact,  that 
many  things  in  the  edifice  of  nature,  which  might  strike  us  at  first 
sight  as  the  arbitrary  touches  of  the  great  Architect,  may  in  reality 
be  the  results  of  geometrical  or  other  necessity  inherent  in  the 
conditions  of  space,  or  time,  or  matter.  Nevertheless,  it  is  difficult 
to  believe  that  a  creation  such  as  we  see  round  about  us,  and  of 
which  we  form  a  part,  could  have  been  evolved  out  of  its  primitive 
elements  without  the  exercise  of  that  which,  for  want  of  a  better 
word,  I  will  call  choice.  Why  should  our  hearts  be  on  the  left  side 
rather  than  on  the  right  ?  Why  should  we  have  five  digits  rather  than 
seven  ?  Why  should  we  have  one  thumb  rather  than  two  ?  WThy,  to 
take  a  larger  instance,  should  the  planets  be  exactly  such  as  they 
are  in  size  and  in  other  conditions,  which  apparently  follow  no  law 
whatever  ?  Why  should  the  exact  quantity  of  matter  exist  which 
does  exist,  for  an  infinite  quantity  is,  I  suppose,  inconceivable  ? 
And  what  determines  the  precise  pace  at  which  all  the  bodies  which 
constitute  the  universe  move  ?  To  use  the  language  of  a  mathe- 


1880.  GOD  AND  NATURE.  515 

matician,  what  determines  all  the  arbitrary  constants  and  arbitrary 
functions  in  the  integrals  of  nature's  equations  ?  This  string  of 
questions  might  be  lengthened  indefinitely  ;  but  the  reader  will  see 
what  the  force  of  them  is.  If  the  principle  of  symmetry  could  be 
asserted  concerning  the  human  body  or  concerning  the  solar 
system,  that  symmetry  might  answer  many  questions :  it  might  be 
said,  '  This  or  that  is  s^,  because  there  is  no  reason  why  it  should  be 
otherwise.'  But  there  is  an  absence  of  symmetry  from  many  parts  of 
nature ;  and  when  no  geometrical  or  other  cause  can  be  assigned, 
you  need  the  hypothesis  of  an  independent  will  in  order  to  render 
the  irregular  formation  in  any  degree  intelligible.  A  supreme  will 
throws  light  upon  the  darkness ;  it  may  leave  some  difficulties 
unsolved,  but  we  feel  that  in  it  we  have  got  the  key. 

But  my  pen  has  run  as  far  as  perhaps  my  readers  will  care  to 
follow  me ;  and  I  conclude,  therefore,  by  reminding  them  of  the 
thesis  which  my  essay  has  been  intended  to  illustrate.  It  is  the 
relation  of  Grod  and  nature,  and  the  connection  between  the  study  of 
the  latter  and  the  knowledge  of  the  former.  I  would  say  at  the 
end  what  I  said  at  the  beginning,  that  physical  science  is  properly 
and  necessarily  atheous,  but  not  properly  and  not  necessarily 
atheistic.  Clerk  Maxwell,  that  great  intellect,  whom  Cambridge  and 
the  world  have  recently  lost,  was  no  atheist,  but  a  devout  believer  in 
God  ;  yet  no  man  had  penetrated  more  deeply  and  more  successfully 
into  the  arcana  of  matter,  and  discussed  more  profoundly  and  more 
ingeniously  the  molecules  of  which  the  universe  is  made.  Is  this 
wonderful  ?  I  think  not.  It  seems  to  me  that,  while  it  is  the  duty 
of  a  scientific  inquirer,  as  such,  to  exclude  from  his  inquiries  any- 
thing that  at  all  transcends  the  natural  region,  and  therefore  Grod 
can  have  no  place  in  his  inquiries,  yet  the  moral  effect  of  the 
discipline  of  investigation  ought  to  be,  in  the  case  of  a  well-balanced 
mind,  to  compel  it,  if  need  be,  to  '  cross  the  boundary  of  experimental 
evidence '  and  recognise  the  existence  of  Him  4  who  hath  created  all 
things,'  in  whom  '  we  live,  and  move,  and  have  our  being.' 

HAHVEY  CARLISLE. 


516  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  March 


REASONS  FOR  DOUBT  IN  THE  CHURCH 
OF  ROME :  A  REJOINDER. 

MOSSIGNOR  CAPEL'S  criticism  of  '  Reasons  for  Doubt  in  the  Church  of 
Rome '  calls  for  a  reply. 

The  reasons  given  were  : 

First,  that  she  sets  up  her  own  teaching  in  direct  opposition  to 
Christ's  words. 

Secondly,  that  she  continues  to  invent  new  articles  of  faith 
unknown  to  the  Apostles. 

Thirdly,  that  she  heretically  refuses  to  accept  what  the  Church 
has  decreed,  and  that,  so  long  as  she  does  so,  Christian  unity  is 
impossible. 

To  the  first  of  these  his  answer  is  that  Catholics  believe  the 
whole  deposit  of  Revelation  to  have  been  committed  to  an  organised 
body,  the  Church  of  Christ.  The  remarks  applying  to  this  theory 
will  be  further  treated  on  in  those  on  the  third  reason  ;  and  on  the 
question  of  Communion  in  one  or  both  kinds  first  to  be  discussed,  it 
is  only  necessary  to  notice  that,  at  the  Roman  Catholic  Council  held 
at  Clermont  in  1095  under  Pope  Urban  II.,  it  was  directed  that  none 
should  communicate  unless  he  took  the  body  separately,  and  the 
blood  in  like  manner,  except  under  necessity  or  by  reason  of  caution  ; 
and  at  the  Council  of  Constance  in  1414  it  was  declared  sinful  to 
administer  the  cup  to  communicants.  Which  of  these  Roman 
Councils  was  divinely  guided  ? 

The  question  is,  has  the  Church  of  Rome  set  up  her  own  judgment 
in  direct  opposition  to  Christ's  words  ? 

Monsignor  Capel  contends  that  Christ's  words,  '  Drink  ye  all  of 
this,'  &c.,  when  He  instituted  the  Holy  Communion,  referred  to  the 
consecration  of  the  wine  only,  but  not  to  its  reception,  and  that  at 
an  early  period  it  was  held  to  be  sufficient  if  administered  in  one 
kind  only.  He  cannot,  however,  deny  that  Christ  ordained  the 
Sacrament  in  two  kinds,  and  that  the  disciples  administered  it  in  both. 
Monsignor  Capel's  words  are  :  '  It  may  be  fairly  said  that  the  Christians 
who  lived  soon  after  the  days  of  the  Apostles  did  not  so  understand 
the  words  of  our  Lord.'  Is  not  this  a  direct  admission  that  the 
Apostles  did  so  understand  them  ?  And  who  but  they  can  be  accepted 


1880  DOUBT  IN  THE  CHURCH  OF  ROME.  517 

as  authorised  interpreters  ?  Monsignor  Capel  proceeds  to  say  :  *  As 
to  the  necessity  of  the  consecration  of  both  species  for  the  integrity 
of  the  sacrifice,  all  are  at  one  with  Rome.  The  commandment  of 
OTir  Lord  was  clear  and  absolute,  and  no  power  on  earth  can  change 
it.' l  l  Drink  ye  all  of  this '  is  a  clear  and  absolute  commandment  as 
to  reception,  and  was  so  held  by  the  Apostles  ;  and  if  so,  Monsignor 
Capel  holds  that  no  power  on  earth  can  change  it.  But  the  Church 
of  Rome,  after  waiting  more  than  fourteen  centuries,  did  change  it ; 
and  the  question  is  whether  there  is  not,  on  that  account,  reason  for 
doubt  in  the  Church  of  Rome. 

As  to  the  second  reason,  that  the  Church  of  Rome  invents  new 
articles  of  faith  unknown  to  the  Apostles,  Monsignor  Capel  admits 
that  the  words  *  immaculate  conception  and  Papal  infallibility '  are 
not  to  be  found  in  Holy  Scripture,  but  he  holds  that  the  Catholic  cannot 
fail  to  see  in  the  sacred  pages  the  doctrine  of  which  they  are  the 
expression  and  legitimate  development.  He  gives,  as  instances  in 
support  of  the  Immaculate  Conception,  that  Christ's  mother  is  declared 
to  be  full  of  grace,  and  called  blessed  by  all  nations,  and  that  the 
doctrine  is  no  new  thing  in  (rod's  Church.  He  must  know  that  it 
was  long  refused  to  be  acknowledged  in  the  Councils  of  the  Church 
of  Rome,  and  has  only  been  accepted  by  the  Church  as  an  article  of 
faith  in  the  nineteenth  century,  and  with  no  great  favour  by  many 
zealous  Romanists. 

The  ground  on  which  this  doctrine  is  contended  for  and  main- 
tained is  that  the  Perfect  Man  must  have  had  an  immaculate  mother. 
If  so,  it  is  surely  most  extraordinary  that  this  necessity  and  the 
manner  of  the  miracle  should  not  have  been  communicated  to  us  as 
fully  and  clearly  as  the  conception  of  Christ.  He  was  conceived  by 
the  Holy  Grhost  and  born  of  the  Virgin  Mary.  The  supporters  of 
her  immaculate  conception  feel  unable  to  give  her  the  same  concep- 
tion, as  it  would  have  made  her  (rod  and  woman.  The  way,  there- 
fore, in  which  the  Church  of  Rome  considers  the  thing,  is  by  declar- 
ing conception  to  be  twofold — active,  in  which  the  parents  by  natural 
means  form  the  body,  and  passive,  when  the  soul  is  united  to 
that  body.  Under  this  doctrine  the  immaculate  conception  of  the 
Virgin  is  held  to  have  commenced  when  her  immaculate  soul  was 
passively  united  to  her  body  previously  conceived  actively  in  the 
natural  way.  Her  conception,  consequently,  according  to  this  inven- 
tion, was  only  partially  immaculate,  and  Christ  was  conceived  in 

1  Monsignor  Capel  adds  :  'By  a  strange  contradiction  the  Communion  Service  in 
use  among  the  Anglicans,  who  are  so  loud  in  their  accusations  of  a  mutilated  sacra- 
ment, orders,  in  direct  opposition  to  Christ's  command,  a  new  consecration  under  one 
kind  only,  in  case  either  element  should  become  short.'  This  is  a  misleading  state- 
ment. If  either  bread  or  wine  become  short,  that  which  is  alone  required  is  conse- 
crated tinder  the  words  specially  used  for  that  element,  and,  so  consecrated,  is  taken 
and  received  by  the  communicant  together  with  the  other  element  already  con.-c- 
crated  in  like  manner  at  the  same  service. 

VOL.  VIL— No.  37.  M  M 


518  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY.  March 

that  part  which,  when  conceived,  was  subject  to  original  sin.  As 
matters  stand,  the  Church  of  Eome  does  not  appear  to  give  a  satis- 
factory explanation  of  the  doctrine. 

In  regard  to  Papal  Infallibility,  Monsignor  Capel  lays  it  down 
that  '  the  successors  of  St.  Peter  did  not  wait  for  the  Vatican  Council 
to  declare  them  infallible,  but  have  from  the  earliest  times  acted  as 
men  who  believed  themselves  possessed  of  this  great  gift.'  Why 
then  was  it  not  made  an  article  of  faith,  if  properly  so,  before  the  end 
of  the  nineteenth  century ;  and  why,  if  it  was  so,  did  it  then  require 
it  ?  Monsignor  Capel  admits  that  the  doctrine  is  not  declared  in 
Scripture,  but  holds  that  it  can  be  legitimately  developed  from  the 
words  of  Christ  to  St.  Peter.  The  question  as  to  the  Pope  being  his 
successor  has  an  important  bearing  on  this  argument ;  but,  without 
entering  into  that  inquiry,  how  does  the  matter  stand  ?  Was  St. 
Peter  himself  infallible  ?  There  is  positive  evidence  to  the  contrary. 
St.  Paul  tells  us  (Gal.  ii.  11), 'When  Peter  came  to  Antioch,  I 
withstood  him  to  the  face,  because  he  was  to  be  blamed,  for  that, 
before  certain  persons  came  from  James,  he  did  eat  with  the  Grentiles ; 
but  when  they  were  come,  he  withdrew  and  separated  himself,  fearing 
them  which  were  of  the  circumcision.'  Here  we  find  St.  Peter  acting 
in  a  manner  which  threw  doubt  on  that  most  important  doctrine  that 
Christian  Grentiles  are  as  good  men  as  Christian  Jews,  which  had  been 
moreover  especially  delivered  to  him.  Was  he  infallible  when  he  so 
acted  ?  What  can  be  more  absurd  than  the  idea  of  human  infal- 
libility ? 

These  new  articles  of  faith,  Monsignor  Capel  admits,  are  not  to  be 
found  declared  as  such  in  the  Scriptures,  and  were  not  taught  by  the 
Apostles.  St.  Paul  tells  us  that  if  any  man  or  even  an  angel  shall 
preach  otherwise  than  what  they  did,  he  is  accursed.  Is  there  not 
therefore  reason  on  this  account  for  doubt  in  the  Church  of  Eome  ? 

We  have  now  to  consider  the  third  point  on  which  doubts  may 
arise,  in  that  the  Church  of  Kome  refuses  to  accept  what  the  Universal 
Church  has  decreed,  and  that,  so  long  as  she  continues  to  do  so,  she  ren- 
ders Christian  unity  impossible,  instancing  what  she  has  done  in  regard 
to  the  28th  Canon  of  the  Council  of  Chalcedon. 

Monsignor  Capel  admits  that  the  Council  was  legally  convened 
by  Pope  Leo,  and  that  his  four  legates  presided  over  it,  and  that  he 
accepted  all  its  decrees  except  the  28th  Canon,  which  concerned 
discipline  and  not  faith.  I  am  glad  to  find  that  Monsignor  Capel 
considers  that  the  Church  of  Rome  does  not  hold  Papal  supremacy 
a  dogmatic  article  of  faith,  but  only  a  matter  of  ecclesiastical 
discipline,  as,  if  so,  there  may  be  less  difficulty  in  dealing  with  it 
hereafter  under  a  less  bigoted  Romanist  than  Pope  Leo.  But  can 
any  one  reasonably  contend  that  a  question  of  church  discipline  was 
not  a  proper  subject  for  a  Council  of  the  Universal  Church  in  the 
fifth  century  to  determine?  Monsignor  Capel  tells  us  that  'the 


1880.          DOUBT  IN  THE  CHURCH  OF  ROME.  519 

Church  is  the  sole  guardian,  the  unerring-  teacher,  the  indefectible 
witness  of  the  faith,  and  the  ultimate  judge  in  all  controversies  con- 
cerning it,  and  that  its  voice  is  divine  and  therefore  infallible.'  The 
Church  can  only  speak  through  its  Councils.  What  right,  then,  had 
Pope  Leo  to  refuse  to  accept  a  canon  which  the  Council  insisted  on, 
though  opposed  in  the  strongest  way  by  his  authority  and  that  of  his 
presiding  legates  ?  What  right  had  he  to  consider  that  its  voice  was 
divine  and  infallible  in  all  things  except  what  concerned  the  proper 
extent  of  his  own  supremacy,  or  that,  if  its  voice  was  divine,  he  was 
not  bound  to  attend  to  it  ? 

And  now  let  us  examine  the  Canon  and  see  whether  the  state- 
ment is  not  correct  that  the  Church  in  the  fifth  century  knew  of  no 
other  right  to  the  supremacy  the  Church  of  Rome  claims  than  that 
given  to  her  by  the  Fathers  as  the  seat  of  imperial  government. 
The  words  of  the  Canon  are  : — 

The  fathers  gave  privileges  to  the  ancient  throne  of  Rome  because  that  city  had 
rule  by  right.  Moved  by  the  same  consideration,  we  150  most  God-loving  bishops 
have  given  the  same  privileges  to  the  most  sacred  throne  of  New  Rome  (Constan- 
tinople), rightly  ordering  that  a  city  which  is  honoured  by  imperial  government  and 
senate  should  enjoy  the  same  privileges  in  ecclesiastical  matters  with  the  most 
ancient  Queen  Rome,  and  to  be  extolled  and  made  great  in  the  same  manner,  being 
the  second  in  existence  after  her  (secundam  post  illam  existentem}. 

Do  these  words  give  any  other  reason  for  the  exclusive  supremacy 
in  ecclesiastical  matters  till  then  enjoyed  by  Eome,  than  that  that 
city  had  been  the  seat  of  temporal  government  to  the  same  extent  ? 
Do  they  give  any  other  reason  for  giving  the  same  privileges  to  Con- 
stantinople, except  that  in  like  manner  she  had  become  an  independent 
seat  of  temporal  government  over  a  portion  of  the  Empire  ?  Who 
so  well,  if  not  alone,  qualified  to  determine  what  was  expedient  under 
such  circumstances  as  a  Council  of  the  Universal  Church  ?  Pope 
Leo's  objection  to  the  Canon  was  in  truth  a  personal  one ;  he  disliked 
giving  up  part  of  the  supremacy  he  was  enjoying,  although  the  Church 
considered  it  had  become  necessary  on  account  of  the  Empire  having 
been  divided  in  regard  to  temporal  government,  and  he  was  not  an  im- 
partial judge  of  what  had  become  best  for  the  Church  on  account  of 
the  change  which  had  taken  place. 

There  is  much  importance  in  the  proper  interpretation  of  the 
words  in  this  Canon  :  '  secundam  post  illam  existentem.'  Monsignor 
Capel  interprets  them  as  declaring  Constantinople  '  second  in  rank  to 
Rome.'  The  proper  interpretation  appears  to  be  that  New  Rome 
should  enjoy  equal  privileges  in  ecclesiastical  matters  as  the  most 
ancient  Queen  Rome,  '  being  the  second  imperial  city  in  existence 
after  her '  in  the  Christian  world,  thereby  declaring  that,  if  other  cases 
of  independent  imperial  authority  should  arise  elsewhere,  a  third  or 
fourth  or  more  of  such  governments  ought  to  have  the  same  indepen- 
dent ecclesiastical  privileges  granted  to  them.  Who  can  deny  that 

MM  2 


520  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY.  March 

if  the  Church  held  it  to  be  right  to  give  ecclesiastical  supremacy  to 
the  see  of  Constantinople  over  the  portion  of  the  Eoman  Empire 
under  her  civil  government,  the  same  principle  must  justly  apply  to 
other  countries  similarly  independent  ? 

What  has  been  the  result  of  the  refusal  of  Rome  to  accept  that 
decision  ?  From  that  time  no  General  Council  of  the  Universal  Church 
has  been  held,  nor  can  one  be  held  so  long  as  Eome  claims  and  insists 
on  its  universal  supremacy  and  the  right  of  the  Pope  to  accept  or 
refuse  any  canon  agreed  to  by  such  Council.  Consequently  those 
Councils  on  which  Rome  relies  for  her  special  doctrines  have  not  been 
Councils  of  the  whole  Church,  but  only  of  the  Church  of  Rome,  and 
have  not  therefore  proper  Catholic  authority.  Monsignor  Capel  can- 
not show  that  the  Council  of  Trent  or  the  last  at  the  Vatican  were 
Councils  of  the  whole  Christian  Church. 

Is  there  not  then  reason  for  doubt  in  the  Church  of  Rome  on  this 
account  ? 

REDESDALE. 


1SSO.  521 


RECENT  SCIENCE. 


(PKOFESSOE  HTTXLEY  lias  kindly  read,  and  aided  the  Compilers  and  tlie  Editor  with 
his  advice  upon,  the  following  article.) 


THE  year  1774  will  always  stand  out  as  a  memorable  year  in  the 
annals  of  chemical  science.  It  was  then  that  Priestley  made  his 
capital  discovery  of  oxygen.  It  was  then,  too,  that  a  poor  Pomeranian 
apothecary,  who  had  settled  in  Sweden,  obtained  for  the  first  time 
a  curious  yellowish  vapour,  which  was  destined  to  acquire  an  impor- 
tance almost  equal  to  that  of  oxygen  itself.  This  yellowish  vapour — 
the  Chlorine  of  modern  chemists — was  regarded,  for  many  years,  as 
a  chemical  compound;  but  from  the  time  when  Sir  Humphry  Davy 
brought  forward  the  evidence  upon  which  he  based  his  opinion  that 
it  must  be  viewed  as  an  undecomposable  form  of  matter,  chlorine  has 
held  its  place,  with  but  little  dispute  in  this  country,  in  our  list  of 
elementary  gases. 

It  is  therefore  with  much  surprise  that  chemists  have  lately 
heard  of  certain  experiments,  conducted  in  the  Zurich  Polytechnikum, 
which  tend  to  shake  their  faith  in  the  views  which  have  been  accepted 
for  well-nigh  seventy  years.  We  are  asked,  in  fact,  to  believe  that 
chlorine  may,  after  all,  turn  out  to  be  a  compound  body — possibly  an 
oxygen-compound.  Viewed  in  connection  with  other  recent  re- 
searches and  speculations  on  the  constitution  of  the  so-called 
elements,1  these  experiments,  and  the  deductions  therefrom,  are  just 
now  of  peculiar  interest ;  and,  unless  the  Swiss  chemists  are  curiously 
in  error,  their  investigations  will  rank  among  the  most  important 
which  have  been  undertaken  during  the  past  year. 

To  understand  the  strange  reversion  to  old  views  which  seems 
likely  to  follow  from  these  recent  researches,  it  is  necessary  to  look 
back  upon  the  history  of  chlorine.  The  discoverer  of  this  gas  was 
Carl  Wilhelm  Scheele,  a  native  of  Stralsund  in  Pomerania,  who  in 
1773  removed  to  Upsala  in  Sweden.  His  taste  for  research  had 
attracted  the  attention  of  the  great  chemist  Bergmann ;  but  the 
discoveries  of  the  young  apothecary  soon  overshadowed  those  of  his 
patron,  and  gave  rise  to  the  remark  that  '  the  greatest  of  Bergmann's 
discoveries  was  the  discovery  of  Scheele.' 2 

1  See  'The  Chemical  Elements,'  by  J.  Xorman  Lockyer.     Nineteenth    Century, 
Feb.  1879,  p.  285. 

2  The  Chemical  Essays  of  Charles  William  Scheele.     London,  1786.     Preface  by 
Dr.  Beddoes,  of  Edinburgh,  p.  vi. 


522  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  March 

It  was  during  the  examination  of  some  ores  of  manganese  that 
Scheele  first  procured  chlorine.  Although  some  of  these  ores  had 
been  known  for  ages,  very  crude  notions  prevailed  as  to  their  com- 
position until  Scheele  entered  upon  their  study.  The  most  common 
ore  of  manganese  is  known  to  mineralogists  as  Pyrolusite,  a  name 
which  it  has  received  in  consequence  of  its  use  by  the  glassmaker 
in  cleansing,  or  decolorising,  molten  glass  which  may  happen  to  have 
become  tinted  by  the  presence  of  iron.  The  same  application  of  this 
'  fire-washing '  mineral  earned  for  it  its  old  name  of4  glass-soap ; '  and  it 
is  still  known  in  French  glass-houses  as  savon  de  verriers.  Formerly 
it  was  called  Magnesia  vitrariorum  or  Magnesia  nigra.  But 
Scheele,  in  his  elaborate  investigation  of  the  mineral,  showed  that  it 
was  distinct  from  the  various  substances  with  which  it  had  previously 
been  confounded,  and  that  it  represented,  in  short,  a  peculiar  earth.3 

In  the  course  of  his  inquiry  into  the  nature  of  this  substance, 
Scheele  subjected  the  manganese-ore  to  the  action  of  various  acids, 
including  the  spiritus  salis.  It  was  this  experiment  that  led  to  the 
discovery  of  chlorine.  When  the  manganese  was  digested  in  spirit 
of  salt — or  marine  acid,  as  it  was  also  called  in  those  days — Scheele 
observed  an  effervescence,  due  to  the  escape  of  a  yellowish  vapour 
which  possessed  a  very  pungent  odour  resembling  that  of  warm  aqua 
regia.  This  curious  kind  of  '  air '  he  collected  in  a  bladder  which 
was  tied  to  the  neck  of  the  vessel  in  which  the  manganese  and  acid 
were  exposed  to  heat.  He  was  thus  enabled  to  examine  the  vapour, 
and  especially  to  observe  its  powerful  bleaching  action  upon  vegetable 
colours — a  property  which  has  since  given  to  chlorine  so  much  of  its 
industrial  importance. 

The  reaction  which  occurs  during  the  preparation  of  the  chlorine 
was  interpreted  by  Scheele  according  to  the  lights  of  his  day.  At 
that  time  the  famous  phlogistic  theory  was  flourishing,  and  Scheele 
explained  the  reaction  by  assuming  that  the  manganese  attracted 
phlogiston  from  the  acid,  while  the  residue  was  the  suffocating  yellow 
gas.  This  gas  being  therefore  nothing  but  the  marine  acid  deprived 
of  its  phlogiston,  what  more  logical  than  to  call  it  dephlogisticated 
marine  acid  ?  And  such,  in  fact,  was  the  name  under  which  chlorine 
was  originally  introduced  to  the  chemical  world. 

A  careful  inquiry  into  the  nature  of  this  gas  led  the  French 
chemist,  M.  Berthollet,  to  take  a  different  view  of  its  constitution.4 
Turning  his  back  upon  the  phlogistic  doctrine,  he  regarded  the 
chlorine  as  a  combination  of  the  marine  or  muriatic  acid  with  oxygen. 
Hence,  when  Lavoisier  and  his  friends  revised  the  chemical  nomen- 
clature of  their  day,  they  suggested  the  term  '  gaz  acide  muriatique 

3  ( Om  Brun-sten  eller  Magnesia,  och  dess  Egenskaper.'  Kongl.  Yvtenska-ps 
Acadcmiens  Ilandlingar,  1774,  pp.  89-116. 

*  '  Memoire  sur  1'acide  marin  dephlogistique,'  par  M.  Berthollet.  Memoires  de 
VAcad.  Itoy.  des  Sciences,  annee  1785,  p.  276. 


1880.  RECENT  SCIENCE.  523 

oxygene  au  lieu  de  gaz  acide  marin  dephlogistique.' 5  Even  this 
new  name  soon  took  another  shape  when  introduced  into  England, 
for  Mr.  Kirwan  conveniently  reduced  the  expression  oxygenated 
muriatic  acid  to  oxymuriatic  acid.  It  was  under  this  name  that 
chlorine  continued  to  be  distinguished  up  to  the  time  of  Davy's 
classical  researches. 

Before  referring  to  Davy's  views  on  the  elementary  nature  of 
chlorine,  it  should  be  mentioned  that  the  two  eminent  French 
chemists,  Gay-Lussac  and  Thenard,  had  suggested,  prior  to  the 
publication  of  Davy's  paper,  the  possibility  of  chlorine  being  a  simple 
form  of  matter.  Keferring  to  the  fact  that  this  gas  is  not  decomposed 
by  carbon,  they  remark  that  '  on  pourroit  d'apres  ce  fait  et  ceux  qui 
sont  rapportes  dans  ce  memoire,  supposer  que  ce  gaz  est  un  corps 
simple.'  6  Nevertheless  they  rejected  such  a  supposition,  and  clung 
to  the  old  belief  in  its  compound  nature,  under  the  impression  that 
it  offered  a  more  plausible  explanation  of  the  phenomena  under 
discussion. 

On  November  15,  1810,  Sir  Humphry  Davy  read  before  the 
Royal  Society  the  famous  Bakerian  lecture,  in  which  he  described  the 
series  of  researches  that  led  him  to  regard  the  yellowish  vapour  of 
Scheele  as  an  elementary  substance.7  In  this  discourse  he  shows 
that  'the  body  improperly  called,  in  the  modern  nomenclature  of 
chemistry,  oxymuriatic  acid  gas,  has  not  as  yet  been  decompounded ; 
but  that  it  is  a  peculiar  substance,  elementary  as  far  as  our  know- 
ledge extends,  and  analogous  in  many  of  its  properties  to  oxygene 
gas.'  It  is  worth  noting,  however,  that  he  carefully  avoids  giving  a 
direct  denial  to  the  statements  of  those  who  still  held  that  the  chlorine 
might  be  an  oxygenated  compound  ;  for  in  taking  exception  to  some 
experiments  by  Mr.  Murray,  of  Edinburgh,  he  cautiously  remarks, 
4  There  may  be  oxygene  in  oxymuriatic  gas,  but  I  can  find  none.' 

After  Davy  had  given  to  the  world  his  views  on  the  chemical 
simplicity  of  chlorine,  it  took  some  time  for  them  to  gain  general 
acceptance.  Berzelius,  for  example,  steadily  resisted  them  for  many 
years ;  and  in  France  they  were  strongly  opposed  by  Berthollet, 
though  such  men  as  Gay-Lussac  and  Thenard  had  become  converts. 
In  time,  however,  even  Berthollet  was  converted ;  and,  writing  in 
1816,  he  publicly  expressed  his  concurrence  in  the  generally  accepted 
view.  After  referring  to  the  fact  that  Gay-Lussac,  Ampere,  and 
Dulong  had,  for  some  years,  taught  in  their  lectures  that  chlorine 

5  '  Methode  de  Nomenclature  chimique  proposee  par  MM.  de  Morvean,  Lavoisier, 
Berthollet  et  de  Fourcroy.'  Observations  sur  la  Physique,  juillet  1787,  t.  xxxi. 
p.  210. 

8  '  De  la  nature  et  des  proprietes  de  1'acide  muriatique  et  de  1'acide  muriatique 
oxygene.'  Mennnres  de  Phys.  et  d.  Ch.  de  la  Soc.  d'Arcueil,  1809,  t.  ii.  p.  357. 

7  '  On  some  of  the  Combinations  of  Oxymuriatic  Gas  and  Oxygene,  and  on  the 
Chemical  Relations  of  these  Principles  to  Inflammable  Bodies.'  Philosophical  Trans- 
actions, 1811,  p.  1. 


524  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  March 

was  an  element,  he  makes  a  remark  which  is  worth  quoting,  since  it 
exposes  the  jealousy  between  the  French  and  English  chemists  of  that 
day.  '  Us  [Gay-Lussac  and  the  others]  ont  bien  droit  a  pretendre 
qu'ils  ont  les  premiers  regarde  le  chlore  com  me  un  etre  simple,  quoique 
M.  Davy  ait  le  premier  etabli  publiquement  cette  opinion,  et  sans 
connaitre  ce  qui  avait  precede.' 8 

When  Davy  had  convinced  himself  of  the  elementary  nature  of 
the  so-called  oxymuriatic  acid,  he  naturally  looked  about  for  a  more 
appropriate  name.  In  his  Bakerian  lecture  he  tells  us  that,  '  after 
consulting  some  of  the  most  eminent  chemical  philosophers  in  this 
country,  it  has  been  judged  most  proper  to  suggest  a  name  founded  on 
one  of  its  obvious  and  characteristic  properties — its  [greenish-yellow] 
colour — and  to  call  it  chlorine  or  chloinc  gas.' 

The  shock  which  has  lately  disturbed  our  faith  in  the  soundness 
of  Davy's  views  as  to  the  elementary  nature  of  chlorine  has  come 
from  the  researches  of  Professor  Victor  Meyer  and  Herr  Carl  Meyer, 
of  Zurich,  and  is  a  direct  consequence  of  their  determination  of  the 
density  of  chlorine  at  high  temperatures. 

It  is  frequently  required  in  chemical  researches  to  ascertain  the 
specific  gravity  of  a  substance  when  in  the  state  of  vapour,  or,  in  other 
words,  to  determine  its '  vapour-density.'  Organic  chemists  especially 
have  recourse  to  this  operation  in  order  to  throw  light  upon  the  con- 
stitution of  the  various  compounds  which  they  prepare,  and  are  there- 
fore grateful  for  any  means  of  simplifying  the  process.  Some  time 
ago  Victor  Meyer  devised  an  ingenious  method  which  is  at  once 
simple  in  principle  and  rapid  in  execution.  It  is  by  means  of  this 
new  method  that  the  density  of  chlorine  at  high  temperatures  was 
examined. 

In  Meyer's  method,  the  specific  gravity  of  the  vapour  is  de- 
termined in  a  cylindrical  glass  vessel,  to  which  is  affixed  an  upright 
glass  tube  closed  at  the  top  with  a  caoutchouc  stopper,  and  furnished 
at  one  side  with  a  narrow  delivery  tube  for  the  escape  of  air.  The 
vessel  may  be  raised  to  the  required  temperature  by  heating  it  in  a 
bath  of  vapour  or  of  liquid,  having  a  proper  boiling-point.  If  a  very 
high  temperature  be  required,  as  in  the  chlorine  experiments,  a  gas 
furnace  is  used  as  a  source  of  heat,  and  the  bulb  is  constructed  of 
porcelain.  When  the  vapour-density  of  a  solid  or  of  a  liquid  is  to  be 
taken,  the  specific-gravity  vessel  is  heated  to  the  temperature  ne- 
cessary to  volatilise  the  substance  under  examination.  A  weighed 
quantity  of  the  substance  is  then  cautiously  introduced  into  the  vessel, 
and  the  orifice  at  the  top  is  immediately  closed.  The  heat  converts 
the  body  into  vapour,  and  this  vapour  chases  the  air  out  of  the  vessel 
through  the  lateral  delivery  tube.  The  amount  of  extruded  air  is  de- 
termined by  collecting  it  in  a  graduated  vessel  standing  over  water, 

8  'Note  sur   ]a   composition  de   1'acide   oximuriatique.'     Merrurires  de   la  Soc, 
d'Arcueil,  t.  iii.  p.  603.     Memoir  read  April  10,  1816. 


1880.  RECENT  SCIENCE.  525 

beneath  which  the  end  of  the  delivery-tube  dips.  Having  thus 
measured  its  volume,  and  knowing  also  the  temperature  and  pressure, 
together  with  the  weight  of  the  substance  employed,  it  is  easy  to 
calculate  the  density  of  the  vapour.  Should  the  presence  of  air  be 
objectionable,  the  apparatus  may  be  filled  with  nitrogen. 

With  this  simple  apparatus  Professor  Meyer  determined  the 
vapour-density  not  only  of  numerous  organic  and  inorganic  com- 
pounds, but  also  of  several  of  the  elements,  at  various  temperatures 
up  to  about  1567°  centigrade.  Even  at  this  temperature  he  found 
that  the  vapour-densities  which  he  obtained  conformed  fairly  with 
those  deduced  from  theory.  All  went  on  well,  in  short,  until  he 
turned  his  attention  to  chlorine,  when  a  glaring  anomaly  soon  pre- 
sented itself. 

At  about  620°  the  density  of  chlorine,  referred  to  air  as  unity, 
agreed  with  its  calculated  density  of  2*45.  But  on  raising  the 
temperature  the  specific  gravity  unexpectedly  diminished.  At  808° 
it  was  between  2*21  and  2'19.  At  1028°  it  sank  to  between 
1*85  and  1'89.  On  elevating  the  temperature  to  1242°  the  density 
was  reduced  to  1-65  or  1-66,  but  at  still  higher  temperatures  it  was 
found  to  remain  tolerably  constant.  Thus  at  1392°  it  was  still  1'66 
or  1-67,  and  even  at  the  maximum  temperature  of  1567°  it  remained 
about  1-60  or  1-62.9 

Now  the  diminution  of  density  may  be  explained  in  one  or  other 
of  two  ways:  it  may  be  either  physical  or  chemical.  From  the  figures 
which  have  just  been  cited,  it  will  be  seen  that,  at  high  temperatures, 
the  density  of  chlorine  is  only  two-thirds  of  its  density  at  the  normal 
temperature.  It  is  clear,  therefore,  that  every  two  volumes  of  the 
gas  must  have  expanded  to  three  volumes.  Such  an  expansion  is 
precisely  the  same  as  that  which  occurs  when  ozone  is  transformed 
into  ordinary  oxygen.  It  has  generally  been  admitted,  since  the 
researches  of  Sir  B.  Brodie,  that  ozone  is  condensed  oxygen.  While 
oxygen  is  but  sixteen  times  heavier  than  hydrogen,  bulk  for  bulk, 
ozone  is  twenty-four  times  heavier.  There  is  reason  to  believe, 
indeed,  that  the  molecule  of  oxygen  contains  two  atoms,  while  the 
molecule  of  ozone  contains  three  atoms.  In  the  language  of  modern 
chemistry  a  molecule  is  a  group  of  atoms,  representing  the  smallest 
quantity  of  a  substance  capable  of  existing  in  a  free  state.  Since  the 
molecule  of  ozone  occupies  only  the  same  space  as  the  molecule  of 
oxygen,  it  is  obvious  that  whatever  volume  be  occupied  by  two 
molecules  of  ozone  must  become  a  volume  and  a  half  when  the  two 
ozone  molecules  are  converted  into  three  molecules  of  oxygen.  As  an 
expansion  to  exactly  the  same  extent  is  shown  by  Meyer  to  occur  when 
chlorine  is  strongly  heated,  it  might  seem  reasonable  to  assume  that  in 
this  case  the  increment  of  bulk  is  due  to  a  similar  physical  change. 

9  '  Ueber  das  Verhalten  des  Chlors  bei  holier  Temperatur.'    Bcrlcktc  der  deutschen 
Chemisclien  Gesellschaft,  1879,  No.  12,  p.  1426. 


526  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  March 

There  are,  however,  theoretical  considerations  which  forbid  so 
simple  an  explanation  of  the  phenomenon  in  question.  The  chemist 
is  therefore  driven  to  believe  that  the  increased  bulk  is  due  to  a 
multiplication  of  molecules  consequent  upon  the  dissociation  of  the 
chlorine — that,  in  fact,  the  two  molecules  of  chlorine  are  resolved  at 
a  high  temperature  into  three  molecules  of  some  simpler  forms  of 
matter.  If  the  chlorine  can  thus  be  decomposed  by  heat,  is  it 
possible  to  determine  what  are  its  components  ? 

In  the  original  paper  by  Victor  and  Carl  Meyer,  previously  cited, 
no  mention  is  made  of  any  attempt  to  answer  such  a  question  ;  but 
some  interesting  suggestions,  helping  us  towards  an  answer,  may  be 
gleaned  from  a  discourse  delivered  by  Professor  Meyer  before  the 
Chemical  Society  of  Zurich,  and  reported  by  Mr.  "Watson  Smith,10  as 
also  from  other  information  supplied  by  Mr.  F.  Barkas,  of  the  Zurich 
Polytechnic.11  On  passing  the  expanded  gas  into  a  liquid  which 
absorbs  chlorine,  such  as  mercury  or  a  solution  of  iodide  of  potassium, 
it  was  found  that  a  small  proportion  of  gas  always  remained  un- 
absorbed.  This  residual  fluid  proved  to  be  oxygen!  Assuming  that 
no  source  of  error  has  crept  in,  the  obvious  inference  is  that  chlorine 
is  an  oxygenated  compound,  and  that  a  portion  of  the  oxygen  may 
be  set  free  at  a  sufficiently  high  temperature. 

It  should  be  noted  that  extraordinary  care  appears  to  have  been 
taken  by  the  Zurich  chemists  to  guard  against  the  introduction  of 
error  in  these  experiments.  The  chlorine  was  prepared,  free  from  all 
contamination,  by  the  action  of  heat  on  pure  platinous  chloride. 
Nor  was  any  pains  spared  in  thoroughly  drying  the  gas.  It  was  con- 
ceivable that  at  a  very  exalted  temperature  the  chlorine  might  act 
upon  the  unglazed  porcelain  vessel  in  which  the  density  was  deter- 
mined, and  might  thereby  evolve  oxygen.  Experiment  has  shown, 
however,  that  the  vessel  is  not  attacked  under  the  conditions  which 
obtained  in  these  researches.  Again,  it  has  been  suggested  that  the 
finely  divided  platinum  left  on  the  decomposition  of  the  chloride 
might  be  volatilised ;  but  this  objection  has  been  satisfactorily  dis- 
posed of  by  direct  appeal  to  experiment.  In  short,  it  is  difficult  to 
detect  the  smallest  loophole  through  which  error  could  possibly  gain 
entrance  in  the  course  of  this  investigation. 

It  has  been  pointed  out  by  Dr.  Armstrong  that  the  alleged  dis- 
covery of  Meyer  is  quite  in  accordance  with  the  results  of  Mr. 
Lockyer's  spectroscopic  study  of  chlorine ;  for  this  physicist  found 
that  under  certain  conditions  '  the  red  line  of  oxygen  is  one  of  the 
most  prominent  lines  in  the  spectrum  of  chlorine.' 12 

• 

10  <  Behaviour  of  Chlorine  at  a  High  Temperature,  or  Results  of  Viktor  Meyer's 
recent  Researches.'     Chemical  News,  vol.  xl.  No.  1027,  p.  49.     Meyer  himself  has 
borne  witness  to  the  accuracy  of  this  report. 

11  Ibid.  No.  1044,  p.  263. 

12  'The  Dissociation  of  Chlorine.'     Nature,  vol.  xx.  Xo.  611,  p.  357. 


1880.  RECENT  SCIENCE.  527 

Assuming  that  chlorine  is  an  oxidised  body,  it  has  been  proposed 
to  call  the  hypothetical  element,  of  which  it  is  an  oxide,  Murium. 
There  is  no  need,  however,  to  alter  the  name  of  chlorine  itself,  since 
this  name  merely  denotes  the  colour  of  the  gas  without  connoting 
anything  about  its  constitution.  Indeed,  Davy,  foreseeing  the 
possibility  of  future  contradiction  to  his  own  views  on  the  elementary 
nature  of  chlorine,  selected  a  name  which  in  that  event  should 
still  be  unobjectionable.  'Should  it  hereafter  be  discovered  to  be  a 
compound,  and  even  to  contain  oxygen,  this  name,'  said  Davy,  '  can 
imply  no  error,  and  cannot  necessarily  require  a  change.' 13 

If  the  researches  of  Meyer  should  be  corroborated  by  those  of 
other  investigators,  attention  will  of  course  be  directed  to  the  behaviour 
of  the  chemical  congeners  of  chlorine.  Chlorine  is  but  one  member 
of  a  very  natural  family,  known  as  the  Halogens,  comprising  bromine, 
iodine,  and  fluorine.  When  one  halogen  has  been  dissociated  at  a 
high  temperature,  it  is  almost  fair  to  expect  that  the  others  may  be 
dissociated  under  similar  conditions.  Professor  Meyer  has,  in  fact, 
found  that  iodine  behaves  similarly  to  chlorine,  and  has  thus  lent 
some  support  to  the  conjecture  that  the  whole  family  of  halogens  may 
some  day  be  blotted  out  of  our  list  of  chemical  elements. 

While  Professor  Meyer  has  been  engaged  in  experimenting  on  the 
dissociation  of  chlorine,  Professor  Raoul  Pictet,  of  Greneva,  has  been 
independently  speculating  on  the  possibility  of  decomposing  some  of 
the  other  non-metals  by  means  of  heat.14  It  will  be  remembered 
that  it  was  this  physicist  who  first  accomplished  the  feat  of  liquefying 
oxygen.  M.  Pictet  appears  to  have  been  led  to  his  present  views  on 
dissociation  by  considering  the  striking  fact  that  while  the  solar 
spectrum  has  so  much  to  say  as  to  the  presence  of  a  number  of  metals 
in  the  sun,  it  is  almost  mute  when  questioned  as  to  the  non-metals. 
If  the  non-metals  exist  in  the  sun,  most  of  them  are  probably  dis- 
sociated by  the  high  temperature  to  which  they  are  exposed,  and  M. 
Pictet  has  therefore  exercised  his  ingenuity  in  devising  means  for  pro- 
ducing a  higher  temperature  than  any  heat  which  we  can  command 
in  our  laboratories. 

When  heat-waves  pass  from  one  body  to  another,  separated  by  a 
considerable  distance,  the  period  of  vibration,  or  wave-frequency,  will 
remain  unchanged  during  the  transmission.  On  encountering  the 
second  body,  the  waves  tend  to  throw  its  molecules  into  oscillation 
in  unison  with  the  original  vibrations.  If  the  receiving  body  be  free 
from  external  influences  which  would  modify  its  temperature,  it  will 
gradually  acquire  exactly  the  same  temperature  as  that  of  the  body 

1S  Bakerian  Lecture,  1810.     Phil.  Trans.  1811,  p.  32. 

11  '  Considerations  sur  la  possibility  experimentale  de  la  Dissociation  de  quelques 
Hetalloides.'  Archives  dcs  Sciences  physiqiies  ct  naturelles  (Geneva),  No.  10,  1879, 
p.  377. 


528  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  March 

from  which  the  vibrations  originally  proceeded.  The  two  centres 
of  radiation  will  then  be  in  a  condition  of  thermic  equilibrium.  As 
these  phenomena  are  independent  of  the  distance  between  the  emit- 
ting and  the  receiving  body,  they  may  be  supposed  to  obtain  between 
the  sun  and  the  earth.  The  solar  rays,  therefore,  preserve  their  period 
of  vibration  until  they  reach  the  earth,  where  they  tend  to  produce 
a  temperature  equal  to  that  of  the  sun  itself.  Hence  Professor 
Pictet  proposes  to  concentrate  the  solar  rays,  by  means  of  an  enor- 
mous mirror,  upon  the  substance  which  he  desires  to  decompose ; 
and  at  the  same  time  he  prevents,  as  far  as  possible,  all  loss  of  heat  by 
radiation  or  by  conduction. 

On  the  hypothesis  that  most  of  the  non-metals  exist  in  the  sun 
in  a  state  of  dissociation,  the  terrestrial  non-metals  ought  also  to  suffer 
decomposition  if  they  can  be  brought,  by  means  of  solar  radiation, 
into  thermal  equilibrium  with  the  sun's  surface.  To  obtain  this 
equilibrium,  Professor  Pictet  proposes  to  construct  a  silvered-copper 
parabolic  mirror  of  gigantic  size.  He  calculates  that  the  diameter 
of  this  mirror  should  not  be  less  than  ten  metres.  It  is  needless 
to  follow  him  into  the  details  of  its  mechanical  construction,  which 
are  discussed  at  some  length  in  the  memoir  cited  above. 

The  rays  reflected  from  such  a  mirror  would  not  converge  to  a 
true  focal  point,  but  would  be  spread  over  a  circular  surface  about 
eight  or  ten  centimetres  in  diameter.  Knowing  the  amount  of  solar 
radiation  received  by  the  earth  in  a  given  time,  he  estimates  that 
about  one  thousand  calories  (French  thermal  units)  per  minute  would 
be  thrown  by  the  mirror  upon  this  focal  space.  This  heat  would  be 
distributed  in  three  ways.  In  spite  of  all  precautions,  the  greater 
part  would  inevitably  be  lost  by  radiation.  Another  part  would  be 
carried  off  by  conduction,  since  the  chamber  which  would  be  placed 
in  the  focus — the  chambre  solaire — must  needs  be  supported,  and 
the  supports  would  steal  away  some  of  the  heat.  Finally,  there 
would  remain  a  fraction  of  the  original  heat  available  for  the  decom- 
position of  bodies  placed  in  the  solar  chamber. 

This  chamber,  which  would  resemble  a  great  sphere  about  one 
metre  in  diameter,  should  be  constructed  of  the  most  refractory 
materials  at  our  disposal,  such  as  lime  and  zirconia.  The  substances 
to  be  operated  upon  would  be  introduced  into  the  chamber  through  a 
tube  of  zirconia,  which  must  descend  to  such  a  depth  as  to  deliver 
the  substance,  in  a  state  of  vapour,  at  the  point  where  the  heat 
attains  to  its  greatest  intensity.  When  the  vapour  passes  through 
the  zone  of  maximum  heat,  the  eventful  moment  arrives,  and  it 
is  expected  that  the  body  would  then  suffer  dissociation.  If  dis- 
sociation did  occur,  and  if  the  two  component  vapours  which 
would  probably  result  from  the  decomposition  differed  from  each 
other  in  density,  a  fraction  of  one  of  the  vapours  would  certainly  be 
separated  from  the  other  by  means  of  diffusion.  To  prevent  this 


1880.  RECENT  SCIENCE.  529 

liberated  element  from  re-combination,  it  would  be  caused  to  pass 
through  a  large  metal  tube  containing  wire-gauze,  and  surrounded 
by  a  refrigerating  apparatus,  whereby  its  temperature  could  be 
reduced  to  —56°  centigrade.  In  this  tube  the  eliminated  element 
might  possibly  condense,  or  even  crystallise.  Professor  Pictet  has 
such  faith  in  the  soundness  of  these  views  that,  if  the  expense  of 
constructing  such  apparatus  were  within  his  means,  he  would  imme- 
diately put  his  speculations  to  the  test  of  experiment. 

It  ia  well  known  that  the  actinism  or  chemical  action  of  the 
solar  spectrum — as  determined,  for  instance,  by  its  effect  upon  a  sensi- 
tive photographic  surface — is  far  from  being  equally  distributed 
throughout  the  luminous  image.  Nor  is  the  maximum  of  chemical 
action  coincident  with  the  maximum  of  luminosity ;  in  other  words, 
the  seat  of  the  greatest  photographic  potency  is  not  in  the  brightest 
part  of  the  spectrum.  Moreover,  the  chemical  activity,  instead  of 
ceasing  at  the  limit  of  the  visible  spectrum,  stretches, 'to  a  greater  or 
less  extent,  beyond  the  violet  end ;  and  Captain  Abney  has  shown 
that  it  may  also  be  detected  beyond  the  red  end.  The  ultra-violet 
portion  of  a  spectrum,  consisting  of  rays  of  higher  refrangibility  than 
those  which  excite  vision,  varies  considerably  in  magnitude  according 
to  the  source  of  light  which  is  subjected  to  analysis.  The  electric  light 
is  so  rich  in  these  extra-visual  rays  that,  if  its  spectrum  fall  upon  a 
surface  prepared  with  chloride  of  silver,  the  image  may  be  prolonged 
to  four  or  five  times  the  length  of  the  visible  spectrum. 

It  is  found  that  these  chemical  rays  can  pass  freely  through 
certain  media,  but  are  powerfully  arrested  by  others.  Those  substances 
which  are  chemically  transparent  are  said  to  be  diactinic,  while  those 
which  are  chemically  opaque  are,  of  course,  adiactinic.  Because  a 
body  allows  a  free  passage  to  the  luminous  rays,  it  by  no  means 
follows  that  it  will  also  offer  a  free  passage'to  the  chemically  active 
rays :  a  body  may  be  optically  transparent,  yet  chemically  opaque. 
Thus,  colourless  glass  exerts  great  absorptive  action  upon  the 
chemical  rays ;  and  hence  the  practice  of  using  prisms  and  lenses  of 
rock-crystal,  instead  of  glass,  when  experimenting  upon  the  diactinic 
properties  of  various  substances. 

Our  knowledge  of  actinic  absorption  was  originally  due  to  the 
researches  of  the  late  Professor  W.  A.  Miller  ;  and  his  investigations 
have  lately  been  taken  up  and  extended  by  Professor  Hartley,  now  of 
Dublin,  and  Professor  Huntington,  of  King's  College,  London.15  The 
object  of  these  investigators  was  primarily  to  determine  whether  any, 
and,  if  any,  what,  relation  exists  between  the  molecular  constitution  of 
an  organic  substance  and  its  actinic  absorption.  They  therefore  ex- 

15  '  Researches  on  the  Action  of  Organic  Substances  on  the  Ultra-violet  Rays  of  the- 
Spectrum.'  Philosophical  Transaction*,  1879,  p.  257  {  part  iii.  in  Proc.  Roy,  Soc.r 
No.  198,  p.  290. 


530  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  March 

amined  homologous  series  of  alcohols  and  acids — that  is  to  say,  series 
in  which  the  successive  members  differ  from  each  other  by  an  amount 
af  carbon  and  hydrogen  indicated  by  CH2.  In  such  a  series  we 
generally  expect  to  find  a  regular  gradation  of  physical  properties  in 
the  consecutive  terms  ;  nor  is  this  law  broken  by  their  diactinic 
properties.  In  fact,  for  every  increment  of  CH2  in  the  molecules  of 
such  alcohols  and  acids  as  were  examined,  there  was  found  to  be  an 
increased  absorption  of  the  more  refrangible  rays. 

Great  care  was  taken  in  these  delicate  researches  to  insure  purity 
in  the  substances  under  examination.  Methylic  alcohol,  when  abso- 
lutely pure,  proved  to  be  almost  as  chemically  transparent  as  water. 
Messrs.  Hartley  and  Huntington  have  found  that  the  photographic 
absorption-spectra  are  in  many  cases  so  characteristic  as  to  be  capable 
of  employment  in  the  identification  of  organic  substances,  and  are  useful 
as  a  most  delicate  test  of  their  purity.  The  examination  of  various 
essential  oils  has  thrown  much  light  upon  the  constitution  of  these 
bodies.  The  spectrum  was  photographed,  not  only  when  the  liquid 
under  examination  was  in  a  state  of  purity,  but  also  when  diluted  with 
various  known  proportions  of  alcohol.  This  process  of  dilution 
enabled  the  experimentalists  to  detect  the  presence  of  the  aromatic- 
series  in  the  essential  oils,  and  even  in  certain  cases  to  estimate  the 
amount  of  the  substances  which  are  thus  present. 

It  appears,  from  a  remarkable  accident  which  occurred  a  few 
months  ago  in  a  French  coal-pit,  that  a  new  source  of  danger  must  be 
added  to  the  long  catalogue  of  perils  which  beset  the  miner  in  the 
prosecution  of  his  underground  work.  The  attention  of  the  French 
Academy  of  Sciences  has  been  called  to  the  peculiarities  of  this 
accident  by  M.  Delesse,  whose  explanation  of  the  origin  of  the  cata- 
strophe is  of  much  scientific  interest.  The  accident  occurred  at  the 
Rochebelle  Colliery  in  the  Departement  du  Grard — a  mine  which  had 
always  been  so  free  from  fire-damp  that  the  miners  were  in  the  habit 
of  working  with  naked  lights. 

On  the  28th  of  last  July  some  miners  in  one  of  the  galleries  of 
this  colliery  heard  a  short,  sharp  explosion,  which  was  followed  in  less 
than  a  minute  by  a  second  detonation  more  violent  than  the  first. 
The  lamps  were  immediately  extinguished,  and  the  miners  experienced 
such  giddiness  as  to  render  their  -escape  difficult.  Nevertheless  they 
managed  to  reach  the  cage,  and  were  brought  in  safety  to  the  surface. 
In  one  of  the  other  galleries,  however,  three  men  were  killed  by 
suffocation. 

On  attempting  to  enter  the  mine  after  the  accident,  it  was  found 
that  the  workings  were  filled  with  carbonic  acid  gas,  and  ingenious 
devices  of  various  kinds  were  adopted  in  order  to  effect  its  removal. 
When  at  length  it  was  possible  to  gain  access  to  the  galleries,  it  was 
seen  that  vast  quantities  of  coal  had  been  broken  down  by  the 


1880.  RECENT  SCIENCE.  531 

•explosion,  and  projected  to  a  considerable  distance  from  the  working- 
face. 

Although  it  was  at  first  naturally  thought  that  the  accident  was 
due  to  an  ordinary  explosion  of  fire-damp,  a  slight  examination  was 
sufficient  to  convince  the  engineers  that  this  was  not  the  case.  The 
bodies  of  the  men  who  were  killed  by  the  explosion  showed  no  trace 
of  the  effects  of  fire ;  some  gunpowder  and  cartridges  in  the  neigh- 
bourhood had  not  been  exploded  ;  and,  in  short,  everything  went  to 
show  that  the  detonation  was  not  accompanied  by  flame. 

After  a  careful  study  of  all  the  circumstances  connected  with  this 
disaster,  the  engineers  have  come  to  the  conclusion  that  it  arose  from 
the  sudden  disengagement  of  large  volumes  of  carbonic  acid  gas,  which, 
issuing  from  the  coal  with  explosive  violence,  swept  down  not  less  than 
seventy-six  tons  of  coal,  and  filled  the  workings  with  a  deadly  atmo- 
sphere. It  had  long  been  known  that  carbonic  acid  was  slowly  evolved 
from  the  coal  in  this  mine,  and  great  care  was  consequently  taken  to 
secure  efficient  ventilation.  But  never  before  had  the  gas  been  known 
to  exist  in  the  mineral  in  so  condensed  a  state  as  to  rend  the  face  of 
the  coal,  and  to  stream  forth  with  explosive  force. 

What  could  possibly  be  the  source  of  so  large  a  quantity  of  this 
gas  ?  Carbonic  acid,  like  carburetted  hydrogen  or  fire-damp,  is  formed 
during  the  conversion  of  vegetable  matter  into  coal ;  but  it  is  hardly 
to  be  supposed  that  so  great  a  volume  would  remain  pent  up  in  the 
pores  of  the  coal  as  must  have  been  set  free  by  this  explosion. 
Another  source  of  carbonic  acid  is  found  in  the  exhalations  of  vol- 
canoes. In  old  volcanic  districts  the  gas  frequently  issues  from 
crevices  in  the  rocks ;  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Vichy  and  Hauterive, 
.  for  example,  the  gas  is  disengaged  in  such  large  quantity,  and  the 
supply  is  so  constant,  that  it  has  actually  been  utilised  in  the  manu- 
facture of  white-lead.  Again,  at  the  lead-mine  of  Pontgibaud,  in 
the  old  volcanic  district  of  Auvergne,  and  in  the  coal-mine  of  Brassac, 
this  gas  is  constantly  being  evolved.  But  in  the  neighbourhood  of 
Eochebelle  there  are  no  lingering  vestiges  of  volcanic  activity,  and  we 
are  consequently  forced  to  seek  another  source  of  the  carbonic  acid 
which  made  its  unexpected  appearance  in  this  colliery. 

A  careful  study  of  the  geology  of  the  district  has  finally  led  to  the 
conclusion  that  the  gas  in  the  Eochebelle  mine  must  have  been  dis- 
engaged by  the  action  of  acid  waters  upon  calcareous  rocks.  In  the 
neighbourhood  of  the  mine  there  is  a  large  deposit  of  iron  pyrites. 
This  pyrites,  by  slow  oxidation  through  atmospheric  influences,  is  con- 
stantly producing  sulphuric  acid,  which,  dissolving  in  the  subterranean 
waters,  is  carried  down  to  the  underlying  rocks.  In  its  underground 
course  it  meets  with  the  subjacent  Triassic  limestones,  and  chemical 
action  is  at  once  set  up.  The  carbonic  acid  which  is  thus  slowly 
evolved  by  the  action  of  the  acid  on  the  calcareous  rock  is  greedily 
absorbed  by  the  coal,  which  is  not  only  porous,  but  is  broken  up  and 


532  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  March 

fissured  in  all  directions.  In  the  cracks  and  crevices  of  the  coal  the 
gas  gradually  accumulates,  and  its  pressure  increases,  until  it  even- 
tually attains  sufficient  tension  to  burst  forth  with  disruptive  violence, 
producing  such  devastation  as  that  which  accompanied  the  Rochebelle 
explosion.16 

In  connection  with  this  colliery  accident,  attention  may  be  called 
to  the  explosion  of  a  diamond,  which  may  perhaps  be  referred  to  a 
similar  cause — namely,  to  the  sudden  outburst  of  a  volatile  fluid  which 
was  enclosed  in  the  mineral  in  a  state  of  great  tension. 

Professor  Leidy  has  exhibited,  before  the  Academy  of  Sciences  of 
Philadelphia,  a  sleeve  button  bearing  a  rose  diamond  which  had 
exploded  under  the  influence  of  sunshine.17  It  appears  that  the  person 
who  wore  this  button  was  one  day  startled  by  hearing  a  distinct 
report  due  to  the  sudden  rupture  of  the  stone.  The  diamond  was 
rent  along  a  cleavage  plane,  and  the  fracture  disclosed  a  dark  particle 
of  carbonaceous  matter.  It  is  believed  that  the  explosion  resulted 
from  the  rapid  expansion  of  a  volatile  liquid  enclosed  in  a  cavity. 
Many  crystals  contain  cavities  which  enclose  volatile  liquids,  such  as 
condensed  carbonic  acid.  Sir  David  Brewster  found  that  some 
diamonds  contain  so  many  microscopic  cavities  that  they  impart  a 
dark  colour  to  the  mineral.  It  is  probable  that  the  liquids  and  gases 
which  are  pent  up  under  great  tension  in  such  cavities  would  exert 
considerable  pressure  outwards  ;  and  indeed  the  behaviour  of  certain 
diamonds  under  polarised  light  seems  to  show  that  parts  of  the  stone  are 
in  a  state  of  great  strain.  It  is  easily  conceivable,  then,  that  the  tension 
of  the  enclosed  fluid  might  go  on  increasing  until  the  diamond,  no 
longer  able  to  resist  the  strain,  would  give  way  with  explosive  violence. 

In  a  recently  published  memoir  on  the  Foramini/era  of  the 
'  Challenger,'  Mr.  H.  B.  Brady  18  devotes  some  pages  to  a  summing  up 
of  the  question,  so  much  discussed  of  late  years,  as  to  whether  these 
organisms  live  both  on  the  sea  bottom  and  at  the  surface. 

Up  to  a  comparatively  recent  period  it  was  thought  that  the  Fora- 
minifera,  under  ordinary  circumstances  at  any  rate,  lived  on  the  sea- 
bottom  ;  in  several  isolated  instances,  however,  specimens  were  taken 
at  the  surface,  and  the  extensive  series  of  gatherings  made  by  Major 
Owen  showed,  beyond  the  possibility  of  doubt,  that  several  species  of 
Globigervna,  Orbulina,  and  Pulvinulina  are  pelagic  ;  that  they 
live  and  multiply  at  the  surface,  and  that,  when  dead,  their  skeletons 

'*  '  Explosion  d'acide  carbonique  dans  vine  mine  dehoviille.'    Note  de  M.  Deles?e, 
Comptes  Rendus,  t.  Lxxxix.  No.  20,  Nov.  17,  1879,  p.  814. 

17  '  Explosion  of  a  Diamond.'     Philosophical  Magazine,    Supplementary  number, 
Dec.  1879,  p.  572. 

18  'Notes  on  some  of  the  Keticularian  Rhizopoda  of  the  "  Challenger  "  Expedi- 
tion.'    Quart.  Journ.  of  Micros.  Sci.,  July,  1879. 


1880.  RECENT  SCIENCE.  533 

fall  to  the  bottom,  and  form  the  well-known  globigerina-ooze,  of  which 
a  large  part  of  the  sea-bottom  is  composed. 

It  then  became  a  question  whether  the  calcareous  Foraminifera 
were  exclusively  pelagic,  or  whether  some  forms  might  not  have  their 
regular  habitat  on  the  sea-bottom,  even  at  great  depths,  the  latter 
opinion  being  supported  by  several  observers  who  found  the  sarcode 
or  protoplasm  still  contained  in  the  shells  of  dredged  specimens. 

The  facts  brought  forward  by  Mr.  Brady  seem  to  show  very 
clearly  that  this  is  actually  the  case.  A  tolerably  weighty  piece  of 
negative  evidence  is  afforded  by  the  fact  that,  after  all  the  extensive 
series  of  observations  which  have  been  made  on  the  surface  fauna, 
only  a  very  few  out  of  the  numerous  species  of  Foraminifera  have 
been  taken  in  the  tow-net ;  all  the  others  have  been  obtained  exclu- 
sively by  dredging,  that  is,  from  considerable  depths.19 

Many  forms  of  Foraminifera  do  not  secrete  a  shell  of  carbonate 
of  lime,  but  build  up  for  themselves  one  of  sand  grains.  It  is  evident 
that  these  arenaceous  forms  must  live  at  the  bottom  to  obtain  the 
materials  for  their  skeleton,  and  there  is,  therefore,  no  improbability 
that  porcellanous  and  hyaline  species  may  be  able  to  exist  under  like 
conditions. 

An  important  argument  is  also  to  be  deduced  by  the  comparison 
of  surface  and  bottom  specimens,  rendered  possible  by  the  large  series 
of  gatherings  made  in  the  '  Challenger.'  It  is  found  that  the  largest 
pelagic  Globigerince  are  markedly  smaller  than  average-sized  speci- 
mens from  the  sea-bottom,  and  that  the  shells  of  the  former  are  very 
much  thinner  than  those  of  the  latter — often  less  than  half,  and  rarely 
more  than  two-thirds,  as  thick.  In  Orbulina  the  difference  in  the 
size  of  the  shells  is  less  marked,  but,  as  in  Globigerina,  the  species 
from  the  bottom  have  shells  of  much  greater  thickness,  and  often  ex- 
hibiting a  laminated  structure,  never  found  in  pelagic  forms. 

Another  fact  of  some  importance  is  that  shells  of  Globigerina  are 
found  in  the  stomachs  of  some  of  the  deep-sea  brittle-stars ;  but  the 
most  convincing  proof  of  all  is  that,  by  dissolving  the  shells  of  dredged 
specimens  with  acid,  the  protoplasmic  bodies  have  been  obtained  in  a 
thoroughly  good  state  of  preservation.  This  Mr.  Brady  has  been  able 
to  do  with  material  obtained  by  the  very  useful  method  adopted  in 
the  '  Challenger  '  of  attaching  a  tow-net,  such  as  is  used  for  surface- 
collecting,  to  a  trawl.  It  is  quite  true  that  the  specimens  thus 
obtained  have  never  been  seen  to  extrude  their  pseudopodia  or  show 
any  other  signs  of  life  ;  but,  as  Mr.  Brady  points  out,  this  can  hardly 
be  expected  in  animals  subjected  to  such  an  entire  change  of 

19  Mr.  Brady  gives  a  list  of  the  species  now  known  to  be  pelagic.  They  are — 
Globigerina,  6  species  ;  Orbulina,  1  sp. ;  Hastingcrina,  1  sp. ;  Pidlenia,  1  sp. ;  Splicn- 
roidina,  1  sp. ;  Candrina,  1  sp. ;  Pulrinulina,  4  sp. ;  Cymbalojwra,  1  sp. ;  and  CJdlo- 
stomclla,  1  tp. 

VOL.  VIL— No.  37.  N  N 


534  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  March 

surroundings  as  are  these  Foraminifera  when  brought  to  the  surface 
from  a  depth  of  many  hundred  or  even  thousand  fathoms. 

Altogether  the  balance  of  evidence  seems  to  show,  as  Mr.  Brady 
says, '  that  organisms  so  simply  constituted  as  this  group  of  Protozoa 
may  be  equally  at  home  at  the  surface  and  at  the  bottom  of  the 
ocean  ; '  so  that  among  the  Foraminifera,  as  in  many  other  groups  of 
the  animal  kingdom,  closely  allied  forms  are  found  living,  on  the  one 
hand,  on  the  surface,  exposed  to  light,  to  varying  temperatures,  and 
to  slight  pressure,  and,  on  the  other  hand,  at  great  depths,  where 
light  is  absent,  the  temperature  uniform,  and  the  pressure  immense. 

One  of  the  most  striking  results  of  modern  anatomical  and  embryo- 
logical  research  has  been  to  show  that  the  higher  groups  of  animals,  the 
echinoderms,  molluscs,  arthropods,  and  vertebrates,  are  all  derivable 
from  some  modification  of  the  worm  type.  Amongst  other  facts 
having  an  important  bearing  upon  this  question,  we  may  mention 
the  discovery  of  segmental  organs  in  vertebrates,  the  resemblance  of 
the  larvae  of  echinoderms  and  of  many  molluscs,  notably  brachiopods, 
to  worm  larvae,  and  the  close  similarity  between  worms  and  vertebrates 
in  the  mode  of  development  of  the  nervous  system  and  of  the  meso- 
blast. 

One  of  the  most  remarkable  of  these  worm  affinities  was  brought 
out  by  the  investigations  of  Mr.  Mosely  on  Peripatus,  a  caterpillar- 
like  creature  formerly  placed  among  the  worms.  Mr.  Mosely  showed 
that  Peripatus  possessed  tracheae,  structures  hitherto  known  only  in  the 
air-breathing  Arthropoda ;  and  the  genus  is  now,  in  consequence  of 
this  discovery,  placed  in  that  sub-kingdom  as  the  single  example  of 
the  Protracheata,  the  nearest  living  representative  of  the  worm  stock 
from  which  myriapods,  arachnids,  and  insects  may  be  supposed  to 
have  sprung. 

As  bearing  on  the  affinities  of  Peripatus,  on  the  one  hand  with 
worms,  and  on  the  other  with  arthropods,  some  recent  discoveries 
of  Mr.  Balfour  20  are  of  the  greatest  importance.  In  all  the  Tra- 
cheata,  the  excretory  organs  consist  of  numerous  blind  tubes — the 
Malpighian  tubules — opening  into  the  hinder  part  of  the  intes- 
tine ;  while,  in  worms,  the  excretory  function  is  performed  by  the  *  seg- 
mental organs,'  coiled  tubes,  one  pair  to  each  somite,  at  one  end 
opening  on  the  external  surface  of  the  body,  and  at  the  other  either 
opening  into  the  body  cavity  or  terminating  blindly. 

The  differences  between  worms  and  Tracheata  in  the  matter  of 
excretory  organs  being  so  great,  it  is  interesting  to  find  that  the  least 
modified  tracheate  animal,  Peripatus,  has  segmental  organs  in 
essential  particulars  quite  like  those  of  many  worms,  particularly  the 
leeches.  Each  organ  consists  of  a  coiled  glandular  tube,  connected 

28  '  On  certain  Points  in  the  Anatomy  of  Peripatus  capensisS     Quart.  Journ   of 
Micros.  Sci.,  July  1879. 


1880.  RECENT  SCIENCE.  535 

at  one  end  with  a  short  tube  of  somewhat  different  character,  and 
probably  opening  into  the  body  cavity,  and  at  the  other  end  dilating 
into  a  vesicle  which  opens  on  the  surface  of  the  body  at  the  base  of 
the  corresponding  foot. 

A  point  of  less,  but  still  of  considerable,  importance  is  the  inter- 
pretation given  by  Mr.  Balfour  to  the  organ  usually  considered  as  a 
fat-body.  He  shows  that  it  is  in  reality  a  gland,  opening  by  a  duct 
into  the  mouth,  and  comparable  with  the  simple  salivary  gland  of  the 
millipede.  As  salivary  glands  are  highly  characteristic  of  Tracheata, 
while  they  are  altogether  absent  in  worms,  the  homology  thus  sug- 
gested indicates  a  new  and  unexpected  affinity  with  Arthropoda. 

An  important  inquiry  on  the  pathology  of  starvation  has  been 
made  by  Surgeon  D.  D.  Cunningham,  of  the  Indian  Medical  Service, 
in  relation  to  the  recent  famines  in  India,  and  the  result  of  his  re- 
searches is  published  in  the  current  number  of  Professor  Lankester's 
journal.21 

With  a  view  of  directly  observing  the  effect  of  diminished  food 
supply  upon  protoplasm,  Mr.  Cunningham  undertook  an  elaborate 
series  of  experiments  upon  easily  observable  plants  and  animals, 
selecting  for  his  purposes  two  common  moulds,  Choanephora  and 
PiloboluSj  and  the  tadpoles  of  a  toad  (Bufo  inelanostictus\  and  of  a 
frog  (liana  tigrina),  all  of  which  were  kept  for  a  longer  or  shorter 
period  in  freshly  distilled  water,  and  the  effect  upon  their  tissues  of 
the  deprivation  of  food  observed  from  time  to  time. 

The  fresh  hyphse  of  the  fungi  were  filled  with  cloudy  protoplasm, 
containing  vacuoles  and  here  and  there  highly  refracting  granules  of 
an  oily  nature.  Replacement  of  the  nutritive  solution  by  distilled 
water  produced  an  entire  change  ;  the  oil-globules  gradually  accumu- 
lated, the  protoplasm  at  the  same  time  undergoing  disintegration, 
until,  at  the  end  of  twelve  hours,  the  hypha  contained  a  mere  network 
of  protoplasmic  threads  crowded  with  bright  fat-granules.  These 
further  accumulated,  and,  the  network  disappearing  altogether,  were 
set  free  in  the  cavity  of  the  hypha,  often  uniting  into  large  oil- 
globules. 

These  experiments  showed,  therefore,  that  starvation,  in  the  two 
moulds  investigated,  was  accompanied  by  fatty  degeneration,  followed 
by  entire  disintegration  of  the  protoplasm. 

In  the  tadpoles,  the  parts  to  which  attention  was  more  particularly 
directed  were  the  tissues  of  the  tail  and  of  the  alimentary  canal,  both 
of  which  are  readily  observable  in  the  fresh  and  unaltered  state. 

Under  normal  conditions,  a  certain  small  proportion  of  the  cells 
in  the  deep  layer  of  the  epiderm  undergo  a  peculiar  process  of  fatty 
change.  They  enlarge  greatly,  and  become  completely  filled  with  oil- 

21  '  On  certain  Effects  of  Starvation  on  Vegetable  and  Animal  Tissues.'  Quart. 
Journ.  of  Micros.  Sci.,  January  1880. 

NN  2 


536  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  March 

globules,  which  are  eventually  discharged,  leaving  a  conspicuous 
cavity  in  the  position  formerly  occupied  by  the  cell.  This  process,  a 
local  and  occasional  one  during  health,  goes  on  through  the  whole  of 
the  deep  layer  of  epiderm  in  starvation,  so  that  this  layer  is  at  last 
converted  into  a  mere  network  of  filaments  with  granular  cells  in  its 
meshes,  all  traces  of  the  normal  cells  having  vanished.  As  in  the 
plants,  the  protoplasm  has  undergone  complete  fatty  degeneration. 

A  similar  process  was  observed  to  take  place  in  the  amoeboid 
cells  of  the  connective  tissue  beneath  the  epiderm.  They  become  so- 
completely  crammed  with  oil-globules,  that,  when  treated  with  ether, 
hardly  any  protoplasm  is  left — only  the  merest  shadow  of  what  was 
once  a  cell. 

The  blood-corpuscles  suffered  a  like  fate.  Oil-globules  appeared 
in  them,  and  increased  in  size  and  number  until  they  became  con- 
spicuous even  under  low  powers ;  the  colouring  matter  of  the 
corpuscles  disappeared,  and  the  corpuscles  themselves,  breaking  up, 
discharged  their  contained  oil-globules  into  the  plasma. 

The  wall  of  the  intestine  of  the  tadpole  consists  of  an  outer 
layer  of  muscle,  then  one  of  adenoid  tissue,  consisting  of  a  proto- 
plasmic network  with  nuclei  in  its  meshes,  and  finally  of  a  single  layer 
of  columnar  epithelial  cells  bounding  the  cavity. 

During  starvation,  the  same  deposit  of  fat  took  place  in  the 
nuclei  of  the  adenoid  tissue,  and  in  the  epithelial  cells,  as  has  been 
described  in  the  various  tissues  of  the  tail.  The  changes  were  most 
marked  in  the  epithelium,  the  cells  of  which,  after  undergoing  the 
usual  fatty  change,  were  completely  destroyed,  the  particles  set  free 
by  their  disintegration  being  passed  into  the  cavity  of  the  intestine, 
the  inner  surface  of  which  was,  in  this  condition  of  things,  formed  by 
adenoid  tissue.  In  the  nuclei  of  the  latter  a  great  deposit  of  pig- 
ment, as  well  as  of  fat,  took  place ;  this  was  probably  derived  from 
the  broken-up  blood-corpuscles. 

Along  with  these  changes  in  the  constituents  of  the  intestine,  a 
general  atrophy  of  the  whole  tube  was  observed,  its  length  being 
diminished  by  more  than  one  half,  and  its  diameter  by  more  than  a 
third. 

These  experiments  show  that,  in  animals  as  well  as  in  plants, 
starvation  is  accompanied  by  fatty  degeneration  of  the  tissues,  this 
degeneration,  in  the  case  of  animals,  reaching  its  maximum  in  the 
lining  cells  of  the  digestive  canal,  which  are,  if  the  supply  of  food  is 
withheld  for  a  sufficient  time,  completely  swept  away,  leaving  the 
canal  devoid  of  epithelium,  and  consequently  incapable  of  performing 
any  longer  its  functions  of  secretion  and  absorption.  Jt  is  evident 
that,  when  this  stage  is  reached,  the  result  must  be  fatal ;  as  long  as 
the  epithelium  is  left,  even  in  a  degenerated  condition,  recovery  is 
possible,  but  after  it  has  once  been  destroyed  no  amount  of  food  will 
terve  to  prolong  life. 


1880.  RECENT  SCIENCE.  537 

In  the  concluding  section  of  his  paper,  Mr.  Cunningham  draws  a 
comparison  between  the  results  of  these  experiments  and  those  of  the 
numerous  post-mwtem  examinations  made  by  him  on  the  patients 
•who  died  in  the  relief  camps  established  in  Madras  during  the 
famine.  It  was  a  common  case  that  people  coming  into  the 
•camp  in  an  advanced  state  of  starvation,  but  with  no  symptoms  of 
actual  disease,  were  attacked  by  diarrhoea  and  dysentery,  which  were 
almost  sure  to  be  fatal.  The  cases  afforded,  in  fact,  a  striking  ex- 
ample of  what  has  long  been  recognised  as  one  of  the  most  important 
results  of  starvation,  a  complete  incapacity  for  assimilation. 

The  post-mortem  examinations  showed  that,  just  as  in  the  case  of 
the  batrachian  larvae,  the  result  of  starvation  was  a  fatty  degeneration, 
followed  by  a  complete  destruction,  of  the  tissues,  particularly  of 
those  of  the  alimentary  canal ;  so  that,  the  epithelium  being  actually 
destroyed,  food  taken  into  the  intestine  could  no  longer  be  digested 
and  absorbed,  but  acted  merely  as  an  irritant  on  the  abraded  surface. 
So  long  as  the  sufferers  from  extreme  starvation  took  only  their  usual 
small  amount  of  nutriment,  no  active  symptoms  were  produced  ;  but, 
as  soon  as  they  were  admitted  into  the  relief  camps,  and  experienced 
the  change  to  a  more  copious  and  generous  diet,  famine-diarrhoea 
and  famine-dysentery  set  in  and  finished  what  starvation  had  begun. 
The  most  careful  dietetic  regime  was  found  to  be  ineffectual  in  these 
advanced  cases ;  as  long  as  only  slight  changes  in  the  tissues  had 
taken  place,  a  judicious  supply  of  food  might  serve  to  counteract  the 
•effects  of  privation,  but,  as  soon  as  extensive  destruction  of  the  mucous 
membrane  had  set  in,  no  amount  of  care  was  of  the  slightest  avail. 

The  importance  of  these  results,  checked  as  they  were  by  careful 
-observation  of  the  uncomplicated  cases  of  starvation  afforded  by  the 
experiments  already  described,  will  be  plain  to  every  one.  As  Mr. 
Cunningham  remarks  at  the  end  of  his  paper — 

The  insidious  character  of  the  mischief  has  a  most  important  bearing  on  the 
practical  question  of  the  management  of  famines.  Due  to  it,  relief  camps  may,  to 
a  great  extent,  be  rendered  useless  by  the  people  failing  to  have  recourse  to  them 
until  it  is  too  late.  They,  too,  are  likely  to  be  deluded  by  the  idea  that,  when  no 
active  symptoms  have  appeared,  no  permanent  damage  has  been  done,  and  that 
they  may  safely  delay  until  their  distress  has  counterbalanced  their  natural  inert- 
ness and  dislike  o£  disturbing  their  ordinary  habits. 


538  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  March 


RUSSIA   AND  ENGLAND^ 

THIS  volume  is  the  work  of  a  lady,  manifestly  possessed  of  a  great 
talent  either  for  politics  or,  at  any  rate,  for  the  effective  handling  of 
political  controversy.  It  is  the  work  of  an  advocate  and  a  partisan. 
And  this  fact  it  is  which  gives  it,  for  all  sober-minded  Englishmen,  a 
marked  value.  For,  where  there  is  contention,  or  a  disposition  ta 
contention,  the  most  important  of  all  preliminary  guarantees  is  to 
get  possession  of  the  whole  case  of  the  other  party ;  and  this  whole- 
ness can  rarely  be  represented  in  the  official  correspondence  of  a 
country,  where  the  writers  are  of  necessity  hemmed  in  on  this  side 
and  that  by  a  thousand  restraints.  What  may  be  the  relations 
between  0.  K.  and  her  own  Government,  we  on  this  side  need  neither 
know  nor  care.  She  canvasses  its  proceedings  freely,  and  her 
advocacy  and  partisanship  appear  to  be  enlisted  not  for  her  Govern- 
ment but  for  her  country.  She  has  this  title  to  the  particular 
respect  of  English  Tories,  that  she  glows  with  a  fervent  patriotism, 
which  with  them  is,  as  we  know,  '  the  very  bond  of  peace  and  of  all 
virtues  ; '  and  which,  therefore,  cannot  be  a  sin  in  0.  K.,  since  virtue 
is  virtue  all  the  world  over.  The  deity,  which  they  worship  on  the 
Thames,  they  cannot  renounce  on  the  Neva. 

The  name  of  0.  K.  is  well  known  ;  but  the  transparent  veil,  with 
which  she  has  thought  fit  not  to  hide  but  to  shade  her  features,  is  not 
to  be  removed  by  the  rash  hands  of  a  reviewer.  For  a  considerable 
time  she  has  been  wont,  amidst  our  hottest  controversies  on  the 
Eastern  Question,  to  state  boldly  the  case  of  her  country  in  the 
columns  of  a  provincial  journal  which  is  called  the  Northern  Echo, 
is  published  at  Darlington,  and  has  fought  the  battle  of  the  subject 
races  in  the  Ottoman  Empire  for  the  last  four  years  with  the  un- 
hesitating courage  of  Britons,  and  the  keen  intelligence  of  Yorkshire- 
men.  Some  of  our  political  Bashi-Bazouks  have  freely  indulged 
their  imaginations  in  describing  the  role  assigned  to  her  in  Eng- 
land. She  is,  however,  a  woman  of  station  who  goes  into  society, 
cultivates  the  acquaintance  of  all  and  sundry,  and  wears,  if  not  her 
heart,  at  least  her  nationality,  upon  her  sleeve.  She  puts  in  claims 
to  a  warm  sympathy  with  England.  She  teaches  that  there  is  no  good 
reason  why  our  four-  or  five-and-thirty  millions,  and  Russia's  eighty 

1  Russia  and  England.     By  0.  K.   (London,  Longmans,  1880.) 


1880.  RUSSIA   AND  ENGLAND.  539 

should  hate,  or  fear,  or  worry  one  another.  But  she  has  at  least  a 
lover's  quarrel  with  us,  and  in  conducting  it  she  exercises  the 
privilege  of  plain-speaking.  Were  she  reserved,  diplomatic,  and  (to 
use  a  homely  phrase)  mealy-mouthed  on  this  point,  her  work  would 
be  a  pointless  dart.  But  although  plain-speaking,  done  by  English- 
men, has  not  only  been  treated  by  many  amongst  us  as  a  crime,  but 
has  so  put  them  past  their  patience  and  self-command  that  they  have 
systematically  stopped  their  ears,  it  is  possible  that  they  may  bear  to 
hear  Kussian  sentiments  from  a  Russian  mouth.  If  they  can  on  any 
terms  condescend  so  far,  they  will  be  able  to  do  it  on  the  terms  which 
this  book  offers  them.  For  while  the  authoress  tells  home-truths 
with  pungency,  and  by  no  means  keeps  the  button  on  the  foil,  she 
observes  the  laws  of  the  game,  and  never  breaks  into  bad  manners. 
Under  this  condition,  it  is,  in  fact,  the  stringency  and  severity  of  her 
critical  remarks  which  give  the  book  its  principal  interest  and  value. 
It  must  be  read  by  Englishmen,  at  a  multitude  of  points,  with  needful 
and  salutary  pain. 

Nor  is  the  work,  when  viewed  apart  from  its  political  and  moral 
aims,  by  any  means  without  literary  value.  It  is  eminently  readable ; 
clear  and  fresh  in  style,  full  of  point  and  ease.  The  English  of  0.  K. 
is  better  than  the  English  of  a  majority  of  native  writers ;  and  the 
rare  and  widely-separated  instances,  in  which  a  foreign  hand  may  be 
surmised,  have  this  recommendation,  that  they  testify  to  the  spon- 
taneity of  the  work,  and  suggest  that  it  has  not  been  trimmed  out  of 
any  of  its  life  and  spirit  by  the  mechanical  operations  of  an  Anglican 
schoolmaster.  It  presents  another  touching  claim  to  the  regard  of 
every  feeling  man  ;  it  is  dedicated  to  the  memory  of  an  heroic 
brother,  Colonel  Nicholai  Kireeff,  who  wooed  and  won  a  hero's  death 
at  the  outset  of  the  Servian  war  of  1876,  and  whose  blood,  through 
the  electric  effect  produced  upon  the  Russian  mind,  seems  to  have 
been  the  seed  of  Slavonian  liberty,  as  the  blood  of  martyrs  is  said 
to  be  the  seed  of  the  Church. 

The  first  vital  point,  which  0.  K.  has  irrefragably  established,  is 
the  series  of  concessions  by  which  (and  no  wonder)  the  Russian  Govern- 
ment struggled  to  avoid  the  alternative  of  war  with  Turkey.  She 
endeavoured  in  every  way  to  maintain  the  European  concert,  and  to 
adapt  herself  to  the  views  of  England.  At  the  outset,  indeed,  she  had 
acted  in  the  Triple  Alliance ;  a  method  of  which  England  and  France 
had  just  reason  to  complain  not  against  her  only,  but  at  least  as  much 
against  Germany  and  Austria.  As  regards  Turkey,  however,  the  most 
jaundiced  eye  can  hardly  detect  in  the  Andrassy  Note,  or  the  Berlin 
Memorandum,  a  craving  for  blood.  At  Constantinople  she  took,  says 
0.  K.  (p.  360),  the  English  plan  rather  than  her  own,  and,  for  the  sake 
of  peace,  did  not  refuse  to  reduce  the  irreducible  minimum.  When,  at 
the  close  of  the  Conferences,  the  whole  of  the  Powers  of  Europe  allowed 
themselves  to  be  spat  upon  (the  thing  requires  the  word)  by  the  Turkish 


540  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  March 

refusal,  she  meekly  betook  herself  to  the  manipulation  of  the  Protocol. 
This  Protocol,  in  its  eventual  form,  abandoned  everything,  except  a 
declaration  of  the  Powers  that  they  would  watch  over  the  condition  of 
the  Turkish  provinces,  and  that  if  something  happened  in  them  which 
was  not  defined,  they  would,  at  a  period  which  was  not  specified, 
consider  whether  they  should  do  anything  or  nothing  (p.  12).  But  this 
Protocol,  so  whittled  down  that  the  thinnest  end  of  the  thinnest 
wedge  in  the  world  was  bluff  and  broad  in  comparison  with  it,  was 
rejected  by  the  Turk.  For  he  believed,  and  by  at  least  two  successive 
Ambassadors  we  know  that  he  was  taught  to  believe,  that  there  were 
vast  British  interests  involved  in  his  preservation,  which  must  always 
in  the  long  run  compel  us  to  secure  him  impunity  for  his  crimes. 
Even  so  Pharaoh  hardened  his  heart,  and  would  not  let  the  people  go. 
Anything  short  of  zero  the  Eussian  Government  was  prepared  to 
accept.  But  the  cipher  pure  and  simple  it  would  not  away  with. 
Utter  defeat  of  Europe,  total  inaction  after  the  Bulgarian  massacres, 
or  worse  than  total  inaction,  a  renewal  of  hollow  and  unmeaning 
diplomatical  appeals  to  be  met  by  promises  stamped  with  falsehood 
from  their  birth, — such  was  the  only  alternative  offered.  And  so 
Russia  went  into  the  war.  Alone  she  did  it.  There  was  many  a 
murmur,  many  a  scowl,  and  many  a  shrug ;  but  there  was  not  one 
approving  voice  from  a  nation,  or  a  Government,  or  a  party.  Solitary 
voices  there  may  have  been,  but  they  were  without  an  echo.  As  none 
divided  with  the  empire  of  the  Czars  the  cost  of  the  war  in  treasure 
or  in  blood,  so  none  shared  its  responsibility,  and  none  share  its  glory. 
The  children  of  Russia  are  the  more  fully  warranted  in  appropriating 
the  permanent  results  of  the  war  for  good,  because  so  few  even  of 
those  who  approved  its  object  cared  to  be  responsible  for  her  solitary 
action.  The  opinion  of  the  great  majority  among  them  was  that 
coercion  was  required,  but  that  such  an  instrument  was  only  safe  in 
the  hands  of  a  united  Europe ;  and  it  was  the  abandonment  of 
concert  together  with  coercion,  which  formed  the  gist  of  their  charge 
against  the  Government  of  1876-7.  We  must  not  now  claim  the 
credit  of  results  which  we  desired,  because  we  assumed  no  responsi- 
bility for  the  means  by  which  alone  such  results  were,  or  (let  us  fairly 
admit)  under  the  circumstances  could  be,  obtained. 

Like  the  gentlest  touch  upon  flesh  laid  bare  of  its  natural  integu- 
ment, and  highly  excited  by  inflammation,  so  the  very  simplest 
statement  of  the  case  as  between  Russia  and  her  opponents  in  respect 
to  the  facts  of  the  war  with  Turkey  will  give  tte  keenest  offence,  I 
i'ear,  to  that  great  body  of  partisans  which,  backing  the  official  repre- 
sentatives of  the  nation,  has,  together  with  those  representatives, 
made  up  the  England  of  the  Blue  Books,  the  England  of  Berlin.  I 
say  in  respect  to  the  facts  of  the  war  with  Turkey,  not  the  motives  ; 
for  I  have  not  the  faculty,  so  common  among  even  the  humbler  Tories, 
of  reading,  under  all  their  disguises,  the  motives  which  sway  the  human 


1880.  RUSSIA   AND  ENGLAND.  541 

breast.  My  conjecture  is  that  the  motives  which  impelled  Russia  to 
the  war  were,  like  the  motives  which  brought  England  to  the  Con- 
ference at  Constantinople,  various  if  not  conflicting  ;  that  the  people 
of  Russia  were  impelled  by  an  uncalculating  enthusiasm,  and  that 
official  Russia  gave  a  reluctant  assent.  I  say  again  the  facts,  in 
their  main  outline,  and  not  in  their  details,  with  which  at  present  I 
have  nothing  to  do.  English  Tories  will  only  lay  up  a  more  and 
more  cruel  future  for  themselves,  the  longer  they  close  their  eyes  to 
the  fact  that  Russia  has  acquired  by  the  war  a  great  store  of  glory. 
Glory  does  not  depend  upon  motive ;  it  often  fails  to  stand  a  close 
examination.  In  this_case  it  will  bear  any  amount  of  scrutiny,  at 
least  as  to  results.  For,  maimed  though  it  has  been  in  certain 
respects,  a  great  work  of  emancipation  has  been  wrought.  Ten 
millions  of  men,  well  fitted  for  civilised  life,  have  made  a  stride 
onwards,  either  into  complete  freedom,  or  out  of  debasing  servitude  ; 
while  the  rest  have  acquired,  by  the  public  law  of  Europe,  actual  or 
constructive  claims  fraught  with  the  hope  of  similar  advancement  in 
an  early  future.  At  one  spot  on  the  map  at  least,  namely  in  Eastern 
Roumelia,  England  has  helped  the  work  in  its  latest  stage.  Why 
should  we  not  cheerfully  recognise  it  as  that  which  it  indubitably  is,  a 
great  boon  conferred  upon  humanity  ?  Why  will  we  not  see  that  the 
best  hope  for  Turkey,  in  this  final  period  of  her  European  existence,  is 
to  make  terms  with  the  populations  ?  She  did  it  long  ago  in  Samos. 
She  has  done  it  recently  in  the  Lebanon.  Why  can  she  not  do  it  in 
Macedonia,  Albania,  and  Crete  ?  Is  it  to  be  always  impossible  to  re- 
commend without  offence  a  thing  that  is  right  in  itself,  and  good  for 
all  whom  it  concerns,  merely  lest  Russia  should  by  some  happy  chance 
take  pleasure  in  it  ? 

0.  K.  has  done  the  writer  of  these  pages  the  honour 2  to  reply  to 
an  essay  of  his,  in  which  it  was  argued  that  Russia  had  been,  under 
Alexander  I.  and  Nicholas,  the  head  of  European  Toryism,  and  the 
most  important  member  of  the  Holy  Alliance ;  but  that  in  Christian, 
and  especially  in  Slavonic  Turkey,  the  sympathies  of  religion  and 
race  had  placed  her,  especially  of  late,  on  the  side  of  freedom.  It 
was  further  noticed,  that  this  was  the  only  question  on  which  the 
Toryism  of  England  had  entered  the  lists  against  her.  But  as  Toryism 
opposed  her  when,  instead  of  forging  chains,  she  was  breaking  them, 
so  the  Liberalism  of  England,  which  had  opposed  her  in  doing  wrong, 
declined  to  censure  her  for  doing  right.  It  could  not  cease  to  be 
Liberal,  because  Russia  was  doing  Liberal 3  work ;  and  Toryism  did 
not  require  to  be  'patriotic,'  but  required  only  to  be  Tory,  when  it 

2  Part  iv.,  chap.  iv.  '  The  Friends  and  Foes  of  Russia,'  Nineteenth  Century,  Janu- 
ary 1879,  p.  7. 

3  I  make  this  claim  for  the  Liberal  sentiment  of  England  generally  ;  not  for 
every  individual  member  of  the  Liberal  party,  nor  for  every  act  of  every  Liberal 
Administration. 


542  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  March 

denounced  and  resisted  Russia  for  favouring  one  of  those  works  of 
liberation  which,  whether  in  Italy,  or  Greece,  or  Belgium,  or  else- 
where, it  was  itself  accustomed  to  resist  or  to  denounce. 

The  Russian  authoress  has  set  herself  to  rebut  this  charge.  She 
contends  that  Russia  in  saving  Austria  from  the  Hungarians  had  the 
approval  of  Lord  Beaconsfield  on  the  1st  of  February,  1849,  and  of  a 
Conservative  Secretary  of  State  (p.  297)  ;  that  at  Lay  bach  in  1819  and 
at  Verona  in  1821  (p.  313)  Russia  in  concert  with  England  supported 
the  cause  of  'order ; '  that  in  1846  she  joined  with  Austria  in  destroying 
the  independence  of  Cracow,  and  was  eulogised  (p.  314  n.}  by  Mr. 
Disraeli  for  the  act:  that  in  1878  England  had  sanctioned  the  re- 
storation of  Bessarabia  to  Russia.  •  But  these  are  only  so  many  illustra- 
tions of  the  main  proposition  of  The  Friends  and  Foes  of  Russia  ; 
namely,  that  in  her  antagonism  to  liberty  Russia  had  never  been 
resisted  by  the  Toryism  of  England. 

In  p.  315,  0.  K.  sets  forth  the  various  occasions  on  which  Russia 
had  rendered  services  to  the  subject  races  of  Turkey ;  sometimes  alone, 
sometimes  in  concert  with  England ;  twice  against  England,  namely 
in  1868  with  reference  to  Crete,  and  in  1877  with  reference  to 
Bulgaria.  There  again  she  only  adds  force  to  the  statement  that  she 
had  been  opposed,  not  in  her  bad  deeds,  but  in  her  good  ones.  She  is 
able  indeed  to  show  that  the  Tory  Government  of  1867,  which  had 
Lord  Derby  the  father  for  its  head,  and  Lord  Derby  the  son  for  its 
Foreign  Minister,  co-operated  with  her  in  procuring  the  evacuation  of 
the  Servian  fortresses.  Would  that  there  were  a  larger  number  of 
such  acts  to  be  set  down  to  the  credit  of  the  party  now  in  power ! 

But  the  courage  of  our  authoress  is  equal  to  greater  exploits  than 
these,  and  she  boldly  contends  (1)  that  Russia  in  1831  co-operated 
with  England  in  establishing  the  kingdom  of  Belgium ;  (2)  that  she 
saved  Schleswig-Holstein  from  Germany  in  1850,  and  (3)  Belgium 
from  Napoleon  III.  in  1851  ;  that  (4)  in  1859,  against  England,  she 
supported  the  liberation  of  Italy  by  the  French,  and  (5)  that  in  1866 
she  favoured  Prussia  in  her  war  with  Austria,  which  began  the 
German  unity,  completed  the  unity  of  Italy,  and  resulted  in  the 
freedom  of  Hungary  (pp.  315-6). 

It  would  not  be  possible  to  enter  into  details  on  these  several 
allegations.  But  the  first  may  assuredly  be  regarded  as  unhistoricil. 
The  second  and  third  touch  questions  in  which  it  was  not  properly  the 
question  of  freedom  that  was  at  issue,  but  that  of  public  right  and 
national  independence ;  and  it  would  be  unjust  to  deny  that  on  these 
occasions  Russia  may  claim  to  have  been  on  the  right  side.  In  1859, 
it  was  only  the  Toryism  of  England  that  was  adverse  to  the  partial 
emancipation  of  Italy,  but  Liberals  might  well  feel  some  misgiving? 
as  to  the  title  of  Louis  Napoleon  to  interfere,  and  the  decided  advocacy 
of  Russia,  which  0.  K.  pronounces,  is  hardly  an  established  fact.  In 
1866,  as  in  1859,  she  had  motives  of  her  own  for  being  adverse  to 


1880.  RUSSIA   AND  ENGLAND.  543 

Austria,  and  she  repaid  to  Prussia  the  debt  of  the  Crimean  period 
more  scrupulously,  perhaps,  than  Germany  in  1878-9  acquitted  her- 
self of  the  heavy  obligation  to  Russia  contracted  in  1870.  0.  K. 
undoubtedly  succeeds  in  showing  that  the  escutcheon  of  England  is 
not  unstained  ;  but  she  surely  fails  in  the  effort  to  attenuate  the  part 
played  by  Russia  in  European  politics,  setting  aside  the  question  of 
the  East,  between  1815  and  the  Crimean  War ;  and  she  fails  not 
because  she  lacks  either  ability  or  good  will,  but  because  the  thing 
is  impossible. 

I  shall  now  proceed  to  cite  from  the  pages  of  0.  K.  such  passages 
as  most  briefly  and  pointedly  exhibit  her  views,  on  the  most  salient 
points,  of  the  questions  which  have  been  raised  between  England  and 
Russia,  of  our  position  in  Afghanistan,  and  of  the  present  reciprocal 
attitude  of  these  two  great  States. 

0.  K.  compares  the  English  and  the  Russian  volunteers : 

You  sent  an  admiral  to  command  the  Turkish  ironclads,  and  a  general,  fresh 
from  penance,  to  command  a  Turkish  army.  There  were  others  also,  but  again 
there  was  a  difference.  Our  volunteers  sacrificed  everything — home,  family, 
friends,  country,  life  itself — in  order  to  free  their  brethren :  and  one-third  fell  on 
Servian  soil.  Your  volunteers,  less  idealistic  and  more  practical,  sold  their  ser- 
vices for  gold,  and  all  of  them  seem  to  have  succeeded  pretty  well  in  preserving 
their  precious  skin — p.  74. 

Our  finance,  the  *  strong  point'  of  the  Administration,  attracts  the 
lightning  of  her  sarcasm  : 

It  did  not  need  the  jingling  of  (the)  six  millions  vote  of  confidence,  warranted 
not  to  be  spent,  to  convince  U'j  that  England  was  rich.  In  fact,  we  thought  she 
was  so  rich,  that  she  would  not  have  needed  to  have  gone  a-borrowing  to  raise  so 
small  a  sum.  Any  one  can  borrow,  even  poor,  dear  Austria — p.  90. 

Mr.  Aksakoff,  who  speaks  the  popular  Slavonian  sentiment,  and 
is  apparently  an  effective  orator,  gives  vent  (p.  99)  to  the  indignation 
of  the  nation  at  the  concessions  which  were  made  by  the  official 
Russia  at  Berlin  with  respect  to  the  reduction  of  Bulgaria.  But 
0.  K.  knows  that  there  is,  or  was,  also  a  national,  as  well  as  an  official, 
England.  She  rejoices  that 

on  two  occasions,  when  the  English  Government  so  far  forgot  its  true  interests 
(1791  and  1876)  as  to  threaten  to  make  war  upon  Russia,  the  war  should  have 
been  prevented  by  the  vigorous  protests  of  the  English  people.  The  instinct  of 
the  nation  was  wiser  than  the  statecraft  of  its  rulers  :  and  the  English  succeeded, 
on  two  occasions,  in  doing  that  all  but  impossible  thing,  even  in  Constitutional 
countries,  of  restraining  a  Prime  Minister  who  was  bent  on  going  to  war — pp. 
356,  357. 

A  large  reward  might  properly,  and  safely,  be  offered  to  any  one 
who  would  supply  an  answer  to  the  comparison,  in  point  of  principle, 
drawn  by  this  Russian  authoress  between  the  Crimean  War  and  the 
Anglo-Turkish  Convention.  That  war,  and  that  convention,  cannot, 
in  public  right,  stand  together.  The  affirmation  of  the  one  is  the 
condemnation  of  the  other. 


544  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  March 

Kussia's  policy,  against  which  you  fought  in  the  Crimea  .  .  .  now  needs  no 
defence.  It  has  received  tardy  but  ample  justification  at  the  hands  of  the  English 
Government.  Russia's  offence,  in  the  eyes  of  the  West,4  was  the  claim,  based 
upon  an  undisputed  treaty,  to  an  exclusive  Protectorate  in  the  Ottoman  Empire. 
That  offence  is  now  declared  to  be  a  virtue.  The  Anglo-Turkish  Convention  is 
England's  official  confession  that,  in  principle,  Russia  was  right,  and  the  West  was 
wrong,  in  the  dispute  of  1853 — p.  311. 

The  work  of  Lord  Clarendon  has  been  undone  by  Lord  Beaconsfield,  and  the 
Russian  principles,  eclipsed  by  the  disasters  at  Sebastopol,  have  been  vindicated  at 
last  by  the  English  Government.  .  .  . 

The  Anglo-Turkish  Convention  is  but  the  Treaty  of  Kainardji,  written  large, 
and  applied  to  Asia,  where  there  was  much  less  need  for  it  than  in  Europe,  where 
our  protectorate  was  needed  for  the  protection  of  the  Christian  nationalities — p. 
137. 

The  Duke  of  Wellington  is  cited  on  that  principle  of  European 
concert  which  the  Opposition  have  urged  in  vain,  and  which  Lord 
Cranbrook  described  in  the  House  of  Commons  as  another  name  for 
a  general  scramble. 

The  object  of  our  measures,  whatever  they  are,  should  be  to  obtain  an  engage- 
ment, or  at  all  events  a  clear  understanding  among  the  Five  Powers,  that  in  case 
of  the  dissolution  of  the  Turkish  Monarchy,  the  disposition  of  the  dominions 
hitherto  under  its  government  should  be  concerted  and  determined  upon  by  the 
Five  Powers  in  Conference — p.  6  (quoting  Dispatches,  vol.  vi.  p.  219). 

Next  we  have  a  word  on  the  European  consequences  of  an  Aus- 
trian aggression  in  the  East,  which  some,  and  apparently  some 
Ministers,  have  deemed  favourable  to  England  and  to  the  general 
peace. 

It  is  assumed  by  some  that  England  and  Austria  have  settled  everything  with- 
out consulting  the  other  members  of  the  European  concert.  Such  a  settlement 
would  only  settle  one  thing,  and  that  is— war.  .  .  .  We  seek  no  annexations  for 
ourselves ;  but  this  very  disinterestedness  justifies  us  in  resolutely  denying  annexa- 
tions to  others — pp.  148,  149. 

The  authoress  tells  us  bluntly  that  Russia  does  not  interpret  either 
the  shrieks  or  the  whinings  of  alarmists  as  tokens  of  a  self-possessed 
and  manly  valour. 

In  Russia  we  cannot  understand  why  Englishmen  should  permit  a  dread  of 
Russian  power  to  colour  all  the  speeches  of  your  Conservative  politicians,  and  to 
bias  the  policy  of  your  Ministry  :  we  know  too  much  of  the  power  of  England  to 
accept  such  a  compliment  as  quite  serious.  .  .  .  We  know  that  she  is  all  power- 
ful at  sea,  and  her  financial  position  is  first-class.  Russia,  on  the  other  hand,  is 
not  wealthy.  .  .  .  Why,  then,  this  irrational  panic,  which  haunts  the  imagina- 
tion of  what  used  to  be  the  most  self-confident,  self-reliant,  and  fearless  race  in 
the  world  ?  If  I  were  an  Englishman,  I  should  blush  for  shame  if  I  entertained 
this  coward  fear  of  any  Power  on  earth — pp.  121, 122. 

Resolutely  autocratic  in  Russia,  0.  K..  although  we  may  not  see 
in  her  the  '  makings '  of  an  English  Liberal,  does  not  prescribe 

4  And  of  the  East  also,  i.e.  of  Prussia  and  Austria,  until  it  came  to  the  last  issue. 
W.  E.  G. 


1880.  RUSSIA   AND  ENGLAND.  545 

autocracy  for  England,  and  quotes  from  De  Tocqueville  a  wise  and 
weighty  word. 

Are  you  not  rather  inclined  to  approximate  to  Russian  doctrines  ?  Is  your 
Premier  not  exalting  the  Royal  Prerogative,  and  your  Parliament  only  allowed  to 
discuss  trivialities  and  faita  accomplis  ?  .  .  .  .  Autocracy  has  been  good  for 
Russia ;  I  doubt  whether  it  would  be  as  good  for  England.  Autocracy  without 
an  autocrat,  or  a  constitutionalism  reduced  to  a  despotism  plus  humbug,  is  not 
attractive  to  me,  and  I  hope  no  unkind  friend  will  accuse  me  of  endeavouring  to 
popularise  absolutism  in  England.  '  In  submission  to  despotism,',  wrote  M.  de 
Tocqueville,  '  after  having  enjoyed  liberty,  there  is  nothing  but  degradation  ;  but 
there  often  enters  into  the  submission  of  a  people,  who  have  never  been  free,  A 
principle  of  morality,  which  must  not  be  overlooked' — pp.  223-4. 

The  authoress  admits  that  we  can  bring  '  not  one  but  several 
handfuls  of  Oriental  troops '  for  war  in  Europe,  but  does  not  think 
Sepoys  will  terrify  troops  that  have  faced  Englishmen  and  French- 
men without  dishonour ;  and  cites  General  Grant  to  show  that  the 
presence  of  British  ironclads,  though  they  might  have  destroyed 
much  of  Constantinople,  did  not  deter  the  Russian  army  from  en- 
tering it. 

No  power,  but  the  autocracy,  could  have  compelled  our  victorious  army  to 
halt  within  sight  of  Constantinople.  .  .  . 

Last  year  I  met  General  Grant,  the  American  ex-President,  in  Paris.  Almost 
the  first  thing  he  asked  was,  '  Can  you  explain  how  it  happened  that  the  Russians 
did  not  occupy  Constantinople,  when  they  had  it  entirely  in  their  hands  ? ' 

On  receiving  her  reply,  the  General,  though  far  from  garrulous, 
yet  smiled  and  said  : 

'  Well,  I  can  only  say  one  thing ;  had  I  been  one  of  your  generals,  I  would 
have  put  the  order  in  my  pocket,  and  opened  it  at  Constantinople  three  or  four 
days  later' — p.  241. 

Again : 

Lord  Beaconsfield  adopted  a  policy  of  isolation  from  his  devotion  to  '  English 
interests.'  Tell  me,  has  it  been  so  much  to  your  interest  to  care  for  nothing  but 
'  interests '  ?  Has  any  one  gained  by  it  ?  Of  course  Russia  has  suffered.  We 
Lave  lost  two  hundred  thousand  lives,  not  to  speak  of  money ;  but  is  that  an  ade- 
quate compensation  to  you,  for  having  made  enemies  of  a  hundred  millions  of 
Slavs? 

Has  England  benefited  herself?  Have  you  reaped  any  material  advantages  ? 
But  if  not  materially,  perhaps  you  have  gained  much  morally  ?  Have  you  added 
much  to  your  prestige  ?  Does  your  national  honour  stand  higher,  since  your  secret 
agreements,  and  your  Cyprus  concessions  ? — pp.  265,  206. 

0.  K.  reminds  us  (p.  182)  that  the  knout  has,  since  1863,  been 
forbidden  in  Russia ;  but  the  literary  knout  is  an  instrument  which 
she  seems  to  apply  in  controversy  with  tolerable  efficacy  to  the 
shoulders  of  her  opponents.  She  does  not  scruple  to  allege  plainly 
(p.  288)  the  indignation  of  her  countrymen.  She  thinks  that  they 
desire  English  friendship  ;  but,  after  the  repeated  rebuffs  they  have 


546  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  March 

suffered,  that  the  next  overtures  must  come  from  us.  And  she  cer- 
tainly does  not  seek  to  purchase  our  goodwill  by  an  unworthy  or  too 
modest  reticence. 

The  Future  is  ours  ! 

'  The  Germans  have  reached  their  day,  the  English  their  mid-day,  the  French 
their  afternoon,  the  Italians  their  evening,  the  Spanish  their  night :  but  the  Slavs 
stand  on  the  threshold  of  the  morning/ — p.  289. 

As  might  be  expected,  0.  K.  does  not  overlook  the  situation  of 
affairs  in  Asia ;  except,  indeed,  that  inconvenient  part  of  it  which 
touches  the  conduct  of  Russia  to  the  unfortunate  Shere  Ali,  her 
victim  as  well  as  ours. 

You  say  you  annex  unwillingly  under  imperious  necessity,  and  you  alone 
among  the  nations  are  destitute  of '  earth-hunger.'  Possibly.  Judging,  however, 
"by  results,  it  appears  that,  although  you  have  no  appetite,  no  one  contrives  to  make 
a  larger  meal — p.  322. 

Russia  has  never  yet  annexed  a  foot  of  land,  that  is  not  conterminous  with  her 
frontier.  Time  after  time  she  has  tried  to  arrest  the  natural  and  inevitable  ad- 
vance of  her  frontiers,  and  she  has  always  tried  in  vain.  Her  conquests  are  free 
from  the  suspicion  of  profit.  Our  annexations  (I  am  sorry  to  say)  are  almost  all 
what  Afghanistan  will  probably  be  to  you,  a  permanent  source  of  ruinous  expendi- 
ture. 

Russia  and  England,  of  all  nations,  ought  to  be  the  readiest  to  excuse  each 
other's  failings,  because,  alone  among  nations,  we  have  to  grapple  with  the  same 
difficulties.  ... 

To  Russia  has  been  given  the  cold  inhospitable  North,  and  the  barren  burning 
steppe ;  while  to  you  belong  the  teeming  myriads  of  the  South,  with  all  the  fabled 
wealth  of  Hindostan. 

You  have  antique  civilisations  at  your  feet :  we  have  but  to  deal  with  the 
nomad  of  the  desert,  and  the  savage  and  the  fanatical  Tartars  of  Turkestan — pp. 
332-324. 

This  writer  cites  the  words  of  Sir  Henry  Rawlinson,  an  adverse 
yet  very  upright  witness,  l  Russia  cannot  stop  midway  in  the  career 
on  which  she  has  now  entered,'  but  holds  that  Russia  could  as  soon 
invade  England  by  sea,  as  India  through  the  rugged  denies  of 
Afghan  hills  (p.  335).  She  passes  to  the  case  of  the  'robber-khanate,' 
Khiva. 

We  have  been  repeatedly  pressed  to  take  Khiva ;  but  we  have  hitherto  resisted 
the  pressure,  chiefly  in  order  to  keep,  what  many  amongst  us  thought,  our  most 
unreasonable  promise  to  England.  Who  is  grateful  for  our  efforts  to  keep  faith  ? 
Nay,  who  even  recognises  them  ? — p.  320. 

In  the  next  chapter  she  passes  into  very  free  criticism. 

The  first  Afghan  war  cost  you  twenty  millions.  How  much  the  second  will 
cost  you,  your  Government,  probably,  will  not  hurry  too  much  to  state.  Yet  you 
are  further  off  your  object  to-day  than  ever  you  were  before.  When  our  mission 
visited  Cabul  in  1878,  the  Afghans  declared  that  the  year  1842,  when  the  English 
had  ruined  nearly  the  whole  of  their  country,  remained  fresh  in  the  memory  of  all 
the  inhabitants.  These  memories  have  not  been  effaced  by  your  triumphs_in  1879: 


1880.  RUSSIA   AND    ENGLAND.  547 

and,  the  more  you  are  disliked,  the  warmer  will  be  the  welcome  which  the  Afghans 
will  extend  to  your  enemies,  be  they  who  they  may. 

So  far  from  creating  a  barrier  to  Russia's  advance  to  your  frontier,  your  recent 
operations  have  removed  the  only  political  difficulty  from  our  path  ;  which  would 
now  be  easy  enough,  if  the  real  obstacles  had  not  always  been  natural,  not  poli- 
tical—pp.  336, 337. 

These  citations  will  have  been  sufficient  to  convey  a  fair  idea  of 
the  style,  the  talents,  and  the  aim  of  our  authoress ;  and  with  these 
some  useful  lessons  to  ourselves.  They  may  or  may  not  contain 
statements  open  to  question,  coloured  with  the  spirit  of  advocacy,  or 
open  to  the  observation  that  0.  K.  in  these  pages  thinks  what  she 
wishes  to  be  thought  to  think.  But  few  will  fail  to  recognise,  amidst 
their  stringency  and  pungency,  a  basis  of  good  sense,  and  even  of 
goodwill,  together  with  much  persuasive  power.  She  recites  with  zest 
the  facts  of  alliances,  and  the  declarations  in  favour  of  friendship  and 
co-operation,  between  England  and  Kussia ;  nor  is  she  speaking 
sarcastically,  to  all  appearance,  when  she  closes  her  list  with  one  of 
the  latest  and  most  significant  among  them,  which  she  has  scarcely 
overstated  (though  there  is  a  slight  mistake  in  stating  the  time). 

I  believe  it  was  Lord  Beaconsfield  who  pointed  eight  years  ago  to  an  Anglo- 
Russian  alliance  as  a  means  of  preventing  Napoleon's  march  a  Berlin,  which  ter- 
minated so  disastrously  at  Sedan — p.  364. 

Those  who,  on  a  broader  ground,  may  consult  this  book  for 
indications  of  probable  Eussian  and  Slavonian  policy  as  to  the  future 
of  Eastern  Europe,  will  be  at  no  loss  to  find  what  they  seek. 

The  *  East  of  Europe '  has  however  a  unity  as  a  geographical 
expression,  which  does  not  belong  to  it  as  a  political  entity.  In  the 
latter  view,  it  presents  itself  under  three  main  heads,  without  includ- 
ing one  or  two  collateral  and  secondary  questions  such  as  the 
prospective  position  of  Albania.  These  three  heads  are  as  follows  : 
1.  The  Slavonian  States  and  populations,  among  whom  for  the  pre- 
sent purpose  Boumania  may  rank.  2.  The  Hellenic  populations. 
3.  Constantinople,  which  is  neither  Slavonic  nor  Hellenic,  and  which 
is  the  key  to  the  Straits. 

Nothing  can  be  more  explicit  than  the  announcement  of  the 
general  principle  on  which  and  on  which  alone  the  Balkan  Peninsula, 
instead  of  being,  as  it  has  hitherto  been,  miserable  and  dangerous,  can 
eventually  be  made  happy  in  itself,  and  harmless  to  the  rest  of  the 
world. 

Of  these  States,  as  well  as  of  all  the  territory  left  to  the  Sultan  by  the 
Berlin  Treaty,  Russia  claims  nothing  and  concedes  nothing.  The  Balkan  lands 
belong  to  the  Balkan  people.  Mr.  Aksakoff  accurately  stated  the  views  of 
Russia  when  he  wrote  '  the  East  of  Europe  belongs  to  Oriental  Europeans ;  the 
Slav  countries  belong  to  the  Slavs,  It  is  not  a  question  of  territorial  conquests 
for  Russia ;  it  is  a  question  of  calling  to  an  independent  existence,  political  and 
social,  all  these  different  Slav  groups  which  people  the  Balkan  Peninsula ' — p.  149. 


548  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  March 

The  Hellenic  case  is  disposed  of  in  a  few  words,  flavoured  with 
a  sarcasm  under  which  some  *  galled  jades  '  may  wince. 

Greece  should  receive  Epirus,  Thessaly,  Crete,  and  the  Hellenic  Island*; 
which  may  perhaps  include  Cyprus,  -when  you  get  tired  of  it — p.  159. 

With  regard  to  the  district  'not  sufficiently  Hellenic  to  be 
annexed  to  Greece,  or  Bulgarian  to  be  annexed  to  Bulgaria,'  0.  K. 
considers  that  it  should  be  governed  in  the  manner  now  applied  to 
Eastern  Roumelia,  and  that  in  time,  either  by  the  amalgamation  of 
races,  or  by  a  predominance  naturally  and  quietly  growing  up,  it 
would  gravitate  to  its  proper  destination. 

But  there  remains  Constantinople  ;  a  question  of  primary  interest 
to  the  littoral  states  of  the  Euxine ;  and  to  Austria-Hungary,  through 
the  Danube,  not  as  a  matter  of  safety,  but  in  regard  to  her  commer- 
cial intercourse  with  the  world.  The  language  of  0.  K.  is  even 
upon  this  *  last  word  of  the  Eastern  Question,'  as  it  was  well  called  by 
Lord  Derby,  language  for  the  most  part  of  an  outspoken  transpa- 
rency. '  The  Sultan  is  as  good  a  gate-keeper  of  the  Euxine  as 
Russia  could  wish  to  have'  (p.  162).  '  If  he  has  a  fault,  it  is  that  he 
is  a  little  too  weak  to  uphold  his  treaty  rights  against  the  encroach- 
ments of  England'  (p.  163).  He  need  not  have  more  than  'a 
cabbage  garden  in  Europe  '  (p.  1 63).  As  a  Turkish  empire  in  Europe 
did  not  for  nearly  a  century  require  the  possession  of  the  City  of 
Constantine,  so  the  City  of  Constantine  might  be  held  after  the 
Turkish  empire  in  Europe  shall  have  disappeared.  0.  K.  then 
quotes  a  rumour  incredible  except  in  the  days  which  have  seen  the 
Anglo-Turkish  Convention,  and  in  which,  by  parity  of  reasoning, 
everything  is  credible : 

That  the  English  Government  intended  to  incite  Austria  to  occupy  Constantinople 
when  the  collapse  comes — p.  1G4. 

Russia  desires  (so  proceeds  this  able  writer)  to  see  at  Constantinople  what 
your  Ministers  pretended  to  desire  to  see  at  Cabul,  a  strong,  a  friendly,  and  an  in- 
dependent Power — p.  165. 

Aud- 
it is  quite  true  that  Constantinople  occupies  such  a  place  in  the  Russian  imagi- 
nation that,  questions  of  self-preservation  apart,  no  Russian  Emperor  could  tolerate 
the  Austrians  on  the  Bosphorus — p.  100. 

Let  me  now  break  the  thread  of  0.  K.'s  expositions  for  a  moment. 
It  is  the  determination  of  Europe  that  Russia  shall  not  annex 
Constantinople:  subject,  I  presume,  to  this  condition,  that  the 
Powers  most  interested  in  preventing  dangerous  aggrandisement  from 
that  quarter  shall  assume  the  responsibilities  of  their  position,  instead 
of  flinching  from  them  as  they  did  on  one  great  occasion.  It  may, 
however,  be  a  black  and  evil  day  for  Europe  should  Austria  be 
tempted  to  make  the  wild  attempt.  Perhaps  it  might  even  be  said 
that  such  an  attempt,  and  such  an  attempt  alone,  might  result  in 
throwing  Constantinople  into  the  hands  of  Russia.  I  do  not  speak  of 


1880.  RUSSIA  AND  ENGLAND.  549 

a  transformed,  of  an  Orthodox  and  Slavonic  Austria.  Every  sober- 
minded  person  will  postpone  his  belief  in  such  an  Austria  until  the 
period  when  he  sees  it,  or,  at  the  very  least,  until  an  example  shall 
be  shown  in  history  of  such  a  transformation.  The  accounts  which 
are  rendered  from  Bosnia  by  the  most  recent  and  trustworthy  wit- 
nesses do  not  indicate  the  smallest  approximation  to  a  change  of 
this  kind.  Should  the  only  Austria  known  to  history  and  tradition 
make  the  attempt,  she  will  give  to  Eussia  that  which  alone  is 
wanting  to  render  her  truly  formidable,  namely,  the  place  and  part 
of  the  champion  of  freedom,  independence,  and  nationality  on  behalf 
of  the  Balkan  States.  That  those  States  will  ever  surrender  their 
hard-earned  liberties  to  Eussia  is  in  the  highest  degree  improbable. 
That  they  will  spend  blood  and  treasure  to  enable  Austria  to  absorb 
and  overshadow  their  Orthodox  and  Slavonian  lands  with  her  tra- 
ditions of  Latinism  and  domination  is  surely  a  wild  and  idle 
dream.  Some  combinations  in  that  part  of  the  world  may  be  found 
desirable  for  peace  and  progress.  Austria  had  one,  though  perhaps 
only  one,  bright  page  in  the  records  of  her  Foreign  Office :  it  was 
when  Count  Beust  propounded  as  an  Eastern  policy  that  the  establish- 
ment of  autonomous  tributary  States  should,  by  European  concert, 
be  promoted  in  the  Balkan  Peninsula.  Thus,  if  ever,  was  opened 
the  door  of  hope  for  insinuating  an  Austrian  influence  into  the 
Slavonic  mind.  But  at,  and  since,  the  Congress  of  Berlin  Austria 
has  thrown  her  weight  into  the  scale  adverse  to  the  Christian  races, 
and  has  thus,  not  less  effectively  than  unconsciously,  repeated  the 
lesson  which  events  have  too  often  rung  in  the  ears  of  the  Slav 
population  in  the  Balkan  Peninsula,  that  Eussia  has  cared  for  them 
in  the  day  of  trial,  and  that  the  other  Powers  have  not. 

Thus  the  policy  of  the  future  is  exhibited  in  these  articles :  Sla- 
vonic soil  for  the  Slavs  :  Hellenic  soil  for  the  Hellenes.  Segregation 
from  both  for  the  districts  of  mixed  race,  in  order  that,  when  gifted 
with  a  political  existence,  they  may  feel  for  and  find  their  way.  No 
territorial  claim  advanced  for  Eussia :  none  permitted  for  anybody 
else.  Now  let  us  look  calmly  into  the  future,  which  is  as  yet,  it 
may  be  hoped,  neither  clouded  by  our  prejudices,  nor  forestalled  by 
our  conventions :  and  ask  ourselves,  in  the  calm  of  contemplation, 
whether  this  is  not,  so  far  as  it  goes,  a  reasonable  and  a  desirable 
settlement  for  the  East  of  Europe  ?  If  so,  it  is  something  to  have  it 
proclaimed  in  England,  from  the  mouth  of  a  Eussian  in  strong- 
sympathy  with  her  Slavonic  compatriots,  and,  if  unable  to  claim  the 
sanction  of  her  Government  for  her  opinions,  yet  far  from  likely  to 
promulgate  what  they  would  find  unpalatable.  For  my  own  part,  I 
have  only  to  add  a  corollary  and  a  caveat.  The  corollary  is  that,  while 
a  positive  arrangement  for  Constantinople  is  not  demanded  by  the  ur- 
gent interests  which  press  for  other  solutions,  there  has  not  yet  come 
into  view  any  insurmountable  difficulty  in  the  way  of  its  being  consti- 
VOL.  VII.— No.  37.  0  0 


550  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  March 

tuted  under  European  guarantee  as  a  free  State  and  port.  The  second  is 
that  while  0.  K.  undisguisedly  writes  as  one  prepared  to  solve  the 
Eastern  Question  to-morrow,  at  least  on  its  European  side,  others,  when 
denning  the  point  towards  which  to  steer,  may  consult  the  political 
barometer,  and  may  exercise  their  own  discretion  as  to  the  time  for 
beginning  the  voyage. 

For  the  sea  may  yet  be  found  a  stormy  one.  Russia,  effectually 
warned  by  the  Crimean  War  against  arbitrary  dealings  in  the  East, 
has  been  relieved  from  her  territorial  fine,  and  replaced  on  the  Danube. 
She  has  also  acquired  new  territory  in  Armenia.  But  more  than 
either  or  both  of  these :  she  has  found  a  case  for  single-handed 
interference  in  Turkey,  so  strong  that  Europe  has  been  under  moral, 
and  even  physical,  compulsion  to  recognise  its  main  results.  Under 
the  Treaty  of  San  Stefano,  curtailed  by  the  Treaty  of  Berlin,  more 
than  half  of  European  Turkey  has  been  set  absolutely  or  virtually 
free.  A  territorial  claim  has  been  set  up  by  European  authority 
against  the  Porte  on  behalf  of  Greece ;  and  the  entire  territory  of  the 
Empire  is  affected  by  a  sort  of  mortgage,  not  to  all  only,  but,  I 
apprehend,  to  each  of  the  contracting  Powers,  since  Turkey  has 
contracted  with  each  of  them  for  the  universal  introduction  of  reforms. 
England,  the  great  witness  for  peace  and  justice  in  Europe,  is,  in  the 
opinion  of  a  large  part  of  her  people,  shamed  and  greatly  disabled 
by  her  own  offences  against  them,  and  is,  in  the  sphere  of  fact  apart 
from  opinion,  crippled  in  her  freedom  of  European  action  by  wars 
and  warlike  contingencies  at  many  points  of  the  surface  of  the  globe. 
She  is  marked  out  by  tradition,  by  honour,  and  by  feeling,  as  the 
one  independent  champion  of  the  smaller  free  Spates  of  Europe. 
Who  is  there  that  will  say  the  position  of.  these  States  is  now  secure, 
or  that  the  position  of  England  is  as  favourable  as  it  was  in  1870  for 
the  maintenance  of  their  cause  ?  There  are  Western  questions,  as 
well  as  Eastern.  But  everywhere,  East  and  West,  North  and  South, 
the  demon  of  Militarism,  the  universal  enemy,  makes  progress  :  and 
the  professions  of  peaceful  inclination,  with  which  it  is  sought  to 
hide  or  temper  its  advances,  grow  more  and  more  threadbare  with 
every  repetition.  Meantime  we  are  told  of  an  alliance  between 
Germany  arid  Austria,  and  are  invited  to  accept  the  intimation  as 
'good  tidings  of  great  joy.'  It  would  be  well  that  we  knew  more  of 
its  purpose,  before  subscribing  to  the  sanguine  and  lightminded 
certificate.  I  for  one  agree  with  the  ablest  and  most  independent 
of  the  ministerial  newspapers,  which  says,  in  commenting  on  the 
recent  speech  of  the  German  Emperor,  '  No  abatement  of  misgiving 
will  be  found  in  the  contemplation  of  proposals  for  coalitions  on 
behalf  of  peace.' 5 

Mr.  Forster  has  well  reminded  us  that  alliance  with  one  is  apt 
to  be  estrangement  from  another.  We  must  not  rush  headlong  into 
unfavourable  judgments.  But  undoubtedly  the  presumption  is 
s  Pall  Mall  Gazette,  February  13,  1880. 


1880.  RUSSIA   AND  ENGLAND.  551 

against  these  partial  alliances.  There  is  but  one  of  them,  known  to 
the  experience  of  the  last  half-century,  which  appears  entitled  to  claim 
at  the  hands  of  history  a  favourable  verdict.  It  was  the  alliance  of 
England  and  France.  It  dated  from  the  accession  of  the  Liberal 
Government  in  1830.  It  suffered  a  rupture  in  1847,  but  subsisted, 
with  some  alternations  of  health  and  weakness,  until  it  lapsed  in 
1870,  not  from  any  cause  of  quarrel  between  the  two  nations,  but 
because  it  was  out  of  the  question  to  follow  Napoleon  the  Third  in 
a  war  which  we  had  declared  unwarrantable.  That  alliance  has  left 
special  and  honourable  monuments  of  its  effects  in  Belgium,  in  the 
Peninsula,  and  in  Italy.  In  1875,  the  year  of  the  Triple  Alliance  (the 
memory  whereof  has  been  almost  effaced  by  exciting  events),  England 
and  France  endured  a  slight  in  common,  which  could  not  have  been 
ventured  on  had  the  Anglo-French  entente  been  in  existence.  But, 
over  and  above  special  monuments,  we  can  allege  that  its  influence 
was  used  with  considerable  steadiness  on  behalf  of  ordered  freedom  ; 
that  it  contributed  [to  the  stability  of  the  European  system ;  and 
lastly,  and  most  of  all,  that  it  never  was  used  for  a  mean,  or  a  lawless, 
or  an  oppressive  purpose.  It  was  an  alliance  that  did  injure,  and 
that  could  injure,  none  except  the  enemies  of  justice.  It  deducted 
absolutely  nothing  from  our  general  friendliness  to  the  other  States. 
^  It  had  its  failures,  such  as  the  case  of  Denmark  in  1862  :  but  it  had 
no  crimesT)  Reaching  over  so  many  years,  and  rich  in  so  wide  an 
experience,  it  seemed  to  show,  without  claiming  for  either  State  an 
exemption  from  political  vice,  that  the  two  never  were,  and  never 
could  be,  subject  to  a  common  temptation  to  do  wrong,  while  they 
often  found  a  common  inducement,  and  exhibited  a  common  disposi- 
tion, to  do  right.  Antecedently  to  the  trial,  a  junction  between  the 
naval  supremacy  of  England  and  the  military  strength  of  France 
might  well  have  been  deemed  dangerous  to  the  safety  of  the  world. 
As  illustrated  by  fact,  it  was  a  force  of  police,  devoted  to  the  service 
of  freedom,  peace,  and  order.  Englishmen  and  Frenchmen,  after 
their  long-continued  but  now  long-forgotten  antagonism,  may  look 
back  with  thankful  satisfaction  to  this  great  chapter  of  history,  com- 
mon to  the  annals  of  them  both.  To  remember  happiness  in  the 
midst  of  misery,  says  Dante,  is  bitter  to  man.  To  remember  a  power- 
ful mechanism  operative  for  good,  amid  the  now  darkened  prospects 
of  Europe,  is  a  pleasure  at  once  allowable  and  vivid.  That  alliance, 
indeed,  of  which  I  speak,  is  a  thing  of  the  past.  Yet  it  may  not  be 
wholly  excluded  from  the  possibilities  of  the  future.  I  say  pnly  the 
possibilities,  because  I  adhere  to  the  general  rule  that  exclusive 
alliances  commonly  tend  to  entangle  the  States  concerned,  and  to 
estrange  the  States  excluded.  In  particular  I  do  not  easily  compre- 
hend how  an  alliance  which  shuts  out  two  such  powers  as  Russia 
and  France  by  a  great  military  combination  set  down  between  them, 
and  which  manifestly  points  to  a  junction  between  those  two  States 

o  o  2 


552  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  March 

and  Italy,  should  on  the  face  of  it  be  at  once  interpreted  as  a  self- 
evident  security  for  peace. 

There  is  another  form  of  special  understanding  between  Powers, 
which  rests  upon  a  different  footing,  inasmuch  as  it  is  limited  to 
those  special  objects,  in  which  each  of  the  parties  has  a  natural, 
direct,  and  necessary  interest.  Thus  nothing  can  be  more  proper 
or  desirable,  than  that  Austria  and  Italy  should  have  a  cordial  under- 
standing with  respect  to  the  Italian  Tyrol,  defined  by  an  oddly  drawn 
line,  which  forms  a  portion  of  the  North-Eastern  frontier  of  Italy.  In 
this  sense  it  is  eminently  to  be  wished  that  England  and  Russia 
should  have,  not  only  a  'modus  vivendi,  but  an  entente  cordiale  with 
respect  to  Central  Asia.  Such  an  understanding  was  in  full  vigour  six 
years  ago.  How  far  it  now  subsists  may  best  be  explained  by  those 
admirers  of  the  Ministerial  policy  in  Afghanistan,  who  justify  the 
costly,  sanguinary,  and  protracted  conflict  we  have  gratuitously 
sought  and  found,  by  alleging  the  necessity  of  guarding  by  decisive 
measures  against  the  sleepless  plots  of  Eussian  aggression. 

It  is  hard  to  conceive  how,  when  passion  shall  have  subsided,  any 
portion  of  our  countrymen  can  do  otherwise  than  desire  the  re-esta- 
blishment of  a  cordial  relation  in  Central  Asia.  Our  authoress  goes 
far  beyond  this : 

Four  years  after  the  war  vote  of  1791.  the  two  Powers  entered  into  a  close 
alliance.  Who  knows  but  the  same  thing  may  happen  within  four  years  of  the 
war  vote  of  1878  ?— p.  359. 

It  is  not  only  in  Asia,  that  the  two  nations  stand  Bide  by  side — p.  360. 

I  look  forward  confidently  to  the  conclusion  of  a  good  understanding  between 
Russia  and  England,  based  upon  the  peaceful  but  effective  elimination  of  Turkish 
authority  from  Europe — p.  362. 

To  those  of  us  who  do  not  conceive  that  England  has  a  greater 
interest  in  the  confinement  of  Russia  within  due  bounds,  or  in  the 
settlement  of  the  Turkish  Question,  than  other  Powers  nearer  to  the 
East,  the  argument  for  close  and  special  understanding  with  Russia 
may  seem  open  to  question.  But  to  the  raving  journalists  who  say 
that  the  defence  of  Constantinople  is  next  to  the  defence  of  London, 
and  to  the  wise  Ambassadors  who,  in  our  name,  have  taught  that 
our  interests  in  this  matter  are  beyond  all  price,  the  invitation 
of  0.  K.  ought  to  be  highly  acceptable.  The  only  power  whose 
interests  are  involved  in  the  Eastern  Question,  in  a  degree  at  all 
corresponding  to  those  of  Russia,  is  Austria.  But  Austria  is  a 
house  divided  against  itself.  She  can  neither  act  nor  even  think 
without  balancing  her  Slavs  against  her  Magyars,  her  Cis-Leith 
against  her  Trans-Leith,  or  without  having  regard  to  a  formidable 
personage  that  sits  moodily  in  her  rear.  But  Russia  knows  her  own 
mind,  is  always  on  the  spot,  has  a  definite  creed  about  Turkey, 
rests  upon  the  sentiment  of  a  united  people,  has  acted  and  may 
again  act  alone.  Surely  those  who  believe  Constantinople  is  the 


1880.  RUSSIA   AND  ENGLAND.  553 

key  to  London,  ought,  in  rational  consistency,  to  aim  at  some  under- 
standing about  this  matter  of  life  and  death  with  the  Power  which 
weighs  so  powerfully  upon  it.  They  cannot  be  certain  that  they 
would  not  succeed,  for  the  plain  reason  that  they  have  never  tried. 

It  may  be  thought  by  some  that  the  recent  explosion  of  Nihilism 
in  Russia  weakens  the  hands  of  the  Government,  and  that  the  days  of 
the  Autocracy,  which  0.  K.  glorifies  with  a  filial  reverence,  are  already 
numbered.  She  treats  Nihilism  with  an  abhorrence,  which  it  seems 
to  deserve.6  Thus  far  I  had  written  before  this  country,  and  the  whole 
civilised  world,  were  stunned  with  the  intelligence  of  the  plot  in  the 
Winter  Palace  at  St.  Petersburg,  which,  if  it  has  been  correctly  re- 
ported to  us,  aimed  at  the  destruction  of  an  indefinite  number  of 
wholly  innocent  persons,  for  the  remote  chance  of  destroying  one 
who,  even  in  the  estimation  of  its  authors,  is  personally  innocent,  and 
in  no  other  sense  guilty  than  officially,  and  by  an  heirship  which 
he  could  not  honourably  renounce.  As  the  design,  so  reported, 
went  beyond  perhaps  everything  that  has  heretofore  been  known, 
and  is  indeed  indescribable,  so  is  the  feeling  it  has  roused ;  in  which 
however  neither  disgust  nor  horror  ought  to  exclude  alarm,  any  more 
than  the  deferential  sympathy,  nay  the  profound  compassion,  with 
which  we  all  may  contemplate,  from  our  safe  obscurity,  the  intended 
victims  of  this  extraordinary  wickedness. 

But  as  in  general  the  reader  will  find  the  defensive  parts  of 
0.  K.'s  able  work  on  Poland  and  Siberia  the  slightest  in  their 
texture  and  the  least  sufficient  for  their  full  aim,  so  he  will  be  struck 
by  her  surely  inadequate  estimate  of  Nihilism  as  a  fact  in  the  social 
and  political  condition  of  her  country.  She  does  not  appear  alive  to 
that  significance  that,  in  the  eyes  of  foreigners,  it  can  hardly  fail  to 
bear  as  a  symptom  of  some  deep-seated  evil,  which,  lacking  remedial 
appliances,  bursts  forth  in  vile  and  cruel  conspiracies,  adding  the 
practice  to  the  theory  of  pure  destruction. 

Neither  the  Camorra  in  Italy,  nor  the  Commune  in  Paris,  nor 
this  monstrous  growth  far  surpassing  either,  and  itself  unsurpassed, 
nor  any  other  product,  however  extreme,  generated  from  the  deepest 
abyss  of  corruption,  is  accidental  or  uncaused.  As  among  individuals 
nemo  repente  fuit  turpissimua,  so  in  States  the  most  terrible  de- 
velopments of  lawlessness  and  crime  are  indicators  of  some  disease 
which,  however  deep,  yet  in  a  community  is,  if  taken  in  time,  never 
fatal.  And  it  will  be  a  mistake  scarcely  less  ruinous  in  its  extent 
than  the  iniquity,  if  the  feelings  which  that  iniquity  excites  are 
allowed  to  exhaust  themselves  in  indignation,  or  in  retribution,  and 
if  they  do  not  accept  as  the  one  paramount  lesson  from  the  catastrophe 
the  absolute  necessity  of  careful  study,  and  of  appropriate  remedies. 

It  may  be  divined  from  the  manner,  in  which  0.  K.  treats  the 
subject  of  Nihilism,  that  she  has  not  yet  studied  the  domestic 

6  Part  iii.,  chap,  vi. 


554  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY.  March 

problems  which  perplex  the  Eussian  State  with  the  same  complete- 
ness as  the  controversy  with  the  English  Government.     It  is  well 
called  by  Signer  Arnaudo  in  his  work  II  Nihilismo  7  a  social  gangrene  : 
but  that  able  writer  has  shown  that  it  is  organised,  that  it  is  widely 
ramified,  that  it  has  attracted  the  attention  of  many  Eussian  writers, 
and  notably  of  M.  TurgenefF,  that  it  lurks  in  the  seats  of  instruction, 
and  finally  that  the   conspiracies   against   the   Emperor   form   the 
climax  of  a  long  series  of  attempts  against  the  constituted  order  of 
things,  which  have  marked  with  many  a  bloody   trace   the   most 
recent  annals  of  Eussia.     Some  of  these  attempts  have  struck   at 
men  of  known  harshness,  but  other  victims  have  been  conspicuous 
for  humanity.     If,  as  Signor  Arnaudo  thinks,  the  present  reign  has 
been  marked  in  some  cases  by  error  and  by  intolerance,  he  does  not 
set  these  down  as  more  than  secondary  provocatives ;  and,  writing  in 
a  spirit  far  from  reactionary,  he  nevertheless  apprehends  that  the 
emancipation  of  the  serfs  was  too  little  or  too  much,  and  that  it  has 
been,  as  matter  of  fact,  chief  among  the  causes  of  political  Nihilism.8 
But,  hidden  as  is  the  precise  origin  of  this  political  and  moral 
no  less  than  of  the  natural  volcano,  of  some  things  we  may  draw 
from  the  subsisting  facts  a  certainty  or  a  presumption.     If  it  be  an 
indication  that   Eussian   absolutism   has   overlived  its  time,  if   its 
epitaph  is  to  be  written  over  the  grave  of  Alexander  II.,  who  has 
achieved  for  it  its  noblest  and  most  enduring  triumphs,  if  a  cure  for 
peccant  humours  is  to  be  sought  and  found  in  giving  freer  scope  to  the 
natural  and  healthful  powers  of  the  body  politic,  then  the  great  nation, 
hitherto  without  political  rights,  will  find  its  way  to  the  possession 
of  them,  and  we  shall  hereafter  have  to  deal  with  a  Eussia  more  or 
less  constitutional  and  popular.     This  is  a  presumption.     But  it  is  a 
certainty  that,  when  Eussia  shall  thus  have  found  herself  a  voice, 
the  effect  will  be  to  give  a  fuller  and  more  powerful  development  in 
practical    policy    to    the   national    sympathies.      0.    K.   reports   a 
conversation  with    an  English   alarmist,   having  the  appendage  of 
M.   P.    to   his    name,   who   told   her    that    Eussia   was  dangerous 
because  she  had    no  Constitutional   Government.     A   strange  sim- 
plicity !     It   was   Parliamentary   Government,   which   disposed  and 
enabled   us  to  carry   on  against  America   a  war   that    Avould   have 
been   impossible    for    the    Tudors    or    the    Stuarts.      The    Avar    of 
the  United  States  for  the    integrity    of   their    national    existence 
never  could  have  been  waged  had  an  autocrat,  perhaps  it  may  even  be 
said  had  a  monarch,  sat  in  the  seat  of  plain  Abraham  Lincoln,  who 
was  called  in  mockery  the  rail-splitting  attorney.     At  this  moment, 
in   France  and  in   Germany,   where  the   people  are  endowed   with 
political  rights,  the  military  conscription  is   borne  perhaps  with- 
out repugnance,  certainly  without  such  outbreaks  of  dissatisfaction 

7  Torino,  October  1879.     See,  in  particular,  chap.  vi. 

8  II  Nihilismo,  p.  101. 


1880.  RUSSIA   AND  ENGLAND.  555 

as  it  seems  to  create  in  Eussia.  There  it  emanates  not  from  popular 
suffrage  in  any  form,  but  from  the  pure  will  of  the  Czar  ;  and  there, 
according  to  Arnaudo,  the  endeavours  to  resist  it  are  many,  and  the 
fugitives  are  of  necessity  hunted  (p.  109)  as  if  they  were  wolves  or 
foxes,  and  absolutely  forced  into  the  ranks.  Nowhere  more  than  in 
Eussia  is  it  the  business  of  bureaucratic  and  official  power  to  repress, 
rather  than  to  express,  the  desire  and  tendency  of  the  people.  For 
a  country  tolerably  homogeneous,  the  measure  of  popular  influence 
and  control  over  the  Government  will  be  the  measure  of  its  energy  in 
a  policy  of  liberation  for  the  Southern  Slavs  :  and,  if  we  have  found  it 
difficult  to  hold  back  the  tide  of  freedom  in  the  face  of  an  autocratic 
Eussia,  we  shall  find  our  means  still  less  adequate  to  our  ends  when  the 
institutions  of  that  country  shall  have  passed  into  a  form  more  agree- 
able to  Western  traditions  and  ideas.  Those,  who  wish  Eussia  to 
be  weak,  should,  in  consistency,  wish  her  also  to  be  despotic ;  but 
that,  it  seems  too  probable,  is  only  to  wish  in  other  words  for  the 
continued  prosperity  of  Nihilism. 

As  then,  these  remarks  began,  so  let  them  end  with  a  tribute  of 
just  acknowledgment  to  this  Eussian  authoress.     She  has  not  been 
heard  of  in  any  controversy  anterior  to  the  great  struggle  of  the  last 
four  years,  but  her  pen  would  do  honour  to  a  practised  hand,  and  in 
truth  she  writes  with  a  mixture  of  ingenuity,  pungency,  and  tact, 
which  few,  whether  practised  or  unpractised,  have  at  their  command. 
Her  admiration  for  the  England  she  rebukes  is  evidently  not  simu- 
lated ;  it  will  do  little  of  itself  to  conciliate  the  advanced  alarmist, 
who  has  now  concentrated  on  Eussia  all  the  anile  susceptibilities  that, 
a  few  years  ago,  kept  him  in  dread  of  France  or  America  or  Germany. 
These  unmanly  whims,  in  his  state  of  fervid  aberration,  he  crowns  with 
the  name  of  patriotism,  and  then  coolly  sets  up  above  the  moral  law, 
by  claiming  that  everyone  shall  follow  his  impulses,  upon  the  plea 
that  they  are  English,  without  inquiring  whether  they  are  right  or 
wrong.     But  even  upon  these   nearly  hopeless  victims  an  ultimate 
effect  will  be  produced  by  every  contribution  to  the  general  discussion 
which  pursues  ambiguity  and  subterfuge  into  their  hiding-places,  and 
drags  them  forth  to  the  light  of  day :  which  does  not  exaggerate 
differences,  but  does  not  conceal  them :  which  does  not  supply  the 
lack  of  argument  by  imputations  of  motives :  which   does   not,  on 
behalf  of  the  Power  whose  cause  it  advocates,  set  up  claims  like  those 
of  the  clergy  in  the  Middle  Ages,  to  be  tried  by  exceptional  laws  or 
a  tribunal  of  its  own  colour :  which  helps  us,  in  a  word,  to  know  what 
are  the  matters  really  in  controversy,  and  what  are  the  views  taken 
of  us  by  other  parties  to  the  suit.     The  essence  of  our  difficulty  does 
not  lie  in  the  real  issues,  for  the  Empire  of  the    Queen   is   strong 
enough  to  defend  itself,  with  a  good  cause,  against  Eussia  and  against 
all  comers.     It  lies  in  the  gross  self-delusion,  the  fatuous  self-worship 
which,  like  the  coat  of  an  armadillo,  envelops  minds  inflamed  by 


556  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY. 

prejudice,  and  leaves  them  not  a  single  pore  open  to  the  access  of  the 
truth.  But  as  the  atmosphere  is  cleared  around  us  by  the  frank  and 
unreserved  interchange  of  opinion,  a  better  state  of  things  is  gradu- 
ally prepared,  and  prepared  by  the  joint  efforts  of  friends  and  of 
opponents,  provided  only  they  speak  out,  and  keep  to  the  point.  To 
these  conditions  the  volume  now  under  view  conforms.  It  probably 
did  not  require  the  name  and  the  preface  contributed  by  a  distin- 
guished historian,  in  order  to  insure  its  effectual  introduction  to  the 
notice  of  the  reading  public  in  this  country.  It  certainly  pursues  what 
is  still  the  English  method,  as  we  have  not  yet  got  the  Indian  Press 
Act  in  force  among  us,  of  a  fair,  and  almost  uniformly  of  a  very 
courteous  fight  upon  an  open  field.  So  that,  quite  irrespectively  of 
concurrence,  with  each  of  its  particular  opinions,  its  publication  should 
be  hailed  with  thankfulness,  as  a  contribution  to  the  cause  of  peace, 
and  to  the  consolidation,  now  sorely  needed,  of  public  order  and  con- 
fidence in  Europe. 

W.  E.  GLADSTONE. 


THE 


NINETEENTH 


No.  XXXVIIL— APRIL  1880. 


THE  DOCILITY  OF  AN  'IMPERIAL' 
PARLIAMENT. 


THE  instinct  which  seems  to  have  penetrated  both  parties  to  the 
present  contest  with  the  conviction  that  something  is  now  going  on 
much  more  interesting  and  much  more  important  than  a  mere  party 
contest,  something  that  will  decide  our  destinies  for  ages  after  the 
busy  actors  in  the  present  struggle  have  left  the  scene,  is,  as  it  appears 
to  me,  by  no  means  destitute  of  a  solid  foundation.  The  Liberal 
party  are,  as  it  seems  to  me,  much  what  they  have  always  been.  The 
admirable  address  and  speech  of  Lord  Hartington  are  just  what  might 
be  expected  from  a  man  acting  on  fixed  and  well-known  principles,  in 
the  promulgation  of  which  he  has  neither  doubt  nor  hesitation,  and 
which  he  is  prepared  to  apply  without  shrinking  or  faltering  to  circum- 
stances as  they  arise.  The  whole  subject  has  been  fairly  thought  out 
and  settled  before  the  emergency  arose.  If  the  Liberal  party  should 
return  to  power,  no  one  can  fairly  pretend  that  he  does  not  know  what 
he  has  to  expect.  The  lines  are  clearly  and  broadly  marked,  and  it 
would  be  mere  waste  of  time  to  repeat  them.  Their  merit  is,  that 
they  are  not  new,  but  such  as  have  satisfied  the  reason  of  Liberals  of 
the  past  and  of  the  present — principles  such  as  Burke  laid  down  in 
his  best  days,  before  his  fine  mind  lost  its  equilibrium  and  its  judicial 
power  amid  the  excesses  of  the  French  Revolution — such  as  dawned 
on  the  latter  and  better  days  of  Canning  and  the  later  and  wiser  days 
of  Russell  and  Palmerston. 

VOL.  VII.— No.  38.  P  P 


558  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY.  April 

Now  for  the  other  side.  An  error  I  note,  but  upon  which  I 
need  not  dwell,  is  a  striking  .breach  of  decorum,  and  of  the  respect 
which  is  due  to  the  House  of  Commons.  The  announcement  of  the 
Dissolution  should  not  be  explained  and  commented  upon  in  the  first 
instance  by  a  Peer  of  Parliament.  Such  comment  ought  not  to  have 
been  made  at  all  by  a  Peer,  but  if  it  was  so  made,  it  would  have  been 
decent  to  have  accompanied  it  with  the  address  of  the  leader  of  the 
House  of  Commons.  This  may  be  considered  a  small  matter,  but  it 
is  wise  in  all  delicate  matters  to  check  the  first  tendency  to  take 
liberties.  We  hope  it  will  not  soon  happen  again  that  the  Dissolution 
of  Parliament  shall  be  first  communicated  and  commented  on  in  a 
letter  from  an  Earl  to  a  Duke. 

The  first  point  to  which  I  desire  to  draw  attention  is  the  extreme 
and  very  suspicious  anxiety  of  the  Prime  Minister  to  prove  that  it 
was  always  intended  that  Parliament  should  be  dissolved  as  soon  as 
the  Bill  for  relieving  Irish  distress  had  become  law.  The  words  are  : 
'  The  measures  respecting  the  state  of  Ireland  which  her  Majesty's 
Government  so  anxiously  considered  with  your  Excellency  ....  are 
now  about  to  be  submitted  for  the  Eoyal  assent,  and  it  is  at  length 
in  the  power  of  the  Ministers  to  advise  the  Queen  to  recur  to  the 
sense  of  her  people.'  Is  it  possible  to  put  any  other  construction  on 
these  words  than  that  the  sole  object  with  which  Parliament  was  called 
together,  was  the  passing  the  Bill  for  relieving  Irish  distress,  and  that 
this  object  having  been  accomplished,  the  immediate  Dissolution  of 
Parliament  became  a  matter  of  course  ?  Had  there  been  a  shadow  of 
doubt  on  this  subject,  it  would,  I  think,  be  removed  by  the  following 
passage :  '  Even  at  this  moment,  the  doubt  supposed  to  be  inseparable 
from  popular  election,  if  it  does  not  diminish,  certainly  arrests  her 
{England's)  influence,  and  is  a  main  reason  for  not  delaying  an  appeal 
to  the  national  voice.' 

Now  look  at  the  other  side.  Upon  Lord  Beaconsfield's  view  of  the 
subject,  nothing  would  have  been  so  natural  as  to  have  given  to  the 
House  the  information  as  to  his  intention  which  was  imparted  to  the 
Lord  Lieutenant.  Indeed,  if,  as  is  clearly  expressed  in  the  passage 
which  I  have  quoted,  this  was  always  the  intention  of  the  Government, 
I  cannot  imagine  any  reason  for  their  reticence.  But  what  was  their 
conduct  ?  Parliament  was  opened  with  all,  and  more  than  all,  the  usual 
formality,  since  it  was  honoured  with  the  presence  of  the  Queen.  Pri- 
vate business  was  commenced  in  the  usual  manner,  Bills  of  very  great 
importance  were  brought  in  by  private  members,  and  the  Government 
not  only  brought  in  important  Bills  of  their  own,  but  referred  long 
and  difficult  inquiries  to  select  committees.  On  this  subject  I  am 
myself  a  witness.  I  was  placed  at  the  request  of  the  Government  on 
three  committees,  two  of  which,  the  committee  namely  on  the 
Medical  Acts  and  on  the  Criminal  Code,  were  investigations  of  great 


1880.  DOCILITY  OF  AN  'IMPERIAL'  PARLIAMENT.     559 

length  and  labour.  Little  did  any  of  us  suppose  that  of  which  we  are 
now  informed  by  the  Prime  Minister,  that  the  duration  of  our  labours 
was  to  be  strictly  measured  by  the  duration  of  the  debates  on  Irish 
distress,  and  that  the  whole  affair  was  a  farce  got  up  for  the  private 
diversion  of  the  Prime  Minister  himself.  Lord  Beacoiisfield  is  there- 
fore placed  in  this  most  unenviable  dilemma.  If  he  did  not  mean  to 
dissolve  when  he  called  Parliament  together,  he  has  been  guilty  of  gross 
prevarication  in  his  letter  to  the  Lord  Lieutenant.  If  he  did  mean 
to  dissolve  as  soon  as  the  Bill  for  the  relief  of  Irish  distress  had 
passed,  he  has  inflicted  a  gross  and  unpardonable  insult  not  only  on 
his  opponents — for  which  he  probably  cares  nothing — but  on  his  own 
followers,  for  whose  comfort  and  immunity  from  such  treatment  he  is 
in  the  highest  degree  responsible.  I  leave  him  to  take  his  choice 
between  these  alternatives.  Assuming  for  the  purpose  of  our  further 
argument  that  he  spoke  the  truth  and  has  only  been  guilty  of  a  gross 
and  unprovoked  insult  to  his  friends  and  opponents,  which  is  the 
mildest  construction  his  acts  admit  of,  and  therefore  the  one  on  which 
I  shall  reason,  I  should  like  to  know  why  so  much  time  and  trouble 
was  wasted  on  carrying  a  Bill  for  the  repression  of  obstruction  which 
was  forced  so  eagerly  through  the  House,  with  such  scant  time  for 
consideration,  and  without  consulting  the  Speaker,  the  experienced 
and  highly  and  justly  respected  Clerk  at  the  table,  or  the  leaders  of 
the  Opposition,  who  are  equally  interested  with  the  party  in  power 
in  preserving  the  dignity  of  the  House  and  the  order  of  debate. 
Of  course,  on  the  alternative  which  we  have  adopted,  it  cannot 
have  been  for  the  benefit  of  the  present  Parliament,  and  there  is 
at  first  sight  no  very  obvious  reason  why  the  matter  should  not 
have  been  left  alone  to  await  the  consideration  of  a  new  House 
of  Commons. 

There  is  yet  another  part  of  the  letter  of  the  Prime  Minister  to 
which  I  must  allude.  He  says  : — 

The  first  duty  of  an  English  Minister  should  be  to  consolidate  that  co-operation 
which  renders  irresistible  a  community  educated  as  our  own  in  an  equal  love  of 
liberty  and  law.  And  yet  there  are  some  who  challenge  the  imperial  character  of 
this  realm.  Having  attempted  and  failed  to  enfeeble  our  colonies  by  their  policy 
of  decomposition,  they  niay  perhaps  recognise  in  the  disintegration  of  the  United 
Kingdom  a  mode  which  will  not  only  accomplish  but  precipitate  their  purpose. 

Now,  I  do  not  pretend  to  understand  this  passage,  nor  have  I  been 
so  fortunate  as  to  meet  with  anyone  who  does.  But  so  much  I  can 
make  out  amidst  its  tawdry  and  slipshod  rhetoric — that  there  are  some 
persons  who,  having  attempted  in  vain  to  enfeeble  our  colonies  by  some 
bad  policy  which  the  Prime  Minister  is  pleased  to  call  decomposition, 
are  likely  to  try  the  same  specific  on  the  United  Kingdom.  As  these 
persons  seem  to  be  the  class  principally  struck  by  the  Dissolution,  it 
would  be  very  desirable  to  know  who  they  are.  The  only  mark  the 

p  p  2 


560  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  April 

Prime  Minister  gives  us  by  -which  to  know  them  is  that  they  have  tried 
to  enfeeble  the  colonies  and  failed.  The  only  period  that  I  can  recollect 
in  which  we  have  meddled  with  the  colonies  is  between  1840  and 
1855 ;  but  then  that  was  done  by  Parliament  to  strengthen  them  by 
giving  them  free  government — as  it  undoubtedly  did — and  few  who 
took  a  share  in  these  proceedings  survive  to  trouble  the  repose  of 
Lord  Beaconsfield,  much  less  to  be  the  objects  struck  at  by  a  general 
Dissolution.  Or  does  he  mean  the  withdrawing  of  the  troops  from 
Canada  and  New  Zealand,  and  his  own  proposed  withdrawal  of  the 
troops  from  the  Cape  at  the  end  of  the  war  ?  But  this  can  hardly  bey 
for  he  might  get  rid  of  his  Colonial  Secretary  by  a  shorter  cut  than  a 
Dissolution  of  Parliament,  and  we  never  heard  of  his  enfeebling  the 
colonies  or  trying  to  do  so.  Perhaps  after  all  it  is  Lord  Grranville 
who  is  denounced,  who  did  with  the  best  effect  remove  the  troops 
from  New  Zealand.  But  then  he  is  a  peer,  and  a  Dissolution  will  not 
relieve  the  Premier  from  his  presence. 

I  now  turn  from  the  Prime  Minister  to  a  theme  which  has  at 
least  all  the  advantage  of  contrast.  The  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer 
is  in  all  respects  a  marked  contrast  to  his  wordy,  Delphic,  and  allitera- 
tive and  bombastic  chief.  He  is  modest  and  humble.  With  a  good  taste 
and  dexterity  with  which  we  are  by  no  means  surfeited  in  the  manifesto 
of  Lord  Beaconsfield,  he  avoids  altogether  the  awkward  topic  of  the 
Dissolution  and  any  mention  of  the  existence  of  a  Government  of 
which  he  has  been  the  leader  in  the  House  of  Commons  during  the 
last  six  years.  All  the  admiration  he  has  to  bestow  he  gives  freely 
and  entirely  to  the  House  of  Commons  itself.  One  would  suppose 
from  reading  his  address  that  the  House  was  everything,  and  the 
Ministry  the  mere  obedient  puppet  of  their  will.  The  address 
consists  of  ten  paragraphs.  Nine  of  these  are  devoted  to  the  history 
of  the  exploits  of  the  Parliament,  and  it  is  only  in  the  tenth  that  we 
learn  that  there  is  such  a  thing  as  a  Ministry  at  all.  This  is  an 
excess  of  modesty  which  provokes  the  censure  which  it  seems  at  first 
sight  calculated  to  avoid.  Everybody  knows  that  it  is  on  the  Ministry 
rather  than  on  the  Parliament  that  the  direction  of  business  rests,  and 
that  when  the  Minister  praises  a  measure  it  is  the  Government  and 
not  the  Parliament  that  he  is  understood  to  commend.  The  artifice 
is  dexterous,  but  it  is  easily  seen  through.  If  the  Parliament  is  to 
have  the  credit  it  must  also  bear  the  blame,  and  thus  by  this  affected 
modesty  and  humility  the  responsibility  which  really  belongs  to  the 
Ministry  is  virtually  evaded.  The  truth  is  that  a  Ministry,  to  form  an 
accurate  estimate  of  its  merits,  must  be  regarded  from  two  different 
points  of  view,  and  be  submitted  to  two  different  tests.  So  far  as  the 
House  is  a  political  body  identified  with  the  Ministry  that  leads  it, 
the  Parliament  must  partake  of  the  good  or  bad  reputation  of  the 
Ministry ;  and  it  is  mere  straw-splitting  to  endeavour  to  make  dis- 


1880.  DOCILITY  OF  AN  'IMPERIAL'  PARLIAMENT.    561 

tinctions  between  them.  We  call  it  a  good  or  bad  House  just  as  its 
conduct  happens  to  agree  or  differ  with  our  notions  of  political  ex- 
pediency or  justice.  Of  that  I  will  speak  presently. 

But  there  is  another  view  that  may  be  taken  of  the  duty  of  Parlia- 
ment, which  is  raised  above  the  considerations  of  party,  and  in  which 
men  differing  most  widely  in  political  opinions  may,  and  often  do, 
cordially  agree.  An  English  Parliament  is,  or  at  any  rate  ought  to  be, 
something  very  different  from  a  mere  assembly  of  eager  partisans.  It 
has  traditions,  duties,  and  obligations  far  wider  and  nobler  than  are 
fulfilled  by  the  support  of  any  party  or  any  Minister.  It  may  be  des- 
cribed, from  one  point  of  view,  as  the  very  embodiment  of  faction, 
but  it  has  a  higher  mission  than  that.  Parties  innumerable  have 
risen,  have  flourished,  and  have  disappeared,  while  Parliament  has 
remained  intact,  because  Parliament  has  on  the  whole  known  how  to 
maintain  its  distinctive  rights  and  privileges  against  all  aggressors, 
be  they  of  what  political  opinion  they  may. 

Let  us  consider  how  far  the  Parliament  which  is  now  drawing  its 
last  breath  has  discharged  the  duty  of  keeping  alive  its  ancient  fame 
and  power.  Most  of  the  nations  of  Europe  had  some  kind  of  Parlia- 
ment, but  the  Parliament  of  England  has  alone  been  able  to  preserve 
its  power  untarnished  and  unbroken.  Why  was  this  ?  It  was  simply 
because,  by  the  happy  constitution  of  England,  the  power  of  the  purse 
was  reserved  to  the  Commons.  The  result  was  that  while  almost  all 
the  other  Parliaments  of  Europe  were  gradually  extinguished  by  the 
hand  of  arbitrary  power  the  Parliament  of  England  grew  and  in- 
creased in  strength.  Others  may  boast  that  they  won  their  freedom 
by  the  sword.  Our  liberties  were  honestly  bought  and  paid  for  in 
current  coin  of  the  realm.  An  ambitious  and  warlike  king,  unable  to 
live  on  the  revenues  of  his  crown,  was  obliged  to  come  for  money  to 
the  Parliament,  and  the  Parliament  granted  him  a  subsidy  in  con- 
sideration of  the  abatement  of  some  particular  grievance,  and  thus  by 
degrees  we  bought  ourselves  free  of  all  our  oppressions.  The 
Commons  still  retain'  the  right  of  the  purse;  no  money  can  be 
granted  without  their  assent,  and  thus  they  have  become  the  prin- 
cipal power  in  the  realm.  The  right  of  refusal  draws  after  it  the 
right  of  being  furnished  with  the  grounds  upon  which  the  money  is 
required,  and  consequently  the  right  of  being  consulted  as  to  the 
policy  for  which  the  money  is  to  be  spent. 

As  it  is  not  a  Ministry  but  a  Legislature  which  we  are  about  to 
elect,  shall  we  elect  a  House  similar  to  that  which  is  about  to  dis- 
appear ?  I  say  without  the  least  hesitation,  No.  We  want  a  Parlia- 
ment which  shall  maintain,  irrespective  of  party  considerations,  its 
dignity,  and  its  power,  a  Parliament  which,  though  composed  of  men 
of  strong  political  views  and  sympathies,  is  capable  of  rising  above 
them  whenever  its  own  rights  and  duties  are  concerned,  a  Parliament 


562  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  April 

in  whose  hands  the  great  landmarks  of  the  Constitution  are  safe  and 
run  no  danger  of  being  obliterated. 

I  claim  for  the»  Commons  of  England  that  they  should  be  some- 
thing more  than  a  party  majority.  The  right  of  refusal  gives  them 
the  right  to  judge  of  the  service  for  which  the  public  money  is  re- 
quired, and  if  they  fail  to  exercise  that  right  they  are  unfaithful  to- 
the  trust  which  the  nation  has  reposed  in  them.  Try  the  present 
House  by  this  test.  They  have  been  content  that  secret  treaties  in- 
volving immense  concessions  to  Eussia,  and  other  treaties  involving 
tremendous  responsibilities  to  be  undertaken  by  England  in  remote 
countries  should  be  concealed  from  them,  and  that  acquisitions  of  ter- 
ritory should  be  taken  by  us  in  exchange,  which,  so  far  from  being  an 
indemnity,  are  a  burden  and  a  disgrace.  They  have  submitted  to- 
Indian  troops  being  brought  into  Europe  in  defiance  of  the  letter 
and  spirit  of  an  Act  of  Parliament  which  it  was  their  duty  to  support  ? 
and  they  have  ratified  the  invasion  of  Afghanistan,  and  tamely  sup- 
plied the  funds  for  an  unjust  war,  about  which  they  were  not  consulted 
till  it  was  actually  declared  after  a  secret  deliberation  of  three 
years. 

These  are  no  party  questions  ;  the  question  is  nothing  less  than 
this: — Are  the  electors  prepared  to  return  Parliaments  which,  instead 
of  sedulously  guarding  their  rights  and  liberties,  deliberately  sacrifice 
them  at  the  shrine  of  party,  and,  sooner  than  concede  any  advantage 
to  their  antagonists,  are  content  to  offer  up  to  the  Moloch  of  narrow 
partisanship  the  honour  and  the  power  which  in  an  evil  hour  ha& 
been  intrusted  to  their  hands. 

What  are  the  merits  of  the  policy  which  the  present  Parliament  has- 
followed  we  will  consider  presently ;  what  we  now  are  concerned  with 
is  the  undoubted  fact  that,  during  the  last  four  years,  Parliament  has 
sunk  from  being  the  most  important  estate  of  the  realm  to  the  de- 
grading position  of  the  tool  of  the  Ministry  of  the  day  ;  that  in 
order  to  serve  that  Ministry  it  has  forgotten  at  once  its  dignity  and 
its  duty ;  that  it  has  descended  from  the  high  position  which  the 
Constitution  allots  to  it  to  be  the  mere  echo  of  decisions  in  which  it 
is  allowed  no  voice,  and  that  while  this  shameful  abdication  of  a  great 
constitutional  mission  has  been  accomplished,  not  a  single  member  of 
the  majority  has  risen  to  remind  his  party  that  while  they  are  think- 
ing of  nothing  but  how  to  support  the  Ministry,  that  very  Ministry 
js  by  every  means  in  its  power  undermining  the  ancient  constitu- 
tion of  England,  and  placing  her  Parliament  under  the  feet  of  what- 
ever faction  may  for  the  time  seize  the  reins  of  power.  While  the  Tory 
majority  have  been  intent  merely  on  the  acquisition  and  retention 
of  power,  it  has  entirely  escaped  their  notice  that  they  owe  allegiance 
to  something  far  above  party,  that  they  may  not  always  be  at 
the  helm,  and  they  have  set  the  example  and  sanctioned  the  prin- 


1880.  DOCILITY  OF  AN  'IMPERIAL*  PARLIAMENT.     563 

ciple  of  ruling  by  tricks,  surprises,  equivocations,  and  concealment, 
and  thus  not  only  outwitting  their  adversaries  but  destroying  the 
very  Parliamentary  machine   by  which  they  work.     To    support  ax 
Government  is  one  thing.     To  allow  it  to  deceive,  to  overreach,  to x 
conceal  important  facts  and  support  it  in  such  conduct,  is  not  only 
ruinous  to_^a  party,  but  lays  the  axe  to  the  very  root  of  the  Con- 
stitution,  the  mutual   confidence  between   the   executive  and   the 
taxing  power. 

So  much  being  premised,  we  are  now  in  a  position  to  estimate  at 
its  due  value  the  unbounded  eulogium  of  Sir  Stafford  Northcote  on  the 
expiring  Parliament.  I  cannot  agree  that  the  age  of  the  Parliament 
is,  as  he  says,  to  be  determined  by  the  magnitude  of  the  issues 
which  it  has  been  called  upon  to  decide,  but  should  rather  suggest 
that  its  age  should  be  decided  by  the  magnitude  of  the  issues  which 
the  Government  has  decided  without  consulting  it  at  all.  That,  indeed,, 
according  to  the  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer's  method  of  mensuration^ 
would  draw  out  its  life  to  a  venerable  antiquity.  I  do  not  deny  thai 
it  might  have  been  all  that  its  panegyrist  says  it  was,  if  the  Govern- 
ment whose  it  was  and  whom  it  served  had  only  given  it  a  chance.. 
But 

Paulum  eepultae  distat  inertias 
Oelata  virtus ; 

and  the  executive  merits  of  the  House  were  certainly  hid  under  a 
bushel.  [The  House,  we  are  next  told,  has  laboured  to  prevent  war, ' 
and  when  that  could  not  be  done,  to  circumscribe  it.  In  what 
hidden  volume  are  these  mysterious  labours  recorded  ?  "Was  it  the 
war  with  Kussia,  which  was  settled  behind  the  back  of  the  House  and 
the  country,  by  secret  and  shameful  negotiation,  which  left  to  Parlia- 
ment nothing  but  to  assume  the  disgrace  of  that  with  which  they 
had  never  been  trusted  or  allowed  to  deal?  or  was  it  the  war  of 
Afghanistan,  which  was  painfully  matured  in  secret  for  three  years, 
and  only  allowed  to  see  the  light  when  every  possibility  of  prevent- 
ing war  had  been  entirely  cut  off  ?. J  Thus  much  may  suffice  as  a 
specimen  of  the  defence  which  the  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer 
has  to  offer  for  what  he  is  pleased  to  call  the  House  of  Commons, 
but  what  is  really  himself  and  his  colleagues.  He  lavishes  praise 
on  the  picture,  but  omits  to  tell  us  that  the  likeness  is  meant  for 
himself. 

All  these  things  seem  to  converge  on  one  point,  on  the  unspeak- 
able importance  of  the  use  that  may  be  made  of  the  next  few  weeks. 
Of  course  it  is  very  easy  to  represent  the  contest  as  a  mere  vulgar 
struggle  for  place  and  power.  In  the  opinion  of  many  persons,  all 
political  struggles  resolve  themselves  into  the  simple  phrase,  ote-toi 
que  je  m'y  mette.  Nothing  is  so  cheap,  nothing  so  easy,  as  to  attribute 


564  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  April 

to  opponents  the  meanest  motives  that  can  possibly  actuate  a  given 
course. 

But  the  demands  of  the  present  occasion  are  such  as  may  well 
make  the  most  frivolous  man  serious  and  the  most  mercenary 
patriotic.  The  country  has  before  it  two  administrations,  each  of 
which  had  and  used  the  opportunity  of  carrying  out  their  respective 
theories  of  government  to  their  full  extent.  Both  doubtless  com- 
mitted many  faults.  There  has  never,  as  far  as  I  am  aware,  been 
charged  against  Mr.  Gladstone  anything  worse  than  an  overstrained 
zeal  for  the  public  service,  and  a  wearisome  activity  which  left  no 
time  for  repose.  Let  us  admit  whatever  can  be  said  against  us  to  the 
full.  Better  and  wiser  men  may  come  in  our  places,  but  if  they  are 
better  and  wiser  we  know  what  will  be  their  rule  of  action,  what 
they  will  be  willing  to  do  and  what  no  consideration  will  induce  them 
to  touch.  We  know  the  lines  on  which  they  will  proceed.  We  are 
sure  that  they  will  not  hold  that  means  are  justified  by  the  end. 
They  will  disdain  all  chicanery  and  equivocation.  They  will  not  attempt 
to  deprive  the  country  or  the  Parliament  of  the  fullest  and  fairest 
information  on  matters  which  it  is  their  right  and  their  duty  to  know. 
On  the  Liberal  side  we  cannot  pretend  to  say  what  amount  of  ability 
may  be  found,  but  at  any  rate  the  public  knows  what  they  have  to 
expect,  and  can  form  by  the  past  some  notion  of  what  the  future 
is  likely  to  be.  There  was  a  time  when  much  of  what  I  am  saying 
now  could  have  been  said  of  the  Tories.  We  might  differ  from 
and  even  ridicule  their  opinions,  but  we  at  any  rate  knew  what 
those  opinions  were.  We  could  not  share  them,  but  we  could 
respect  their  honesty,  and  could  gauge  with  considerable  accuracy 
what  we  had  to  expect  from  them.  We  knew  the  worst  and  could 
bear  it. 

But  I  would  put  it  to  any  reasonable  and  moderate  man,  of 
whatever  politics  he  may  be,  if  he  has  the  slightest  idea  what 
will  be  the  course  of  policy  which  the  present  GTovernment  will 
adopt  if  the  pending  election  shall  confirm  their  hold  on  power. 
What  will  be  their  relations  with  foreign  Powers — we  know  how 
they  treat  them — will  the  crooked  and  tortuous  diplomacy  which 
every  man  of  honour  must  regard  with  shame  be  finally  laid  aside 
and  replaced  by  dealings  of  openness  and  honour?  And,  even  if  it  be, 
is  it  in  the  power  of  the  Minister  to  re-establish  the  confidence  which 
has  been  so  rudely  shaken  ?  Indeed,  to  do  him  justice,  he  is  not  very 
careful  to  answer  us  in  this  matter.  On  Monday  last  he  told  the 
leader  of  the  Opposition  in  the  House  of  Lords  '  that  he  does  not 
understand  what  he  means  by  perpetually  impressing  him  with  the 
necessity  of  publishing  to  the  nation  every  single  thing  connected  with 
our  foreign  affairs,  as  if  he  were  to  take  every  opportunity  of  shifting  and 
shuffling  off  the  responsibility  which  it  is  our  duty  as  Ministers  to 


1880.  DOCILITY  OF  AN 'IMPERIAL'  PARLIAMENT.    565 

encounter.'  The  words  are  worthy  of  the  man,  having  about  them 
a  ring  of  sham  magnanimity.  It  is  very  magnanimous  to  talk  of 
assuming  a  responsibility  of  which  you  cannot  possibly  divest  yourself, 
and  thus  taking  credit  for  what  is  an  inseparable  incident  of  the  posi- 
tion of  a  Minister.  But  the  magnanimous  nature  of  the  declaration 
is  somewhat  tarnished  when  we  remember  that,  by  means  of  this 
assumption  of  a  responsibility  that  is  his  already,  the  Minister  con- 
ceals his  conduct  altogether  from  those  who  are  most  interested  to 
know  what  it  is,  and  takes  the  chance  that,  if  he  can  only  conceal  it 
long  enough,  he  may  evade  the  very  responsibility  which  he  pretends 
to  court.  Is  not  the  inflated  inanity,  the  vague  and  bombastic 
phraseology,  in  which  the  Prime  Minister  has  just  been  indulging 
in  his  pompous  claim  of  ascendancy  in  Europe  at  a  time  when 
he  has  not  added  a  man  to  our  army,  or  a  ship  to  our  fleet,  as 
dangerous  as  it  is  vulgar  and  degrading?  Where  are  the  allies  and 
friends  that  our  spirited  foreign  policy  has  made  for  us  ?  and,  if  we 
had  them,  what  chance  have  we  of  keeping  them  in  face  of  the  insults 
which  our  spirited  Minister  is  never  tired  of  flinging  at  his  equals 
and  inferiors  ?  So  much  for  foreign  policy — let  us  look  for  a  moment 
at  that  very  insignificant  place  called  home. 

Even  as  we  felt  abroad  so  we  feel  here — we  have  taken  an  entirely 
new  departure,  and  our  landmarks  are  gone — we  have  learnt  to  believe 
that  nothing  is  impossible — it  is  not  what  we  have  actually  suffered, 
it  is  the  utter  shipwreck  of  all  confidence,  the  utter  uncertainty  of 
what  may  happen  next,  the  feeling  that  there  is  nothing  which  the 
combined  ignorance,  vanity,  and  audacity  of  one  man  may  not 
attempt  which  hangs  heavily  on  thinking  men.  We  feel  that  we  are 
in  a  new  region  under  new  auspices,  and  we  have  not  learnt  yet  the 
true  nature  of  our  present  situation.  One  thing  we  can  see  clearly, 
and  that  is  that  everything  is  done  which  can  be  done  in  order  to 
stimulate  and  swell  the  vanity  of  the  nation.  The  old  English  simpli- 
city, that  said  less  than  it  meant  and  did  more  than  it  promised,  is  out 
of  fashion,  and  is  replaced,  as  far  as  the  present  Government  can 
influence  it,  by  vulgarity,  pretension,  and  ostentation ;  unless  a 
stop  can  be  put  to  this  grievous  evil,  we  are  assuredly  advancing  on 
the  course  that  leads  to  some  great  calamity.  I  have  pointed  out 
how  the  very  foundation  of  our  Government  is  shaken  by  the  utter 
contempt  with  which  Parliament  is  treated,  and  the  incredible  mean- 
ness with  which  that  treatment  is  submitted  to.  All  these  things 
indicate  a  state  of  transition,  and,  as  far  as  it  is  permitted  to  judge,  a 
transition  directly  downwards.  For  all  this  there  is  but  one  remedy, 
and  that  remedy  is  now  before  us.  We  may,  if  we  will,  get  rid  of  this 
incubus  which  is  degrading  our  character  in  Europe,  demoralising 
our  people  by  teaching  them  to  take  tinsel  for  gold  and  glass  for 
diamonds,  sapping  our  prosperity  by  deranging  our  finances,  laying 


566  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  April 

the  axe  to  the  very  root  of  our  Constitution  by  treating  the  House 
of  Commons  as  no  longer  fit  to  be  trusted  with  affairs  of  State,  and 
only  useful  to  supply  funds  for  purposes  which  superior  persons  have 
devised. 

Let  us  say  with  Henry  the  Fifth — 


I  have  long  dreamed  of  such  a  kind  of  man, 
But,  being  awake,  I  do  despise  my  dream. 


EGBERT  LOWE. 


1880.  567 


THE   COMMON-SENSE   OF  HOME  RULE. 
I.    A  REPLY. 

'  MAT  the  Lord  deliver  us  from  the  Devil,  and  from  metaphors ! ' 
This  pious  aspiration — it  is  Heine's,  if  I  remember  rightly-L-might 
well  be  made  to  include  the  easy  popular  and  misleading  method  of 
political  teaching  by  so-called  '  parallels.'  The  demand  of  a  section 
of  the  people  of  Ireland  for  Home  Rule  has  been  most  confidently  and 
plausibly  supported  by  the  assertion  that  '  federal  institutions '  have 
succeeded  in  the  United  States,  in  the  Dominion  of  Canada,  in  Austria- 
Hungary,  and  in  the  German  Empire.  This  form  of  argument  ap- 
pears in  the  writings  and  speeches  of  Mr.  Butt,  Mr.  Sullivan,  Mr. 
O'Connor  Power,  Mr.  J.  Or.  McCarthy,  and  other  advocates  of  Home 
Rule,  apparently  without  the  slightest  shadow  of  a  suspicion  on  the 
part  of  those  who  employ  it  that  it  is  not  complete  and  conclusive.  I 
do  not  find  that  any  of  the  Home  Rule  apologists  admit  that  the  con- 
ditions under  which  federal  principles  would  have  to  be  applied  to  the 
United  Kingdom  differ  from  those  prevailing  in  the  Austrian  and 
German  Empires,  in  Canada  and  the  United  States.  They  are  not 
even  aware — or,  if  they  are,  they  carefully  conceal  their  knowledge  of 
the  fact — that  the  federal  systems  to  the  success  of  which  they  ap- 
peal have  scarcely  more  resemblance  to  each  other  in  essentials  than 
the  government  of  Napoleon  III.  and  the  government  of  President 
Grevy.  A  palpable  confusion  of  thought,  produced  by  playing  with 
ambiguous  phrases  and  by  inaccurate  references  to  the  misappre- 
hended working  of  political  machinery,  vitiates  the  reasoning  of  the 
Home  Rulers.  Their  <  parallels,'  when  examined,  go  to  pieces.  It 
is  plain  to  all  who  are  acquainted  with  the  facts,  that  any  federal 
relations  which  could  possibly  be  established  between  the  various 
parts  of  the  United  Kingdom  must  be  as  different  from  those  created 
by  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  or  by  the  '  Dualism '  of 
Austria-Hungary  as  each  of  these  systems  is  from  the  other.  It  is 
notorious  that  in  almost  every  federation,  in  the  old  world  or  the  new, 
internal  conflicts  have  arisen  which  it  has  been  often  most  difficult 
to  compose,  and  the  like  of  which,  given  the  historical  and  moral 
conditions  existing  in  Great  Britain  and  Ireland,  could  only  have  been 
ended  by  civil  war.  If  the  advocates  of  Home  Rule  desire  to  obtain 


568  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  April 

a  serious  hearing  for  their  claim,  they  must  face  the  truth,  disen- 
cumber themselves  of  their  worthless  baggage  of  '  parallels,'  and 
recognise  the  fact  that  upon  them  lies  the  burden  of  proof.  When 
they  have  produced  a  scheme  of  federation  which  shall  furnish  even  a 
prima  facie  answer  to  the  objections  urged  against  Home  Eule,  it 
will  be  time  to  ask  Parliament  to  examine  the  question  in  a  practical 
spirit  and  with  an  open  mind.  It  is  puerile  to  contend  that  the 
principle  of  a  federal  system  can  be  discussed  without  reference  to  its 
details.  The  opponents  of  Home  Kule  affirm  that  no  scheme  of 
federation  applicable  to  the  British  Islands  can  be  framed  which 
would  not  involve  disastrous  consequences,  leading  directly  and 
inevitably  to  the  c  dismemberment  of  the  Empire  '  or  an  appeal  to 
the  sword.  Parliament  cannot  be  called  upon  to  waste  the  public 
time,  and  perhaps  to  arouse  misleading  expectations,  by  discussing 
any  proposals  which  do  no  not  at  least  pretend,  with  some  sort  of 
plausibility,  to  avoid  those  ruinous  results. 

In  the  March  number  of  this  Review  an  article  was  published 
from  the  pen  of  my  friend,  Mr.  Justin  McCarthy,  M.P.,  to  which  I 
turned  with  much  interest.  Here,  if  it  were  anywhere  possible, 
I  thought  that  I  should  find  the  demands  of  the  Home  Kule  party 
stated  in  a  form  compelling  thorough  and  serious  examination.  Mr. 
McCarthy  is  not  only  an  accomplished  man  of  letters ;  he  has  a  wide 
and  sound  knowledge  of  politics,  disciplined  by  long  experience  in 
political  discussion  outside  the  House  of  Commons  and  inside  it. 
His  geniality  and  freshness  of  thought  have  won  him  the  liking  of 
all  who  are  acquainted  with  him,  and,  if  he  will  permit  me  to  say  so, 
his  judgment  is  very  highly  valued  by  those  who  know  him  best.  If 
anyone  could  put  the  Home  Rule  case  in  an  attractive  and  effective 
shape,  it  would  be  Mr.  McCarthy.  One  doubt  alone  could  rest  upon 
the  worth  of  his  advocacy.  It  may  well  be  questioned  how  far  Mr. 
McCarthy's  '  sweet  reasonableness '  can  be  held  to  represent  the  spirit 
of  the  anti-English  sentiment  in  Ireland,  as  revealed  during  the 
agrarian  agitation  of  the  autumn.  It  may,  perhaps,  be  said  of  his 

arguments : — 

These  are  the  afterthoughts  that  reason  coins 
To  j  ustify  excess,  and  pay  the  debtj 
Incurred  by  passion's  prodigality.1 

But,  conceding  to  Mr.  McCarthy's  exposition  of  the  Home  Eule 
case  all  the  representative  authority  which  he  could  claim  for  it 
himself,  what  is  its  substance  and  its  worth  ?  I  am  forced  to  say  that 
it  is  a  most  disappointing  production,  though  the  fault  is,  doubtless, 
in  the  case,  not  in  the  advocate.  Nothing  can  be  more  smooth  and 
pleasant  than  the  flow  of  what  is  seemingly  Mr.  McCarthy's  argu- 
ment, addressing  itself  with  easy  confidence  to  the  intelligence  and 
the  fairness  of  Englishmen.  But  when  it  is  examined  it  shows  only 

1  Pfiilijt  ran  Artcveldr,  Part  II.  act  ii.  scene  1. 


1880.         THE  COMMON-SENSE  OF  HOME  RULE.  569 

a  concatenation  of  unproved  assertions,  audacious  inferences,  and 
incorrect  statements  as  to  matters  of  fact.  The  real  difficulties 
which  would  arise  out  of  a  federal  connection  between  Great  Britain 
and  Ireland  are  airily  put  aside  by  Mr.  McCarthy,  are  ingeniously 
evaded,  or  altogether  ignored.  I  propose,  in  the  first  place,  to  offer 
a  few  criticisms  upon  Mr.  McCarthy's  apology  for  Home  Eule  ;  and 
afterwards  to  set  forth  the  objections  to  an  Anglo-Irish  Federation 
which  arise  out  of  those  criticisms  or  upon  points  unnoticed  by  Mr. 
McCarthy.  In  my  judgment  the  Home  Rulers  are  not  entitled  even 
to  a  provisional  hearing  until  they  grapple,  as  they  have  never  yet 
done,  with  the  arguments  on  the  other  side,  and  show  how  it  is 
possible  to  avoid  some  at  least  of  the  mischiefs  which  Home  Rule 
would  apparently  bring  upon  the  people  of  these  kingdoms. 

The  tone  of  Mr.  McCarthy's  article  is  suspiciously  triumphant. 
It  presents  the  Home  Rule  demand  as  absolutely  clear,  simple,  con- 
vincing, almost  self-evident,  to  be  resisted  only  by  sheer  stupidity  or 
rancorous  prejudice.  This  is  a  familiar  artifice  of  forensic  rhetoric. 
An  advocate  pleading  a  doubtful  cause  will  say  :  '  Gentlemen  of  the 
jury,  it  must  be  patent  to  the  meanest  intelligence  that  the  defendant 
meant  this  or  that ; '  *  No  fair-minded  men  can  refuse  to  recognise 
the  incontestable  rights  of  my  client ; '  and  so  on.  Can  Mr. 
McCarthy  really  believe  that  his  case  is  irresistible  ?  If  so,  how 
does  he  account  for  the  fact  that  outside  the  Irish  Home  Rule  party 
there  are  to  be  found  no  adherents  of  the  federal  scheme  in  the  three 
kingdoms  ?  The  whole  body  of  thinking  Englishmen  cannot  be  over- 
ridden by  prejudice,  ignorance,  and  incapacity  to  hear  reason.  I  will 
cite  one  name  which  Mr.  McCarthy,  I  am  sure,  will  admit  is  that  of 
one  not  warped  by  anti-Irish  prejudice  and  not  afraid  of  new  ideas. 
I  cite  Mr.  Mill's  name  as  an  example,  showing  that  intelligent  and  un- 
prejudiced persons  see  enormous — nay,  insuperable — difficulties  where 
Mr.  McCarthy  would  have  us  believe  there  are  none.  '  Any  form  of 
federal  union  between  Great  Britain  and  Ireland,'  says  Mr.  Mill, 
'  would  be  unsatisfactory  while  it  lasted,  and  would  end  either  in 
total  conquest  or  in  complete  separation.'  Of  course  Mr.  Mill's 
authority  does  not  conclude  the  argument,  but  it  warns  us  not  to 
follow  Mr.  McCarthy  in  assuming  that  a  complex  political  problem 
is  as  easily  solved  as  a  sum  in  simple  addition. 

The  title,  no  less  than  the  tone,  of  Mr.  McCarthy's  article  is  mis- 
leading. It  is  '  The  Common-sense  of  Home  Rule,'  whereas  it  might 
with  more  propriety  be  '  The  Common-places  of  Home  Rule.'  The 
following  are  the  main  propositions  upon  which  Mr.  McCarthy's 
appeal  rests.  (1)  That  it  is  unfair  to  condemn  Home  Rule  as  leading 
to  the  dismemberment  of  the  Empire  :  (2)  That  Home  Rule  would 
leave  the  House  of  Commons  '  exactly  as  it  is  ' :  (3)  That  Parliament 
is  overloaded  with  business  more  properly  to  be  dealt  with  by  local 
bodies :  (4)  That  '  the  day  will  come '  when  England  and  Scotland, 


570  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  April 

as  well  as  Ireland,  will  demand  Home  Eule,  and  when  the  colonies 
will  be  represented  in  the  Imperial  Legislature  :  (5)  That  the  ex- 
isting Parliamentary  system  is  an  utter  failure  :  (6)  That  it  is  unjust 
and  mischievous  to  refuse  to  regard  Home  Eule  as  a  question  open 
for  discussion:  (7)  That  since  Irish  and  Scotch  measures  are,  or 
ought  to  be,  practically  settled  by  Irish  and  Scotch  majorities,  the 
debates  on  them  at  Westminster  are  waste  of  time :  (8 )  That  the 
relations  subsisting  between  Great  Britain  and  Ireland  before  the 
Union  were  in  every  way  satisfactory :  (9)  That  the  federal  system 
represents  the  most  advanced  type  of  modern  polity,  and  has  been 
everywhere  successful :  (10)  That  a  Home  Eule  Parliament  in  Ireland 
would  pursue  a  wise,  just,  and  practical  policy.  Into  Mr.  McCarthy's 
closing  remarks  upon  national  sentiment  it  is  unnecessary  to  enter, 
since  he  disclaims  the  intention  of  resting  any  part  of  his  argument 
upon  that  ground.  On  the  propositions  summarised  above  is  founded 
his  contention  that  'Ireland's  demand  is  the  demand  of  common 
sense.' 

1.  Does  Home  Eule  mean,  or  would  it  come  to  mean,  the  'dis- 
memberment of  the  Empire '  ?  Mr.  McCarthy  insists  that  the  phrase 
is  misleading.  Is  the  Empire  dismembered,  he  asks,  when  self- 
government  is  extended  among  our  colonial  fellow-subjects  ?  Was 
the  Empire  dismembered  before  the  Act  of  Union  ?  The  answer  is 
obvious.  No  colony  can  be  compared  with  Ireland ;  the  colonies 
have  never  been  represented,  as  Ireland  has  been,  in  the  Imperial 
Parliament,  and  the  concession  of  self-government  to  any  of  them  is 
merely  an  acknowledgment  that  the  time  has  come  when,  as  adolescent 
communities,  they  may  be  released  from  the  tutelage  of  autocratic 
officialism.  There  is  in  such  case's  no  abandonment  of  a  closer  union 
for  one  more  lax  and  lightly  fitting.  The  separate  existence  of  Ire- 
land before  the  Union  did  not  involve  dismemberment  for  the  same 
reason :  there  was  no  pre-existent  bond  to  be  loosed.  But  if  there 
was  not  dismemberment,  there  were  relations  of  unstable  equilibrium 
between  the  two  countries.  To  go  back  to  those  relations  after 
national  unity  has  been  established  for  eighty  years  would  severely 
strain  the  framework  of  society  and  government,  even  if  it  did  not 
lead,  as  I  believe  it  would,  to  further  disintegrating  processes.  It  is 
hardly  worth  while  disputing  about  words.  Mr.  Shaw,  in  his  address 
to  the  electors  of  Cork  county,  says : — 

The  Primo  Minister,  not  for  the  first  time,  misrepresents  the  general  opinion  of 
the  people  of  Ireland,  as  expressed  by  a  majority  of  her  representatives,  in  favour 
of  self-government  in  domestic  affairs,  as  if  it  meant  the  dismemberment  of  the 
Empire.  Iso  one  knows  better  than  the  Prime  Minister  that  that  is  not  a  true 
statement  of  the  case.  We  mean  l>y  Home  Rule  not  that  the  connection  between  the 
two  countries  should  be  destroyed,  but  that  the  relationship  may  be  placed  on  a  healthy 
and  natural  and  honest  basis ;  and  we  seek  this  object  by  strictly  legal  and  con- 
stitutional means. 


1880.        THE  COMMON-SENSE  OF  HOME  RULE.          571 

This  is  the  kernel  of  the  whole  question.  The  opponents  of  Home 
Eule  contend  that  the  proposed  change  in  the  relations  of  Great 
Britain  and  Ireland  would,  be  neither  healthy,  nor  natural,  nor  honest, 
and  they  believe  that  it  would  end,  whatever  its  promoters  design,  in 
separation  or  civil  war. 

2.  Home  Kule  would  leave  the  Imperial  Parliament  '  exactly  as 
it  is.'  This  statement  is  an  astounding  proof  that  even  the  ablest  of 
the  Home  Eulers  have  not  taken  the  trouble  to  work  out  in  their 
own  minds  the  application  of  their  theory.  If  an  Irish  Parliament 
were  established  bearing  a  federal  relation  to  the  Parliament  at 
Westminster,  the  constitution  of  the  latter  must  be  radically  changed. 
It  would  be  necessary  to  break  with  all  our  Parliamentary  history 
and  traditions,  to  abolish  the  so-called  omnipotence  of  Parliament, 
and  to  define  its  powers  by  one  or  more  '  organic  laws.'  The  charac- 
teristic feature  of  the  British  polity  is  that  it  is  not  '  cabined, 
cribbed,  confined,'  by  any  paper  constitution.  Under  a  federal 
system  we  should  have  one,  or  perhaps  several,  such  constitutions, 
outside  of  the  bounds  of  which  neither  the  Imperial  nor  the  local 
legislatures  could  lawfully  step.  Mr.  McCarthy  may  deem  this  an 
improvement,  but  he  cannot  deny  that  it  would  import  nothing  less 
than  a  revolution  in  our  political  system.  Moreover,  since  the  en- 
actment of  a  law  under  those  conditions  by  either  the  Imperial  or  the 
local  legislature  would  not  be  valid  unless  it  were  in  accordance  with 
the  provisions  of  the  Constitution,  an  independent  and  impartial 
tribunal  must  be  established  to  decide  upon  disputed  questions  of 
(  constitutionality.'  The  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States  and 
the  Bundes-Gericht  of  the  Swiss  Confederation  perform  this  delicate 
work  in  a  fairly  satisfactory  manner,  though,  as  in  the  Dred  Scott 
case,  their  decisions  have  sometimes  provoked  dangerous  popular 
discontent.  The  Imperial  Parliament,  hide-bound  by  a  written 
constitution,  and  subject  to  have  its  acts  reviewed  by  an  external 
tribunal,  would  nevertheless  remain,  Mr.  McCarthy  assures  us,  c  ex- 
actly as  it  is.'  In  a  certain  sense,  perhaps,  it  might  be  said  that 
when  a  man's  head  was  cut  off  his  heart  and  lungs  were  left  in  their 
former  position  ;  but  this  would  hardly  be  '  common  sense.'  If  the 
Home  Rulers  do  not  seriously  contemplate  these  great  changes,  they 
are  bound  to  show  that  federalism  can  be  worked  without  them :  if 
they  do  contemplate  them,  they  ought  not  to  conceal  their  inten- 
tions. No  one  would  infer  from  Mr.  McCarthy's  article  that  he 
was  an  advocate  of  a  written  constitution  and  a  judiciary  with  power 
to  declare  laws  unconstitutional.2 

2  It  is  proper  to  state  that  these  remarks  were  in  print  before  the  appearance  of 
Sir  George  Bowyer's  letter  in  TJie  Times  (March  15th).  The  late  member  for  "VVex- 
ford  says  : — '  A  mature  study  of  the  subject  leads  to  the  conclusion  that  a  Constitu- 
tion of  limited  powers,  like  that  of  the  United  States,  affords  the  only  possible 
solution  of  the  problem  of  Home  Rule.  I  mean  a  constitutional  law  defining  the 
powers  of  the  provincial  and  Imperial  Parliaments,  and  a  supreme  court  to  decide  all 
questions  arising  between  them.' 


572  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  April 

3.  It  may  be  admitted  that  Parliament  is  overburdened  with 
work.  The  proper  remedy  is  not  to  split  Parliament  up  into  smaller 
legislatures,  but  to  transfer  that  which  does  not  necessarily  involve 
legislative  principles  to  non-legislative  bodies.  Questions  involving 
principles,  however  small  and  local  they  may  seem,  ought  to  be  settled 
upon  the  broadest  basis.  Mr.  McCarthy  alludes  to  one  or  two  Irish 
questions,  which  he  takes  as  examples  of  those  which  ought  to  be 
handled  by  an  Irish  Parliament — Sunday  closing  of  public  houses, 
and  outdoor  relief  of  distress.  These  seem  to  me  to  be  eminently 
questions  of  principle,  the  local  application  of  which  cannot  be 
separated  from  the  general  interest.  The  objections  to  determining 
the  nature  of  outdoor  relief  at  Westminster  would  be  just  as  valid  if 
urged  against  the  settlement  of  the  matter  in  Dublin.  The  '  local 
authorities '  would  not  be  the  Home  Rule  Parliament  any  more  than 
the  Imperial  Parliament.  Local  minorities  must  be  protected  against 
local  majorities,  and  a  central  legislature  is  more  likely  to  do  this 
effectively  than  a  provincial  one.  Mr.  McCarthy,  I  fancy,  is  a 
devotee  of '  the  god  Majority '  ;  at  least,  he  would  not  agree  with 
Goethe  that  '  alles  Grosse  und  Gescheite  existirt  in  der  Minoritat.' 3 
But  he  would  probably  allow  that  minorities  have  their  rights, 
and  even  their  uses.  Mr.  McCarthy  introduces  confusion,  it  must  be 
noted,  into  his  complaint  of  an  accumulation  of  Parliamentary  busi- 
ness by  gliding,  without  discrimination,  from  public  measures  to 
private  Bills.  The  latter  do  not  strictly  belong  to  legislation  at  all ; 
and  I  shall  offer  some  remarks  on  them  by-and-by. 

4.  It  is  needless  to  dwell  upon  Mr.  McCarthy's  anticipation  that 
*  the  day  will  come '  when  England  and  Scotland  will  demand  Home 
Rule,  and  the  colonies  Imperial  representation.  Remote  and  im- 
probable contingencies  of  this  sort  afford  no  safe  ground-work  for 
serious  political  discussion.  Should  the  changes  to  which  Mr. 
McCarthy  looks  forward  ever  come  to  pass,  Home  Rule  itself  will 
lose  much  of  its  importance  in  a  wider  revolution.  That  anyone 
should  desire  to  precipitate  a  movement  the  results  of  which  are 
outside  the  sphere  of  rational  calculation  seems  to  me  scarcely 
credible.  We  are  told  that  we  must  not  speak  of  Home  Rule  as 
dismemberment,  yet  in  the  same  breath  we  are  asked  to  hand  over 
the  Empire  as  a  corpus  vile  for  the  most  hazardous  experiments. 
Unfortunately  examples  of  this  sort  of  political  temerity  have  never 
been  very  rare.  '  An  ignorant  man,'  says  Burke,  '  who  is  not  fool 
enough  to  meddle  with  his  clock,  is,  however,  sufficiently  confident 
to  think  he  can  safely  take  to  pieces,  and  put  together  at  his 
pleasure,  a  moral  machine  of  another  guise,  importance,  and  com- 
plexity, composed  of  far  other  wheels  and  springs  and  balances, 
and  counteracting  and  co-operating  powers.' 

3  '  All  greatness  and  good  sense  are  to  be  found  in  the  minority.' — Eckermann, 
Conversations,  &c.,  February  12,  1829. 


1880.        THE  COMMON-SENSE  OF  HOME  RULE.          573 

5.  Of  course,  if  Mr.  McCarthy's  next  proposition  be  admitted — 
namely,  that  Parliamentary  government  in  the  United  Kingdom  has 
utterly  failed — he  cannot  be  censured  for  projecting  even  the  roughest 
and  most  venturesome  experiments.  But  few,  except  those  who  are 
committed  beforehand  to  extreme  measures  of  change,  will  accept  Mr. 
McCarthy's  account  of  the  matter  as  adequate.  Whatever  shortcomings 
our  Parliamentary  system  may  show,  however  legislation  may  be  some- 
times delayed  and  time  wasted,  it  is  still  the  most  vigorous,  efficient, 
honoured,  and  powerful  of  representative  governments.  No  carping 
criticism  can  alter  this  truth.  The  House  of  Commons,  with  all  its 
faults,  stands  on  higher  ground  than  any  other  legislative  assembly 
in  the  world.  Neither  the  Congress  at  Washington,  nor  the  Cham- 
ber of  Deputies  at  Paris,  nor  the  Reichstag  at  Berlin,  not  to  mention 
less  important  bodies,  would  be  placed  upon  a  level  with  it  by  any 
unprejudiced  political  disputant.  Yet  Mr.  McCarthy  tells  us  it  has 
*  utterly  broken  down ' ;  in  his  eyes  all  that  it  does  or  tries  to  do  ends 
in  culpable,  scandalous,  irremediable  failure.  This  jaundiced  view 
may  be  left  to  correct  itself.  '  I  will  only  observe  that  the  last  thing 
of  which  many  of  us  are  inclined  to  complain  is  that  there  is  too 
little  legislation  under  our  existing  Parliamentary  system.  Some 
might  rather  be  tempted  to  say,  Ut  olim  flagitiis,  sic  nunc  legibus 
Idboramus. 

6.  It  is  said  that  to  refuse  to  deal  with  the  Home  Eule  claim  as 
not  open  for  discussion  is  *  fatal '  and  '  fatuous.'  Mr.  McCarthy 
knows  very  well  that  many  questions  as  important  as  Home  Rule  are 
placed  by  the  common  consent  of  all  practical  men  outside  the  pale 
of  Parliamentary  controversy.  There  are  some  politicians  who  con- 
sider that  the  monarchical  constitution  of  the  country  might  be 
changed  with  advantage ;  there  are  more  than  might  be  suspected 
who  think  it  would  be  expedient  to  relieve  the  overburdened  taxpayers 
by  wiping  out  the  national  debt;  there  are  quite  a  considerable 
number  who  are  eager  to  establish  some  sort  of  inconvertible  paper 
currency;  I  fear  there  are  even  a  larger  body  who  would  gladly 
exclude  foreign  rivalry  in  manufacturing  and  agricultural  production 
by  prohibitory  duties.  But  Parliament  rightly  refuses  to  waste 
its  time  in  debating  issues  settled  long  ago.  No  statesman  has  de- 
clared that  the  Home  Rule  controversy  must  not  be  opened  in  Parlia- 
ment in  language  more  decided  than  that  which  Lord  Beaconsfield 
used  when  replying  last  year  to  the  attacks  of  Lord  Bateman  and  the 
Duke  of  Rutland  upon  free  trade.  I  am  sure  Mr.  McCarthy  would  be 
the  first  to  condemn  the  Government  if  they  yielded  to  a  demand  for 
inquiry  into  the  expediency  of  re-establishing  protection.  The  Home 
Rule  demand  is  subject  to  the  same  disability.  The  arguments 
against  conceding  a  separate  legislature  to  Ireland  have  never 
been  met.  I  have  summarised  them  further  on,  and  if  it  is  alleged 
that  they  have  been  already  answered,  I  must  be  allowed  to  ask  for 
VOL.  VIL— No.  38.  Q  Q 


574  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  April 

4  chapter  and  verse.'     Certain  it  is  that  no  such  answer  is  to  be  found 
in  Mr.  McCarthy's  '  Common-sense  of  Home  Eule.' 

7.  It  is  said  that  the  formal  discussion  at  Westminster  of  mea- 
sures which  are,  or  ought  to  be,  settled  by  the  Irish  or  the  Scotch 
representatives  involves  useless  waste  of  time.     A  distinction  must 
be  made  between  the  principle  and  the  details  of  such  measures* 
The  former  ought  to  be  watched  by  Parliament  as  a  whole,  since  evea 
a  Sunday  Closing  Bill  or  a  Seed  Potatoes  Bill  may  establish  prece- 
dents of  extreme  gravity.     Details  may  be  left,  and  are  generally 
left,  to  members  immediately  interested. 

8.  Mr.  McCarthy  asserts  that  the  legislative  independence  of 
Ireland  before  the  Union  involved  no  dangers  or  difficulties.     The 
Irish  Parliament,  he  says,  was  loyal,  peaceable,  orderly;  the  rebellion 
of  1798  was  due  to  the  'infatuation  '  of  the  English  Government  in 
refusing  Catholic  emancipation.4    These  statements  show  a  curiously 
confused  and  inexact  conception  of  the  condition  of  Ireland  at  the 
close  of  the  last   century.      A   Eoman    Catholic  writer  cf  strong 
national  opinions  says  of  the  protests,  of  the  Catholic  delegates  in 
1792:  'They  were  introduced  to  George  III.  by  Edmund  Burke. 
His  Majesty  sent  a  message  to  the  Irish  Parliament,  requesting  them 
to  remove  some  of  the  disabilities,  but  the  Parliament  treated  the 
message  with  contempt.'     Such  liberal  concessions  as  were  granted 
at  that  time  were  due — so  Grattan  acknowledged  in  1805 — to  the 
wise  policy  of  Pitt,  which  was  fatally  thwarted  by  adverse  influences 
in  Dublin.     The  legislative  independence  of  Ireland,  such  as  it  was, 
lasted  only  for  eighteen  years;  in   1782  the  menace  of  civil  war 
forced  the  English  Parliament  to  repeal  Poynings'  Law  and  the  Act 
of  George  I.  '  for  the  better  securing  the  dependency  of  Ireland  on  the 
Crown  of  Great  Britain.'   Previously,  it  is  plain,  the  Irish  Parliament 
could  do  little  harm  because  of  its  utter  insignificance.     Afterwards 
it  came  near  enough  to  a  conflict  with  England  upon  Pitt's  commer- 
cial measures  in  1785,  and  upon  the  question  of  the  regency  in  1788. 
If  it  had  not  been  for  the  recovery  of  the  king,  the  Eegent's  power  in 
Ireland  would  have  differed  in  the  most  important  points  from  his  power 
in  England.     Even  foreign  complications  were  not  wanting ;  Ireland 
barely  escaped  engaging  in  a  war  on  her  own  account  with  Portugal. 
The  alleged  material  prosperity  of  the  country  after  1782  was  pro- 
duced by  lavish  bounties  which  pampered  industries  under  unhealthy 
conditions,  quickened  the  growth  of  population,  and  paved  the  way 
for  an  inevitable  and  ruinous  reaction.     Mr.  McCarthy  resents  the 
prevalent    opinion    that    the    members    of    the    Irish    Parliament 

4  Mr.  McCarthy  adds  :  '  Repeal  of  the  Union  would  leave  the  Irish  people  in  a  vcrv 
peculiar  position.  It  would  put  them  in  possession  of  a  Parliament  in  which  no 
Catholic  could  sit,  and  for  the  election  of  a  member  to  which  no  Catholic  could  vote.1  -In 
point  of  fact  the  Boman  Catholics  of  Ireland  had  been  admitted  to  the  elective- 
franchise  several  years  before  the  Union  (Irish  Statutes,  33  Geo.  III.  c.  21). 


1880.  THE  COMMON-SENSE  OF  HOME  RULE.        575 

quarrelled  among  themselves;  for  evidence  on  this  point  lie  may 
consult  Sir  Jonah  Barrington's  Memoirs,  passim.  But,  he  asks,  was 
not  that  Parliament,  with  all  its  faults,  loyal  and  even  Conservative  ? 
If  it  was  so,  it  was  by  the  operation  of  influences  and  conditions  which 
cannot  be  reproduced.  The  Irish  Grovernment  was  a  permanent  link 
of  connection  between  the  two  countries ;  it  was  not  dependent  on  a 
Parliamentary  majority ;  indeed,  it  may  be  said  the  majority  in 
Parliament  was  generally  dependent  on  the  Government.  Half  the 
members  occupied  *  proprietary  seats.'  In  1784>,  the  Grovernment 
commanded,  for  certain  *  considerations,'  eighty-six  votes  of  this  class, 
twelve  votes  of  their  own,  forty-five  of  various  placemen,  and  thirty- 
two  of  politicians  with  '  expectations.' 5  Patronage  and  other  induce- 
ments were  habitually  and  freely  used.  The  House  of  Commons  was 
wholly  Protestant,  and  for  the  most  part  identified  with  Protestant 
ascendancy  and  the  landed  interest.  Lord  Charlemont,  the  chief  of 
'  the  volunteers  of  '82,'  who  is  reckoned  an  eminent  patriot,  was  opposed 
to  Catholic  Emancipation.  Those  who  were  not  horribly  afraid  of  the 
Catholic  masses  were  appalled  by  the  importation  of  French  revolu- 
tionary ideas.  It  is  difficult  to  see  how,  in  such  circumstances,  the 
Irish  House  of  Commons  could  have  been  other  than  '  loyal '  and 
'  conservative,'  according  to  its  lights,  which,  however,  did  not  pre- 
vent it  from  doing  much  mischief. 

9.  The  assumption  that  a  federal  system  of  government  repre- 
sents the  most  advanced  form  of  polity,  vindicated  by  universal  suc- 
cess, is  entirely  unfounded.  In  almost  every  case  the  adoption  and 
the  development  of  federal  institutions  have  tended  to  draw  the 
confederated  communities  closer  together,  not,  as  in  the  proposed 
modification  of  the  Union  of  these  kingdoms,  to  relax  a  pre-existing 
bond.  The  Constitution  of  the  United  States  was  substituted  for  the 
articles  of  confederation,  and  it  was  because  the  original  colonies, 
distinct  in  origin,  and  already  recognised  as  sovereign  States,  wen- 
unwilling  wholly  to  part  with  their  separate  existence,  that  the  doc- 
trine of  State  rights  was  left  to  trouble  the  Union  for  three  genera- 
tions, and  received  its  coup  de  grace — if,  indeed,  it  do  not  still  remain 
a  potential  cause  of  disturbance — in  the  greatest  of  modern  wars.  In 
Switzerland  the  loose  confederation  established  by  the  Congress  of 
Vienna  led  to  perpetual  conflicts,  ending  in  the  war  of  the  Sonderbund 
and  the  victory  of  the  centralising  party.  The  Staatenbund  (confede- 
racy of  States)  was  transformed  into  a  Bundesstaat  (federal  State)  in 
1848,  and  the  new  constitution  of  1874  has  gone  still  further  in  the 
direction  of  centralisation.  The  same  tendency  appears  in  our 
colonies.  The  foundation  of  the  Dominion  brought  the  previouslv- 
independent  Governments  of  Nova  Scotia,  New  Brunswick,  and  the 
rest  under  the  same  Central  Parliament  as  the  Canadas.  An  attempt 
is  now  being  made  to  draw  together  in  the  same  way  the  dis- 
5  Massey's  History  of  Knt/land,  vol.  iii.  p.  26 1. 
QQ  2 


576  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  April 

connected  colonies  of  South  Africa.  But  these  experiments,  what- 
ever their  value  may  be,  are  all  in  the  direction  of  consolidation,  not 
of  disintegration.  In  a  country  where  only  saddle-horses  and  pack- 
horses  had  been  known,  the  introduction  of  carts  and  carriages  would 
be  a  great  step  in  advance  ;  but  when  once  railways  have  been  brought 
into  use  it  would  be  childish  to  propose  to  go  back  to  the  mail-coach 
and  the  wagon.  The  peculiar  dangers  of  any  federal  relation  must  be 
borne  in  mind.  In  the  United  States  and  in  Switzerland  the  resolu- 
tion of  a  minority,  with  a  distinct  political  existence,  not  to  submit  to 
the  predominance  of  a  majority  in  the  federation,  had  to  be  over- 
come by  the  sword.  Under  these  and  other  federal  governments — as 
in  Canada  lately,  in  the  case  of  Lieutenant-Governor  Letellier  de  St. 
Just — there  have  been  frequent  conflicts  between  the  different  powers 
in  the  State.  A  struggle  of  this  kind  between  the  Imperial  and  the 
Irish  Governments  would  probably  terminate  in  an  appeal  to  force. 
Hitherto,  whatever  may  be  charged  against  the  Union,  it  must  be 
admitted  that  it  has  prevented  Irish  disaffection  from  blazing  out  in 
civil  war.  The  wretched  risings  of  1848  and  1867,  which  were 
crushed  by  a  handful  of  police-constables  at  Ballingarry  and  Tallaght, 
cannot  be  dignified  with  that  terrible  name.  They  cannot  be  com- 
pared with  the  ordeal  through  which  Switzerland  passed  in  1847 
and  the  United  States  in  1860-65.6 

10.  Mr.  McCarthy  is  at  some  pains  to  convince  us  that  a  Home 
Kule  Parliament  would  pursue  a  wise,  just,  and  practical  policy.  To 
this  it  may  be  answered  that  Mr.  McCarthy  can  in  no  way  vouch  for 
what  an  Irish  Parliament  may  choose  to  do  if  it  should  ever  get  the  bit 
between  its  teeth.  There  are  many  Home  Rule  members — Mr.  Shaw, 
Mr.  Mitchell  Henry,  Mr.  McCarthy  himself — who  talk  mildly,  and 
would  perhaps  act  moderately,  if  they  had  their  own  way.  But  can 
anyone  be  certain  that  these  gentlemen  would  have  power,  would  even 
have  seats,  in  an  Irish  Parliament  two  or  three  years  hence  ?  Could 
anyone,  when  Mr.  Butt  first  brought  the  Home  Rule  demand  before 
the  House  of  Commons,  have  predicted  the  achievements  of  Mr. 
Parnell,  Mr.  Biggar,  Mr.  O'Donnell,  and  their  associates  in  public  life  ? 

6  I  have  not  referred  above  to  the  cases  of  Austria  and  Germany.  A  glance  at  the 
constitution  of  either  empire  will  suffice  to  convince  any  Home  Ruler  that  it  would  be 
impossible  to  put  Ireland  in  the  position  of  Hungary,  still  less  in  that  of  Bavaria. 
The  smaller  German  kingdoms  and  principalities — Bavaria,  Wiirtemberg,  &c. — have 
their  separate  dynasties  and  institutions,  which  Ireland  cannot  have  unless  we  make 
the  current  of  history  flow  backward.  The  Dualist  Constitution  of  Austria-Hungary 
is  founded  upon  the  principle  of  exact  and  acknowledged  equality  between  the 
Cisleithan  and  Transleithan  kingdoms.  The  '  Common  affairs  '  (Gemeinsame  Angele- 
genheiten)  of  the  Empire  are  those  only  which  arise  out  of  military,  naval,  or  diplo- 
matic transactions.  These  are  dealt  writh  by  the  '  Delegations  '  (sixty  members  from 
Austria  and  sixty  from  Hungary,  the  Upper  House  in  each  kingdom  choosing  one- 
third  and  the  Lower  House  two-thirds)  ;  the  Austrian  delegates  sit  in  one  chamber 
and  the  Hungarian  delegates  in  another,  for  the  consideration  of  '  Common  affairs  '  as 
aforesaid.  It  is  only  when  there  is  a  disagreement  upon  any  practical  issue  that  they 
assemble  in  one  body  and  come  to  a  final  vote,  without  debate. 


1880.         THE  COMMON-SENSE  OF  HOME  RULE.  577 

The  obstructionist  campaign  was  not  more  a  surprise  to  moderate 
men  than  was  the  anti-rent  agitation  of  the  autumn.  It  is,  unfortu- 
nately, too  evident  that  in  Irish  politics  moderation  is  always  dis- 
tanced hy  violence.  The  danger  that  this  would  happen,  when  the 
restraint  of  having  to  defend  extreme  measures  before  an  assembly 
responsible  to  English  and  Scottish  as  well  as  Irish  opinion  was 
removed,  would  not  be  lessened  by  the  lowering  of  the  franchise  in 
Ireland.  The  extreme  measures  which  would  probably  find  favour 
with  an  Irish  Parliament  can  only  be  conjectured.  It  is  not,  however, 
unfair  to  suppose  that,  the  power  of  taxation  being  wholly  under  the 
control  of  a  House  of  Commons  elected  by  the  Eoman  Catholic  majority, 
the  Church  of  Eome  would  be  substantially,  if  not  formally,  endowed, 
and  that  a  system  of  denominational  education — primary,  secondary, 
and  academic — directed  chiefly  by  the  monastic  orders,  would  be  estab- 
lished in  Ireland.  These  things  would  certainly  be  done  if  Ireland 
were  independent;  for  among  the  Irish  Eoman  Catholics  there  is 
nothing  resembling  the  spirit  of  French  or  Belgian  Liberalism.  The 
majority  of  the  electors  being  connected  with  agriculture,  measures  of 
sweeping  agrarian  reform  would  certainly  be  introduced.  The  landlords 
would  for  the  most  part  be  expropriated  or  forced  to  sell  their  estates 
by  indirect  pressure,  such  as  exceptional  taxation  ;  the  tenant  farmers 
would  obtain  fixity  of  tenure,  either  with  '  fair  rents '  and  '  free  sale,'  or 
as  owners  subject  to  a  state  mortgage.  Public  works  would  be  insti- 
tuted upon  a  large  scale  at  the  expense  of  Government — that  is,  of  the 
taxpayers  of  the  upper  classes,  on  whom  these  and  other  such  charges 
would  be  made  to  fall.  Manufactures  would  be  '  fostered '  by  bounties 
and  protective  duties,  for  nine  out  of  ten  Irishmen  are  Protectionists 
at  heart.  Agriculture  would  in  its  turn  demand  protection  against 
foreign  grain  and  foreign  meat.  It  is  likely  that  there  would  even  be 
an  attempt  to  enact  a  navigation  law  for  the  development  of  shipping 
and  shipbuilding  in  Irish  ports.  The  criminal  law  and  the  civil  law 
would  be  modified  in  many  parts,  and  Ireland  would  thus  be  made  to 
diverge  from  England  in  the  non-political  relations.  The  relief  of 
the  poor  and  the  administration  of  justice  would  be  '  popularised.' 
Patronage  would  be  created  wholesale,  and  offices  would  be  held  '  at 
pleasure.'  The  constabulary  would,  doubtless,  be  maintained  as  a 
semi-military  force,  which,  on  occasion,  could  be  employed  as  a 
national  army. 

All  these  changes  could,  beyond  question,  be  carried  out  by  an 
Irish  Parliament,  and  I  leave  it  to  those  who  know  Ireland  well  to 
say  whether  it  is  not  almost  certain  that  they  would,  at  least,  be 
attempted.  Every  one  of  them  would  widen  the  breach  between  Great 
Britain  and  Ireland,  would  engender  bitter  feelings,  and,  sooner  or 
later,  would  provoke  interference.  It  is  needless  to  point  out  how 
closely  interwoven  are  the  interests  of  this  country  and  the  sister 
island.  Not  alone  are  the  owners  of  land  in  Ireland  connected  by 


578  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  April 

many  ties  with  England  and  Scotland,  but  English  capital  is  largely 
invested  upon  Irish  mortgages,  in  Irish  railways  and  other  companies, 
and  in  the  interchange  of  trade.  England  could  not  look  with  in- 
difference on  confiscations,  crushing  imposts,  and  Protectionist  mea- 
sures enforced  by  an  Irish  Parliament.  It  may  be  said  that  in  the 
proposed  Federal  Constitution  provisions  might  be  inserted  guarding 
against  the  most  flagrant  invasions  of  proprietary  and  other  rights. 
But  should  a  later  Irish  Legislature  decline,  as  it  would,  to  be  bound 
by  such  stipulations,  what  remedy  could  be  applied  ?  The  Imperial 
Parliament  would  have  no  means  of  compelling  Ireland  to  keep  the 
terms  of  the  federal  compact,  except  by  levying  war,  as  the  Govern- 
ment at  Washington  was  forced  to  levy  war  against  South  Carolina 
and  the  rest  of  the  Southern  States.  It  may  be  presumed  that  the 
dominant  party  in  Dublin  would  choose  a  time  when  it  might  be 
difficult  for  the  Imperial  Government  to  assert  its  authority,  as  during 
.-a  crisis  in  Europe  or  an  actual  conflict.  One  instance  of  such  a  com- 
iplication  and  probable  conflict  will  be  enough.  I  do  not  find  in  Mr. 
McCarthy's  article  any  statement  of  the  financial  relations  of  Ireland 
.to  the  Imperial  Parliament  under  a  federal  system.  The  original 
scheme,  however,  as  adopted  in  Dublin  ten  years  ago,  embodied  the 
following  resolution : — 

To  secure  for  that  Parliament  [of  Ireland],  under  a  federal  arrangement,  the 
right  of  legislating  for  and  regulating  all  matters  relating  to  the  internal  affairs  of 
Ireland,  and  control  over  Irish  resources  and  revenues,  subject  to  the  obligation  of 
/contributing  our  just  proportion  of  the  Imperial  expenditure, 

Thus   the   Irish   Parliament   would    not   only   have   the   power   of 
carrying  out  its  own  fiscal  policy, — which  would  probably  be  mis- 
chievous, and  would   almost  certainly  be   divergent   from   that  of 
England, — but  would  have  no  other  obligation  towards  the  Empire 
than  the  payment  of  a  stipulated  sum  as  a  contribution  for  Imperial 
•objects.     Is  it  unlikely  that,  perhaps  in  a  year  of  distress,  a  cry 
xvould  be  raised  against  this  contribution,  and  that  the  drama  of  the 
^anti-rent  agitation  would  be  enacted  once  more  on  a  wider  scene  ? 
The  relation  of  Ireland  to  the  Imperial  Government  would  closely 
resemble  that  of  a  tenant  to  his  landlord,  and  no  constitutional  pact 
could  be  regarded  as  more  binding  between  nation  and  nation  than 
is  the  unconditional  promise  to  pay  a  fixed  rent  between  man  and 
man.    A  refusal  to  pay  on  the  part  of  Ireland  would  place  the  Imperial 
Government  in  a  dilemma.     If  the  demand  for  an  abatement  were 
once  admitted,  the  full  sum,  on  one  or  another  pretext,  would  never 
again  be  paid.    If  it  were  resisted,  the  money  would  have  to  be  levied 
by  force,  which  would  be  met  by  force. 

I  will  now  enumerate  the  objections  to  the  Home  Rule  proposal 
which  have  been  suggested,  directly  or  indirectly,  by  Mr.  McCarthy's 
argument  in  its  favour. 


1880.         THE  COMMON-SENSE  OF  HOME  RULE.         579 

1.  It  would  be,  in  a  very  grave  sense,  a  revolutionary  measure, 
involving  (a)  the  abrogation  of  our  unwritten  constitution,  and  the 
acceptance  in  its  stead  of  a  charter,  strictly  limiting  the  powers  of 
the  Imperial  Parliament  on  the  one  hand  and  the  Irish  Legislature 
on  the  other ;  and,  as  a  necessary  consequence,  (6)  the  establishment 
of  an  independent  tribunal  to  pronounce  upon  the  constitutional 
character  of  statutes,  and  to  confine  both  federal  and  local  assemblies 
to  their  respective  spheres.7 

2.  An  Irish  Parliament  would  widen  the  breach  between  Great 
Britain  and  Ireland  by  pursuing  a  divergent  course  on  many  most 
important  questions,  some  of  which  would  lead  to  recrimination  and 
•collision.     These  are :  (a)  the  endowment  of  the  Eoman  Catholic 
Church ; 8   (6)  the   establishment  of  an  educational   system   under 
priestly  control ;    (c)  the  unsettlement  of  land  tenure  and  landed 
property  in  Ireland  and  of  the  interests  connected  therewith  ;  (d)  the 
alteration  of  the  general  law  of  contracts ;  (e)  of  marriage  and  divorce ; 
{/)  the  introduction  of  changes  in  the  criminal    law;    (g)  in  the 
poor  relief  system ;  (A)  in  the  administration  of  justice ;  (•&)  in  the 
•character   and   management   of  the   police   force.     Many   of  these 
questions  may  be  dealt  with,  to  public  advantage,  in  a  reforming 
spirit ;  but  if  they  are  dealt  with  in  the  spirit  which  the  '  active 
party '  among  Irish  politicians  have  shown,  it  is  clear  that  Ireland 
will  be  drawn  forcibly  away  from  England  and  placed  in  conspicuous 
iind  provocative  opposition  to  English  ideas  and  institutions. 

3.  The  financial  policy  of  an  Irish   Parliament   would   include 
«(a)  unequal  taxation  of  landed  proprietors,  railway  stock  holders  and 
other  capitalists ;  (6)  an  outlay,  mainly  from  the  above  source,  on  the 
artificial  production  of  peasant  proprietors   and  the  compulsory  ex- 
propriation of  landlords  ;  (c)  a  similar  outlay  on  bounties  for  the  en- 
couragement  of  different  industries ;    (d)   the  protection-  of  Irish 
manufactures  by  prohibitory  duties  ;  (e)  the  like  protection  for  the 
farmers,  in  respect  of  corn,  cattle,  butter,  &c. ;  (/)  the  enactment  of 
a  navigation  law  for  the  development  of  the  shipping  interest ;  ((7) 
the  '  development  of  the  resources '  of  Ireland  by  a  system  of  public 

7  Yet  the  third  resolution  passed  by  the  Home  Eule  conference  of  1 873  asserts  : 
<  that  such  a  (federal)  arrangement  does  not  involve  any  change  in  the  existing  con- 
stitution of  the  Imperial  Parliament,  or  any  interference  with  the  prerogatives  of  the 
Crown  or  disturbance  of  the  principles  of  the  constitution.' 

8  Mr.  McCarthy  ingenuously  asks  how  it  can  be  supposed  that  a  Home  Eule  Parlia- 
ment in  Ireland  would  run  counter  to  Irish  Protestant  feeling,  when  several  Home 
Ptule  politicians — Mr.  Shaw,  Mr.  Parnell,  and  others — are  Protestants.     Anyone  who 
knows  what  Irish  Protestant  feeling  is  will  recognise  the  irrelevancy  of  this  argument, 
which,  however,  cannot  be  discussed — for  obvious   reasons.     I  can  only  say  that 
politicians  have  to  bow  outwardly  to  influences  against  which  inforo  conscienticB  they 
revolt.     I  have  heard  lately  of  an  illustrious  pillar  of  the  United  Kingdom  Alliance 
whose  supporters  kept  open  a  host  of  public-houses  during  a  contested  election  in  an 
Irish  borough.     Yet  the  triumphant  candidate  whose  victory  was  thus  compassed 
was,  I  have  no  doubt,  at  heart  as  ardent  in  his  '  Abstinence  '  principles  as  Mr.  Shaw  or 
Mr.  Mitchell  in  their  Protestantism. 


580  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  April 

works  undertaken  at  the  cost  of  the  State,  and  the  practical  adoption 
of  the  droit  de  travail. 

4.  Under  the  two  previous  heads  I  have  set  down  the  probable 
course  of  independent  Irish  legislation,  and  impartial  persons  must 
decide  whether  that  policy,  or  a  policy  of  wisdom,  justice,  and  sound 
economy,  is  likely  to  be  pursued.     But  should  even  a  few  of  the  errors 
which  seem  probable  be  committed  by  the  Irish   Government,  a  con- 
troversy with  the  Imperial  power  could  scarcely  be  avoided.     English 
opinion  would  be  violently  stirred  by  the  complaint  of  the  Saxon  and 
Protestant  population  of  Ireland,  were  the  latter  to  be  heavily  taxed 
for  the  support  of  Koman  Catholicism  or  to  be  deprived  of  their  pro- 
prietary rights.     The  adoption  of  a  close  protective  system  in  Ireland 
would  be  not  more  endurable.     But  the  point  upon  which  a  conflict 
would  be  most  likely  to  arise  is  the  payment  of  the  stipulated  con- 
tribution for   Imperial   purposes.     It  is  also    to   be   observed    that 
Irish  popular  feeling  might  insist  upon  defying  the  decisions  of  the 
Supreme  Court  or  the  demands  of  the  Imperial  Parliament  in  a  ques- 
tion of  foreign  policy.     The  objection  I  urge  is  that  occasions  of  strife 
would  be  inevitable. 

5.  Moreover,  Ireland,  in  the  event  of  a  quarrel,  would  be  induced 
to  hold  her  ground  by  the  fact  that  she  would  possess  the  machinery 
of  Government  and  the  sinews  of  war.    At  present  an  Irish  insurrection 
is  not  only  hopeless,  but  is  recognised  as  hopeless  by  Irishmen.     It 
might  be  otherwise  if  there  were  a  Legislature,  an  Executive  Grovern- 
ment, and  a  State  Treasury  in  Dublin,  and  if  a  majority  of  Irish 
Nationalists  commanded  the  financial  resources  of  the  country,  and 
possessed  in  the  constabulary  something  not  unlike  an  army.     It  may 
be  added  that  a  Home  Eule  Legislature  would  at  once  enrol  and 
arm  the  peasantry  under  the  name  of  volunteers.     Everything  points 
to  the  probability  that  the  first  serious  controversy  would  end  in  civil 
war.     As  certainly  civil  war  would  end  in  the  reconquest  of  Ireland. 

6.  Even  should  it  be  possible  to  escape  this  desperate  conclusion, 
the  working  of  Parliamentary  government  in  Ireland  would,  it  may 
be  feared,  be  deplorable.     It  is  difficult  enough  at  present  to  find  one 
hundred  men  of  character  and  capacity  to  represent  Irish  constituencies 
at  St.  Stephen's.     Where  could  thrice  as  many  more  be  found  to  sit  in 
the  Parliament  on  College  Green  ?     This  difficulty  presents  itself 
wherever,  as  in  the  United  States  and  Canada,  local  and  federal 
legislatures  exist  side  by  side.     The  ablest  Irish  politicians,  such  as 
my  friend  Mr.  McCarthy,  not  being  able,  as  Sir  Boyle  Koche  said, 
to  be  '  in  two  places  at  once,  like  a  bird,'  would  probably  elect  to 
remain   members   of  the  Imperial   Legislature.      The  Home  Eule 
Assembly  would  be  left  to  men  of  an  inferior  order,  with  less  culture 
and  intelligence,  less  self-respect,  honour,  and  even  honesty.      It 
would,  perhaps,  be  found  ere  long  that  Ireland  under  Home  Eule 
was  worthy  to  be  matched  with  Xew  York  when  Tweed  was  the 


1880.         THE  COMMON-SENSE  OF  HOME  RULE.          581 

autocrat  of  the  '  Empire  City,'  and  was  kept  in  power  for  years  by  the 
votes  of  Irishmen. 

In  these  conclusions — some  certain,  some  overwhelmingly  probable 
— there  is,  it  seems  to  me,  a  case  against  Home  Rule  which  cannot  be 
easily  met,  and  which,  so  far  as  I  am  aware,  has  not  been  hitherto  met 
at  all.  Lord  Hartington's  avowed  determination  to  oppose  not  only 
4  any  concession,'  but  '  any  appearance  of  a  concession,'  to  the  Home 
Rule  demand,  is  amply  justified  by  the  vague  generalities  or  the  ominous 
silence  of  the  Home  Rulers.  The  true  policy  of  the  Liberal  party — 
nay,  of  the  whole  nation — could  not  be  more  admirably  defined  than 
in  Lord  Hartington's  address  to  the  electors  of  North-East  Lancashire. 
While  the  claim  for  the  legislative  independence  of  Ireland  must  be 
rejected,  it  is  imperative  to  show  that,  within  the  lines  of  the  Con- 
stitution, Irishmen  may  insist  upon  obtaining  complete  political  and 
social  equality.  But  Liberal  statesmanship  might  go  beyond  this, 
and  prove  the  sincerity  of  its  repudiation  of  Home  Rule  by  annihilat- 
ing the  only  effective  argument  of  the  Home  Rulers.  It  is  true  that 
Parliament  is  overburdened  with  work,  and  it  is  as  ridiculous  as  it  is 
tine  that  a  large  part  of  the  business  thus  thrown  upon  the  most 
important  legislative  body  in  the  world  is  not  legislative  work  at  all. 
Mr.  McCarthy  alludes  to  private  Bills  as  exhausting  the  energies 
of  Parliament,  but  he  confounds  this  complaint  with  one  wholly  dif- 
ferent concerning  public  business  of  the  strictly  legislative  sort. 
The  private  business  which  comes  before  Parliament  is  no  more 
proper  for  a  Legislature  to  deal  with  than  the  business  of  the  Metro- 
politan Board  of  Works  or  of  the  juries  at  the  Old  Baile'y.  A  pri- 
vate Bill  committee  is  a  bad  arbitration  court,  and  nine- tenths  of 
the  members  who  serve  upon  them  are  puppets  in  the  hands  of  clever 
Parliamentary  counsel.  Moreover,  if  the  truth  must  be  told,  there 
is,  outside  Parliament,  a  half-acknowledged  suspicion  that  these 
tribunals  are  not  altogether  impartial.  The  impression,  no  doubt,  is 
baseless,  though  others  beside  Mr.  Grissell  play  upon  it ;  but  it  prevails, 
and  it  is  not  likely  to  disappear  until  Parliament  has  the  courage  to 
cut  itself  free  from  embarrassing  and  burdensome  business  with  which 
it  is  not  properly  concerned.  The  presence  in  Parliament  of  a  great 
number  of  directors  of  railway,  tramway,  and  dockyard  companies  does 
not,  indeed,  justify  the  imputation — which  I  find  in  some  American 
criticisms  on  English  politics — that '  log  rolling '  has  been  naturalised 
among  us.  The  transfer,  however,  of  private  Bills  to  non-political 
bodies  sitting  all  the  year  round  in  the  chief  towns  of  England, 
Wales,  Scotland,  and  Ireland,  is  desirable  on  this  and  other 
grounds.  It  would  immensely  diminish  the  cost  of  public  improve- 
ments and  economise  time  and  temper  as  well  as  money.  A  body 
like  the  Railway  Commission,  with  power  to  sit  in  various  circuit 
centres  and  in  separate  courts,  might  be  constituted  to  the  satisfaction 
of  all  interested  parties,  and  to  the  great  relief  of  Parliament. 


582  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  April 

It  is  alleged,  indeed,  that  although  there  are  no  presentable  argu- 
ments in  favour  of  the  retention  by  the  Legislature  of  the  jurisdiction 
over  private  Bills,  the  fact  of  possession  is  not  to  be  overcome.  But 
Parliament,  since  the  beginning  of  the  present  century,  has  voluntarily 
divested  itself  of  many  functions  which  it  traditionally  exercised. 
General  Acts  relating  to  Enclosure,  Drainage,  Improvement  of  Land, 
Tithe  Commutation,  Copyhold  Enfranchisement,  Joint  Stock  Com- 
panies, Eailways,  Local  Courts,  Poor  Kelief,  Towns  Improvement, 
Lighting,  Police,  Water  Supply,  Public  Health,  Piers,  Harbours,  and 
Pilotage,  Fisheries,  Turnpike  Trusts,  Constabulary,  Entailed  Estates 
in  Scotland,  Landed  Estates  in  Ireland,  Naturalisation  and  Divorce, 
were  all  passed  by  Parliament  in  surrender  of  legislative  or  quasi- 
legislative  powers  previously  in  force  and  use.9  A  more  recent  and 
remarkable  abandonment  of  a  jurisdiction,  which  had  nevertheless 
considerable  political  importance,  was  that  of  the  trial  of  contested 
elections  transferred  to  the  judges  of  the  High  Court  of  Judicature. 
There  seems  no  reason  to  believe  that,  if  the  demand  were  made  with 
energy  and  supported  by  authority,  either  the  House  of  Lords  or  the 
House  of  Commons  would  cling  to  an  onerous  and  ungrateful  duty. 
If  private  business  could  thus  be  withdrawn  from  Parliament,  as  it 
might  be  without  raising  any  political  question  at  all  or  proposing 
the  creation  of  any  body  with  legislative  functions,  the  argument 
that  Parliament  is  overweighted  with  work  would  lose  a  great  deal  of 
its  force.  Upon  the  ground  of  policy,  the  Home  Eule  party  can  put 
forward  no  claim  for  the  concession  of  a  separate  legislature  to 
Ireland  which  is  not  outweighed  by  the  reasons  I  have  stated.  Upon 
the  ground  of  national  sentiment  I  am  glad  to  feel  that  I  have  not 
to  meet  Mr.  McCarthy.  I  would  only  remind  him  that  the  history 
of  the  United  Kingdom  offers  one  eminent  example  of  the  manner  in 
which  such  a  local  prejudice — cherished  with  all  the  obstinacy  of 
Scotsmen — may  be  successfully  lived  down. 

EDWARD  D.  J.  WILSON. 

9  Enumerated  by  Sir  Erskine  May,  Parliamentary  Practice,  pp.  636-642. 


583 


THE   COMMON-SENSE   OF  HOME   RULE. 
II.     A  REJOINDER. 

IT  is  pleasant  to  have  to  discuss  a  great  question  with  so  courteous 
and  so  earnest  an  antagonist  as  my  friend  Mr.  Wilson.  We  have 
had  our  interchanges  of  opinion  before  now  on  many  subjects  of 
controversy,  and  shall  have  many  yet,  I  hope.  Mr.  Wilson  under- 
takes to  assail  my  positions  concerning  '  the  Common  Sense  of  Home 
Rule '  point  by  point.  He  disposes  of  them  first,  however,  in  the 
gross.  He  says  that  my  article  on  the  Common  Sense  of  Home  Eule 
*  shows  only  a  concatenation  of  unproved  assertions,  audacious 
inferences,  and  incorrect  statements  of  fact.'  He  then  tabulates  ten 
propositions  which  he  assumes  to  be  mine,  and  he  goes  on  to  attack 
each  of  the  ten  in  turn.  Next  he  puts  forward  six  propositions  of  his 
own ;  and  so  the  matter  is  finished.  Now,  it  will  be  convenient,  in 
the  first  instance,  to  reduce  the  number  of  the  propositions  which 
Mr.  Wilson  sets  up  as  mine.  Some  of  them  are  not  mine ;  and  so 
we  may  get  rid  of  them  at  once.  Number  eight,  for  example :  '  That 
the  relations  subsisting  between  Great  Britain  and  Ireland  before  the 
Union  were  in  every  way  satisfactory.'  I  never  said  so  ;  nobody,  so  far 
as  I  know,  ever  said  so.  To  adopt  the  lively  illustration  of  Sam 
Weller,  forty  lunatic  asylums  could  not  produce  a  madman  equal  to 
such  an  assertion.  I  said  that  '  the  Independent  Irish  Parliament 
was,  in  many  respects,  an  untrustworthy  and  incapable  body ;  but, 
with  all  its  shortcomings,  it  effected  an  immense  amount  of  practical 
good  for  Ireland  during  its  short  existence ; '  and  that  '  during  its 
brief  career  it  was  thoroughly  loyal.'  I  did  not  resent  '  the  prevalent 
opinion  that  the  members  of  the  Irish  Parliament  quarrelled  among 
themselves.'  I  believe  that  during  the  existence  of  the  Irish  Parlia- 
ment the  members  of  the  British  Parliament  also  quarrelled  among 
themselves.  I  am  under  the  impression  that  the  members  of  the 
Imperial  Parliament  quarrel  among  themselves  now.  What  I  did  say 
•was,  that  the  Irish  Parliament,  in  its  day,  did  a  great  deal  of  good 
practical  work,  and  furnished  no  evidence  to  justify  the  common 
prediction  that  a  Home  Eule  Parliament  *  would  occupy  itself  only 
in  political  faction-fights  and  struggles  of  sect  against  sect.'  We 
may  get  rid  also  of  proposition  number  two:  'That  Home  Rule 


584  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  April 

would  leave  the  House  of  Commons  exactly  as  it  is.'  I  gave  it  as 
my  opinion  that  Home  EuJe  would  leave  the  Imperial  Parliament 
constituted  exactly  as  it  is  at  present.  I  explained  that  it  would  be, 
as  it  is  now,  a  Parliament  of  English,  Irish,  Scotch,  and  Welsh 
members.  Of  course,  if  the  words  '  exactly  as  it  is  '  were  to  be  taken 
in  rigid  literalness,  my  statement  would  deserve  all  the  criticism 
Mr.  "Wilson  bestows  on  it.  The  Imperial  Parliament  could  not  be 

*  exactly  as  it  is,'  in  that  sense,  if  all  local  business  were  to  be  taken 
away  from  it.     For  that  matter,  the  House  of  Commons  would  not  be 
to-morrow  exactly  as  it  is  to-day  if  it  were  to  have  a  new  carpet  put 
on  its  floor.     One  cannot  literally  say  that  a  house  with  a  new  carpet 
is  exactly  the  same  as  a  house  with  an  old  carpet.     But  what  I 
pointed  out  was,  that  the  composition  of  the  House  of  Commons 
would  remain  as  it  is  now.    I  was  combating  the  common  notion  that, 
if  Home  Eule  were  established,  there  would  be  no  Irish  members  in 
the  Imperial  Parliament. 

I  think  we  may  also  put  aside  proposition  number  one,  which  raises 
the  question  of  dismemberment.  I  only  spoke  of  dismemberment 
to  illustrate  the  fact  that  men  are  much  governed  by  mere  phrases. 
There  are  vast  numbers  of  persons  on  whom  the  whole  of  Mr.  Wilson's 
clever,  keen,  and  closely-reasoned  article  will  not  make  nearly  the 
same  impression  that  the  four  words  '  dismemberment  of  the  empire  ' 
are  capable  of  producing.  But  he  and  I  need  not  discuss  the  dis- 
memberment question.  I  have  stated  as  clearly  as  I  can  what  I 
think  a  Home  Kule  system  would  be.  If  he  calls  that  dismember- 
ment of  the  empire,  there  is  nothing  more  to  be  said.  I  do  not 
understand  Mr.  Wilson  to  say  that  he  thinks  it  would  be  dismem- 
berment ;  but  of  course  in  any  case  it  is  the  thing  and  not  the  word 
which  would  alarm  a  man  like  him,  and  a  mere  contention  about 
phrases  would  be  useless.  Mr.  Wilson  admits,  too,  that  Parliament 
is  at  present  overburdened  with  work,  and,  indeed,  he  admits  to 
a  great  extent  the  principle  on  which  I  base  my  argument,  by  pro- 
posing that  an  entirely  new  institution  must  be  called  into  existence 
to  relieve  it  of  some  of  its  labours.  But  of  course  he  does  not 
admit  the  propriety  of  my  suggestions  for  its  relief ;  and  therefore 
on  that  question  we  come  simply  to  our  main  controversy.  Nor 
need  we  pursue  the  question  as  to  whether  England,  Scotland,  and 
the  Colonies  are  ever  likely  to  ask  for  new  arrangements  of  govern- 
ment. Mr.  Wilson  declines  to  discuss  '  remote  and  improbable 
contingencies.'  I  do  not  think  them  perhaps  quite  so  remote  or 
improbable  as  he  does ;  but  to  get  into  a  separate  argument  on  that 
point,  even  if  Mr.  Wilson  were  willing  to  argue  it,  would  take  us  too 
far  out  of  our  main  road.  Again,  we  need  not  linger  long  over  the 
question  as  to  whether  the  failure  of  our  present  system  is 

*  utter '    or    only    comparative.      The    railway    management    which 
only    succeeded   in   getting   one   out   of  every  four   of    the   trains 


1880.         THE  COMMON-SENSE  OF  HOME  RULE.  585 

it    started    safe    to    a    journey's    end    would    not    in    one    sense 
be  an  utter  failure.     It  could  proudly  point  to  the  fact  that  one 
train  in  every  four  had  come  all  right.     I  am  afraid  it  would,  how- 
ever, be  roughly  condemned  by  public  opinion  as  a  very  decided  failure. 
I  am  not  inclined  to  go  far  into  the  controversy  as  to  whether  the 
federal  system  represents  '  the  most  advanced  type  of  modern  polity, 
vindicated  by  universal  success.'      I  did   not  say  anything  in  my 
article  about  its  being  the  most  advanced  type  of  modern  polity,  nor 
did  I  propose  to  apply  it  to  all  kinds  of  states.     I  described  it  as  'a 
new  principle  of  government  for  empires  with  mixed  nationalities,' 
which  has  been  successful  wherever  it  has  been  tried.     But  I  think 
Mr.  Wilson  somewhat  underrates  the  stock  of  information  which  some 
of  us  Home  Rulers  bring  to  bear  on  this  part  of  the  controversy.    He 
says  that  '  the  Home  Rule  apologists '  are  *  not  even  aware — or  if 
they  are  they  carefully  conceal  their  knowledge  of  the  fact — that  the 
federal  systems  to  the  success  of  which  they  appeal ' — that  is  to  say, 
in  the  United  States,  in  the  Dominion  of  Canada,  in  Austria-Hungary 
and  in  the  German  Empire — 'have  scarcely  more  resemblance  to 
each  other  in  essentials  than  the  government  of  Napoleon  the  Third 
and  the  government  of  President  Grevy.'     I  think  most  of  us  know 
that  the  systems  of  these  countries  are  not  all  the  same.    We  are  also 
acquainted  with  the  fact  that  Austria  is  part  of  the  Continent  of  Europe, 
and  that  America  lies  on  the  other  side  of  the  Atlantic.  What  we  say 
is  that  in  all  these  various  systems,  each  applied  to  conditions  of  its 
own,  there  is  one  essential  principle ;  the  principle  which  separates 
what  I  may  now  call  imperial  from  what  I  may  call  national  or  local 
interests.     What  we  say  is  that  where  you  have  a  great  empire, 
monarchical  or   republican,  which  is   made  up  of  various  distinct 
nationalities  and  races,  the  system  of  government  which  has  hitherto 
proved  most  successful  for  them  is  the  federal,  not  the  centralised, 
system.     I  find  that  great  use  is  made  in  this  controversy  of  the 
relationship   between   Austria   and   Hungary.      'Do  you.  call   that 
satisfactory  ?  '  I  am  often  asked  in  a  tone  of  anticipated  triumph.     I 
may  answer  at  once  I  do  not  call  it  satisfactory.     I  am  afraid  the  wit 
of  man  could  hardly  devise  a  satisfactory  system  of  government  for 
an  empire  so  composed  and  so  situated  as  that  of  Austria.     But  I 
consider  it,  on  the  whole,  much  more  satisfactory  than  the  condition  of 
things  which  prevailed  when  Austria  and  Hungary  were  enemies  on 
vast  battle-fields,  or  even  when  Hungary  was  the  sullen,  silent  enemy 
only  waiting  for  an  opportunity  to  pierce  Austria  in  the  side.    Again, 
Mr.  Wilson  appears  to  argue — although  I  do  not  suppose  this  could 
have  been  the  intention  of  one  so  well  informed  as  he — that  the 
American  civil  war  was  the  consequence  of  the  federal  system  of 
government.     The  American  civil  war  was  caused  by  the  fact  that 
there  had   grown  up  in  the  States,  beginning   and  ripening  while 
they  were  still  part  of  a  monarchical  empire,  a  conflict  of  interests  so 


586  -    THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  April 

direct  and  irreconcilable  that  it  could  only  be  decided  by  a  trial  of 
strength.  The  Southern  planters — very  wrongly,  as  I  think — became 
convinced  that  the  whole  existence  of  their  class  depended  upon  the 
preservation  of  slavery.  They  fought  for  it  as  men  fight  for  their 
lives ;  they  would  have  fought  just  the  same  if  they  had  been  the  sub- 
jects of  an  Alexander  who  emancipated  their  slaves  by  a  stroke  of  his 
pen.  But  the  federal  system  provided  a  means  for  the  reconciliation 
of  antagonisms  after  the  struggle  was  over,  and  when  strokes  had  done 
the  inevitable  work  of  arbitration  on  the  one  great  question.  Out  of 
the  existence  of  the  slave  system  grew  all  these  conflicts  of  authority 
which  Mr.  Wilson  believes  would  prevail  in  an  Irish  Parliament.  He 
complains  that  the  Home  Rulers  make  no  account  of  the  different 
conditions  under  which  different  systems  are  carried  on.  But  he 
seems  himself  to  make  little  account  of  the  fact  that  Mr.  Shaw  is  not 
exactly  another  Jefferson  Davis,  and  that  there  is  no  seemingly  irre- 
concilable antagonism  of  interests  at  work  which  inspires  Cork 
with  the  conviction  that,  if  Belfast  is  to  live,  she,  Cork,  must  die. 

I  think  my  friend  Mr.  Wilson  is  a  little  unreasonable  in  one  of 
his  own  propositions.    c  In  my  judgment,'  he  says,  '  the  Home  Kulers 
are  not  entitled  even  to  a  provisional  hearing,  until  they  grapple,  as 
they  have  never  yet  done,  with  the  arguments  on  the  other  side.'  If  we 
are  not  to  have  even  a  provisional  hearing,  how  can  we  grapple  to  any 
purpose  with  the  arguments  on  the  other  side  ?     If  you  will  not  listen 
to  us  provisionally,  how  are  you  to  know  whether  we  have  or  have  not 
grappled  with  anybody's  arguments  ?     '  Until  you  convince  me  that 
you  have  answered  my  objections,  I  will  not  listen  to  you.'     But,  if 
you  will  not  listen,  how  can  you  know  whether  we  have  answered  your 
objections  ?     The  worst  of  it  is  that  Mr.  Wilson  does  seem  to  have 
acted  to  some  extent  on  this  paradoxical  principle.     There  is  one  very 
important  part  of  my  article  which  he  evidently  did  not  read.     This 
is  the  passage  to  which  I  refer  :  '  The  Imperial  Parliament,  made  up 
of  English,  Irish,  Scotch,  and  Welsh  members,  just  as  it  is  at  present, 
would  have  to  discuss  and  decide  all  questions  of  the  common  interest, 
all  Imperial  questions  as  we  may  call  them,  Imperial  taxation,  com- 
mercial policy,  treaties  of  all  kinds,  the  army,  the   navy,  foreign 
policy,  all  subjects  that  belong  to  the  making  of  war  or  to  the  con- 
clusion of  peace.     What  it  would  not  have  to  trouble  itself  with  are 
the  questions  of  strictly  domestic  interest  to  Ireland.'     That  is  my 
definition  of  Home  Rule.     As  far  as  I  know,  it  is  now  the  definition 
accepted  by  all  representative  Home  Rulers.     Such  was  the  definition 
adopted  during  a  recent  election  contest  in  England  by  some  of  the 
Home  Rule  members  of  Parliament,  who  may  be  considered  as  entitled 
to  speak  on  such  an  occasion  with  authority,  and  to  represent  the 
views  of  their  party.     It  is  plain  that,  if  Mr.  Wilson  had  read  this 
part  of  my  article,  he  would  have  been  spared  the  pains  of  writing 
many  pages  of  disparaging  criticism.     Great  part  of  his  reply  is 


1880.         THE  COMMON-SENSE  OF  HOME  RULE.          587 

framed  on  the  assumption  that  I  had  included  in  the  business  of  an 
Irish  Parliament  the  imposition  of  taxes,  the  making  of  treaties,  and 
the  settlement  of  a  commercial  policy.     On  this  assumption  he  feels 
compelled  to  enter  into  a  long  argument  to  show  the  inconvenience 
of  written  Constitutions  and  Supreme  Courts  and  organic  laws.     I 
might  very  well  decline  to  enter  into  any  of  this  part  of  his  argu- 
ment ;  the  words  to  which  it  would  apply  are  not  mine.     But  I  may 
say  that  a  Supreme  Court  is  needed  in  the  United  States,  because 
Congress  is  not  like  the  Imperial  Parliament ;  it  is  not  a  body  having 
supreme  power.     It  has  to  act  under  the  laws  and  the  Constitution. 
Our  Imperial  Parliament  would  always  have,  as  it  has  now,  supreme 
power    over   all   Imperial    legislation.     The   domestic   Legislatures 
would    be    supreme    in  their   own    sphere ;    the    province  of    the 
domestic  Legislatures  would   be   marked  out  once  for  all   by    the 
Act  of    Parliament    which    called  them    into    existence.      If  any 
one   likes  to  call  that  an  organic  act,  he  is  in  my  mind  perfectly 
welcome  to   do  so.     The    question  of  possible  conflict  of  authority 
is  not    one  which    could  in    any  case    be  settled   by   the    creation 
of    a    Supreme   Court.      In   these   countries  there   is,    and    there 
can    be,    no  ultimate    security    that    a    Parliament,    Imperial    or 
domestic,  will  keep  to  its  own  work,  unless  that  which  is  found  in 
the  reasonableness  of  the  majority  of  its  members,  and  their  willing- 
ness to  admit  the  principle  of  compromise.     There  would  be  no  more 
need  of  a  written  Constitution  for  the  domestic  than  for  the  Imperial 
Parliament.     The  Act  which    constituted  the  domestic   Parliament 
would  define  its  functions :    that  is  to  say,  its  relationship  to  the 
business  of  the  Imperial  Parliament.     What  would  happen  suppose 
the  Imperial   Parliament  were  to  insist   on  going  beyond  its  proper 
functions  ?     Suppose  a  Bill  were  brought  in  to  re-enact  sumptuary 
laws,  or  to  decree  that  every  woman  must  dress  according  to  Dr. 
Richardson's  plan  ?     Everyone  would  feel  that  such  legislation  would 
be  ridiculously  outside  the  proper   functions    of  Parliament.     But 
there  is  no  Supreme  Court  to  settle  the  question  by  law ;  nor  do  we 
want  any.     What  would  happen  ?     The  House  of  Commons  would 
reject  the  Bill.     But  suppose  the  House  of  Commons  did  not  reject 
it  ?     Then  the  House  of  Lords  would  reject  it.     But  suppose  both 
Houses  were  in  favour  of  it,  and  that  it  was  carried  and  received  the 
Royal  assent,  what  then  ?     I  can  only  say  that  I  cannot  imagine  any- 
thing of  the  kind ;  that  our  whole  system  rests  on  the  assumption 
of  rational  principles   of  action  among  the  majority;    and  that,  if 
ever  the   nation   did   become    afflicted   with    common    unreason,    a 
Supreme  Court  and  a  written  Constitution  would   not   keep  it  in 
order.     In   the    same   way   I    think    of  an   Irish   domestic   Parlia- 
ment.    The  Act  which  created  it  would  set  forth,  not  how  it  was 
to  do  its  business,  but  what  the  business  was  which  it  was  called 
upon  to  undertake.     If  the  Irish  Parliament  persisted  in  interfering 


588  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  April 

with  questions  that  were  not  Irish,  but  Imperial,  I  presume  the 
intervention  would  begin  in  the  form  of  a  Bill  brought  in  to  the 
Representative  Chamber.  I  presume  that  somebody  would  point  out 
that  it  was  a  question  of  Imperial  and  not  of  national  policy.  I  take  it 
that  the  majority  of  the  Irish  House  of  Commons  would  perceive  this 
and  act  accordingly.  If,  however,  they  were  induced  to  pass  the 
Bill,  I  take  it  that  the  Second  Chamber,  the  House  of  Lords  or 
Senate,  would  give  a  little  time  for  cool  consideration  by  throwing 
out  the  Bill.  If  the  House  of  Commons  again  passed  the  measure, 
and  that  House  had  really  lost  its  head  in  the  wild  desire  to  inter- 
fere with  what  did  not  concern  it,  I  do  not  see  how  any  Supreme 
Court  or  organic  law  could  mend  the  matter.  But  we  must  assume 
as  the  basis  of  all  argument  on  such  a  subject  the  sanity  of  the 
majority  both  of  Englishmen  and  Irishmen.  There  are  questions  in 
this  country  still  undecided  as  to  the  authority  of  Parliament  and  of 
the  Law  Courts.  "What  would  happen  if  some  really  formidable  con- 
rlict  broke  out,  and  neither  party  would  give  way  or  compromise  ? 
What  would  happen  if  the  sovereign  really  persisted  in  making 
earls  out  of  all  the  cobblers  in  the  kingdom  ?  What  would  happen 
if  the  Government  kept  on  dissolving  every  Parliament  the  moment 
it  met  ?  I  do  not  know ;  nobody  knows  ;  nobody  wants  to  know. 
The  advocates  of  Home  Rule  can  afford  to  be  as  little  concerned 
about  what  would  come  to  pass  if  an  Irish  Parliament  insisted  on 
seizing  the  Customs'  duties  or  declaring  war  against  Portugal. 

I  do  not  quite  understand  what  Mr.  Wilson  means  when  he 
.says  that  my  statement  that  the  rebellion  of  1798  was  due  to  the 
infatuation  of  the  English  Government  in  refusing  Catholic  emanci- 
pation '  shows  a  curiously  confused  and  inexact  conception  of  the 
condition  of  Ireland  at  the  close  of  the  last  century.'  Does  the  con- 
fusion consist  in  the  assumption  that  the  refusal  of  Catholic  emanci- 
pation was  the  immediate  cause  of  the  rebellion  ?  If  so,  the  confusion 
of  ideas  is  shared  by  a  good  many  who,  one  would  think,  were  in  a 
position  to  have  very  clear  ideas  on  the  subject.  The  opinion  I 
have  expressed  was  the  opinion  of  Grattan,  of  Lord  Fitzwilliam,  of 
the  leaders  of  the  United  Irishmen  themselves.  It  is  the  opinion  of 
Mr.  Lecky.  '  The  rebellion  of  1798,  with  all  the  accumulated  miseries 
it  entailed, was,'  says  Mr.  Lecky, 'the  direct  and  predicted  consequence  ' 
of  the  policy  pursued  in  that  respect  by  the  English  Government.  I 
am  well  aware,  of  course,  that,  although  Wolfe  Tone  and  the  United 
Irishmen  began  by  professing  only  to  desire  the  introduction  of 
roligious  equality,  they  were  really  anxious  for  revolutionary  change. 
What  I  said  in  my  article  was  that  the  policy  of  the  Government 
drove  the  Catholics  for  the  first  time  into  the  arms  of  the  United 
Irishmen — '  drove  the  whole  national  sentiment  of  the  country  to  the 
side  of  the  party  of  action.'  I  am  glad  that  Mr.  Wilson  has  corrected 
the  curious  mistake  I  made  in  saying  that  a  Catholic  could  not  at 


1880.        THE  COMMON-SENSE  OF  HOME  RULE.  589 

the  time  of  the  Union  vote  for  the  election  of  a  member  of  Parlia- 
ment. I  had  forgotten  for  the  moment  that  the  right  to  vote  was 
given  by  the  Act  of  1793.  The  fact,  however,  only  shows  that  the 
Irish  Parliament  was  capable  of  being  made  the  instrument  of  some 
good.  I  had  understated  my  case  in  that  respect. 

Mr.  Wilson  and  I  come  into  direct  antagonism  on  what  he  puts 
as  my  tenth  proposition :  4  that  a  Home  Kule  Parliament  in  Ireland 
would  pursue  a  wise,  just,  and  practical  policy.'  This  is  Mr. 
Wilson's  way  of  putting  the  case.  I  am  quite  willing  to  allow  it 
to  be  taken  as  mine,  provided  only  I  am  not  pinned  down  to  the 
literal  meaning  of  the  words  my  friend  has  used.  I  should  be  very 
sorry  indeed  to  pledge  myself  to  any  Parliament  or  any  man  pur- 
suing always  a  wise,  just,  and  practical  policy.  If  such  a  Parliament 
of  the  ideal  or  the  Socratic  '  wise  and  good '  could  be  found  in 
Dublin  or  elsewhere,  the  best  thing  would  be  to  invite  it  to  under- 
take the  government  of  all  mankind.  But  I  am  willing  to  adopt 
Mr.  Wilson's  words  in  so  far  as  they  are  understood  to  express  my 
conviction  that  the  policy  of  an  Irish  Parliament  would,  on  the 
whole,  be  sound  and  just.  My  own  words  were  that  'shrewd 
common  sense  would  be  its  principal  inspiration,  and  a  sincere 
desire  to  set  the  country  permanently  on  its  feet,  and  make  it 
independent  of  the  cha"nces  of  passing  seasons  and  the  help  of  foreign 
charity.'  I  have  a  strong  belief  in  the  common  sense  and  the  business 
capacity  of  my  countrymen  as  a  whole.  I  am  convinced  that  they 
could  manage  their  own  affairs  better  than  any  other  people,  however 
well  meaning,  could  manage  those  affairs  for  them.  I  think  there  are 
already  existing  in  Ireland  all  the  materials  out  of  which  a  capable 
Parliament  might  be  constituted.  There  are,  as  I  said  in  my  article, 
the  landlord  class,  the  shopkeepers,  the  bankers,  merchants,  manufactu- 
rers, the  shippers,  the  tenant-farmers — a  very  intelligent  class  of  men, 
who  would  soon  school  themselves  into  practical  politicians  of  a  remark- 
ably good  order.  Ireland  has  an  ample  list  of  barristers  and  professors. 
She  has  her  peerage  to  form  the  basis  of  a  Second  Chamber — a  peerage 
which,  if  some  practical  duty  were  attached  to  the  conditions  of  its 
station,  would  be*  well  qualified  to  do  service  to  the  country.  I  confess 
that  I,  for  one,  should  rejoice  to  see  the  peerage  and  the  gentry  of  Ire- 
land united  with  other  representative  men  of  all  classes  in  giving  prac- 
tical direction  and  effect  to  the  national  spirit.  Mr.  Wilson  has  much 
doubt  as  to  the  possibility  of  making  up  a  competent  Irish  House  of 
Commons.  '  It  is  difficult  enough  at  present,'  he  says,  '  to  find  one  hun- 
dred men  of  character  and  capacity  to  represent  Irish  constituencies 
at  St.  Stephen's  ;  where  could  thrice  as  many  more  be  found  to  sit 
in  the  Parliament  on  College  Green  ?  '  Does  Mr.  Wilson  really  believe 
that  there  would  be  any  difficulty  in  finding  three  hundred  men 
of  intelligence  and  respectability  to  take  their  places  in  an  Irish 
Parliament  ?  The  reference  to  St.  Stephen's,  even  if  the  assertion  it 
VOL.  VII.— No.  38.  R  II 


590  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  April 

contains  were  correct,  is  curiously  misleading.  For  all  the  talk  of 
steam  bridging  the  sea,  there  is  still  a  great  difference  to  a  busy  man 
between  going  from  Limerick  to  Dublin  and  going  from  Limerick  to 
London.  Besides,  a  large  number  of  the  very  men  whom  it  would  be 
particularly  desirable  to  have  in  an  Irish  national  Parliament,  because 
of  their  sound  local  knowledge,  are  men  who  do  not  care  to  give  up 
their  time  to  the  Imperial  Parliament,  with  its  long  debates  on 
foreign  policy,  on  London  water  schemes,  and  on  Scottish  hypothec. 
It  is  well  to  remember,  too,  that  the  choice  of  Irish  representatives  now 
is  inevitably  limited  by  the  fact  that  some  men  in  every  county  and 
borough  who  would  otherwise  be  desirable  members  of  Parliament  are 
separated  from  the  national  aspiration  on  this  very  subject  of  Home 
Rule.  Most  properly,  most  justly,  the  Irish  constituencies  are  becom- 
ing more  and  more  determined  that  they  will  not  elect  any  man  who 
will  not  support  the  national  demand  on  this  most  important  ques- 
tion. But  there  are  in  every  locality  some  men  who,  if  that  question 
were  once  settled,  would  be  very  suitable  members  of  either  Parlia- 
ment, Imperial  or  Irish.  In  the  Irish  counties  I  know  best,  I  could 
pick  out  scores  of  men  admirably  qualified  to  become  excellent  mem- 
bers of  a  national  Parliament,  who  have  not  the  time  or  the  inclina- 
tion to  spend  long  weeks  in  St.  Stephen's  waiting  for  the  chance  of 
some  subject  coming  up  for  discussion  in  which  they  take  a  practical 
interest.  The  Lord  Lieutenant  might  at  last  become  of  some  real 
use  under  a  Home  Rule  system.  I  was  speaking  the  other  day  to  an 
Irish  member  who  is  not  at  all  likely  to  be  a  great  admirer  of  the 
Castle  system  in  Dublin,  but  who  declared  that  he  would  always  vote 
against  any  proposal  to  abolish  the  Irish  Viceroyalty,  because  so  long 
as  it  remained  there  was  one  practical  recognition  of  the  distinct 
nationality  of  Ireland,  and  one  piece  of  the  machinery  for  the  con- 
struction of  a  domestic  Parliament  ready  to  hand.  His  words  are 
well  worth  consideration. 

But  the  great  strength  of  Mr.  Wilson's  article  is,  after  all,  rather 
prophetic  than  political.  He  points  to  the  fearful  array  of  disturb- 
ing deeds  that  an  Irish  Parliament  would  do.  His  visions  of  the 
future  are  so  clear  that  he  can  actually  number  and  tabulate  them 
as  they  pass  before  his  prophetic  gaze.  Swedenborg  passing  in  re- 
view the  various  occupants  of  other  worlds,  Blake  describing  a  fairy's 
funeral,  was  not  more  precise  than  Mr.  Wilson  in  his  predictions 
of  what  an  Irish  Parliament  would  do.  He  actually  dockets  the 
various  revolutionary  acts  of  this  future  Parliament  (a),  (6),  (c),  (<l\ 
and  so  forth.  I  can  easily  imagine  some  readers  being  profoundly 
impressed  by  the  rigorous  precision  of  the  (a),  (6),  (c),  and  (d). 
Here  is  a  man  who  indeed  knows  all  about  it,  they  will  say  ;  not  only 
can  he  tell  you  all  that  an  Irish  Parliament  will  do,  he  can  arrange 
its  misdeeds  in  order  ;  misdeed  «,  misdeed  6,  misdeed  c — there  they 
are  laid  out  and  ticketed  in  advance.  Mr.  Wilson  is  of  opinion  that 


1880.         THE  COMMON-SENSE  OF  HOME  RULE.  591 

an  Irish  Parliament  would,  among  other  things,  endow  the  Catholic 
Church,  alter  the  general  law  of  contracts,  take  away  the  property  of 
railway  stock-holders  and  other  capitalists,  and  lay  it  out  in  bounties 
for  the  encouragement  of  various  industries,  establish  all  manner  of 
new  and  complicated  protective  duties,  and  turn  the  constabulary 
into  an  army.  He  is  also  much  concerned  about  the  probability  of 
its  doing  something  or  other  with  the  law  of  divorce.  I  wonder  he 
did  not  extend  his  list.  The  Irish  Parliament  would  decree  (w)  that 
seven  halfpenny  loaves  should  be  sold  for  a  penny ;  (x)  that  the 
three-hooped  pot  should  have  ten  hoops ;  (?/)  that  it  should  be  felony 
to  drink  small  beer ;  and  (0)  that  all  the  realm  should  be  in  common. 
Is  it  not  Grattan  who  says  we  cannot  argue  with  a  prophet ;  we  can 
only  decline  to  believe  him  ?  I  altogether  refuse  to  accept  my 
friend  Mr.  Wilson  as  a  prophet.  He  is  a  remarkably  well-informed 
man  and  a  keen  reasoner,  as  no  one  knows  better  than  I ;  but  I  have 
no  faith  in  his  prophetic  dreamings.  Some  of  the  revolutionary 
changes  which  he  says  the  Irish  Parliament  would  make  would  be 
absolutely  out  of  its  scope  and  power.  About  others  one  can  hardly 
form  any  opinion.  Mr.  Wilson  says,  for  example,  that  an  Irish 
Parliament  would  introduce  changes  in  the  Poor  Kelief  system.  But 
he  does  not  tell  us  what  the  changes  would  be.  Surely  it  is  too 
much  to  ask  us  to  recognise  as  an  objection  to  a  domestic  Legislature 
that  it  would  introduce  changes  of  which  Mr.  Wilson  does  not  even 
hint  at  the  nature.  Why  not  tabulate  the  exact  details  in  this  instance 
as  in  others,  and  let  us  know  whether  the  changes  are  good  or  bad  ? 
Even  the  poor  relief  system  is  not  absolutely  perfect.  Who  knows  that 
the  changes  in  it  might  not  be  improvements?  Mr.  Wilson,  at  all 
events,  does  not  seem  to  know,  for  he  offers  no  hint  on  the  subject. 
I  would  thus  classify  and  summarise  Mr.  Wilson's  array  of  predicted 
measures,  (a)  Measures  entirely  outside  the  province  and  powers  of 
a  domestic  Parliament.  (6)  Measures  so  wild  that  no  assembly  of 
rational  Irishmen  would  agree  to  pass  them  into  law.  (c)  Measures 
involving  questions  fairly  and  properly  open  to  discussion,  and  on 
which  it  is  not  possible  for  reasonable  men  to  pronounce  a  dogmatic 
and  final  opinion  offhand. 

Some  of  the  changes  Mr.  Wilson  seems  to  object  to  only  as 
changes.  I  am  utterly  unable  to  form  any  opinion  as  to  the 
merits  of  a  change  in  the  poor  relief  system,  the  administration  of 
justice,  and  the  management  of  the  police  force,  without  knowing 
something  about  the  nature  of  the  proposed  changes.  But  I  assume 
that  the  Irish  Parliament  would  be  composed  for  the  most  part  of 
men  capable  of  discussing  new  measures  in  a  reasonable  way.  The 
assumption  that  all  Irishmen  are  more  or  less  mad  is  well  enough 
for  certain  comic  periodicals ;  but  I  presume  Mr.  Wilson,  himself 
an  Irishman,  does  not  adopt  it  as  the  basis  of  his  argument.  One  of 
Mr.  Wilson's  strongest  reasons  for  opposing  the  idea  of  an  Irish 

E  n  2 


592  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  April 

Parliament  is  that  such  a  Parliament  would  admit  inquiries  into  the 
propriety  of  re-establishing  Protection.  I  have  to  remark  that  the 
Imperial  Parliament  actually  has  admitted  a  demand  for  such  an 
inquiry.  If  Mr.  Eitchie's  Committee  on  sugar  industries  is  not 
such  an  inquiry,  I  have  no  idea  of  what  the  protective  principle 
really  is.  Mr.  Wilson  and  I  are  quite  in  accord  as  to  the  question 
of  Protection  at  least ;  but  I  am  afraid  we  must  admit  that  Parlia- 
mentary assemblies  are  to  be  allowed  to  exist  even  though  they  con- 
tain considerable  minorities,  or  considerable  majorities,  who  are  not 
yet  in  agreement  with  us  on  that  and  other  important  subjects. 

A  few  words  in  conclusion.  Mr.  Wilson  speaks  more  than  once  of 
Ireland  being  placed  by  a  Home  Rule  Parliament  in  opposition  to 
English  ideas.  Can  there  be  a  more  incautious,  not  to  say  dangerous, 
way  of  arguing  the  question  ?  Mr.  Wilson  can  hardly  mean  that  the 
Imperial  Parliament  is  to  say  to  Ireland :  '  We  will  make  English 
ideas  the  standard  for  you  to  conform  to,  and  you  shall  perforce  come 
under  it.'  Yet  this  would  seem  to  be  his  meaning,  not  only  from 
casual  words,  but  from  much  of  the  spirit  of  his  argument.  He  has 
laboured  with  patient  earnestness  to  prove  that  Ireland  has  in  general 
different  inclinations  and  principles  from  those  of  England.  The 
alarmist  passages  of  his  article  strike  this  note  with  especial  loud- 
ness.  It  would  seem,  then,  as  if  he  meant  to  say — '  Here  is  a  people 
with  feelings,  principles,  and  tendencies  decidedly  unlike  those  of 
England  :  if  we  give  them  any  measure  of  self-government,  they  will 
be  doing  things  that  are  not  in  accordance  with  our  English  ideas ; 
therefore  they  shall  have  no  self-government.'  This  is  putting  in 
the  bluntest  fashion  what  Mr.  Mill  called  '  the  eternal  political  non 
possumusj  which  means,  as  he  truly  said,  '  we  don't  do  it  in  England.' 
Mr.  Wilson  fancies,  he  says,  that  I  am  a  devotee  of  '  the  god 
Majority.'  I  have  not  had  much  to  do  with  that  divinity  in  my  time. 
But  surely  he  must  be  a  worshipper,  a  fanatic  adorer  of  the  god 
Majority,  who  proposes  to  settle  any  demand  made  on  behalf  of  the 
Irish  people  with  the  words — 'These  are  not  English  ideas  ;  they  don't 
suit  the  English  majority.'  c  Not  English  ! '  said  Mr.  Podsnap, '  clear- 
ing the  world  of  some  of  its  most  difficult  problems  by  sweeping  them 
behind  him  and  (consequently)  sheer  away.' 

JUSTIN  MCCARTHY. 


1880.  593 


THE  DEEP   SEA   AND  ITS  CONTENTS. 

WHEN,  in  June  1871,  I  placed  before  Mr.  Goschen,  then  First  Lord 
of  the  Admiralty,  the  scheme  I  had  formed  for  a  Scientific  Circum 
navigation  Expedition,  I  stated  as  its  general  object  '  the  extension- 
to  the  three  great  oceanic  areas — the  Atlantic,  the  Indian  and 
Southern,  and  the  Pacific — of  the  Physical  and  Biological  Explora- 
tion of  the  Deep  Sea,  which  has  been  tentatively  prosecuted  by  my 
colleagues  and  myself,  during  a  few  months  of  each  of  the  last  three 
years,  on  the  eastern  margin  of  the  North  Atlantic,  and  in  the  neigh- 
bouring portion  of  the  Mediterranean.'  Those  researches  had  been 
regarded  by  the  scientific  public — not  of  this  country  only,  but  of 
the  whole  civilised  world — as  of  extraordinary  interest ;  not  only  for 
the  new  facts  they  had  brought  into  view  and  the  old  fallacies  which 
they  had  exploded,  but  for  the  new  ideas  they  had  introduced  into 
various  departments  of  scientific  thought.  And  I  felt  myself  justified 
in  expressing  the  confident  belief  'that  the  wider  extension  and 
systematic  prosecution  of  them  will  be  fruitful  in  such  a  rich  harvest 
of  discovery  as  has  been  rarely  reaped  in  any  scientific  inquiry.' 

The  '  Challenger'  Expedition,  thus  originated,  was  fitted  out  in 
the  most  complete  manner,  everything  being  done  which  skill  and 
experience  could  suggest  to  make  it  a  complete  success.  A  ship 
was  selected  whose  size  and  construction  rendered  her  peculiarly 
suitable  for  the  work  ;  she  was  placed  under  the  command  of  Captain 
(now  Sir  George)  Nares,  than  whom  no  more  highly  qualified  head 
could  have  been  chosen.  In  the  work  of  the  ship  he  had  the  zealous 
co-operation  of  a  selected  staff  of  naval  officers  ;  whilst  for  the  direc- 
tion of  its  Scientific  work  the  expedition  had  the  advantage  of  the 
services  of  Professor  (now  Sir)  Wyville  Thomson,  with  five  assistant?, 
each  of  whom  had  already  shown  special  proficiency  in  the  particular 
department  committed  to  his  charge. 

The  expedition  left  Sheerness  on  the  7th  of  December  1872, 
and  returned  to  Spithead  on  the  24th  of  May  1876;  having  al- 
together traversed  a  distance  of  nearly  seventy  thousand  nautical 
miles  (or  nearly  four  times  the  eai'th's  equatorial  circumference), 
and  having,  at  intervals  as  nearly  uniform  as  possible,  established 
362  observing  stations,  along  the  course  traversed.  This  course- 


594  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  April 

was,  for  various  reasons,  anything  but  a  direct  one.  In  the  first  year 
the  Atlantic  was  crossed  and  recrossed  three  times  each  way ;  and  a 
diversion  was  made  from  Bermuda  to  Halifax,  and  back  again,  for 
the  special  purpose  of  examining  the  phenomena  of  the  Gulf  Stream. 
This  first  part  of  the  voyage  terminated  at  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope  ; 
from  which  a  fresh  start  was  made  for  Kerguelen's  Land,  on  which 
Captain  Nares  was  directed  to  report  in  regard  to  the  sites  most  suit- 
able for  the  observation  of  the  approaching  Transit  of  Venus.  Thence 
the  *  Challenger '  proceeded  due  south  towards  the  Antarctic  ice- 
barrier  ;  and,  after  making  the  desired  observations  along  its  margin, 
she  proceeded  to  Melbourne,  Sydney,  and  New  Zealand.  The  next 
portion  of  her  voyage  was  devoted  to  an  examination  of  the  western 
part  of  the  great  Pacific  area,  with  a  diversion  into  the  adjacent  part 
of  the  Malay  Archipelago  ;  and  it  was  when  proceeding  almost  due 
north  from  New  Guinea  to  Japan,  that  her  deepest  sounding  (the 
deepest  trustworthy  sounding  yet  made)  of  4,475  fathoms — 26,850 
feet,  or  more  than  Jive  miles — was  obtained.  From  Japan  her  course 
was  shaped  almost  due  east,  keeping  near  the  parallel  of  38°  N.  as 
far  as  the  meridian  of  the  Sandwich  Islands,  so  as  to  traverse  about 
two-thirds  of  the  North  Pacific ;  and  then,  taking  a  southern  direction, 
she  proceeded  first  to  that  group,  and  thence  across  the  Equator  to 
Tahiti,  thus  making  a  north  and  south  course  through  the  tropical 
Pacific.  From  Tahiti  she  proceeded  S.E.  towards  Cape  Horn,  with 
a  detour  to  Valparaiso  ;  and  after  passing  through  the  Straits  of 
Magellan,  touching  at  the  Falkland  Islands,  and  putting  in  at  Monte 
Video,  she  proceeded  eastwards  halfway  across  the  South  Atlantic, 
to  complete  the  E.  and  W.  section  partly  taken  in  the  first  year  of 
the  voyage  on  the  parallel  of  the  Cape.  Changing  her  course  to  the 
north,  she  ran  a  N.  and  S.  line  as  far  as  the  Equator,  in  the  meridian  of 
Madeira;  and  then,  turning N.W., and  keeping  at' some  distance  from 
the  African  coast,  got  into  the  middle  line  of  the  North  Atlantic,  which 
she  followed  past  the  Azores ;  after  which  she  bore  up  for  home. 

At  each  of  the  observing  stations  a  sounding  was  taken  for  the 
determination  of  the  exact  depth ;  the  bottom-temperature  was 
accurately  ascertained ;  a  sample  of  bottom-water  was  obtained  for 
chemical  and  physical  examination  ;  and  a  sample  of  the  bottom  itself 
was  brought  up,  averaging  from  one  ounce  to  one  pound  in  weight. 
At  most  of  the  stations,  serial  temperatures  also  were  taken ;  i.e. 
the  temperature  of  the  water  at  several  different  depths  between  the 
surface  and  the  bottom  was  determined,  so  as  to  enable  *  sections  '  to 
be  constructed,  giving  what  may  be  called  the  thermal  stratification 
of  the  entire  mass  of  ocean- water  along  the  different  lines  traversed 
during  the  voyage  ;  and  samples  of  sea-water  were  also  obtained  from 
different  depths.  At  most  of  the  stations  a  fair  sample  of  the  bottom- 
fauna  was  procured  by  means  of  the  dredge  or  trawl :  while  the 
sivimming  animals  of  the  surface  and  of  intermediate  depths  were 


1880.         THE  DEEP  SEA   AND  ITS  CONTENTS.  595 

captured  by  the  use  of  a  '  tow-net,'  adjusted  to  sweep  through  the 
waters  in  any  desired  plane.  And  while  the  direction  and  rate  of  any 
surface-current  were  everywhere  determined  by  methods  which  the 
skilful  navigator  can  now  use  with  great  precision,  attempts  were 
made  to  determine  the  direction  and  rate  of  movement  of  the  water 
at  different  depths,  wherever  there  was  any  special  reason  for  doing 
so.  In  addition  to  all  this,  which  constituted  the  proper  work  of  the 
-expedition,  meteorological  and  magnetic  observations  were  regularly 
taken  and  recorded. 

The  mass  of  accurate  information,  and  of  materials  from  which 
accurate  information  may  be  obtained,  which  has  thus  been  collected 
in  regard  to  the  Physics  of  the  Ocean,  affords  a  vast  body  of  data,  for 
scientific  discussion  of  which,  when  it  shall  have  been  fully  published, 
advantage  will  doubtless  be  eagerly  taken  by  the  various  inquirers  into 
the  different  branches  of  this  subject,  who  are  at  present  anxiously 
waiting  for  it.  And,  in  like  manner,  the  enormous  collection  of  marine 
animals  that  has  been  most  carefully  made  along  the  whole  of  the 

*  Challenger's '  course,  and  at  various  depths  from  the  surface  down  to 
more  than  four  miles — the  locality    and  depth   from  which  every 
specimen  was  obtained  having  been  accurately  recorded — attests  the 
entire  success  of  the  Biological  portion  of  the  '  Challenger's '  work. 
But  here,  again,  however  great  the  amount  of  work  done,  much  more 
remains  to  do,  in  the  *  working  up '  of  this  most  valuable  material.   It 
has  been  distributed  among  Naturalists  of  the  highest  competence  in 
their  respective  departments,  each  of  whom  will  report  separately 
upon  his  own  subject.     And  only  when  all  these  separate  reports  shall 
have  been  published,  which  cannot  be  for  some  years,  will  it  be 
possible  to  give  any  general  resume  of  the  zoological  results  of  the 
expedition.     But  in  the  study  of  the  bottom-deposits  more  progress 
has  been  made  ;  and  Mr.  Murray — one  of  the  '  Challenger '  scientific 
staff,  who  was  specially  charged  "with  this   department  during  the 
voyage — has  already  arrived   at   some    results   of  such   remarkable 
interest,  as  fully  to  justify  the  belief  I  had  expressed  to  Mr.  Goschen, 

*  that  the  key  to  the  interpretation  of  much  of  the  past  history  of 
our  globe  is  at  present  lying  at  the  bottom  of  the  sea,  waiting  only  to 
be  brought  up.' 

I  have  been  so  often  asked,  'What  has  the  "  Challenger"  Expedition 
•done  for  science  ? '  that,  notwithstanding  what  I  have  shown  to  be  the 
impossibility  of  at  present  giving  more  than  a  very  inadequate  idea 
of  the  results  of  its  work,  I  shall  now  endeavour  briefly  to  show  what 
light  these  results  have  thrown  on  a  few  general  questions  of  great 
interest ;  some  of  which  were  first  opened  up  in  our  previous  deep- 
sea  explorations,  while  on  others  not  apparently  related  to  it,  the 

*  Challenger '  researches  have  been  found  to  cast  an  unexpected  light. 

The  question  which  naturally  takes  the  first  place  in  order  is  that 
of  the  depth  and  configuration  of  the  Ocean-basins,  as  to  which 


596  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  April 

little  had  been  previously  learned  with  certainty,  except  in  the  case 
of  the  North  Atlantic,  which  had  been  carefully  sounded  along  certain- 
lines  with  a  view  to  the  laying  of  telegraph -cables.  The  first  syste- 
matic survey  of  this  kind  brought  out  a  set  of  facts  which  were  then, 
supposed  to  be  exceptional,  but  which  the  soundings  of  the  '  Challen- 
ger,' taken  in  connection  with  those  of  the  United  States  ship 
'  Tuscarora '  and  the  German  *  Gazelle,'  have  shown  to  be  general ;  viz. 
(1)  that  the  bottom  sinks  very  gradually  from  the  coast  of  Ireland, 
westward,  fora  hundred  miles  or  more  ;  (2)  that  then,  not  far  beyond 
the  hundred-fathom  line,  it  falls  so  rapidly  that  depths  of  from  1,200 
to  1,500  fathoms  are  met  with  at  only  a  short  distance  further  west ;. 
(3)  that  after  a  further  descent  to  a  depth  of  more  than  2,000- 
fathoms,  the  bottom  becomes  a  slightly  undulating  plain,  whose  gradi- 
ents are  so  low  as  to  show  scarcely  any  perceptible  alteration  of  depth 
in  a  section  in  which  the  same  scales  are  used  for  vertical  heights- 
and  horizontal  distances;1  and  (4)  that  on  the  American  side  as  on 
the  British  this  plain  is  bordered  by  a  very  steep  slope,  leading  up 
quickly  to  a  bottom  not  much  exceeding  100  fathoms  in  depth,  which 
shallows  gradually  to  the  coast-line  of  America.  Nothing  seems  to- 
have  struck  the  '  Challenger '  surveyors  more,  than  the  extraordinary 
flatness  (except  in  the  neighbourhood  of  land)  of  that  depressed  por- 
tion of  the  earth's  crust  which  forms  the  floor  of  the  great  Oceanic  area  « 
the  result  of  one  day's  sounding  enabling  a  tolerably  safe  guess  to  be. 
formed  as  to  the  depth  to  be  encountered  on  the  following  day ;  and 
thus,  if  the  bottom  of  the  mid-ocean  were  laid  dry,  an  observer  stand- 
ing on  almost  any  spot  of  it  would  find  himself  surrounded  by  a  plain, 
only  comparable  to  that  of  the  North  American  prairies  or  the  South 
American  pampas. 

Thus  our  notions  of  the  so-called  '  ocean-basins  '  are  found  to  re- 
quire considerable  modification  ;  and  it  becomes  obvious  that,  putting 
aside  the  oceanic  islands  which  rise  from  the  bottom  of  the  sea,  as. 
mountain-peaks  and  ridges  rise  from  the  general  surface  of  the  land, 
the  proper  oceanic  area  is  a  portion  of  the  crust  of  the  earth  which, 
is  depressed  with  tolerable  uniformity  some  thousands  of  feet  below 
the  land  area,  whilst  the  bands  of  shallow  bottom  which  usually 
border  the  existing  coast-lines  are  to  be  regarded  as  submerged; 
portions  of  the  adjacent  land-platforms.  The  form  of  the  depressed 
area  which  lodges  the  water  of  the  deep  ocean,  is  rather,  indeed,  to  be. 
likened  to  that  of  a  flat  waiter  or  tea-tray,  surrounded  by  an  elevated 
and  steeply  sloping  rim,  than  to  that  of  the  4  basin '  with  which  it  is 
commonly  compared.  And  it  further  becomes  obvious  that  the  real 
border  of  any  oceanic  area  may  be  very  different  from  the  ostensible 
border  formed  by  the  existing  coast-line. 

Of  this  difference  between  the  shallow  water  covering  submerged 

1  Sections  drawn  (as  is  usual)  with  a  rcrtical  scale  enormously  in  excess  of  the, 
horizontal,  altogether  misrepresent  the  real  character  of  the  cceanic  sea-bed. 


1880.         THE  DEEP  SEA   AND   ITS  CONTENTS.  597 

land,  and  the  deep  sea  that  fills  the  real  ocean-basins,  we  have  nowhere 
a  more  remarkable  example  than  that  which  is  presented  to  us  in  the 
seas  which  girdle  the  British  Islands.  These  are  all  so  shallow,  that 
their  bed  is  undoubtedly  to  be  regarded  as  a  continuation  of  the 
European  continental  platform ;  an  elevation  of  the  north-western 
corner  of  which,  to  the  amount  of  only  100  fathoms,  would  reunite 
Great  Britain  to  Denmark,  Holland,  Belgium,  and  France,  and  would 
bring  it  into  continuity  with  Ireland,  the  Hebrides,  and  the  Shetland 
and  Orkney  Islands.  Not  only  would  the  whole  of  the  British 
Channel  be  laid  dry  by  such  an  elevation,  but  the  whole  of  the  North 
Sea  also,  with  the  exception  of  a  narrow  deeper  channel  that  lies- 
outside  the  fiords  of  Norway.  Again,  the  coast-line  of  Ireland  would 
be  extended  seawards  to  about  100  miles  west  of  Gralway,  and  that 
of  the  Western  Hebrides  to  beyond  St.  Kilda ;  but  a  little  further 
west,  the  sea-bed  shows  the  abrupt  depression  already  spoken  of  as 
marking  the  commencement  of  the  real  Atlantic  area.  A  like  rapid 
descent  has  been  traced  outside  the  hundred-fathom  line  in  the  Bay  of 
Biscay  (a  considerable  part  of  which  would  be  converted  into  dry  land 
by  an  elevation  of  that  amount),  and  along  the  western  coast  of  Spain 
and  Portugal,  where,  however,  it  takes  place  much  nearer  the  existing 
land-border.  The  soundings  of  the  U.S.S.  '  Tuscarora  '  in  the  North 
Pacific  have  shown  that  a  like  condition  exists  along  the  western 
coast  of  North  America ;  a  submerged  portion  of  its  continental 
platform,  covered  by  comparatively  shallow  water,  forming  a  belt  of 
variable  breadth  outside  the  existing  coast-line,  and  the  sea-bed  then 
descending  so  rapidly  as  distinctly  to  mark  the  real  border  of  the 
vast  Pacific  depression.  And  as  similar  features  present  themselves 
elsewhere,  it  may  be  stated  as  a  general  fact  that  the  great  continental 
platforms  usually  rine  very  abruptly  from  the  margins  of  the  real 
oceanic  depressed  areas. 

On  the  other  hand,  a  depression  of  the  existing  land  of  northern 
Europe  to  the  same  or  even  half  that  amount,  would  cause  very 
extensive  areas  of  what  is  now  dry  land  to  be  overflowed  by  sea ;  the 
higher  tracts  and  mountainous  regions  alone  remaining  as  representa- 
tives of  the  continental  platform  to  which  the  submerged  portions 
equally  belong.  This,  as  every  geologist  knows,  has  been,  not  once 
only,  but  many  times,  the  former  condition  of  Europe ;  and  finds  a 
singular  parallelism  in  the  present  condition  of  that  great  continental 
platform,  of  which  the  peninsula  and  islands  of  Malaya  are  the  most 
elevated  portion?.  For  the  Yellow  Sea,  which  forms  the  existing 
boundary  of  south-eastern  Asia,  is  everywhere  so  shallow,  that  an 
elevation  of  100  fathoms  would  convert  it  into  land  ;  while  half  that 
elevation  would  lay  dry  many  of  the  channels  between  the  Malay 
Islands,  so  as  to  bring  them  into  continuity  not  only  with  each  other 
but  with  the  continent  of  Asia.  And  Mr.  Wallace's  admirable 
researches  on  the  zoology  of  this  region  have  shown  that  such  con- 


598  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  April 

tinuity  undoubtedly  existed  at  no  remote  period,  its  mammalian 
fauna  being  essentially  Asiatic.  On  the  other  hand,  a  like  elevation 
would  bring  Papua  into  land-continuity  with  Australia  ;  with  which, 
in  like  manner,  the  intimacy  of  its  zoological  relations  shows  it  to 
have  been  in  former  connection.  The  Indo-Malay  province  is 
separated  from  the  Papuo- Australian  province  by  a  strait,  which, 
though  narrow,  is  so  much  deeper  than  the  channels  which  intervene 
between  the  separate  members  of  either  group,  that  it  would  still 
remain  as  a  fissure  of  considerable  depth,  even  if  the  elevation  of  the 
two  parts  of  the  great  area  it  divides  were  sufficient  to  raise  most  of 
each  into  dry  land.  And  thus  we  may  view  the  whole  area  extending 
from  south-eastern  Asia  to  South  Australia  as  a  vast  land-platform 
(partly  submerged),  of  which  the  great  fissure  that  divides  it  into 
two  distinct  zoological  provinces  may  be  considered  as  corresponding 
with  the  great  break  made  by  the  Mediterranean  in  the  continuity 
between  Europe  and  Africa,  and  that  made  by  the  Gulf  of  Mexico 
and  the  Caribbean  Sea  in  the  continuity  between  North  and  South 
America.  There  is  generally  a  very  marked  contrast  in  elevation 
between  the  slightly  submerged  portions  of  this  land-platform,  and 
the  deep  sea-floors  in  its  neighbourhood  ;  the  descent  from  the  former 
to  the  latter  being  very  abrupt. 

Now  these  facts  remarkably  confirm  the  doctrine  long  since  pro- 
pounded by  the  distinguished  American  geologist,  Professor  Dana, 
when  reasoning  out  the  probable  succession-  of  events  during  the 
original  consolidation  of  the  earth's  crust,  and  its  subsequent  shrink- 
age upon  the  gradually  contracting  mass  within, — that  these  elevated 
areas  now  forming  the  Continental  platforms,  and  the  depressed  areas 
that  constitute  the  existing  Ocean-floors,  ivere  formed  as  such  in  the 
Jirst  instance,  and  have  remained  unchanged  in  their  general  rela- 
tions from  that  time  to  the  present,  notwithstanding  the  vast  dis- 
turbances that  have  been  since  produced  in  each  by  the  progressive 
contraction  of  the  earth's  crust.  For  this  general  contraction, 
coupled  with  the  unequal  bearing  of  the  different  parts  of  the  -crust 
upon  one  another,  has  been  the  chief  agency  in  determining  the 
evolution  of  the  earth's  surface-features,  producing  local  upheavals 
and  subsidences  alike  in  the  elevated  and  depressed  areas ;  so  that 
lofty  mountains  and  deep  troughs  have  been  formed,  with  plications 
and  contortions  of  their  component  strata  ;  metamorphism  of  various 
kinds  has  been  produced  in  their  rocks ;  and  volcanic  action,  with 
earthquake  phenomena  involving  extensive  dislocations  of  the  crust, 
have  been  repeated  through  successive  geological  periods,  mostly  along 
particular  lines  or  in  special  areas  ; — without  making  any  considerable 
alteration  in  the  position  of  the  great  Continents,  or  in  the  real 
borders  of  the  Oceanic  areas,  though  the  amount  of  the  continental 
areas  that  might  be  above  water,  and  the  position  of  their  coast- 
lines, might  vary  greatly  from  time  to  time. 


1880.          THE  DEEP  SEA   AND  ITS  CONTENTS.  599 

This  idea  of  the  general  permanence  of  what  we  used  to  call  the 
great  '  ocean-basins '  had,  in  fact,  struck  me  forcibly,  as  soon  as  the 
soundings  of  the  '  Challenger '  and  '  Tuscarora,'  in  the  Pacific,  enabled 
me  to  work  out  the  enormous  disproportion  between  the  mass  of  land 
above  the  sea-level  and  the  volume  of  the  water  beneath  it.  At  the 
end  of  our  first  ('  Lightning  ')  cruise  in  1868,  my  colleague,  Professor 
Wyville  Thomson,  had  pointed  out  to  me,  that  there  is  no  adequate 
reason  for  supposing  that  the  present  bed  of  the  North  Atlantic  has 
ever  been  raised  into  dry  land  since  the  termination  of  the  Cretaceous 
epoch,  which  was  marked  by  the  elevation  of  the  chalk  formations  of 
Europe  and  Asia  on  the  one  side,  and  of  North  America  on  the  other, 
into  dry  land  ;  and  that  the  persistence  of  a  considerable  number  of 
cretaceous  types  in  its  marine  fauna  justifies  the  conclusion  that  the 
deep  sea-bed  of  this  ocean  has  not  undergone  any  essential  change  of 
condition  through  the  whole  of  the  Tertiary  period.  This  conclusion 
I  unhesitatingly  indorsed ;  and  though  the  announcement  of  it  rather 
startled  some  of  our  geological  Nestors,  it  has  come  to  be  generally 
accepted  by  the  younger  generation  as  by  no  means  improbable. 
Subsequent  reflection  upon  the  disproportion  to  which  I  have  just 
referred,  though  from  imperfect  data  I  at  first  imd^r-estimated  it, 
disposed  me  to  extend  the  same  view  to  the  ocean-basins  generally ;  and 
happening  at  the  same  time  to  become  acquainted  with  the  doctrines 
which  had  been  advanced  by  Professor  Dana  (then  little  known  in 
this  country),  I  was  strongly  impressed  by  their  accordance — this 
being  the  more  remarkable  on  account  of  the  entire  difference  of  the 
data  and  lines  of  reasoning  which  led  Professor  Dana  and  myself  to 
the  same  conclusion.2 

We  are  now  able  to  form  an  estimate  of  the  relative  masses  of 
Land  and  Sea,  which  is  probably  not  far  from  the  truth.  The  area, 
of  the  existing  land  is  to  that  of  the  sea  as  about  1  to  2f ,  or  as  4  10  11 ; 
so  that  if  the  entire  surface  of  the  globe  were  divided  into  fifteen 
equal  parts,  the  land  would  occupy  only  four  of  these,  or  rather  more 
than  a  quarter,  whilst  the  sea  would  cover  eleven,  or  rather  less  than 
three  quarters.  But  the  average  height  of  the  whole  land  of  the 
globe  above  the  sea-level  certainly  does  not  exceed  1,000  feet;  that 
of  Asia  and  Africa  being  somewhat  above  that  amoimt,  while  that  of 
America  (North  and  South),  Europe,  and  Australia  is  considerably 
below  it.  On  the  other  hand,  the  average  depth  of  the  ocean-floors 
is  now  known  to  be  at  least  2^  miles,  and  may  be  taken  (for  the 
convenience  of  round  number)  at  13,000  feet.  Thus,  the  average 
depth  of  the  ocean  being  13  times  as  much  as  the  average  height  of 
the  land,  and  the  area  of  the  sea  2f  times  that  of  the  land,  the  total 
volume  of  the  ocean-water  is  (2£  x  13)  just  36  times  that  of  the 
land  above  the  sea-level. 

Now  this  disproportion  appears  to  me  to  render  it  extremely 
2  See  my  article  'Atlantic  '  in  the  ninth  edition  of  the  Eitvycfopeeditk  JSritannica. 


600  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  April 

improbable  that  any  such  geological  '  see-saw '  as  may  have  produced 
successive  alternations  of  land  and  water  between  the  several  parts  of 
the  same  continental  platform,  can  have  ever  produced  such  an  ex- 
change between  any  continental  platform  and  an  ocean-floor,  as  was 
assumed  by  Sir  Charles  Lyell  to  have  taken  place  over  and  over 
again  in  geological  time.3  For  even  supposing  all  the  existing  land 
of  the  globe  to  sink  down  to  the  sea-level,  this  subsidence  would  be 
balanced  by  the  elevation  of  only  one  thirty-sixth  part  of  the  existing 
ocean-floor  from  its  present  average  depth  to  the  same  level.  Or, 
again,  let  the  great  island-continent  of  Australia  (whose  area  is  about 
one  seventeenth  of  the  total  land-area  of  the  globe)  be  supposed  to 
subside  to  the  depth  of  the  average  sea-bed,  so  as  to  be  altogether 
lost  sight  of  not  only  by  the  surface  navigator  but  by  the  deep-sea 
surveyor, — and  a  compensatory  elevation  to  take  place  in  the  existing 
land  area, — this,  if  limited  to  an  area  of  the  size  of  Australia  (which 
is  about  equal  to  that  of  the  whole  of  Europe),  would  raise  it  all  to 
nearly  the  height  of  Mont  Blanc ;  whilst,  if  spread  over  the  entire 
land  area  of  the  globe,  it  would  nearly  double  its  present  average 
elevation. 

Now  we  have  no  reason  whatever  to  believe  that  vertical  up- 
heavals or  subsidences  have  ever  taken  place  over  extensive  areas  to 
anything  like  such  amounts,  which  have  their  parallels  only  in  the 
elevation  of  lofty  mountain  chains,  or  in  the  complementary  forma- 
tion of  deep  troughs  now  rilled  by  sedimentary  deposit  originating  in 
the  degradation  of  the  neighbouring  land  ;  which  local  disturbances 
(as  Professor  Dana  has  shown)  have  been  effected  by  the  lateral  or 
horizontal  thrust  engendered  during  the  shrinkage  of  the  globe  in 
cooling.  Moreover,  the  contours  of  the  Oceanic  area,  so  far  as  they 
have  been  yet  determined  by  the  '  Challenger '  and  other  soundings, 
give  no  sanction  whatever  to  the  notion  of  the  existence  of  any 
submerged  continental  platform.  On  the  contrary,  the  '  Challenger ' 
observations  enable  it  to  be  affirmed  with  high  probability  that  the 
Islands  which  are  met  with  in  the  real  oceanic  area  (as  distinguished 
from  those  which,  like  the  British  Isles,  are  really  outlying  parts  of 
the  slightly  sunken  corner  of  the  platform  which  rises  into  continental 
land  in  their  vicinity  ;  or  which,  like  the  great  islands  of  the  Malayan 
Archipelago,  are  the  '  survivals '  of  a  continental  platform  more 
deeply  submerged)  are  all  of  Volcanic  origin,  having  been  projected 
upwards  from  beneath,  instead  of  having  gone  down  from  above. 
This  may  be  stated  with  confidence  in  regard  to  all  those  which 
consist  of  inorganic  rocks ;  and  since  it  is  equally  true  of  those  coral 
islands  whose  rock  basis  shows  itself  above  the  surface,  the  same  may 
be  fairly  presumed  in  regard  to  the  submerged  peaks  on  which  those 
'  atolls '  rest,  above  whose  level  platforms  no  rocky  base  now  rises. 
These  volcanic  vents  are  generally  found  on  upward  bulgings  of 
median  portions  of  the  depressed  ocean-floors ;  whilst,  on  the  other 
3  See  chap.  xii.  of  his  Principles  of  Geology. 


1880.         THE  DEEP   SEA   AND  ITS   CONTENTS.  601 

hand,  the  volcanoes  which  rise  from  the  elevated  land-platforms  are 
for  the  most  part  thrown  up  near  their  oceanic  margins ;  and 
Professor  Dana  gives  mechanical  reasons  for  both  these  classes  of 
facts,  deduced  from  consideration  of  the  mode  in  which  the  horizontal 
thrust  will  he  exerted  in  the  two  areas  respectively.  The  '  crumpling' 
of  the  elevated  portions  of  the  crust  which  throws  up  mountain 
ridges,  produces  at  the  same  time  equivalent  depressions.  These 
will  be  filled  by  sea-water  if  it  has  access  to  them,  as  is  the  case  with 
the  enormously  deep  pit-holes  found  in  various  parts  of  the  Malayan 
area  ;  or  with  fresh  water,  where,  being  cut  off  from  the  sea,  they  are 
surrounded  by  a  mountainous  region  affording  a  large  supply  of  it, 
as  in  deep  lake-basins  of  Switzerland :  or  they  may  remain  almost 
empty  for  want  of  water,  like  the  deeply  depressed  valley  of  the 
Jordan  ;  or  may  be  partly  filled,  like  the  Caspian.  And  thus  the 
distribution  of  land  and  water  over  different  parts  of  the  Continental 
platforms  may  have  been  greatly  changed  from  time  to  time,  and 
groups  or  chains  of  islands  may  have  been  raised  and  again  submerged 
in  the  Oceanic  area,  without  making  any  such  essential  changes  in 
the  Map  of  the  World  as  Sir  Charles  Lyell  supposed  to  have  taken 
place  over  and  over  again. 

Now  this  view  of  the  permanence  of  the  great  original  division  of 
the  crust  of  the  earth  into  elevated  and  depressed  areas,  and  of  the 
non-conversion  of  any  considerable  part  of  a  continental  platform 
into  a  deep  sea-bed,  or  of  a  deep  sea-bed  into  a  continental  platform, 
has  received  a  most  unexpected  and  explicit  confirmation  from  the 
study  of  the  deposits  at  present  being  formed  on  the  Oceanic  sea-bed, 
of  which  a  sample  was  brought  up  in  every  sounding  taken  by  the 
'  Challenger,'  whilst  larger  collections  of  them  were  made  by  the  trawl 
and  the  dredge.  For  such  deposits  as  are  obviously  formed  by  the 
disintegration  of  ordinary  land-masses,  were,  as  a  rule,  only  found  in 
the  comparatively  shallow  waters  in  the  near  neighbourhood  of  those 
masses ;  the  almost  universal  absence  of  the  ordinary  siliceous  sand 
of  our  shores  being  a  most  noteworthy  fact.  Indeed,  the  exception 
served  to  prove  the  rule ;  for  it  was  only  when  the  '  Challenger's ' 
course  lay  parallel  to  the  coast  of  Africa,  some  two  or  three  hundred 
miles  to  the  westward  of  it,  that  the  soundings  gave  evidence  of  its 
presence ;  and  that  this  sand  had  been  blown  over  the  sea-surface 
from  the  Sahara  was  indicated  by  its  deposit  as  a  fine  dust  on 
the  ship's  deck.  Deposits  of  volcanic  origin,  however,  were  met 
with  in  unexpected  abundance ;  the  most  common  being  a  red 
clay,  first  found  on  the  deepest  areas  of  the  Atlantic,  the  source 
of  which  was  for  some  time  a  question  of  great  perplexity  to  the 
scientific  staff  of  the  '  Challenger,'  from  its  presenting  itself  at  such 
a  distance  from  any  land  that  it  could  not  be  supposed  to  have  been 
brought  down  (as  the  clay  deposits  of  shore-waters  are)  by  continental 
rivers.  The  clue  to  the  solution  of  the  difficulty  was  furnished  by  the 
unexpected  capture,  in  the  '  tow-net,'  of  a  considerable  number  of 


602  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  April 

floating  masses  of  pumice-stone  ;  whilst  the  trawl  frequently  brought 
up  bushels  of  such,  varying  in  size  from  that  of  a  pea  to  that  of  a  foot- 
ball. Now  pumice  is  formed  of  ordinary  lava  which  has  been  'raised' 
(like  dough)  into  a  spongy  condition  by  the  liberation  of  gases  in 
its  substance,  and  contains  a  considerable  proportion  of  feldspar, 
which  affords  the  material  of  clay ;  and  as  the  clay  deposits  were 
found  to  contain  fragments  of  pumice  in  various  stages  of  disintegra- 
tion, the  probability  of  their  volcanic  origin  seems  so  strong  as  to 
justify  its  full  acceptance.  Mr.  Murray  thinks  it  likely  that  not  only 
all  the  pieces  of  pumice  which  float  on  the  surface,  but  those  spread 
over  the  sea-bottom,  have  been  ejected  from  land- volcanoes ;  some 
of  them,  perhaps,  having  fallen  into  the  sea  in  the  first  instance,  but 
the  greater  number  having  been  washed  down  by  rain  and  rivers. 
After  floating  for  a  longer  or  shorter  time,  so  as  to  be  carried  about 
by  winds  and  currents,  perhaps  to  very  considerable  distances,  they 
would  become  water-logged  and  sink  to  the  bottom,  and  there  undergo 
gradual  disintegration.  They  were  always  found  in  greatest  abundance 
in  the  neighbourhood  of  volcanic  centres,  such  as  the  Azores  and  the 
Philippines  ;  and  within  their  areas,  again,  were  found  tufaceous  de- 
posits— dust  and  ashes  which  had  been  carried  by  the  winds  blowing 
over  the  craters.  But  there  were  also  occasionally  found,  at  several 
hundred  miles'  distance  from  any  land,  small  pieces  of  obsidian  and 
basaltic  lavas,  whose  presence  there  could  only  be  accounted  for  by 
submarine  volcanic  action. 

In  association  with  the  clays  there  were  found  remarkable  deposits 
of  manganese,  sometimes  incrusting  corals,  &c.,  with  a  coating  of 
greater  or  less  thickness,  but  more  generally  forming  nodular  concre- 
tions, varying  in  size  from  little  pellets  to  several  pounds  in  weight, 
which  were  usually  found  to  include  organic  bodies,  such  as  sharks' 
teeth  or  whales'  ear-bones.  The  following  summary  of  this  curious 
class  of  facts  is  given  in  Lord  George  Campbell's  *  Log-letters  : ' — 

In  some  regions  everything  at  the  bottom,  even  the  bottom  itself,  would  appear 
to  be  overlaid  by  and  impregnated  with  this  substance.  Sharks'  teeth  of  all  sizes 
(many  gigantic,  one  was  four  inches  across  the  base)  are  frequent,  and  are  some- 
times surrounded  by  concentric  layers  of  manganese  of  nearly  an  inch  in  thickness. 
A  siliceous  sponge,  bits  of  pumice,  radiolaria  and  globigerinaj,  and  lumps  of  clay, 
have  all  been  found  forming  the  nuclei  of  these  nodules.  We  have  caught  in  one 
haul,  where  there  has  been  no  reason  to  suppose  that  the  trawl  has  sunk  more  than 
two  inches  in  the  clay,  over  600  sharks'  teeth,  100  ear-bones  of  whales,  and  fifty 
fragments  of  other  bones,  some  imbedded  in  manganese  an  inch  thick,  some  with 
only  just  a  trace  of  manganese  on  them,  and  some  with  no  trace  at  all.  These 
sharks'  teeth  are  all  fossil  teeth,  the  same  as  are  found  in  great  quantities  in  Tertiary 
formations,  particularly  in  Swiss  miocene  deposits.1 

As  we  have  every  reason  to  believe  that  this  aggregation  of  the  manganese  is  a 
very  slow  process,  the  occurrence  of  these  teeth  and  bones,  some  imbedded  deeply 
and  some  not  at  all,  in  the  same  surface-layers,  argues  strongly  in  favour  of  an  ex- 

4  The  writer  does  not  seem  aware  of  the  extraordinary  abundance  of  similar 
sharks'  teeth  and  whales'  ear-bones  in  the  so-called  '  coprolite  pits  '  of  our  Suffolk 
crag. 


1880.          THE  DEEP  SEA   AND  ITS  CONTENTS.          603 

treniely  slow  rate  of  deposition.     On  the  o.ther  hand,  the  occurrence  of  sharks'  teeth 
in  shore  deposits  is  extremely  rare,  and  in  the  organic  oozes  slightly  less  so — p.  495. 

This  deposit  of  manganese  seems,  like  that  of  the  red  clay, 
traceable  to  a  volcanic  source  : — 

Wherever  we  have  pumice  containing  much  magnetite,  olivine,  augite,  or  horn- 
blende, and  these  apparently  undergoing  decomposition  and  alteration,  or  where  we 
have  great  showers  of  volcanic  ash,  there  also  is  manganese  in  the  greatest  abund- 
ance. The  correspondence  between  the  distribution  of  these  two  may  therefore 
be  regarded  as  very  significant  of  the  origin  of  the  latter.  Manganese  is  as  frequent 
as  iron  in  lavas  ;  and  in  magnetite  and  in  some  varieties  of  hornblende  and  augite  it 
partially  replaces  peroxide  of  iron.  It  is  therefore  probable  that  the  manganese,  as 
we  find  it,  is  one  of  the  secondary  products  arising  from  the  decomposition  of  vol- 
canic minerals,  that  decomposition  being  caused  by  the  carbonic  acid  and  oxygen  of 
ocean-waters.5 

These  deep-sea  deposits  of  manganese  differ  in  mineral  structure 
and  composition  from  any  of  the  known  ores  of  that  metal ;  and  the 
conditions  under  which  they  are  being  formed  constitute  a  problem  of 
very  great  interest,  to  which,  as  to  other  points  of  this  inquiry,  a  most 
distinguished  Continental  petrologist,  the  Abbe  Renard,  is  now  giving 
the  most  careful  attention,  with  the  full  expectation  of  being  able  to 
throw  great  light  upon  the  mode  of  production  of  many  minerals 
whose  origin  has  been  hitherto  unaccounted  for. 

But  there  is  yet  another  form  of  inorganic  deposit  whose  charac- 
ter is  even  more  remarkable  : — 

In  the  midst  of  the  clay  from  the  bottom  (says  Professor  Geikie)  Mr.  Murray 
found  numerous  minute  spherical  granules  of  native  iron,  which,  as  he  suggests,  are 
almost  certainly  of  meteoric  origin — fragments  of  those  falling  stars  which,  coming 
to  us  from  planetary  space,  burst  into  fragments  when  they  rush  into  the  denser 
layers  of  our  atmosphere.  In  tracts  where  the  growth  of  silt  upon  the  sea-floor  is 
excessively  tardy,  the  fine  particles  scattered  by  the  dissipation  of  these  meteorites 
may  remain  in  appreciable  quantity.  It  is  not  needful  to  suppose  that  meteorites 
have  disappeared  over  these  ocean-depths  more  numerously  than  over  other  parts  of 
the  earth's  surface.  The  iron  granules  have  no  doubt  been  as  plentifully  showered 
down  elsewhere,  though  they  cannot  be  so  readily  detected  in  accumulating  sediment. 
I  know  no  recent  discovery  in  physical  geography  more  calculated  to  impress 
deeplv  the  imagination  than  the  testimony  of  this  meteoric  iron  from  the  most 
distant  abysses  of  the  ocean.  To  be  told  that  mud  gathers  on  the  floor  of  those 
abysses  at  an  extremely  slow  rate,  conveys  but  a  vague  notion  of  the  tardiness  of  the 
process.  But  to  learn  that  it  gathers  so  slowly  that  the  very  star-dust  which  falls 
from  outer  space  forms  an  appreciable  part  of  it,  brings  home  to  us,  as  hardly  any- 
thing else  could  do,  the  idea  of  undisturbed  and  excessively  slow  accumulation.0 

Next  to  the  volcanic  clays,  the  globigerina-ooze  (which  had  been 
brought  up  by  the  hundredweight  in  the  'Lightning'  and  *  Porcupine' 
dredgings)  proved  to  be  the  most  abundant  oceanic  deposit.  Not 
only  from  the  completeness  of  their  minute  shells  in  the  surface-layer, 
but  also  from  the  fact  that  a  large  proportion  of  these  shells  were 
occupied  by  their  sarcodic  bodies  in  an  apparently  fresh  condition, 
5  Log-Letters,  p.  495.  •  Lecture  on  Geographical  Evolution,  p.  7. 


604  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  April 

we  had  concluded  that  the  Globigerinse  live  on  the  bottoms  on  which 
their  remains  accumulate.  But  since,  in  nearly  all  but  the  coldest 
parts  of  the  oceanic  area  traversed  by  the  '  Challenger,'  they  were 
collected  in  abundance  by  the  *  tow-net '  drawn  through  the  water  at 
or  beneath  the  surface,  Sir  Wyville  Thomson  and  som'e  of  his  asso- 
ciates have  come  to  the  conclusion  that  they  pass  their  whole  lives  in 
the  surface  stratum,  their  subsidence  to  the  bottom  only  taking  place 
after  their  death.  I  have  myself,  however,  remained  of  the  opinion  that 
they  subside  during  life,  when  the  addition  of  new  chambers  has  come 
to  an  end,  and  the  further  exudation  of  carbonate  of  lime  has  been 
applied  to  the  thickening  of  the  walls  of  the  old ;  and  that  they 
continue  to  live  on  the  bottom,  continually  adding  to  the  thickness 
of  their  shells.  And  in  this  I  have  the  satisfaction  of  rinding  myself 
supported  by  Mr.  H.  B.  Brady,  into  whose  most  competent  charge 
the  Foraminifera  of  the  '  Challenger '  have  been  given  for  '  working 
up.'  For  the  result  of  a  series  of  most  careful  comparisons  between 
the  Grlobigerina?  brought  up  from  any  bottom,  and  those  captured 
floating  in  the  upper  waters  of  the  same  region,  shows  that  the  shells 
of  the  former  so  greatly  exceed  those  of  the  latter  in  size  and  mas- 
siveness  as  to  make  it  certain  that  they  continued  to  live  and  grow 
after  their  subsidence. 

The  careful  examination  in  which  Mr.  Murray  has  been  engaged 
of  the  calcareous  deposits  (resembling  chalk  in  process  of  formation), 
chiefly  consisting  of  globigerina-ooze,  but  also  containing  the  dis- 
integrated remains  of  free-swimming  Pteropod  molluscs,  as  well  as  of 
shells  and  corals  that  have  lived  on  the  bottom,  has  led  him  to  the 
remarkable  conclusion,  that  in  their  descent  from  the  upper  waters 
towards  the  deeper  sea- bottoms,  the  thin  shells  of  Globigerinse  and 
the  yet  more  delicate  pteropod  shells  are  again  dissolved,  by  the 
agency  of  the  carbonic,  acid  that  is  held  in  ]arge  proportion  in  those 
abyssal  waters.     And  thus  it  was  that  in  the  deepest  parts  of  tho 
Oceanic  area,  though  Globigerinas  were  captured  by  the  surface  tow- 
net  in  the  same  abundance  as  elsewhere,  their  remains  were  entirely 
wanting  on  the  bottom  beneath.    At  intermediate  depths  the  ooze  and 
the  red  clay  would  often  be  found  mixed,  in  proportions  that  seemed 
related   to  the  depth.     But  in  the  shallower  waters  not  sufficiently 
charged  with  carbonic  acid  to  exert  any  solvent  power,  the  organic 
deposit  prevailed  almost  to  the  exclusion  of  the  inorganic.     This, 
then,  seems  to  have  been  the  condition  of  the  marine  area  in  which 
the  old  Chalk  was  deposited  ;  a  variety  of  considerations  pointing  to 
the  conclusion,  that  the   sea-bottom  whereon  accumulated  the  fora- 
miniferal  ooze  of  which  it  is  almost  entirely  composed,  was  of  no 
considerable  depth. 

But  the  surface-waters  are  also  inhabited  by  microscopic  organ- 
isms, whose  skeletons  are  composed,  not  of  carbonate  of  lime,  but 
of  silex ;  and  of  these,  some — the  Diatoms — are  vegetable,  whilst 


1880.         THE  DEEP  SEA    AND  ITS  CONTENTS.  605 

others — the  Eadiolarians — are  animals  of  about  the  same  simplicity 
as  the  Foraminifera.  The  Diatoms  abound  in  those  colder  seas  which 
are  not  prolific  in  Foraminifera  ;  often  accumulating  in  such  num- 
bers as  to  form  green  bands  that  attract  the  notice  of  both  Arctic  and 
Antarctic  voyagers.  And  their  exquisitely  sculptured  cases,  accumu- 
lating on  the  bottom,  form  a  siliceous  'Diatom-ooze,'  which  takes  the- 
place  in  higher  latitudes  of  the  white  calcareous  mud  resulting  from 
the  disintegration  of  foraminiferal  shells.  The  foraminiferal  ooze, 
moreover,  generally  contains,  in  larger  or  smaller  proportion,  the 
beautiful  siliceous  skeletons  of  Radiolaria ;  and  sometimes  these  were 
found  to  predominate  to  such  a  degree  that  the  ooze  mainly  consisted 
of  them,  in  which  case  it  was  designated  as  radiolarian.  As  siliceous 
skeletons  are  not — like  calcareous — dissolved  by  deep-sea  water,  those 
which  fall  down  from  the  surface  even  upon  the  deepest  bottoms  rest 
there  unchanged  ;  and  thus  it  happens  that  they  are  found  diffused 
through  the  red-clay  deposits,  and,  at  the  greatest  depths,  sometimes 
almost  entirely  replace  them.  Some  of  these  minute  organisms  were 
almost  everywhere  captured  alive  in  the  tow-net ;  but,  like  the 
Diatoms,  they  commonly  aggregate  in  patches  or  bands,  and  this  to 
such  a  degree  as  to  colour  the  sea-surface,  the  hue  of  their  animal 
substance  being  usually  red  or  reddish  brown.  Such  patches  are 
often  seen  in  the  neighbourhood  of  the  Shetlands,  where  they  are. 
designated  by  the  fishermen  as  '  herring  food.' 

Thus,  then,  if  we  compare  (1)  the  deposits  now  going  on  upon  the 
deep  Oceanic  sea-bed,  which  consist  either  of  organic  '  oozes,'  or  of  the 
clays  formed  by  the  decomposition  of  volcanic  products,  (2)  the  sedi- 
ments at  present  in  course  of  deposition  on  the  shallower  bottoms  nearer 
land,  and  (3)  the  materials  of  the  sedimentary  rocks  of  all  geological 
periods,  we  see  that  whilst  there  is  a  close  correspondence  between  the 
second  and  the  third,  the  first  differs  so  completely — in  most  par- 
ticulars— from  both  the  others,  as  to  be  utterly  beyond  the  range  of 
comparison  with  them  ;  the  chief  exception  being  presented  by  those 
calcareous  sediments,  which  correspond  with  the  various  Limestone 
formations  intercalated  among  the  sandstones  and  clays  that  have  had 
their  origin  in  the  degradation  of  pre-existing  land.  We  now  know 
for  certain  that  the  sands  and  clays  washed  off  the  land — whether  by 
the  action  of  ice  or  river-waters  on  its  surface,  or  by  the  wearing — 
away  of  its  margin  by  the  waves  of  the  sea — sink  to  the  sea-bottom 
long  before  they  reach  the  deeper  abysses  ;  not  the  least  trace  of  such 
sediments  having  been  anyivhere  found  at  a  distance  from  the  con- 
tinental platforms.  And  thus  the  study  of  the  deposits  on  the 
Oceanic  sea-bed  has  fully  confirmed  the  conclusion  drawn  from  the 
present  configuration  of  the  earth's  surface,  as  to  the  general  per--- 
sistence  of  those  original  inequalities  which  have  respectively  served 
as  the  bases  of  the  existing  continents,  and  the  floors  of  the  greak 
ocean-basins. 

VOL.  VII.— No.  38.  S  S 


606  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  April 

In  the  masterly  lecture  on  '  Geographical  Evolution '  recently 
given  by  Professor  Geikie  before  the  Royal  Geographical  Society,  the 
importance  of  these  results,  as  affording  the  key  to  the  interpretation 
of  much  of  the  past  history  of  the  earth,  is  most  fully  brought 
out.  'For,'  he  unhesitatingly  asserts,  with  all  the  authority  of  a 
vast  geological  experience,  '  from  the  earliest  geological  times  the 
great  area  of  deposit  has  been,  as  it  still  is,  the  marginal  belt  of 
sea-floor  skirting  the  land.  It  is  there  that  nature  has  always 
strewn  "  the  dust  of  continents  to  be."  The  decay  of  old  rocks  has 
been  unceasingly  in  progress  on  the  land,  and  the  building  up  of  new 
rocks  has  been  as  unceasingly  going  on  underneath  the  adjoining  sea. 
The  two  phenomena  are  the  complementary  sides  of  one  process, 
which  belongs  to  the  terrestrial  and  shallovj  oceanic  parts  of  the 
earth's  surface,  and  not  to  'the  wide  and  deep  ocean-basins.''  'No 
part  of  the  results  obtained  by  the  "Challenger"  expedition, 'he  goes 
on  to  say,  '  has  a  profounder  interest  for  geologists  and  geographers, 
than  the  proof  they  furnish  that  the  floor  of  the  ocean-basins  has  no 
real  analogy  among  the  sedimentary  formations  which  form  most  of 
the  framework  of  the  land.'  And  after  dwelling  on  the  chief  facts  I 
rhave  already  brought  together,  he  thus  sums  up : — 

From  all  tins  evidence  we  may  legitimately  conclude  that  the  present  land  of 
the  globe,  though  composed  in  great  measure  of  marine  formations,  has  never  lain 
•under  the  deep  sea,  but  that  its  site  must  always  have  been  near  land.  Even  its 
thick  marine  limestones  are  the  deposits  of  comparatively  shallow  water.  Whether 
or  not  any  trace  of  aboriginal  land  may  now  be  discoverable,  the  characters  of  the 
most  unequivocally  marine  formations  bear  emphatic  testimony  to  the  proximity  of 
a  terrestrial  surface.  The  present  continental  ridges  have  probably  always  existed 
in  some  form  ;  and  as  a  corollary  we  may  infer  that  the  present  deep  ocean-basins 
likeivise  date  from  the  remotest  geological  antiquity. 

No  part  of  the  '  Challenger's '  work  has  been  more  thoroughly  and 
successfully  carried  out,  than  the  determination  of  the  thermal  strati- 
fication, or  vertical  distribution  of  temperature,  in  the  different  parts 
of  the  Oceanic  area ;  an  inquiry  first  prosecuted  with  trustworthy 
thermometers  ('  protected'  to  resist  pressure)  in  the  '  Porcupine  '  ex- 
peditions of  1869  and  1870.  This  determination  was  effected  by 
'  serial '  temperature-soundings ;  thermometers  attached  to  a  sounding- 
line  being  let  down  to  depths  progressively  increasing  by  10  fathoms 
-down  to  200,  and  below  this  to  depths  progressively  increasing  by 
100  fathoms  to  the  bottom.  It  is  in  the  upper  stratum  of  200 
fathoms  that  the  most  rapid  reduction  of  temperature  usually  shows 
itself;  the  further  reduction  beneath  this  stratum  taking  place  at  a 
progressively  diminishing  rate,  until,  from  1,500  fathoms  downwards 
to  the  bottom  at  any  depth,  there  is  usually  very  little  change. 

The  Temperature-soundings  of  the  '  Challenger,'  supplemented  by 
other  more  limited  explorations  of  the  same  kind,  have  clearly  brought 
out  this  most  unexpected  result — that  the  low  bottom- temperatures 


1880.         THE  DEEP  SEA   AND  ITS  CONTENTS.  607 

previously  observed  represent — not,  as  has  been  supposed,  the  over- 
flowing of  the  sea-bed  by  '  Polar  currents '  of  limited  breadth  and 
inconsiderable  thickness,  overlaid  by  a  vast  mass  of  comparatively 
warm  water — but  the  reduction  of  nearly  the  whole  body  of  Oceanic 
water,  in  every  basin  except  that  of  the  North  Atlantic  (to  whose 
exceptional  character  I  shall  presently  advert),  to  a  temperature  which 
averages  but  a  very  few  degrees  above  32°  Fahr.,  that  of  its  deepest 
stratum  being  sometimes  even  a  degree  or  two  belovj  the  freezing- 
point  of  fresh  water  ;  while  the  heating  influence  of  the  solar  rays  is 
limited  to  a  very  small  depth  beneath  the  surface. 

Thus  in  the  South  Atlantic,  in  which  a  sounding  taken  near  37° 
S.  lat.  gave  a  depth  of  2,900  fathoms  and  a  bottom-temperature 
beneath  32°  Fahr.,  the  lowest  stratum,  consisting  of  absolutely  glacial 
water,  was  found  to  have  the  enormous  thickness  of  1 ,000  fathoms  : 
this  was  overlaid  by  another  stratum  of  1,000  fathoms,  in  which  the 
temperature  rose  slowly  from  32°  at  its  lower,  to  36^°  at  its  upper 
surface  ;  and  this,  again,  by  another  of  about  500  fathoms,  which 
showed  a  further  rise  at  its  upper  surface  to  40°,  the  rate  of  elevation 
from  below  upwards  being  no  more  than  about  0'7°  for  every  100 
fathoms.  Thus  it  is  only  in  the  uppermost  layer  of  about  four  hun- 
dred fathoms  (less  than  one  seventh  of  the  whole)  that  the  tempera- 
ture exceeds  40° ;  and  the  regularity  of  the  rise  of  the  thermometer, 
from  40°  at  its  base  to  the  summer  surface-temperature  of  70°,  at  the 
rate  of  about  7^°  for  every  100  fathoms,  justifies  our  regarding  the 
plane  of  40°  as  the  limit  of  the  depth  at  which  the  solar  rays  here 
exert  any  direct  heating  influence. 

On  her  passage  southwards  towards  the  Antarctic  ice-barrier,  the 
*  Challenger '  found  the  progressive  reduction  of  surface-temperature 
to  correspond  with  the  progressive  thinning  of  the  warm  superficial 
layer,  in  a  manner  which  clearly  showed  that  the  thermal  condition  of 
the  Southern  Ocean  is  entirely  dominated  by  the  flow  into  it  of  the 
great  mass  of  glacial  water  which  has  been  cooled  down  in  the 
Antarctic  area  ;  and  that  it  is,  so  to  speak,  a  vast  reservoir  of  cold, 
the  outflow  from  which  keeps  down  the  temperature  of  every  part  of 
the  Oceanic  area  in  free  communication  with  it.  This  we  see  best  in 
the  Pacific,  whose  vast  basin  is  almost  entirely  filled  by  water  of 
glacial  or  sub-glacial  coldness,  on  the  surface  of  which  in  the  inter- 
tropical  region  there  floats  a  layer  whose  temperature  rises  rapidly 
from  its  lower  limit  of  40°  to  80°  at  the  surface,  and  whose 
thickness  is  nowhere  more  than  one  fifth  of  the  whole  depth.  This 
exceptional  stratum,  which  clearly  derives  its  heat  from  the  direct 
action  of  the  solar  rays  upon  its  surface,  progressively  thins  away  in 
either  hemisphere  as  it  is  traced  from  the  tropic  to  the  parallel  of 
55°,  where  it  disappears  altogether,  except  in  the  course  of  the  Kuro 
Siwo,  or  gulf-stream  of  the  Pacific,  which  slants  northwards  from 
Japan  towards  Behring's  Strait.  That  the  cold  of  the  great  mass  of 


608  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  April 

glacial  and  sub-glacial  water  which  everywhere  underlies  it,  and 
which  rises  to  the  surface  beyond  its  northern  and  southern  borders,, 
is  due  to  an  underflow  from  the  Antarctic  area,  is  distinctly  indicated 
by  the  absolute  continuity  of  the  same  glacial  temperature  through- 
out the  deepest  stratum — all  the  way  from  the  Southern  Ocean  to  the 
Aleutian  Islands ;  the  bottom-temperatures  at  depths  of  2,000  fathoms 
or  more  not  differing  as  much  as  1°  Fahr.,  whilst  the  thermal  strati- 
fication of  the  whole  superincumbent  mass  up  to  within  500  fathoms 
of  the  surface  shows  a  similar  uniformity. 

The  thermal  condition  of  the  North  Atlantic,  however,  is  very- 
different.  Putting  aside  the  extraordinarily  low  temperature  of  29^° 
revealed  by  the  '  Porcupine '  temperature-soundings  in  the  stratum 
occupying  the  deeper  part  of  the  channel  of  500  fathoms  between  the 
Faroe  and  the  Shetland  Islands,  which  has  been  since  proved  to  be 
a  southward  extension  of  the  true  Arctic  basin,  no  lower  bottom- 
temperature  than  35°  had  been  anywhere  met  with  in  our  earlier  work, 
while  we  had  found  the  thickness  of  the  warm  stratum  ranging  from 
40°  upwards  to  range  from  800  to  900  fathoms.  This  want  of  a 
truly  glacial  understratum  I  attributed  to  the  limitation  of  the  com- 
munication between  the  deeper  parts  of  the  Arctic  and  North  Atlantic 
basins,  preventing  the  coldest  water  of  the  former  from  flowing  out  into 
the  latter.  And  this  explanation  has  been  borne  out  by  the  subsequent 
temperature-soundings  of  the  '  Valorous,'  which  have  shown  the  exist- 
ence of  a  ridge  between  Greenland  and  Iceland,  lying  at  a  depth 
which  allows  water  of  35°  to  pass  over  it,  while  keeping  back  the 
deeper  stratum  of  Arctic  water.  I  had  further  predicted  that  an 
Antarctic  underflow  would  probably  be  found  to  range  to  the  north  of 
the  Equator,  where  it  would  be  recognised  by  the  reduction  of  the 
bottom-temperature  below  35° :  and  this  prediction  was  verified  in 
the  first  temperature-section  carried  by  the  '  Challenger  '  obliquely 
across  the  Atlantic  to  St.  Thomas's,  the  bottom-temperature  there 
falling  a  degree,  and  showing  a  still  further  reduction  as  it  was  sub- 
sequently traced  southwards  to  the  Equator,  where  it  fell  nearly 
to  32°. 

But,  further,  I  had  ventured  the  prediction  that  the  meeting  of 
the  Arctic  and  Antarctic  underflows  under  the  Equator  would  cause 
an  uprising  of  cold  water  from  the  bottom  towards  the  surface,  so 
that  the  plane  of  40°  would  be  found  nearer  the  surface  in  the  neigh- 
bourhood of  the  Line,  than  either  to  the  north  or  to  the  south  of  it ; 
and  it  was  a  great  surprise  to  many  on  board  the  '  Challenger '  to 
find,  as  they  first  approached  the  Equator  from  the  Tropic  of  Cancer, 
the  plane  of  40°  rapidly  rising  from  a  depth  of  700  fathoms  towards 
the  surface,  though  the  temperature  of  that  surface-stratum  was 
itself  becoming  higher  and  higher  ;  until  water  of  40°  was  found  at 
a  depth  of  less  than  300  fathoms,  descending  again  to  about  400  as 
the  '  Challenger's  course  was  laid  towards  the  Tropic  of  Capricorn. 


1880.         THE  DEEP  SEA   AND  ITS  CONTENTS.  609 

This  anomaly  had  been  remarked  by  Lenz  fifty  years  previously :  but 
the  valuable  series  of  temperature-observations  which  he  took  in 
Kotzebue's  second  voyage  was  strangely  overlooked  by  those  who 
ranked  as  the  highest  authorities  on  the  Physics  of  the  Earth,  until 
•recently  disinterred  by  Professor  Prestwich. 

Not  only  is  the  stratum  of  above  40°  Fahr.  exceptionally  deep  in 
Ihe  North  Atlantic,  but  it  is  exceptionally  warm,  especially  on  its 
•western  side,  where  a  stratum  of  water  having  a  temperature  above 
60°  Fahr.  was  found  by  the  '  Challenger '  to  range  to  a  depth  of 
nearly  400  fathoms.  Taking  all  circumstances  into  account,  I  enter- 
tain no  doubt  that  Sir  \Vyville  Thomson  is  right  in  regarding  this 
stratum  as  the  reflux  of  the  northern  division  of  the  great  Equatorial 
Current,  from  the  coast  of  the  West  India  Islands  and  of  the  penin- 
sula of  Florida,  added  to  that  of  the  Gulf  Stream  proper.  In 
-consequence  of  the  evaporation  produced  by  its  prolonged  exposure 
to  the  tropical  sun,  this  water  contains  such  an  excess  of  salt,  as,  in 
spite  of  its  high  temperature,  to  be  specifically  heavier  than  the 
-colder  water  which  would  otherwise  occupy  its  place  in  the  basin ; 
-and  consequently  substitutes  itself  for  the  latter  by  gravitation,  to  a 
depth  of  several  hundred  fathoms.  Thus  it  conveys  the  solar  heat 
downwards,  in  such  a  manner  as  to  make  the  North  Atlantic  between 
the  parallels  of  20°  and  40°  a  great  reservoir  of  warmth,  the  import- 
ance of  whicli  will  presently  become  apparent. 

The  4  Challenger '  investigations  have  now,  I  think,  afforded  the 
requsite  data  for  the  final  solution  of  a  question  which  has  been  long 
under  discussion — what,  namely,  the  Gulf  Stream  (or  Florida 
Current)  does,  and  what  it  does  not,  for  the  amelioration  of  the 
climate  of  North-western  Europe.  All  the  best  hydrographers,  both 
•of  this  country  and  of  the  United  States,  agree  in  the  conclusion  that 
the  Florida  current  dies  out  in  the  mid-Atlantic,  losing  all  the 
attributes  by  which  it  had  been  previously  distinguished — its  move- 
ment, its  excess  of  warmth,  and  its  peculiarly  deep  colour  ;  and  that 
it  then  degenerates  into  a  mere  surface-drift,  the  rate  and  direction 
-of  which  depend  entirely  upon  the  prevalent  winds.  But,  on  the 
•other  hand,  most  conclusive  proof  has  been  obtained  by  the  systematic 
comparisons  of  sea-  and  air-temperatures  along  the  western  coasts  of 
North-western  Europe,  that  the  amelioration  of  its  winter  climate  is 
due  to  the  afflux  of  water  of  a  temperature  considerably  higher  than 
that  of  the  air.  It  has  been  urged  with  conclusive  force  by  Admiral 
Irminger  (of  the  Danish  Navy)  that  nothing  else  can  account  for  the 
openness  of  the  fiords  and  harbours  of  the  indented  coast  of  Norway, 
even  beyond  the  North  Cape,  through  the  whole  winter  ;  whilst  the 
opposite  coast  of  East  Greenland,  ranging,  like  it,  between  the  parallels 
•of  60°  (that  of  the  Pentland  Firth)  and  72°  N.,  is  so  blocked  with  ice 
•throughout  the  year  as  only  to  be  approachable  in  exceptional 
.summers.  And  this  view  has  derived  full  confirmation  from  the 


610  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  April 

observations  systematically  carried  on  under  the  direction  of  Professor 
Mohn  of  Christiania  (the  able  head  of  the  Meteorological  Depart- 
ment of  Norway),  which  have  shown  how  completely  dependent  the 
temperature  of  the  coast-line  is  upon  that  of  the  sea  which  laves  it. 
For  while  the  temperature  of  the  air  is  generally  much  below  the 
freezing-point  during  the  winter  months,  that  of  the  water  is  always 
considerably  above  it ;  the  average  excess  at  Fruholm,  near  the  North 
Cape,  being  as  much  as  14^°  Fahr.  And  it  has  been  further  shown 
by  Professor  Mohn,  that  not  only  the  coast-temperature  of  Norway 
during  the  winter,  but  its  inland  climate,  is  affected  in  a  very  marked 
manner  by  this  afflux  of  warm  water ;  for  the  '  isocheimals,'  or  lines 
of  mean  winter-temperature,  instead  of  correspondin  g  with  the  paral- 
lels of  latitude,  lie  parallel  to  the  coast-line. 

How,  then,  are  these  phenomena  to  be  explained  ?  If  the  vis  a  tergo 
of  the  Gulf  Stream  has  spent  itself  in  the  mid-Atlantic,  what  force 
brings  this  afflux  of  warm  water  to  our  shores,  and  carries  it  on  to- 
the  N.E.,  along  the  coast  of  Norway,  and  even  past  the  North  Cape 
towards  Spitzbergen  and  Nova  Zembla  ?  And  how  does  it  happen  that 
the  water  which  laves  our  north-western  shores  in  winter  is  not  only  so- 
much  warmer  than  the  air  which  rests  upon  it,  but  continues  to  pre- 
serve a  notable  portion  of  that  warmth  at  least  as  far  as  the  North 
Cape,  notwithstanding  that  as  it  flows  northwards  its  temperature  is- 
more  and  more  in  excess  of  that  of  the  atmosphere  above  it? 

It  is  obvious  that  the  continual  outflow  of  the  deeper  stratum  of 
Polar  water,  of  which  we  have  evidence  in  the  constant  maintenance 
of  the  glacial  temperature,  not  only  of  the  sea-bottom,  but  of  the 
great  mass  of  the  water  contained  in  the  vast  oceanic  basin,  cannot 
be  maintained  without  a  continual  indraught  of  the  upper  stratum 
towards  the  Poles  :  this,  as  its  temperature  is  progressively  lowered, 
decreases  in  volume  and  increases  in  specific  gravity ;  and  as  the 
lower  stratum  flows  away  under  the  excess  of  pressure,  the  upper 
stratum,  now  cooled  down  nearly  to  the  freezing-point  of  salt  water,, 
will  sink  into  its  place,  making  way  for  a  new  indraught  above. 
The  two  Polar  underflows,  on  the  other  hand,  meeting  at  or  near  the 
Equator,  will  there  tend  to  rise  towards  the  surface,  replacing  the 
water  which  has  been  draughted  away  towards  either  Pole ;  and  thus 
a  constant  '  vertical  circulation '  must  be  kept  up  by  opposition  of 
temperature  alone,  analogous  to  that  which  takes  place  in  the  pipes  of 
the  hot-water  apparatus  by  which  large  buildings  are  now  commonly 
warmed.  The  only  essential  difference  between  the  two  cases  is,  thafc 
whilst  the  pmmum  mobile  in  the  latter  is  the  heat  applied  to  the 
bottom  of  the  boiler,  making  the  warmed  water  ascend  by  the  reduc- 
tion of  its  specific  gravity  due  to  its  expansion,  the  moving  power  in 
the  former  is  the  cold  applied  to  the  surface  of  the  Polar  water,  making 
it  descend  by  the  increase  of  specific  gravity  due  to  the  diminution  in 
its  bulk  as  its  temperature  is  lowered. 


1880.          THE  DEEP  SEA   AND  ITS  CONTENTS.  611 

This  doctrine  was  first  distinctly  promulgated  nearly  forty  years 
ago  by  the  eminent  physicist  Lenz,  on  the  basis  of  the  temperature, 
observations  he  had  made  in  Kotzebue's  second  voyage  more  than  ten 
.  years  previously ;  these  having  satisfied  him  of  two  facts — first,  the 
general  diffusion  of  a  glacial  temperature  over  the  ocean-bottom, 
which  he  rightly  interpreted  as  dependent  on  an  underflow  of  Polar 
water ;  and,  second,  the  nearer  approach  of  cold  water  to  the  surface 
under  the  Equator,  than  either  on  the  north  or  on  the  south  of  it, 
which  he  considered  to  indicate  an  uprising  of  that  Polar  water  from 
below,  where  the  two  underflows  meet.  But,  though  accepted  by 
Pouillet  and  other  distinguished  physicists,  this  doctrine,  with  the 
observations  by  which  it  was  supported,  was  entirely  lost  sight  of, 
until  independently  advanced  by  myself  as  the  only  feasible  explana- 
tion of  the  Poleward  movement  of  the  whole  upper  stratum  of  North 
Atlantic  water,  and  of  the  southward  outflow  of  glacial  water  from 
the  Arctic  basin,  of  which  the  '  Porcupine '  temperature-soundings 
seemed  to  afford  conclusive  evidence. 

My  explanation,  though  contested  by  Mr.  Croll,  and  not  accepted 
by  Sir  Wyville  Thomson,  has  been  explicitly  adopted  by  a  large 
number  of  eminent  physicists,  both  British  and  Continental,  among 
whom  I  may  specially  mention  Professor  Mohn  of  Christiania,  who 
had  previously  maintained  the  dependence  of  the  remarkable  climatic 
condition  of  Norway  on  the  N.E.  extension  of  the  true  Grulf  Stream. 
Immediately  on  receiving  the  report  in  which  I  had  demonstrated 
the  inadequacy  of  the  Florida  current  to  propel  as  far  as  the  coast  of 
Norway  the  vast  body  of  warm  water  required  to  keep  its  harbours 
open,  and  had  shown  the  dependence  of  the  N.E.  movement  of  the 
warm  upper  stratum,  to  the  depth  of  500  fathoms  (which  I  had  myself 
first  recognised  in  the  '  Porcupine '),  on  the  Poleward  indraught  that 
forms  the  necessary  complement  of  the  outward  glacial  underflow,. 
Professor  Mohn  not  only  expressed  to  me  his  entire  concurrence  in 
both  views,  but  communicated  to  me  a  remarkable  example  he  had 
himself  met  with,  of  a  similar  vertical  circulation  on  a  smaller  scale. 
It  is  to  the  remarkable  thickness  of  this  Poleward  flow  that  ths 
surface-layer  owes  its  power  of  so  long  resisting  the  cooling  effect 
of  the  atmosphere  which  overlies  it ;  so  that,  as  it  flows  along  the 
coast  of  Norway  towards  the  North  Cape,  its  temperature  even  in 
winter  sustains  so  much  smaller  a  reduction  than  that  of  the  atmo- 
sphere, as  to  give  it  an  excess  which  constantly  increases  with  its 
northing.  But  though  its  surface-temperature  is  so  little  reduced, 
the  thickness  of  this  warm  stratum  is  undergoing  progressive  dimi- 
nution, as  its  deeper  layers  successively  go  up  to  replace  those  which 
have  been  chilled  and  have  gone  down ;  so  that  beyond  the  North 
Cape,  the  surface-temperature  rapidly  falls  with  the  eastward  move- 
ment of  this  flow  along  the  northern  shores  of  Europe  and  Asia  ;  and 
all  trace  of  heat  imported  from  the  south-west  at  last  dies  out. 


612  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  April 

As  the  superheating  of  the  upper  stratum  of  the  mid-Atlantic  is 
dependent  on  the  influx  of  Gulf  Stream  and  other  water  exceptionally 
warmed  in  the  Equatorial  Current,  the  thermal  effect  of  its  N.E. 
flow  is  mainly  dependent  upon  the  Gulf  Stream  and  its  adjuncts, 
while  its  movement  is  kept  up  by  the  Polar  indraught.  Thus  neither 
-the  general  Oceanic  Circulation,  nor  the  Gulf  Stream,  could  alone  pro- 
duce ths  result  which  is  due  to  their  conjoint  action.  The  Gulf 
Stream  water,  without  the  Polar  indraught,  would  remain  in  the  mid- 
Atlantic  ;  and  the  Polar  indraught,  without  Gulf  Stream  water  to  feed 
it,  would  be  almost  as  destitute  of  thermal  power  as  it  is  in  the  South 
Atlantic. 

The  transient  visit  of  the  '  Challenger '  to  the  Antarctic  ice- 
fcarrier  gave  her  scientific  staff  the  opportunity  of  examining  the 
structure  of  the  southern  icebergs,  which  altogether  differs  from  that 
of  the  icebergs  with  which  our  northern  navigators  are  familiar; 
these  last  being  now  universally  regarded  as  glaciers,  which  have  de- 
scended the  seaward  valleys  of  Greenland  and  Labrador,  and  have 
floated  away  when  no  longer  supported  by  a  solid  base  ;  and  the  infor- 
mation they  have  gathered  is  of  considerable  interest,  as  helping  us 
to  form  a  more  definite  conception  of  the  condition  of  our  own  part 
of  the  globe  during  the  glacial  epoch.  For  a  number  of  independent 
considerations  now  lead  almost  irresistibly  to  the  conclusion,  that  the 
icebergs  of  the  Antarctic  are  for  the  most  part  detached  portions  of  a 
vast  ice-sheet,  covering  a  land  surface — either  continuous,  or  broken 
up  into  an  archipelago  of  islands — which  occupies  the  principal  part 
of  the  vast  circumpolar  area,  estimated  at  about  four  and  a  half 
millions  of  square  miles,  or  nearly  double  the  area  of  Australia.  Of 
this  ice-sheet,  the  edge  forms  the  great  southern  '  ice- barrier,'  which 
presents  itself,  wherever  it  has  been  approached  sufficiently  near  to 
be  distinctly  visible,  as  a  continuous  ice-cliff,  rising  from  200  to  250 
feet  above  the  sea-level. 

The  icebergs  of  the  Antarctic  Sea  are,  as  a  rule,  distinguished  by 
•their  tabular  form,  and  by  the  great  uniformity  of  their  height ;  this, 
in  bergs  which  show  least  signs  of  change  since  their  first  detachment 
from  the  parent  mass,  seldom  varies  much  from  200  feet  above  the 
sea-line.  The  tabular  surface  of  the  typical  berg  is  nearly  flat,  and 
parallel  with  the  sea-line ;  its  shape  usually  approaches  the  rectangu- 
lar, and  it  is  bounded  all  round  by  nearly  perpendicular  cliffs.  From 
&  comparison  of  the  specific  gravity  of  berg-ice  with  that  of  sea-water, 
it  appears  that  the  quantity  of  ice  beneath  the  surface  required  to 
float  that  which  is  elevated  above  it  must  be  about  nine  times  as  great ; 
in  other  words,  supposing  that  a  berg  had  the  regular  shape  of  a  box, 
its  entire  depth  from  its  upper  surface  to  its  base  must  be  ten  times 
its  height  above  the  sea-level.  Consequently,  if  the  latter  be  200 
feet,  the  entire  height  of  the  mass  would  be  2,000  feet,  which  might 


1880.          THE  DEEP  SEA   AND  ITS  CONTENTS.  613 

thus  be  assumed  to  be  the  thickness  of  the  ice-sheet  from  whose 
margin  it  was  detached.  This  estimate  must  not  be  accepted,  how- 
ever, as  other  than  approximative. — The  dimensions  of  these  bergs  vary 
greatly.  Those  seen  from  the  '  Challenger '  were  generally  from  one 
to  three  miles  long  ;  but  single  bergs  are  reported  of  seven  or  even 
ten  miles  in  length  ;  and  an  enormous  mass  of  floating  ice,  probably 
composed  of  a  chain  of  bergs  locked  together,  forming  a  hook  60 
miles  long  by  40  broad,  and  enclosing  a  bay  40  miles  in  breadth,  was 
passed  in  1854  by  twenty-one  merchant  ships,  in  a  latitude  corre- 
sponding to  that  of  the  northern  coast  of  Portugal. 

The  upper  part  of  the  ice-cliff  that  forms  the  exposed  face  of  the 
bergs  is  of  a  pale  blue,  which  gradually  deepens  in  colour  towards  the 
base.  When  looked  at  closely,  it  is  seen  to  be  traversed  by  a  delicate 
Jiorizontal  ruling  of  faint  blue  lines  separated  by  dead-white  inter- 
spaces. These  lines  preserve  a  very  marked  parallelism,  but  become 
gradually  closer  and  closer  from  above  downwards,  their  distance 
being  a  foot  or  even  more  at  the  top  of  the  berg,  but  not  more  than 
two  or  three  inches  near  the  surface  of  the  water,  where  the  inter- 
spaces lose  their  dead  whiteness,  and  become  hyaline  or  bluish.  There 
•can  be  no  doubt  that  this  stratification  is  due  to  successive  accumula- 
tions of  snow  upon  a  nearly  level  surface,  the  spaces  between  the 
principal  blue  lines  probably  representing  approximately  the  snow- 
accumulations  of  successive  seasons.  The  direct  radiant  heat  of  the 
sun  is  very  considerable  even  in  these  latitudes,  so  that  the  immediate 
surface  of  the  snow  is  melted  in  the  middle  of  every  clear  day  ;  and 
the  water,  percolating  into  the  subjacent  layers,  freezes  again  at 
night.  The  frequent  repetition  of  this  process  will  convert  a  very 
•considerable  thickness  of  snow  into  ice  ;  the  blue  transparent  Iamella3 
being  the  most  compact,  whilst  the  intervening  white  veins  are 
rendered  semi-opaque  by  the  presence  of  air-cells.  And  it  is  obviously 
the  compression  which  these  undergo,  that  causes  the  approximation 
of  the  blue  lines,  and  the  change  to  a  greater  compactness  and  trans- 
parence in  the  intervening  layers,  towards  the  bottom  of  the  cliff. 
Slight  irregularities  in  the  general  parallelism  of  the  stratification, 
and  the  occasional  thinning-out  of  particular  lamellae,  were  easily 
accounted  for  by  the  drifting  of  the  snow-layers  of  the  surface,  before 
they  had  become  consolidated.  And  although  there  are  various  cases 
in  which  the  strata  had  been  changed  from  their  original  horizontality 
to  various  degrees  of  inclination,  sometimes  also  being  traversed  by 
'  faults,'  and  occasionally  even  twisted  and  contorted,  these  might  all 
be  accounted  for  by  forces  acting  subsequently  to  the  detachment  of 
the  bergs.  For  their  plane  of  flotation  is  liable  to  alteration  by  changes 
•of  form  due  to  unequal  melting,  and  the  separation  of  large  masses 
either  above  or  below  the  surface ;  and  *  dislocations  '  of  various  kinds 
will  be  produced  by  collisions  and  lateral  thrusts,  when  bergs  are 
impelled  against  each  other  by  the  wind.  Sir  Wyville  Thomson  and 


614  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  April 

Mr.  Moseley  entirely  agree  in  the  statement  that  they  could  nowhere 
trace  any  such  '  structure  '  as  is  produced  in  a  land-glacier,  during 
its  movement  down  a  valley,  by  the  curvature  and  contraction  of  its 
rocky  borders,  and  the  inequalities  of  the  bottom  over  which  it 
moves.  And  the  presumption  is  altogether  very  strong,  that  these 
vast  masses  have  originally  formed  part  of  a  great  ice-sheet,  formed 
by  the  cumulative  pressure  of  successive  snow-falls  over  a  land  area  of 
no  great  elevation ;  which  flows  downwards  from  its  highest  level  in 
the  direction  of  least  resistance,  that  is  to  say  from  the  Polar  centre 
towards  the  continually  disintegrating  margin,  progressively  diminish- 
ing in  thickness  as  it  extends  itself  peripherally.  Thus  gradually 
moving  seawards,  the  ice-sheet  will  at  last  pass  the  margin  of  the  land, 
but  will  continue  to  rest  upon  the  gradually  descending  sea-bed, 
flowing  down  its  gentle  slope  until  lifted  by  its  own  buoyancy  (like  a 
vessel  on  launch),  when  vast  masses  will  break  off  and  float  away. 

Although  the  observers  of  the  e  Challenger '  did  not  see  either 
masses  of  rock,  stones,  or  even  gravel  upon  any  of  the  icebergs  they 
approached,  Wilkes  and  Boss  saw  many  such  :  and  the  '  soundings  ' 
of  the  '  Challenger  '  were  found  to  consist  of  such  comminuted  clays 
and  sands  as  would  be  the  result  of  the  abrasion  of  rocky  surfaces 
over  which  the  ice-sheet  had  moved ;  while  the  dredge  brought  up  a 
considerable  quantity  of  land  debris — chiefly  basaltic  pebbles  about 
the  meridian  of  80°  E.,  and  pebbles  and  larger  fragments  of  meta- 
morphic  rocks  further  to  the  eastward.  It  was  probably  from  the 
valleys  of  the  great  volcanic  range,  that  the  rock-masses  came  which 
were  observed  on  bergs  by  Wilkes  and  Ross ;  one  of  which,  clearly  of 
volcanic  origin,  weighed  many  tons.  That  the  southern  circumpolar 
area  is  chiefly  land,  and  not  water,  seems  to  be  further  indicated  by 
the  absence  of  any  such  low  temperature  of  the  deeper  water,  as  Sir 
George  Nares  ascertained  to  exist  beneath  the  '  palseocrystic  '  ice  of 
high  northern  latitudes.  For  the  thermometers  lowered  through 
borings  in  that  ice  gave  28°  Fahr.  at  all  depths  ;  this  being  the  lowest 
temperature  at  which  sea-water  can  remain  unfrozen  under  ordinary 
circumstances.  On  the  other  hand,  the  bottom-temperatures  taken  in 
the  l  Challenger '  in  closest  proximity  to  the  Antarctic  ice-barrier 
nowhere  proved  to  be  lower  than  the  temperature  of  the  surface- 
stratum  which  was  cooled  by  the  melting  of  the  berg-ice ;  thus  in- 
dicating the  absence  of  any  supply  of  yet  colder  water  from  a  source 
nearer  the  Pole. 

Thus  the  Antarctic  4  ice-barrier '  is  to  be  regarded  as  the  margin 
of  a  Polar  '  ice-cap,'  whose  thickness  at  its  edge  is  probably  about 
2,000  feet,  nine  tenths  of  it  lying  beneath  the  water-line.  This 
margin  is  not  permanent,  but  is  continually  wasting  away  like  the 
terminal  portion  of  a  land-glacier — not,  however,  by  liquefaction,  but 
by  disruption, — and  is  as  continually  renewed  by  the  spreading  out  of 
the  piled-up  ice  of  the  area  within.  What  may  be  the  thickness  of 


1880.         THE  DEEP  SEA   AND  ITS  CONTENTS.  615 

the  '  ice-cap  '  nearer  its  Polar  centre,  we  have  at  present  no  means  of 
knowing ;  but  it  must  doubtless  be  kept  down  by  the  facility  of 
downward  flow  in  almost  every  direction  towards  its  periphery  of 
10,000  miles. 

In  regard  to  the  animal  life  of  the  deep  sea,  the  '  Challenger ' 
researches  do  not  seem  likely  to  yield  any  new  general  result  of  strik- 
ing interest.  Our  previous  work  had  shown  that  a  depth  of  three 
miles,  a  pressure  of  three  tons  on  the  square  inch,  an  entire  absence 
of  sunlight,  and  a  temperature  beldw  32°,  might  be  sustained  by  a 
considerable  number  and  variety  of  animal  types  ;  and  this  conclusion 
has  been  fully  confirmed  and  widely  extended.  Many  specimens 
have  been  brought  up  alive  from  depths  exceeding  four  miles,  at 
•which  the  pressure  was  four  tons  on  the  square  inch,  considerably 
exceeding  that  exerted  by  the  hydraulic  presses  used  for  packing 
Manchester  goods.  Even  the  'protected'  thermometers  specially 
constructed  for  deep-sea  sounding  were  frequently  crushed;  and 
a  sealed  glass  tube  containing  air,  having  been  lowered  (within  a 
copper  case)  to  a  depth  of  2,000  fathoms,  was  reduced  to  a  fine 
powder  almost  like  snow,  by  what  Sir  Wyville  Thomson  ingeniously 
characterised  as  an  implosion  ;  the  pressure  having  apparently  been 
resisted  until  it  could  no  longer  be  borne,  and  the  whole  having  been 
then  disintegrated  at  the  same  moment.  The  rationale  of  the 
resistance  afforded  by  soft-bodied  animals  to  a  pressure  which  thus 
affects  hard  glass,  is  simply  that  they  contain  no  air,  but  consist  of 
solids  and  liquids  only ;  and  that  since  their  constituent  parts  are  not 
subject  to  more  than  a  very  trifling  change  of  bulk,  while  the  equality 
of  the  pressure  in  every  direction  will  prevent  any  change  in  their 
form,  there  is  really  nothing  to  interfere  with  the  ordinary  perform- 
ance of  their  vital  functions. 

The  entire  absence  of  solar  light,  which  constitutes  another  most 
important  peculiarity  in  the  conditions  of  deep-sea  life,  would  seem 
at  first  sight  to  be  an  absolute  bar  to  its  maintenance.  Experimental 
evidence  has  not  yet,  I  believe,  been  obtained  of  the  direct  penetration 
of  the  solar  rays  to  more  than  100  fathoms;  but  as  I  dredged  slow- 
growing  red  calcareous  Algse  (true  corallines}  in  the  Mediterranean 
at  a  depth  of  150  fathoms  (at,  or  below,  which  Edward  Forbes  also 
would  seem  to  have  met  with  them),  the  actinic,  if  not  the  luminous, 
rays  must  probably  penetrate  to  that  range.  Below  what  Edward 
Forbes  termed  the  coralline  zone,  it  would  seem  impossible  that  any 
other  type  of  vegetable  life  can  be  sustained,  than  such  as  have  the 
capacity  of  the  fungi  for  growing  in  the  dark ;  living,  like  them,  upon 
material  supplied  by  the  decomposition  of  organic  compounds.  Such 
lowly  plants  have  been  found  by  Professor  P.  M.  Duncan  in  corals 
dredged  from  more  than  1,000  fathoms'  depth. 

Upon  what,  then,  do  deep-sea  animals  feed  ?     In  the  early  stage 


€16  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  April 

of  this  inquiry,  it  was  ascertained  by  Dr.  Frankland  that  the  sam- 
ples of  water  procured  by  the  '  Porcupine,'  not  only  at  considerable 
distances  from  land,  but  also  from  bottoms  exceeding  500  fathoms' 
depth,  contained  so  much  organic  matter  not  in  a  decomposing  state, 
that  animals  having  a  large  absorbent  surface,  and  requiring  but  a 
small  proportion  of  solids  in  their  food,  might  be  sustained  by  simple 
imbibition.  And  an  adequate  provision  for  the  continual  restoration 
of  such  material  to  the  ocean-water  seemed  to  be  made  by  the  sur- 
face-vegetation which  fringes  almost  every  sea-margin,  and  which 
occasionally  extends  itself  over  large  tracts  in  the  open  ocean,  as, 
notably,  in  the  Sargasso  Sea.  But  the  '  Challenger's '  researches  have 
thrown  a  new  light  on  this  question,  by  showing  that  the  animals  of 
the  deep  sea  are  largely  dependent  for  their  food  upon  the  minute 
organisms  and  the  debris  of  larger  ones,  which  are  continually  falling 
to  the  bottom  from  the  upper  waters. 

This  debris  (says  Mr.  Moseley)  is  no  doubt  mainly  derived  from  the  surface 
Pelagic  flora  and  fauna,  but  is  also  to  a  large  extent  composed  of  refuse  of  various 
•kinds  washed  down  by  rivers,  or  floated  out  to  sea  from  shores,  and  sunken  to  the 
bottom  when  water-logged.  The  dead  Pelagic  animals  must  fall  as  a  constant  rain 
-of  food  upon  the  habitation  of  their  deep-sea  dependents.  Maury,  speaking  of  the 
surface  Foraminifera,  wrote,  '  The  sea,  like  the  snow-cloud,  with  its  flakes  in  a 
calm,  is  always  letting  fall  upon  its  bed  showers  of  microscopic  shells.'  It  might  be 
supposed  that  these  shells  and  other  surface-animals  would  consume  so  long  a  time 
in  dropping  to  the  bottom  in  great  depths,  that  their  soft  tissues  would  be  decom- 
posed, and  that  they  would  have  ceased  to  be  serviceable  as  food  by  the  time  they 
reached  the  ocean-bed.  Such,  however,  is  not  the  case,  partly  because  the  salt 
water  of  the  sea  exercises  a  strongly  preservative  effect  on  animal  tissues,  partly 
"because  the  time  required  for  sinking  is  in  reality  not  very  great.7 

Of  this  Mr.  Moseley  assured  himself  by  an  experimental  test, 
which  indicated  that  the  dead  body  of  a  floating  salpa  might  sink  to 
a  depth  of  2,000  fathoms  in  little  more  than  four  days,  whilst  its  body 
might  remain  for  a  month  so  far  undecomposed  as  to  be  serviceable 
as  food  to  deep-sea  animals.  As  land  was  neared,  moreover,  many 
interesting  proofs  were  obtained  of  the  feeding  of  deep-sea  animals 
on  debris  derived  from  the  neighbouring  shores. 

Thus,  off  the  coast  of  New  South  Wales  we  dredged  from  400  fathoms  a  large 
^ea-urchin  which  had  its  stomach  full  of  pieces  of  a  sea-grass  (Zostera)  derived 
from  the  coast  above.  Again,  we  dredged  from  between  the  New  Hebrides  and 
Australia,  from  1,400  fathoms,  a  piece  of  wood  and  half  a  dozen  examples  of  a  large 
jpalm-fruit  as  large  as  an  orange.  In  one  of  these  fruits,  which  had  hard  woody 
external  coats,  the  albumen  of  the  fruit  was  still  preserved,  perfectly  fresh  in  ap- 
pearance, and  white,  like  that  of  a  ripe  cocoa-nut.  The  hollows  of  the  fruits  were 
occupied  by  two  molluscs ;  the  husks  and  albumen  were  bored  by  a  teredo-like 
mollusc  ;  and  the  fibres  of  the  husks  had  among  them  small  nematoid  worms.8 

Branches  of  trees,  also,  and  leaves  of  shrubs,  in  a  water-logged 
condition,  were  occasionally  brought  up  in  the  dredge  from  great 

7  Nates  by  a  Xatvralist,  p.  582.  8  Hid.  p.  583. 


1880.         THE  DEEP  SEA   AND  ITS  CONTENTS.  617 

depths ;  and  their  occurrence,  as  Mr.  Moseley  remarks,  is  of  import- 
ance, not  only  to  the  naturalist,  as  showing  that  deep-sea  animals 
may  draw  large  supplies  of  food  from  such  sources,  but  also  to  the 
geologist,  as  indicating  the  manner  in  which  specimens  of  land  vege- 
tation may  have  been  imbedded  in  deposits  formed  at  great  depths. 

The  entire  absence  of  sunlight  on  the  deep-sea  bottom  seems  to 
have  the  same  effect  as  the  darkness  of  caves,  in  reducing  to  a  rudi- 
mentary condition  the  eyes  of  such  of  their  inhabitants  as  fish  and 
Crustacea,  which  ordinarily  enjoy  visual  power ;  and  many  of  these 
are  provided  with  enormously  long  and  delicate  feelers  or  hairs,  in 
order  that  they  may  feel  their  way  about  with  these,  just  as  a  blind 
man  does  with  his  stick.  But  other  deep-sea  animals  have  enor- 
mously large  eyes,  enabling  them  to  make  the  best  of  the  little  light 
there  is  in  the  depths,  which  is  probably  derived  (as  suggested  in 
the  report  of  the  '  Porcupine  '  dredgings)  from  the  phosphorescence 
emitted  by  many  deep-sea  animals,  especially  a  certain  kind  of 
zoophytes.  '  It  seems  certain,'  says  Mr.  Moseley,  *  that  the  deep  sea 
must  be  lighted  here  and  there  by  greater  or  smaller  patches  of 
luminous  alcyonarians,  with  wide  intervals,  probably,  of  total  darkness 
intervening;  and  very  possibly  the  animals  with  eyes  congregate 
round  these  sources  of  light.'  It  is  remarkable  that  with  such 
poverty  of  light  there  should  be  such  richness  of  colour  among  deep- 
sea  animals.  Although  most  deep-sea  fish  are  of  a  dull  black  colour, 
and  some  white  as  if  bleached,  deep-sea  crustaceans,  echinoderms,  and 
zoophytes  usually  exhibit  more  colour  than  the  corresponding  forms 
that  inhabit  shallow  water.  Thus  the  deep-sea  shrimps,  which  were 
obtained  in  very  great  abundance,  were  commonly  of  an  intensely 
bright  scarlet ;  deep-sea  holothurians  are  often  of  a  deep  purple ; 
and  many  deep-sea  corals  have  their  soft  structures  tinged  with  a 
madder-colouring  matter  resembling  that  which  occurs  in  surface- 
swimming  jelly-fish. 

As  was  to  be  expected  from  the  results  of  the  c  Lightning ?  and 
'  Porcupine '  dredgings,  the  more  extended  explorations  of  the 
*  Challenger '  have  shown  that  there  still  live  in  the  sea-depths  a 
number  of  animal  forms  which  were  supposed,  until  thus  found,  to  be 
extinct,  existing  only  as  fossils.  And  large  numbers  of  interesting 
new  genera  and  species  of  known  families  of  animals  were  obtained ; 
whilst  many  forms  which  had  been  previously  accounted  of  extreme 
rarity  have  proved  to  be  really  common,  having  a  wide  geographical 
range,  and  occurring  in  large  numbers  in  particular  spots.  This  is 
the  case,  for  example,  with  the  beautiful  pentacrinus,  a  survivor  from 
the  old  Liassic  times,  of  which  the  living  specimens  preserved  in  all 
the  museums  of  the  world  could  have  been  counted  on  the  fingers  not 
many  years  ago,  all  of  them  having  been  brought  up  on  fishing-lines 
from  the  neighbourhood  of  the  West  India  Islands.  As  many  as 
twenty  specimens  of  a  new  species  of  this  most  interesting  type, 


618  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  April 

however,  had  been  brought  up  from  a  depth  of  800  fathoms  in  one  of 
the  *  Porcupine  '  dredgings  off  the  coast  of  Portugal.  The  '  Chal- 
lenger '  made  a  large  collection,  including  several  new  species,  from 
various  localities.  And  yet  more  recently  the  dredgings  of  Professor 
Alexander  Agassiz  in  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  have  shown  how  thickly 
many  parts  of  the  sea-bed  are  covered  with  these  '  lily  stars '  mounted 
upon  their  long  wavy  stalks. 

Those,  however,  who  had  expected  results  of  greater  zoological 
and  palseontological  importance  from  these  explorations  must  confess 
to  some  disappointment : — 

Most  enthusiastic  representations  (says  Mr.  Moseley)  were  held  by  many 
naturalists,  and  such  were  especially  put  forward  by  the  late  Professor  Agassiz, 
who  had  hopes  of  finding  almost  all  important  fossil  forms  existing  in  life  and 
vigour  at  great  depths.  Such  hopes  were  doomed  to  disappointment ;  but  even  to 
the  last,  every  cuttle-fish  which  came  up  in  our  deep-sea  net  was  squeezed  to  see  if 
it  had  a  Belemnite's  bone  in  its  back,  and  Trilobites  were  eagerly  looked  out  for. 
.  .  .  "We  picked  up  no  missing  links  to  fill  up  the  gaps  of  the  great  zoological 
family  tree.  The  results  of  the  '  Challenger's  '  voyage  have  gone  to  prove  that  the 
missing  links  are  to  be  sought  out  rather  by  more  careful  investigation  of  the 
structure  of  animals  already  partially  known,  than  by  hunting  for  entirely  new  ones 
in  the  deep  sea.9 

The  work  which  has  been  already  done  by  Mr.  Moseley  himself  in 
this  direction,  contained  in  the  memoirs  he  has  presented  to  the  Royal 
and  Liunsean  Societies,  is  of  first-rate  value.  And  if  the  whole,  or 
even  any  considerable  part,  of  the  vast  *  Challenger '  collection 
shall  be  worked  out  by  the  various  specialists  among  whom  it  has 
been  distributed,  with  anything  like  the  same  completeness  and 
ability,  it  cannot  be  questioned  that  the  series  of  volumes  in  which 
the  scientific  results  of  this  voyage  will  be  embodied,  will  far  surpass 
in  interest  and  importance  those  reports  of  previous  Circumnavigation 
Expeditions  which  are  accounted  models  of  their  class. 

WILLIAM  B.  CABPENTER. 

•  Notes  l»j  a  Naturalist,  p.  587. 


1880. 


AGNOSTICISM  AND    WOMEN. 

IT  is  acknowledged  on  all  sides  that  Agnosticism  is  gaining  ground 
among  men.  It  is  not  so  thoroughly  realised  that  in  this  case  it 
must  in  the  long  run  equally  gain  ground  among  women.  This  side 
of  the  question  is  not  one  that  is  often  raised.  Men  do  not  see 
willingly  that  which  they  dislike  to  see,  and  there  can  be  little  doubt 
that  the  spread  of  Agnosticism  among  women  would  tend  to  make 
them  discontented  with  the  quiet  home  life  which  is  often  their  only 
lot.  It  would,  moreover,  increase  tenfold  the  cry  of  women  for  the 
right  of  employment  in  the  more  active  lines  of  life  at  present 
denied  to  them.  Men  prefer  to  hope  that  women  will  be  slow  to 
drive  logic  to  its  ultimate  end;  that  they  will  still  cling  with 
womanly  inconsistency  to  all  that  is  refining  and  soothing  in  the  old 
creeds  ;  and  that  the  newer  and  colder  lights  of  their  husbands  and 
brothers  will  only  serve  to  eliminate  from  those  creeds  the  elements 
of  superstition  and  fear  which  are  now  considered  so  debasing.  But 
in  a  day  when  intellect  in  women  is  valued  more  highly  than  it  has 
ever  been,  they  will  not  long  be  willing  to  hold  a  belief  that  is  not 
shared  by  men.  All  around  them  they  see  the  men  they  admire  and 
reverence  drawn  away  from  the  beliefs  of  the  past.  Progress  allures 
and  fascinates  all,  and  the  rational  mind,  as  opposed  to  the  instinct, 
is  the  god  at  whose  shrine  all  desire  to  worship.  With  this  atmo- 
sphere around  them  it  is  not  possible  that  women,  highly  emo- 
tional in  temperament  and  essentially  timid  in  intellect,  should  long 
remain  proof  against  it.  But,  granted  that  Agnosticism  in  the  long 
run  will  grow  among  women  as  it  has  grown  among  men,  how  will  it 
affect  their  interests  and  their  employments  ?  It  may  be  replied  that 
it  will  affect  them  no  otherwise  than  it  does  men ;  but  to  make  this 
reply  is  to  forget  that  women  are  very  differently  constituted.  Their 
nature  and  their  pursuits  are  different.  Few  women — at  least  so 
far  as  society  is  framed  at  present — can  have  a  profession.  Few 
women  can  hope  to  take  an  active  share  in  political  life.  Even  if 
they  gain  the  suffrage,  the  pride  of  their  equality  with  men  on  this 
point  will  only  suffice  to  give  an  excitement  to  a  few  days  of  political 
contest,  or  may  possibly  awaken  a  keener  advocacy  of  their  special 
prejudices.  Some  among  them,  by  the  help  of  a  busy  life  spent  in 
society,  are  carried  along  by  the  current ;  and  a  certain  percentage, 
and  these  perhaps  the  happiest,  are  obliged  to  work  for  their  own 


620  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  April 

living.  These  at  least  are  spared  the  discouraging  question,  '  Who 
will  profit  by  what  I  do  ? '  I  am  not  speaking  of  the  young.  They, 
for  the  most  part,  do  not  trouble  their  heads  about  their  belief,  their 
work,  or  their  future.  They  are  content  to  let  their  tastes  rule  them. 
Whether  it  is  lawn-tennis,  or  dancing,  or  more  intellectual  pursuits,  it 
is  all  the  same.  In  the  earlier  years  of  existence,  life  and  energy  are 
fully  sufficient  in  themselves  for  happiness,  provided  those  years  are 
uncrossed  by  any  severe  lines  of  mental  or  bodily  pain.  Nor  is  it  in 
the  early  days  of  married  life  that  such  questionings  arise.  While 
the  children  of  a  household  are  young,  the  mother  has  engrossing 
duties  and  pleasures,  and  few  immediate  difficulties  arise  in  the  way 
of  education.  But  it  is  not  the  lot  of  all  to  be  either  wives  or  mothers, 
and  anyhow  there  are  a  very  large  number  of  women  who  find  them- 
selves, as  life  goes  on,  with  no  children  of  their  own  to  educate,  and 
no  husband  in  whose  pursuits  they  can  forget  themselves.  To  what 
interests  and  employments  has  this  large  part  of  the  community 
hitherto  looked  forward  ?  What  has  lain  between  the  eager  life  of 
youth  and  the  ideal  rest  of  old  age  ?  Speaking  broadly,  their 
interests  have  mainly  been  three :  Taking  care  of  the  old  or  sick, 
teaching  the  ignorant,  and  watching — not  to  speak  of  praying — with 
a  cheerful  countenance  for  the  wellbeing  of  those  they  love.  How 
will  Agnosticism  affect  these  three  interests  in  the  future  ? 

The  strength  of  women  lies  in  their  heart.  It  shows  itself  in  their 
strong  love  and  instinctive  perception  of  right  and  wrong.  Intellec- 
tual courage  is  rarely  one  of  their  virtues.  As  a  rule  they  are  inclined 
to  be  restless  and  excitable,  allowing  their  judgments  and  actions  to- 
be  swayed  by  quick  emotions  of  all  kinds,  but,  above  all,  it  is  in  their 
hopefulness  and  their  endurance  that  they  find  their  chief  power.  Who 
is  the  last  person  to  give  up  hope  in  the  case  of  a  member  of  the  family 
who  has  apparently  gone  altogether  to  the  bad  ?  What  mother  or 
sister  with  deep  and  ardent  love  for  such  will  ever  cease  to  cherish 
hope  or  to  endure  suffering  on  their  account?  The  patience  of 
women  is  proverbial,  and  their  whole  lives  are  bound  up  in  their 
affections.  Few  people  will  deny  that  love  in  one  form  or  another 
makes  up  the  beauty  of  life  to  woman.  It  enters  into  all  she  does. 
Any  work  outside  her  immediate  circle  is  undertaken  most  often 
from  pure  desire  to  help  some  one  else  to  know  something  of  the 
mysterious  happiness  of  love.  Unlike  men,  women  chiefly  look  for 
personal  intercourse  with  those  for  whom  they  are  working.  If  their 
interest  lies  among  the  poor,  they  are  desirous  of  sympathetic 
personal  acquaintance  with  them ;  and  very  little  good  work  of  a 
lasting  kind  has  been  done  by  women  without  their  own  influence  of 
love  being  brought  to  bear  on  the  individual  case.  Without  dwelling 
on  the  greater  physical  weakness  of  women  in  general,  it  is  a  fact  that 
their  brains  are  more  easily  deranged,  and  unless  they  change  greatly 
they  are  apt  to  deteriorate  in  essential  womanly  qualities  if  thrown 


1880  AGNOSTICISM  AND   WOMEN.  621 

much  or  prominently  before  the  world.  They  are  seldom  fitted  to  rule  ; 
emulation  and  jealousy  being  generally  strong  in  their  character, 
while  their  feelings  and  judgments  are  often  rapid  in  the  extreme. 
It  is  in  the  heart,  therefore,  that  a  woman  will  more  especially  feel 
the  effects  of  Agnosticism,  whether  those  effects  be  for  good  or  for 
evil.  Her  head  may  gain  in  grasp  of  logic  and  in  clearness  of  view ; 
but  if  her  heart,  with  all  its  powers  for  good,  is  weakened  and  dis- 
couraged, she  will  gain  little  ultimately  by  the  spread  of  the  new 
views.  When  the  heart  is  dispirited,  or  thrown  back  upon  itself,  the 
action  that  springs  from  it  tends  inevitably  to  fall  lifeless  to  the 
ground. 

Let  us  now  look  more  closely  at  the  effect  Agnosticism  is  likely 
to  produce  upon  women's  employments.  Take  first  the  duty -of 
tending  the  old  in  the  person  whether  of  a  parent  or  of  the  poor ; 
a  duty  into  which  many  a  woman  whose  life  would  otherwise  be  very 
desolate  has  thrown  herself  with  self-denying  devotion,  and  in  which 
she  often  finds  her  sole  strong  interest.  If  she  is  an  Agnostic,  she 
has  nothing  left  her  but  to  realise  that  each  day  that  passes  leaves 
those  she  loves  and  reverences  weaker  and  more  failing  in  body 
and  mind.  Like  shadows  of  their  former  selves  she  will  see  them 
fading  from  her  sight;  not  in  any  hope  of  a  future  glorified  ex- 
istence, nor  even,  perhaps,  with  that  amount  of  earthly  honour  they 
would  have  had  if  they  had  died  while  the  generation  who  knew  them 
in  earlier  days  was  still  alive.  Gradual  decay  of  body  and  mind 
envelops  them  like  a  mist,  and  causes  the  pettier  side  of  character 
to  loom  largely  in  the  foreground.  All  power  of  mental  growth 
comes  to  an  end,  and  the  best  that  can  be  hoped  is  that  death  will 
come  before  second  childhood  has  set  in.  From  the  Agnostic  point 
of  view,  can  there  be  more  effectual  pleading  in  favour  of  euthanasia, 
and  for  the  '  noble  suicide  '  of  the  old  Romans  ?  It  may  be  urged 
that  old  age  has  its  lessons  to  read  to  youth,  and  that  it  is  cowardly 
to  fly  from  a  post  where  one  was  placed  by  the  unerring  hand  of  Fate. 
What  will  arguments  like  these  tell  in  the  face  of  dimmed  intellect  or 
terrible  disease,  when  the  judges  regard  love  and  honour  in  the  world's 
sight  alone  ?  In  the  case  of  the  poor  this  will  be  felt  even  more 
strongly.  How  can  it  be  reconciled  with  true  progress  to  keep  alive 
at  the  public  expense  the  old,  who,  being  sick  and  ignorant,  can  add 
nothing  to  the  march  of  progress  ?  By  what  arguments  will  it  be 
brought  home  to  the  Agnostic  ratepayer  that  it  is  his  duty  to  support 
the  hopeless  lunatic  or  incurable  pauper  ?  No  appeal  to  humanity 
is  effectual  here.  Humanity  in  its  purely  human  aspect  would  do 
well  to  put  an  end  to  their  sufferings.  It  is  indeed  whispered  that 
even  now  this  is  sometimes  done  when  hopeless  agony  and  horrible 
disease  become  too  much  for  the  endurance  of  those  who  watch  such 
cases.  And  surely,  from  the  Agnostic  point  of  view,  the  action  is  a 
right  one.  It  is  not  desirable  here  to  enlarge  upon  the  Christian 

VOL.  VII.— No.  38.  T  T 


622  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  April 

view  of  such  matters.  It  is  sufficient  to  note  that,  from  the  Agnostic 
point  of  view,  the  soothing  elements  of  hope  in  the  future,  belief 
in  the  possible  purification  through  pain,  and  sense  of  a  greater  and 
more  loving  Power  above  all,  are  wholly  lacking  in  a  work  which  is 
essentially  and  specially  woman's  work,  and  which  tries  her  heart  to 
the  utmost. 

Teaching  the  ignorant  may  seem  a  more  promising  field;  yet 
even  this  has  a  hopeless  feature  in  it.     If  this  life  is  all,  what  does 
education  tend  to  ?      It  tends   practically   with   many  natures   to 
heighten  and  intensify  unhappiness.     This  is  a  startling  assertion, 
and  will  probably  at  once  be  dismissed  as  untrue  by  some  who  read  it. 
Still  I  can  at  least  show  that  it  is  true  in  certain  cases.     To  begin 
with,  to  knoiv  that  you  are  unhappy  is  to  feel  it.     Many  people  get 
through  life  of  a  very  unpleasant  kind  more  or  less  comfortably  by 
the  simple  means  of  never  realising  what  they  are  suffering.     Com- 
parisons make  up  a  large  half  of  our  miseries,  and  there  can  be  no 
comparisons  for  those  who  know  no  better  life  than  their  own.     Of 
course,  if  you  can  attain  what  you  desire  in  the  way  of  good,  it  is  all 
a  gain  to  desire  it.     Still  there  are  so  many  good  things  that  educa- 
tion helps  people  to  long  for,  nay  almost  to  consider  essential  to  their 
happiness,  which  the  poor  especially  can  never  hope  to  enjoy,  that  I 
do  say  that  education  often  breeds  a  discontent  that  embitters  and 
disheartens  the  whole  of  a   man's  life.     This   is  not  a  reason  for 
ceasing  to  educate.     Much   that   may  be  very  justly  reckoned  as 
certain  gain  can  only  be  attained  through  education,  and  from  the 
Christian  point  of  view  it  may  also  be  progress  in  a  path  that  will 
only  become  larger  and  larger  as  our  powers  grow  and  intensify  in  a 
future  world.     But  in  the  case  of  people  who  believe  that  this  world 
ends  all,  education  has  a  different  side  to  it.     What  gain  will  it  be  to 
the  poor  to  know  and  realise  fully  that  their  lot  is  pain  and  discom- 
fort in  this  world,  and  that  this  world  is  the  only  one  ?     How  will 
certain   hard   questions   about  justice   and   equality   be  answered? 
Let  us  place  ourselves  in  the  position  of  a  man  with  education  enough 
to  know  that  the  whole  of  his  surroundings  are  necessarily  wretched, 
and  that  it  is  only  a  question  of  money  that  makes  the  difference 
between  his  working  all  day  on  his  back  in  a  coal-mine  and  his 
master  working  in  a  comfortable  room.     How  much  happiness  will 
his  education  bring  him  ?     To  realise  clearly  what  we  desire  and  not 
to  attain  to  it  is  often  far  more  trying  than  never  to  have  conceived 
anything  much  better  than  we  have.     People  who  are  contented  with 
their  own  way  of  life,  and  never  aspire  to  a  higher,  may  not  be  of  an 
elevated  order  of  mind,  but  they  are  often  of  a  very  happy  one.     All 
knowledge  in  its  very  essence  ought  to  bring  the  longing  for  more, 
but  if  that  longing  can  never  be  gratified,  to  raise  it  is  a  doubtful 
contribution  to  the  sum  of  human  happiness.     It  is  only  in  view  of 
attaining  a  higher  step  that  a  lower  one  is  an  unmixed  good.     Those 


1880.  AGNOSTICISM  AND    WOMEN.  623 

who  have  worked  personally  among  the  poor  can  see  something  of 
this  in  the  class  of  women  who  through  more  refining  employment 
become  discontented  with  their  own  position.  The  contrast  is  so  ex- 
treme between  the  necessary  squalor  of  the  very  poor  and  the  least  cul- 
ture that  comes  from  the  outside.  It  is  to  be  remembered  too  that  the 
poor,  for  all  practical  purposes,  must  be  compared  to  those  orders  of 
creation  that  cannot  really  alter  much.  A  few  here  and  there,  by  a 
happy  combination  of  chances,  will  rise  above  their  comrades  and  make 
good  their  better  side,  but  it  can  never  be  so  with  the  bulk  of  that 
vast  seething  multitude  that  swarms  in  our  great  towns,  or  makes  a 
struggle  for  existence  in  our  agricultural  counties.  By  all  means  let  us 
go  on  with  institutes  and  educational  schemes  and  help  the  few,  but 
let  us  never  forget  that  the  many  do  and  must  remain  hopelessly 
unable  to  break  the  barriers  that  lie  between  them  and  happiness 
produced  by  culture. 

Let  us  now  imagine  that  the  reasonable  dreams  of  the  philanthro- 
pist have  been  realised,  and  that  the  bulk  of  our  lower  classes  have 
become  fairly  thrifty  and  clean,  able  to  read  and  write,  and  have  at 
least  as  much  arithmetic  at  their  command  as  will  be  required  to- 
add  up  their  savings.  The  social  change  would  be  enormous.  Our 
poor  would  have  come  to  take  a  more  reasonable  view  of  what  ought 
to  constitute  happiness — that  is  to  say,  they  would  feel  uncomfort- 
able when  they  were  dirty,  and  sufficiently  anxious  about  the  fu- 
ture to  take  pains  to  save.  They  might  defer  marriage,  and  they 
might  economise  in  all  they  could — which  would  mean  going  without 
many  of  the  things  that  now  amuse  them.  However,  as  these  amuse- 
ments are  usually  of  a  physical,  not  to  say  debasing,  kind,  this  would 
not  so  much  matter  from  the  culture  point  of  view.  But  what  is 
there  in  all  this  to  fire  the  enthusiasm  of  our  thoughtful  women  ? 
Coffee-palaces,  with  their  harmless  amusements,  will  take  the  place 
of  the  public-house.  The  life  of  working-men  might  attain  to  a  pale 
imitation  of  that  tepid  luxury  which  clubs  bestow  upon  the  classes 
above  them.  The  long  day  in  the  coal-mine  or  the  factory  may  be 
enlivened  by  the  thought  of  the  contest  over  the  chess-board  or  the 
billiard-table  awaiting  him  at  night.  The  more  studious  might 
look  forward  to  the  hour  spent  in  reading  in  the  unpretending 
comfort  of  a  free  library.  The  politics  of  the  moment  may  be 
sufficiently  interesting  to  give  a  passing  excitement  to  an  even- 
ing's conversation,  and  a  popular  lecturer  might  gain  a  fairly  in- 
telligent audience.  These  are  the  unambitious  aims  that  really 
lie  at  the  bottom  of  many  a  high-flown  eulogy  of  the  education 
of  the  working-men ;  and  what  does  it  come  to  ?  A  little  more 
learning  to  help  a  man  to  know  the  inevitable  depth  of  his  real 
ignorance ;  a  little  more  leisure  to  spend  in  well-lighted  rooms 
with  spillikins  and  coffee ;  a  little  fewer  open  and  violent  sins ;  a 
little  more  veneer  of  the  more  respectable  sins  of  the  upper  classes. 

T  T  2 


624  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  April 

What  a  tiny  drop  in  the  cup  of  human  happiness  at  best!  And  to  gain 
this  our  women  are  to  give  the  same  enthusiasm,  the  same  self-deny- 
ing devotion,  that  is  now  given  to  winning  immortal  souls.  Does 
any  one  really  imagine  that  the  enthusiasm  for  making  people  warm 
and  comfortable  can  ever  be  as  ardent  as  the  enthusiasm  for  making 
them  love  God  ?  Besides,  the  picture  itself  is  not  one  to  attract  our 
best  energies.  Grant  that  the  poor  have  the  comforts  I  have  de- 
scribed, are  sorrow  and  care  banished  as  a  matter  of  course  ?  Will 
the  Agnostic  promise  that  the  human  heart  will  have  no  longing  after 
something  higher  than  our  poor  human  perfection  ?  Will  he  lessen  the 
unquenchable  desire  for  reunion  with  those  who  are  parted  from  us  by 
death?  If  he  cannot  do  this,  his  efforts  to  make  people  happy  in  this 
world  alone  will  not  come  to  much.  Material  comfort  adds  strangely 
little  to  the  sum  of  human  happiness.  Riches  may  smooth  over 
difficulties  and  help  to  distract  the  thoughts,  but  what  heart  has  ever 
found  solid  comfort  in  real  trouble  from  material  prosperity  ?  Love 
and  hope  in  the  future  alone  will  do  this.  Let  our  poor  gain  these 
through  their  institutes  and  coffee-palaces,  and  they  will  then  be 
works  to  devote  a  lifetime  to,  and  to  fill  the  hearts  of  women  with 
eager  enthusiasm.  More  than  this.  Even  if  self-denying  women 
were  yet  to  be  found  to  give  their  lives  for  such  small  ends,  the  ebbs 
and  flows  of  human  progress  are  too  powerful  and  too  slow  to  be 
affected  perceptibly  by  individual  effort :  without  the  thought  of  fruit 
in  the  future,  who  would  care  to  sow  the  tiny  seed  which  may  hardly 
throw  up  so  much  as  a  leaf  here  ?  To  work  with  interest  we  must 
work  with  hope,  and  it  is  only  in  the  light  of  a  future  world  that 
work  among  the  poor  can  sustain  its  hope  long.  Modern  science 
teaches  the  lesson  of  the  sacrifice  of  the  individual  for  the  com- 
munity, and  modern  life  carries  out  the  lesson  to  its  extreme 
end.  It  is  on  certain  sides  a  most  true  and  valuable  lesson,  and 
its  logic  is  incontestable  as  far  as  this  world  is  concerned.  But 
woman's  work,  as  a  rule,  deals  with  the  individual,  and  the  lesson 
comes  home  with  cruel  force  to  an  Agnostic  when  perchance 
she  loses  the  individual,  and  has  only  an  intellectual  appreciation 
of  the  community.  If  the  individual  is  not  made  happy  here, 
where  else  will  he  be  made  happy  ?  Let  none  of  us  measure  these 
things  by  our  own  firesides  and  among  our  own  friends.  To  weigh 
them  truly  we  must  go  among  those  who  are  sick  in  body  and 
mind ;  human  in  their  feelings  and  desires ;  animal  in  their  hope 
and  in  their  death.  Who  would  wish  to  give  more  knowledge  to 
dumb  animals  ?  Their  ignorance  is  their  grand  medicine  against 
pain.  What  are  our  feelings  in  a  foreign  country  when  we  see 
animals  suffering,  and  know  that  nothing  that  we  can  say  can  help 
them  ?  The  wisest  of  us  turn  away  and  forget  the  sight  as  soon  as 
may  be.  It  will  be  the  same  when  we  are  brought  face  to  face  with 
hopeless  misery,  ignorance,  and  sin,  and  we  are  unable  to  say  one  word 


1880.  AGNOSTICISM  AND    WOMEN.  625 

of  real  comfort  or  hope.  The  inevitable  trials  of  the  poor  are  almost 
overwhelming,  and  they  are  often  of  a  kind  that  no  human  comfort 
can  touch.  Brave  indeed  will  be  the  love  that  will  lead  our  women, 
when  they  have  become  Agnostic,  to  watch  the  suffering  of  those  whom 
no  help  here  or  hereafter  can  reach  !  It  is  no  use  to  say  that  the  old 
myths  may  still  be  taught  to  the  poor.  No  true  man  or  woman 
could  teach  them  so  as  to  come  home  to  their  hearers  if  they  did  not 
believe  them  themselves.  Never  are  lies  seen  through  more  surely 
than  by  children  and  by  the  poor. 

One  other  lot  especially  belonging  to  women  remains.  It  is 
that  of  waiting  in  patience  for  the  turning  again  of  those  who 
have  chosen  to  pursue  an  evil  path.  How  will  Agnosticism  affect 
them  here  ?  I  will  answer  it  by  asking  if  there  is  any  woman,  be 
she  Agnostic  or  Christian,  whose  first  instinct  is  not  in  such  a  case 
to  pray.  It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  prayer  in  one  form  or 
another  makes  up  the  life  of  very  loving  natures.  It  gathers  up  all 
that  is  best  and  noblest  in  woman's  character.  Her  hope  finds  its 
fruition,  her  endurance  gains  fresh  strength,  her  pleading  adds  new 
force  to  her  love.  If  only  the  effect  on  herself  be  considered,  what 
fountains  of  courage  are  opened  by  prayer!  But  I  shall  not  dwell 
here  on  this  side  of  the  question.  It  is  conceded  by  all  that  if 
Christianity  is  held  in  very  truth  it  brings  a  peculiar  happiness 
to  the  person  holding  it.  It  is  the  reverse  picture  to  this  that 
must  be  considered.  Hope  for  a  better  future  in  this  life  may 
still  be  kept  alive  in  the  heart  of  the  Agnostic  waiting  for  the  turn- 
ing again  of  those  she  loves ;  but  how  very  little  she  can  often 
do  towards  it !  It  may  be  a  brother  or  a  son,  and  he  is  far  away,  and 
she  cannot  tell  how  she  may  use  her  influence  over  him.  Or,  it  may 
be,  she  comes  across  him  once  more  when  he  is  dying — still  young — 
but  dying  with  no  hope,  with  no  opportunity  of  making  restitution,  no 
possibility  of  fresh  endeavours.  It  may  be  a  lingering  deathbed,  with 
remorse  very  keen  and  conscience  fully  alive.  All  she  can  do  to 
soothe  and  comfort  only  brings  out  more  clearly  what  might  have 
been.  She  can  hold  out  no  hope  that  ardent  desire  after  better 
things  may  still  bear  its  fruit  in  another  world.  She  can  bring 
no  comfort  by  dwelling  on  the  thought  that  pain  lovingly  borne 
purifies  heart  and  soul.  There  is  no  guarantee  that  Agnosticism 
will  always  be  confined  to  highly  conscientious  people ;  and  it 
is  not  by  them  alone  that  we  should  test  the  strength  of  a 
belief  or  unbelief.  The  belief  in  an  abstract  ideal  of  virtue  can  sus- 
tain some  minds  in  the  battle  between  good  and  evil ;  but  it  will  be 
a  sad  day  for  our  women  when  they  have  nothing  but  that  to  carry 
to  the  deathbeds  of  those  they  love — when  there  is  nothing  between 
them  and  their  despair  but  the  realisation  of  how  far  short  of  the 
ideal  the  individual  human  being,  love  for  whom  constitutes  the  sum 
of  earthly  happiness  to  woman,  has  fallen. 


62 G  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  April 

In  the  future,  then,  women  will,  it  may  be  feared,  have  either  to 
sit  still  and  see  their  best  hopes  fade  away,  or  else  throw  themselves 
eagerly  into  the  more  active  lines  of  employment.  The  cry  for 
emancipation  and  the  right  of  all  women  to  share  equally  with  men 
in  the  rush  of  professional  work  that  can  drown  thought  and  bring 
riches  and  fame  will  then  grow  too  strong  for  resistance.  Those  who 
are  most  opposed  to  it  now  will  in  very  compassion  further  all  open- 
ings that  will  help  to  fill  the  void  that  the  loss  of  belief  will  leave  in 
the  heart  of  women.  But  when  the  rights  of  women  have  been  fully 
-established — when  their  claim  to  contend  with  men  for  all  that  feeds 
.ambition  in  a  worldly  career  has  been  freely  admitted,  what  is  gained  ? 
Women  in  their  truer  and  nobler  mission  must  still  be  the  centre  of 
home  life.  The  few  may  make  their  mark  in  a  profession ;  the  many 
must  still  find  their  occupation  in  their  affections,  and  in  the  refining 
influence  they  exercise  over  the  lives  of  men.  Take  away  Prayer 
and  Hope,  and  you  take  away  the  very  power  that  enables  women 
to  do  this  cheerfully,  and  to  do  it  cheerfully  is  only  another  word  for 
doing  it  successfully.  It  may  be  urged  that  the  gain  to  a  woman's 
intellect  from  the  surrender  of  an  unprovable  religion  will  be  so  great 
that  the  sacrifices  her  heart  must  make  will  be  endured  with  glad- 
ness. At  the  same  time,  those  who  urge  this  must  remember  that  it 
is  in  her  heart  that  a  woman's  chief  strength  lies,  and  that  it  is  there- 
fore on  her  that  the  greatest  suffering  caused  by  hopelessness  will 
fall.  To  have  to  comfort  and  sustain  hope  when  this  life  ends  all 
will  make  the  path  of  those  to  whose  lot  it  falls  to  do  it  more 
suffering  than  that  of  the  martyrs  of  old.  They,  at  least,  died  for  a 
belief  that  brought  joy  in  its  train.  The  Agnostics  will  live  in  the 
loss  of  such  a  belief,  and  be  unable  to  look  beyond  the  inevitable 
sufferings  around  them. 

I  feel  I  owe  a  word  of  apology  for  what  I  have  written.  It  is  true 
I  have  broken  that  golden  rule  which  forbids  us  to  repeat  what  is 
neither  new  nor  encouraging ;  but  I  have  one  excuse  to  offer.  Not 
for  a  moment  would  I  have  any  one  believe  in  Christianity  for  its 
promises.  In  its  truth  or  untruth  it  stands  or  falls,  and  the  happi- 
ness or  unhappiness  of  a  religion  does  not  constitute  its  truth.  It  is 
only  in  the  light  of  the  probable  truth  of  a  religion  as  designed  by  a 
merciful  Creator  that  such  a  consideration  could  arise,  and  the  position 
of  the  Agnostic  is  a  much  earlier  one  than  that.  If  Agnosticism  is 
held  through  the  earnest  conviction  that  it  is  the  only  true  standpoint, 
and  that  nothing  better  is  possible  for  the  human  intellect  to  hold, 
the  honesty  of  the  position  is  its  best  justification.  Our  conscience  is 
the  sole  ultimate  tribunal  before  which  to  try  any  such  question.  But 
it  is  not  always  through  earnest  conviction  that  Agnosticism  is  held. 
To  be  in  the. front  ranks  of  progress,  and  in  the  tide  of  intellectual 
fashion  ;  to  rise  above  the  '  prejudices '  that  spring  from  our  instincts 
rather  than  our  reason ;  and  above  all  to  be  in  sympathy  with  the 


1880.  AGNOSTICISM  AND    WOMEN.  627 

men  they  admire,  are  often  the  more  potent  influences  that  sway  a 
woman's  mind  towards  the  atheism  of  the  present  day.  It  is  with 
the  desire  that  minds  likely  to  be  so  influenced  should  look  facts  in  the 
face  that  I  have  written  what  I  have.  Bu^  if  it  is  the  lot  of  any  to 
be  obliged  through  honesty  of  thought  to  cast  away  their  ancient  land- 
marks, at  least  let  them  consider  if  it  is  all  gain  to  others  that  they 
should  be  led  to  do  likewise.  What  has  the  Agnostic  to  offer  in  com- 
pensation ?  In  the  strength  of  his  days  he  sets  out  for  the  goal  of 
culture.  Physical,  mental,  moral  culture,  is  his  aim  and  his  watch- 
word. Enlightenment  in  this  world  takes  the  place  of  hope  in  the 
next,  and  the  intellect  alone  sets  its  seal  upon  the  future.  Enthu- 
siastic for  all  progress,  he  forgets  that  a  progress  that  comes  to  an 
end  with  death  is  no  true  progress  at  all,  and  that  which  is  untrue 
for  the  individual  cannot  be  true  for  the  human  race.  With  their 
faith  that  of  an  ultimate  age  of  ice,  and  their  hope  bounded  by  the 
grave,  what  is  left  to  the  women  of  the  future  but  their  love  alone 
to  tell  them  of  how  much  happiness  and  misery  they  are  capable  ? 
If  such  is  the  only  truth  possible  for  mankind,  in  very  mercy  let  us 
pause  long  before  we  help  others  to  attain  to  it. 

BERTHA  LATHBURY. 


628  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  April 


A   NONCONFORMISTS    VIEW  OF  THE 
ELECTION. 


THE  union  of  the  Liberal  party  is  now  a  fait  accompli.  It  is  not 
to  be  supposed  that  there  is  or  ever  will  be  that  absolute  accord 
which  to  outward  appearance  exists  in  a  party  whose  creed  at  present 
resolves  itself  into  one  article — faith  in  Lord  Beaconsfield.  But  the 
very  eagerness  with  which  this  new  ism  is  pressed  upon  the  country 
has  worked  wonders  in  the  way  of  stifling  internal  dissensions  among 
Liberals,  and  uniting  all  who  dislike  this  new  scheme  of  personal 
government  in  opposition  to  the  monstrous  claims  which  the  Prime 
Minister  has  advanced.  His  letter  to  the  Duke  of  Marlborough  is  no- 
thing more  or  less  than  a  demand  for  a  vote  of  absolute  confidence 
from  the  constituencies,  and  is  resented  accordingly.  .It  would  not  be 
easy  to  find  a  parallel  to  its  tone  in  the  appeal  of  any  great  political 
chief  to  the  country  under  similar  circumstances.  In  thought  it  is- 
marked  by  that  grotesqueness  which  many  regard  as  a  sign  of  the 
writer's  extraordinary  genius  ;  in  style  it  is  as  un-English  as  the  policy 
of  its  author,  and  exhibits  the  same  contempt  for  the  traditions  of  the 
language  as  he  has  shown  for  the  best  precedents  of  our  history 
and  the  fundamental  principles  of  our  Constitution.  But  defects  of 
this  kind  might  have  been  more  easily  pardoned  than  the  arrogance  and 
unfairness  with  which  he  represents  his  opponents  as  enemies  of  the 
country,  and  asks  the  nation  to  support  him  as  its  only  patriot  states- 
man. The  charge  against  the  Liberal  chiefs  would  awaken  indigna- 
tion if  it  did  not,  as  soon  as  we  have  recovered  from  the  first  shock, 
provoke  contemptuous  laughter.  There  is  a  considerable  amount  of 
gullibility  among  certain  classes  of  the  people,  especially  at  election 
time,  but  even  the  most  besotted  Tory  will  hardly  believe  that  his- 
political  adversaries,  among  whom  are  some  of  England's  proudest 
nobles,  and  at  whose  head  is  the  heir  of  one  of  the  greatest  dukedoms 
in  the  kingdom,  are  bent  on  the  humiliation  of  the  country  in  which 
they  hold  so  lofty  a  position,  and  that  the  only  hope  of  its  salvation 
lies  in  Lord  Beaconsfield.  The  voice  is  the  voice  of  Sidonia  dis- 
coursing with  all  that  ingenuity  and  eloquence  which  entertained  us 
so  many  years  ago.  The  only  novelty  is  that  Sidonia  is  now  Prime 
Minister  of  England,  and  that  the  chivalry  of  the  Tory  party 


1880.      A   NONCONFORMIST   ON  THE  ELECTION.         629 

are  willing  to  rally  to  his  standard.  It  is  a  strange  episode  in  our 
national  story — this  struggle  about  the  pretensions  of  a  political 
charlatan,  who  has  no  vital  relations  to  either  party,  and  is  only  using 
the  ambitions  and  prejudices  of  his  trusting  adherents  to  advance  his 
own  individual  ideas,  and  who,  in  fact,  cares  as  little  for  the  old  Tory 
cries  on  which  he  trades  as  the  best  men  among  his  followers  for 
those  strange  dreams  of  imperialism  which  he  seeks  to  realise. 

The  real  significance  and  full  absurdity  of  the  situation  will  be 
understood  only  by  our  posterity,  and  it  is  safe  to  say  that  there  are 
few  chapters  in  our  annals  which  will  be  conned  more  curiously  or 
which  will  wear  so  different  an  aspect  in  the  time  to  come  from  that 
which  it  has  to  us.  Sufficient  for  the  day,  however,  is  the  strange 
phenomenon  which  this  manifesto  presents.  According  to  the  emi- 
nent French  journal  whose  comments  have  so  often  been  quoted  by 
the  Ministerial  organs  in  our  press  in  the  hope  of  influencing  English 
opinion,  this  extraordinary  document  '  shows  the  old  Disraeli  with 
his  clever  way  of  putting  things,  his  controversial  fervour,  and  all 
the  audacities  which  he  has  often  pushed  to  the  length  of  effrontery.' 
Still  the  Journal  des  Debats  fancies  that  it  will  serve  his  purpose : 
*  It  is  unjust,  exaggerated,  but  skilful,  and  will  weigh  heavily  on  the 
Liberals.'  The  passage  is  worth  citing  only  because  of  the  view 
which  it  suggests  of  the  temper  of  the  English  people  as  judged  by  an 
acute  foreign  critic.  The  nation  has  fallen  so  low  in  his  opinion  that 
it  is  either  so  blind  as  not  to  perceive  the  injustice  of  the  accusations 
hurled  against  some  of  its  noblest  chiefs,  or  so  given  up  to  its  idol 
that  it  will  not  resent  them.  Englishmen  who  care  for  the  honour 
of  their  country  may  well  hope  that  the  forecast  may,  as  we  believe 
it  will,  prove  untrue.  The  Jingoes,  no  doubt,  will  applaud  it  as 
they  would  applaud  any  utterance  of  their  chief,  however  extravagant, 
but  wise  men  of  the  Tory  party  shake  their  heads,  and  the  middle 
party,  who  are  said  to  hold  the  balance  of  power,  are  disgusted.  As 
to  Liberals,  they  are  unconscious  of  the  heavy  pressure  on  their  cause 
of  which  the  French  critic  speaks.  On  them  the  chief  effect  of  the 
manifesto  has  been  to  weld  the  party  into  a  more  compact  force  and 
inspire  it  with  a  more  resolute  purpose  to  emancipate  the  country 
from  the  influence  of  a  statesman  who  not  only  weaves  into  his  formal 
address  aspersions  upon  his  adversaries  as  baseless  as  they  are  malicious, 
but  who  is  so  lacking  in  patriotism  that,  while  pretending  to  be  the 
guardian  of  the  integrity  of  the  Empire,  he  does  not  hesitate  to 
stimulate  that  antagonism  between  the  peoples  of  England  and 
Ireland  by  which  alone  it  could  be  endangered. 

The  contrast,  between  the  condition  of  the  Liberal  party  to-day 
and  that  which  it  presented  in  1 874  is,  indeed,  as  remarkable  as  it  is 
full  of  promise.  Six  years  ago  the  first  business  of  the  leaders  in  the 
different  constituencies  was  to  adjust  the  internal  controversies  by 
which  the  party  had  been  rent  in  twain,  and  to  find  some  terms  of 


630  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  April 

compromise  which  would  allow  of  union  at  the  polls.  Faith  in  Mr. 
Gladstone  still  kept  numbers  true  and  loyal  to  the  Liberal  standard, 
but  the  disintegrating  influences  which  had  been  at  work  had  created 
divisions  which  it  was  simply  impossible  at  once  to  heal.  In  some 
cases  the  battle  between  Liberal  and  Liberal  was  fought  out  to  the 
bitter  end — the  end  being  the  triumph  of  Toryism.  But  even 
where  an  outward  union  was  preserved,  there  was  an  amount  of 
apathy,  the  natural  consequence  of  which  was  disaster  and  defeat.  I 
fear  it  must  be  confessed  that  in  many  instances  Liberals  were  more 
eager  in  their  attacks  upon  one  another  than  in  their  assaults  upon 
the  common  foe  ;  and  though  the  completeness  of  the  Tory  success 
came  upon  them  as  an  unpleasant  surprise,  there  were  not  a  few  who 
were  quite  prepared  for  the  overthrow  of  the  Liberal  Ministry,  and 
regarded  it  with  so  much  indifference  that  they  did  little  or  nothing 
to  avert  it.  There  is  nothing  of  the  kind  to-day.  We  have,  as  we 
shall  always  have  in  a  party  of  independent  thought  and  progressive 
tendency,  great  variety  of  opinion.  There  are  here  and  there  men 
so  devoted  to  a  particular  object  that  they  assume  a  lofty  superiority 
not  only  to  the  interests  of  their  party,  but  to  the  practical  results  of 
their  conduct  on  their  own  special  reform,  and  pursue  tactics  which 
caricature  the  principle  of  representative  government,  while  they  tend 
to  defeat  the  very  end  they  have  in  view.  Personal  jealousies  and  local 
influences  will  also  be  sure  sometimes  to  intrude  themselves,  and  will 
work  more  evil  among  us  than  in  a  party  where  the  discipline  is  com- 
pact and  the  weight  of  authority  more  powerful.  But  these  causes  tell 
infinitely  less  to-day  than  they  did  at  the  last  General  Election] 
Among  other  results  of  six  years'  experience  of  absolute  Tory  domi- 
nation has  been  the  consolidation  of  the  Liberal  force.  Advanced 
Liberals  are  no  longer  heard  to  say  that  it  matters  little  which  party 
is  in  office,  since  Liberalism  is  always  in  power.  The  last  three  years 
have  dispelled  an  illusion  due  to  the  fact  that  since  the  days  of  Sir 
Eobert  Peel,  who  was  anything  but  a  Tory  of  the  modern  type, 
Toryism  has  had  no  opportunity  of  exhibiting  its  real  temper  until 
now.  Very  possibly  Sir  Stafford  Northcote,  left  to  himself  or  under 
a  Prime  Minister  of  kindred  spirit,  would  have  governed  England  on 
principles  not  very  different  from  those  of  moderate  Liberalism. 
But  a  Cabinet,  which  is  not  so  much  presided  over  by  Lord  Beacons- 
field  as  it  is  Lord  Beaconsfield,  has  another  conception  of  our  national 
duty,  and  it  is  perhaps  well  that  it  should  have  had  the  opportunity 
of  translating  its  ideas  in  deeds.  It  has  taught  multitudes  of  Liberals 
a  lesson  they  are  not  likely  soon  to  forget ;  and  when  the  author  of  a 
policy  which  has  been  a  continued  series  of  outrages  upon  their  ideas 
of  international  right,  constitutional  practice,  and  moral  principle, 
asks  the  nation  with  a  blind  faith  to  place  its  destinies  in  his  hands, 
they  can  only  meet  so  preposterous  a  demand  with  a  stern  and  unani- 
mous negative. 


1880.       A   NONCONFORMIST   ON  THE  ELECTION.        631 

By  no  members  of  the  party  is  this  felt  more  than  by  Noncon- 
formists. If  they  troubled  their  leaders  with  complaints  in  1874,  they 
are  now  resolved  to  atone  by  the  more  intense  earnestness  which  they 
throw  into  the  present  conflict.  Mr.  Walter  told  the  Liberals  at 
Newbury,  on  the  authority  of  Mr.  Samuel  Morley,  that  seventy-five 
seats  were  lost  to  the  party  in  1874  by  the  divisions  created  by  the  Non- 
conformists. The  statement  is  not  true,  and  Mr.  Morley  did  not  make  it. 
What  Mr.  Morley  did  say  was  that  seventy-five  seats  were  won — chiefly 
by  the  Conservatives,  and  some  also  by  Liberals — by  small  majori- 
ties, and  that  in  some  cases  where  Liberals  were  defeated  they  would 
certainly  have  been  victorious  but  for  their  internal  differences.  In 
some  of  these  Nonconformists  were  doubtless  concerned.  They  were 
smarting  under  a  sense  of  injury  done  them  ;  and  though  they  did  not 
(except  in  one  or  two  cases)  bring  out  candidates  of  their  own,  and 
though  their  abstentions  from  the  poll  were  not  by  any  means  so  nu- 
merous as  has  been  imagined — probably  not  so  numerous  as  those  of 
the  '  timid  Churchmen,'  frightened  (as  Mr.  Clayden  tells  us  in  his 
valuable  history  of  the  present  Government)  by  the  '  dissatisfied  Dis- 
senters ' — it  is  not  to  be  denied  that  there  was  no  enthusiasm  in  their 
support  of  their  old  allies :  it  would  be  more  correct  to  say  positively 
there  was  great  apathy.  The  situation  is  described  by  Mr.  Clayden 
in  a  sentence  :  *  While,  therefore,  the  Nonconformists  were  lukewarm 
on  the  one  hand,  many  Churchmen  who  usually  act  with  them  were 
suspicious  and  reluctant  on  the  other  hand.' l  What  course  the 
*  timid  Churchmen '  may  pursue  at  the  forthcoming  election  it  would 
be  extreme  presumption  for  me  to  predict,  though  I  would  fain  hope 
that  there  are  numbers  of  them  who  follow  the  lead  of  men  like 
the  Bishops  of  Manchester  and  Oxford,  of  Canon  Liddon  and  Mr. 
Oakeley,  and  of  the  brave  and  faithful  few  who  have  borne  their 
testimony  against  a  policy  which  its  champions  do  not  even  attempt 
to  reconcile  with  the  principles  of  religion  which  the  Church  of 
England  exists  to  teach.  But  for  the  Dissenters  as  a  body  I  feel  I 
can  answer.  They  have  never  wavered  in  their  view  of  those  prin- 
ciples of  foreign  policy  which  are  now  submitted  to  the  decision  of 
the  country,  or  as  to  the  methods  by  which  they  have  been  forced 
upon  Parliament  and  the  nation  ;  they  have  done  their  utmost, 
despite  the  odium  heaped  upon  them,  and  the  possible  loss  of  ad- 
herents indignant  at  finding  that  they,  as  professed  Christians,  did 
really  believe  in  the  teachings  of  their  Master,  to  expose  the  iniquity 
as  well  as  the  impolicy  of  the  imperialism  once  so  popular  ;  and  now 
they  will  spare  no  effort  to  secure  the  verdict  of  the  constituencies  in 
reprobation  of  a  Minister  against  whose  procedure  they  have  never 
ceased  to  protest.  They  enter  into  the  fight,  not  in  hope  of  securing 
any  sectarian  aims,  but  simply  to  discharge  their  duty  as  patriots 
and  Liberals.  The  joint  candidature  of  Mr.  Forster  and  Mr.  Illing- 
1  England  tinder  Lord  Beacontfield,  p.  27. 


632  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  April 

worth  at  Bradford  is  one  of  the  best  indications  of  the  spirit  by 
which  they  are  moved.  Mr.  Forster  is  the  member  of  the  late 
Cabinet  who  has  taken  the  most  decided  ground  against  Dises- 
tablishment ;  among  Nonconformists  there  is  not  a  more  uncom- 
promising champion  of  religious  equality,  or  one  who  has  less  of  the 
spirit  of  opportunism,  than  Mr.  Illingworth.  As  Bradford  was  the 
field  on  which  the  sharpest  of  the  struggles  between  Liberal  and 
Liberal  was  fought  in  1874,  it  is  only  fitting  that  it  should  now 
witness  an  alliance  which  perhaps  beyond  any  other  circumstance 
indicates  the  hearty  union  of  the  Liberal  party.  There  is  no  com- 
promise on  either  side.  Both  candidates  retain  their  distinctive 
opinions,  but  they  both  feel  that  their  differences  do  not  touch  the 
practical  politics  of  the  time  ;  as  they  are  agreed  upon  that  which  is 
of  paramount  and  immediate  interest,  they  combine  to  secure  a 
common  end. 

It  certainly  cannot  be  said  that  Nonconformists  have  been  in- 
duced to  enter  into  the  conflict  with  such  ardour  by  any  baits 
which  have  been  held  out  to  them  by  the  Liberal  chiefs.  They  are 
promised  a  Burials  Bill ;  but  as  the  House  of  Lords  has  already 
assented  to  a  resolution  which  carries  its  principle,  and  done  it 
with  the  sanction  of  the  Archbishops  and  in  opposition  to  all  the  in- 
fluence of  the  Tory  Government,  it  can  hardly  be  thought  that  there  is 
any  great  boon  in  the  concession  of  a  simple  act  of  justice.  There 
is  an  understanding,  based  on  the  declarations  of  Lord  Hartington 
and  Mr.  Gladstone,  that  the  Scotch  Church  is  to  be  disestablished  as 
soon  as  the  Scotch  people  are  agreed  in  demanding  the  change ;  but 
he  must  be  sanguine  indeed  who  expects  that  any  proposal  of  the 
kind  will  be  laid  before  the  next  Parliament.  The  idea  of  Mr.  Gladstone 
seems  to  be  that,  before  so  great  a  revolution  is  effected,  the  question 
should  be  distinctly  submitted  to  the  constituencies  as  a  simple  issue. 
In  truth,  if  Dissenters  were  at  all  disposed  to  look  to  sectional  inte- 
rests, and  to  forget  that  they  are  an  integral  part  of  the  Liberal 
party,  they  might  have  found  in  the  omission  of  distinct  reference 
to  questions  of  religious  equality  in  the  manifestoes  of  the  Liberal 
leaders  some  excuse  for  taking  independent  action. 

They  have  had  too  much  practical  wisdom  as  well  as  too  much 
patriotism  to  adopt  a  policy  so  suicidal.  They  are  not  content  to 
see  the  resources  of  the  nation  wasted,  and  its  character  for  fair 
dealing  compromised,  the  dignity  of  Parliament  lowered,  and  the 
Constitution  strained,  in  order  to  testify  their  supreme  devotion  to 
the  principle  of  religious  equality.  That  principle  is,  after  all,  only 
one  element  of  their  Liberalism,  and  it  would  be  folly  indeed  were 
they  to  sacrifice  all  the  rest  because  the  immediate  triumph  of  that 
one  in  which  they  may  be  specially  interested  is  impossible.  Such 
action  could  not  advance  their  special  end,  and  it  would  imperil 
much  which  is  as  dear  to  them  as  to  other  Liberals.  Were  the 


1880.        A  NONCONFORMIST  ON  THE  ELECTION.         633 

battle  between  Conservatism  like  that  of  the  Chancellor  of  the 
Exchequer  and  that  moderate  Liberalism  of  which  Mr.  Walter  is  a 
self-constituted  representative,  they  might  well  have  doubted  whether 
there  was  anything  at  issue  to  stir  their  enthusiasm  or  call  forth 
their  effort.  But  in  a  struggle  for  the  establishment  of  an  impe- 
rialism which  does  not  conceal  its  contempt  for  those  great  con- 
stitutional rights  of  which  Englishmen  have  hitherto  been  most 
jealous,  they  would  be  false  to  every  principle  they  profess  and 
every  tradition  they  inherit  were  they  to  sulk  in  their  tents  unless 
their  leaders  would  purchase  their  services  by  pledges  which,  until  a 
decided  majority  of  the  nation  is  converted  to  their  view,  they  would 
be  absolutely  unable  to  fulfil.  There  has  been  far  too  much  of  this 
fighting  for  the  honour  or  success  of  the  regiment  without  regard  to 
the  interests  of  the  army  or  of  the  nation  at  large.  There  is  a  mani- 
fest need  of  special  organisations  for  the  purpose  of  educating  public 
opinion  relative  to  special  points  of  reform  ;  but  when,  instead  of  being 
regarded  as  auxiliaries  to  the  Liberal  party,  they  are  employed  for 
the  purpose  of  checking  its  action,  unless  its  leaders  will  make  con- 
cessions of  whose  soundness  and  expediency  they  are  not  themselves 
convinced — when,  in  fact,  they  endeavour  to  extort  by  menace  what 
they  cannot  secure  by  reason — they  become  a  serious  evil.  It  is 
possible  to  conceive  of  circumstances  which  might  justify  such  sec- 
tional action.  A  leader  yielding  to  the  opposition  of  a  section  more 
influential  than  numerous  might  shrink  from  adopting  a  policy  on 
which  a  vast  majority  of  the  party,  and  of  the  nation  also,  were  agreed, 
and  in  such  a  case  it  might  become  necessary  for  the  majority  to 
resort  to  decided  procedure.  But  such  a  contingency  is  too  remote 
and  improbable  to  be  taken  into  account.  It  does  not  touch  the 
point  with  which  we  are  dealing,  the  attempt  of  a  section  to  coerce 
the  action  of  a  great  party. 

There  are  few  points  on  which  it  is  less  likely  that  a  section,  however 
numerous  and  energetic,  will  be  able  to  dictate  its  own  terms  than 
in  the  question  of  the  National  Church.  Our  reforms  have  been  per- 
manent because  they  have  always  followed,  instead  of  anticipating, 
public  opinion.  Those  who  would  pursue  a  contrary  course,  and 
fancy  that  they  can  force  an  unpopular  measure  on  the  country  by 
the  dexterous  management  of  electoral  minorities,  forget  that  any 
temporary  success  would  produce  a  reaction  which  would  probably 
go  further  than  the  undoing  of  the  premature  reform  they  had  so 
unfairly  pressed.  The  strength  of  the  publicans  at  present  is  due 
mainly  to  the  contempt  shown  for  this  very  obvious  fact  by  the  ad- 
vocates of  the  Permissive  Bill.  On  the  other  hand,  Tory  managers 
exhibit  their  usual  ingenuity  by  playing  upon  the  jealous  anxiety 
of  Churchmen,  and  endeavouring  to  create  the  impression  that 
Nonconformists  would  extort  Disestablishment  from  a  Liberal 
Ministry,  however  reluctant  its  chiefs  might  be  to  accede  to  such 


634  THE   NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  April 

a  demand.  It  is  a  pure  illusion.  It  is  impossible,  indeed,  to 
repress  a  smile  at  the  exaggerated  fears  of  those  who  are  alarmed 
at  the  possibilities  of  a  political  manoeuvre  which  shall  sweep 
away  a  Church  that  is  rooted  so  firmly  in  the  faith  and  affec- 
tions of  a  large  body  of  the  people,  as  well  as  in  the  traditions 
and  habits  of  the  national  life,  by  a  process  as  summary  as 
that  by  which  a  tax  is  imposed  and  a  Ministry  is  overthrown.  Dis- 
senters certainly  understand  better  the  conditions  of  the  problem  they 
have  to  solve.  They  trust  not  to  the  skilful  manipulation  of  political 
forces,  but  to  the  quiet  growth  of  opinion.  They  understand  that 
they  have  to  convert  the  nation,  not  to  manage  a  party.  They  have 
never  sought  to  conceal  their  aims,  nor  will  they  desist  from  the  use 
of  all  legitimate  means  to  realise  them,  and  they  have  full  confidence 
that,  as  their  demands  are  better  understood,  the  nation  will  redress 
the  injustice  from  which  they  at  present  suffer.  Till  then  they  can 
submit  with  patience.  They  will  urge  their  claims  on  all  proper  occa- 
sions ;  when  they  are  in  the  majority  in  the  constituencies,  they  will 
send  to  Parliament  representatives  who  will  support  their  views  ;  but 
the  last  policy  they  will  adopt  is  to  become  obstructives  in  the  party 
in  the  hope  of  securing  a  premature  and  unsatisfactory  triumph. 
The  case  is  very  well  put  by  the  Guardian  in  a  recent  article  : — 

The  real  strength,  such  as  it  Is,  of  the  party  now  in  power  lies  in  the  motley 
character  of  the  Opposition,  and  in  the  misgivings  and  distrust  with  which  quiet 
folks  regard  a  large  and  very  active  part  of  it.  These  misgivings  especially  point 
to  the  possibility  of  a  movement  for  the  disestablishment  of  the  Church,  a  possi- 
bility which  certainly  exists,  and  will  continue  to  exist  as  long  as  Dissent  is  strong 
in  England,  whether  the  party  with  which  Dissenters  ally  themselves  are  in  office 
or  not.  Dissenters  as  a  body  desire  disestablishment ;  they  will  go  on  desiring  it  ; 
and  if  ever  they  can  draw  to  their  side  a  mass  of  opinion  powerful  enough  to  over- 
come the  enormous  difficulties  of  the  work,  they  will  accomplish  it.  Whether  the 
movement  in  that  direction  is  more  likely  to  be  strengthened  by  the  return  of  the 
Liberal  party  to  power,  or  by  their  remaining  excluded  from  it  for  some  years 
longer,  is  quite  another  question.  If  we  were  to  venture  to  frame  auguries  on  the 
subject,  it  is  perhaps  to  the  latter  alternative  that  we  might  incline. 

The  opinion  of  so  loyal  an  advocate  of  the  Church  will  have  weight 
with  those  who  might  naturally  regard  the  view  of  a  Dissenter  as 
prejudiced.  When  thoughtful  friends  of  the  Establishment  look  back 
on  the  history  of  the  last  few  years,  they  may  reasonably  doubt 
whether  its  power  has  been  strengthened  by  the  ascendency  of  the 
party  which  professes  to  be  the  natural  defender  of  its  privileges.  A 
Liberal  Ministry  could  hardly  have  worked  it  so  much  harm  as  has 
already  accrued,  and  will  accrue  to  a  still  larger  extent  in  the  future, 
from  the  silent  acquiescence  of  a  large  body  of  the  clergy  in  the  high- 
handed deeds  of  our  Government,  to  say  nothing  of  such  open  vindi- 
cations of  injustice  and  wrong  as  have  been  heard  from  some  of  its 
pulpits,  on  pleas  as  futile  as  that  of  the  Archdeacon-bishop  who  de- 
scribed Great  Britain  as  the  *  moral  police  of  the  world.'  No  doubt 


1880.       A   NONCONFORMIST   ON  THE  ELECTION.        635 

there  are  Churchmen,  like  the  clerical  correspondents  who  assailed  the 
Guardian  for  its  manly  and  independent  utterances,  as  to  the  un- 
righteousness of  the  foreign  policy  of  the  Government,  who  will  feel 
that  a  Cabinet  which  contains  such  very  good  friends  of  the  Establish- 
ment as  Lord  Cairns,  and  makes  such  admirable  appointments  as  that  of 
Canon  Kyle,  ought  to  be  supported  at  all  costs ;  and  in  comparison  with 
such  virtues,  offences  like  the  invasion  of  a  neighbouring  race,  or  the 
appropriation  of  territory  in  order  to  secure  a  c  scientific  frontier,'  are 
too  trifling  to  take  into  consideration.  But  the  day  may  not  be  distant 
when  they  will  learn  from  bitter  experience  that  the  Guardian  was 
as  wise  and  farseeing  in  its  policy  as  it  was  sound  in  its  principles, 
and  that  churches  as  well  as  individuals  are  subject  to  the  law  of 
their  one  Master,  <  Seek  ye  first  the  kingdom  of  God  and  His  right- 
eousness.' The  excellent  Dean  of  Norwich,  at  the  risk  of  the  misre- 
presentation to  which  one  who  takes  a  course  unpopular  in  his  own 
circle  must  ever  be  liable,  has  just  spoken  wise  and  courageous  words 
to  this  effect ;  and  it  is  the  section  of  the  clergy  (perhaps  not  so  small 
as  may  be  generally  thought)  who  refuse  to  bend  their  knee  to  the  idol 
of  the  hour — those  who  follow  the  lead  of  Manchester  or  Oxford  rather 
than  of  Peterborough — who  will  do  the  best  service  to  their  Church 
at  this  crisis.  The  devotion  of  the  clergy  to  Lord  Beaconsfielcl  may  yet 
prove  as  mischievous,  and  be  looked  back  upon  with  as  much  regret  and 
humiliation,  as  the  devotion  of  their  predecessors  to  Lord  Bolingbroke. 

At  least  Dissenters  will  not  follow  the  evil  example  of  turning  a 
struggle  about  great  national  questions  into  a  strife  of  sects.  They 
are  Liberals  first,  Nonconformists  afterwards.  Liberalism  is  in  their 
view  a  consistent  whole,  and  they  have  no  hope  of  securing  the 
triumph  of  one  element  in  it  by  pressing  it  on  to  the  exclusion  of  all 
others.  Their  prospect  of  ultimate  success  depends  on  the  ascend- 
ency of  Liberal  ideas,  and  can  be  realised  in  no  other  way.  They 
are  willing,  therefore,  for  the  moment  to  subordinate  all  other  con- 
siderations to  the  primary  object  of  getting  rid  of  an  incubus  which 
renders  all  progress  impossible.  This  is  not  the  time  for  discussing 
the  articles  of  a  programme.  We  have  leaders  whom  we,  like  other 
Liberals,  trust,  and  our  first  business  is  to  secure  for  them  the  op- 
portunity of  entering  on  that  course  of  legislative  and  administrative 
reform  which  has  been  interrupted  during  the  late  disastrous  years. 

No  special  credit  is  claimed  for  Nonconformists,  as  though  they 
showed  some  extraordinary  virtue  in  adopting  this  course.  We 
act  thus  simply  in  obedience  to  principle.  With  our  views  it  would 
be  an  act  of  political  immorality  and  cowardice  to  be  silent  at  this 
juncture.  The  Beaconsfield  policy  has  never  had  any  attraction  for 
us,  and,  with  an  instinctive  feeling  of  the  vital  and  irreconcilable  an- 
tagonism between  us,  the  Premier  has  done  us  the  distinguished  honour 
of  treating  Nonconformists  as  altogether  inaccessible  to  this  influence. 
It  could  not  well  be  otherwise.  We  certainly  are  not  indifferent  to  the 


636  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  April 

honour  of  our  country,  and  should  he  as  ready  to  make  sacrifices  on 
her  behalf  as  the  worshippers  of  the  new  god,  Jingo,  whose  faith,  de- 
spite their  noisy  shoutings,  is  of  so  doubtful  a  character  that  the 
Government  have  been  afraid  to  try  whether  it  would  justify  itself  by 
works.  But  in  our  view  it  has  been  the  special  glory  of  our  country 
to  be  the  hope  of  the  sufferers  and  the  oppressed,  to  encourage  the  as- 
pirations of  freedom,  to  respect  the  rights  of  the  weak,  and  to  make  her 
influence  felt  without  having  recourse  either  to  empty  bluster  or  un- 
worthy intrigue.  We  should  be  false  to  every  tradition  of  our  history 
if  we  had  not  resented  the  desertion  of  Bulgaria,  the  betrayal  of 
Greece,  the  duplicity  and  violence  shown  to  Afghanistan,  the  patron- 
age of  Turkish  despotism  and  corruption,  the  subordination  of  our 
entire  foreign  policy  to  a  hatred  of  Russia,  which  appears  to  us  a 
sign  of  cowardice  rather  than  courage,  and  of  weakness  rather 
than  strength.  Hating  despotism  everywhere,  we  are  as  anxious  to 
see  the  influence  of  Kussia  curtailed  as  the  most  passionate  follower 
of  the  Ministry,  but  we  are  unable  to  perceive  that  to  us  belongs  the 
duly  of  holding  that  great  power  in  check,  and  still  more  difficult  do 
we  find  it  to  see  how  the  policy  of  the  Government  has  contributed 
to  that  end.  But  we  feel  that  in  pursuing  this  end  the  Constitution 
of  our  country  has  been  subjected  to  a  severer  strain  than  has  been 
put  upon  it  for  more  than  a  century.  Perhaps  it  may  be  that  our 
Puritan  blood  and  training  bas  made  us  specially  sensitive  on  this 
point,  but  we  cannot  think  lightly  of  the  liberties  for  which  our  fathers 
fought  and  bled.  Some  of  their  keenest  battles  were  waged  about 
things  which  the  political  cynicism  of  our  day  would  treat  as  trifles, 
and  it  is  not  surprising  if  those  of  us  who  have  drunk  in  the  spirit  of 
the  seventeenth  century  should  regard  with  alarm  any  dispositions 
to  set  aside  those  precedents  and  traditions  on  which  the  great  fabric 
of  our  Constitution  has  been  reared.  We  are  proud  of  Parliament, 
and,  when  we  see  its  prestige  lowered  and  its  influence  quietly  under- 
mined, there  is  to  us  sufficient  reason  for  uniting  in  one  determined 
effort  to  arrest  a  movement  not  the  less  perilous  because  there  are 
such  numbers  who  indulge  in  a  false  security,  and  put  aside  all  ob- 
jections as  the  scruples  of  constitutional  purists.  A  sneer  at  purists 
is  one  of  the  latest  devices  for  putting  discredit  on  sound  principle. 
It  is  financial  purism  to  insist  that  a  nation  ought  to  pay  its  debts  ; 
it  is  constitutional  purism  to  enforce  respect  for  precedent  and  law. 
The  reproach  does  not  trouble  us  who  are  not  ashamed  of  Puritanism, 
but  it  becomes  utterly  pointless  now  that  the  justice  of  our  contention 
is  admitted  by  Lord  Derby,  who  of  all  men  is  least  likely  to  be 
carried  away  by  sentiment,  or  to  sacrifice  practical  wisdom  at  the 
shrine  of  pedantry.  His  secession  is  the  severest  blow  the  Beacons- 
field  policy  has  received. 

It  is  not  to  be  concealed  that  Nonconformists  would  have  preferred 
to  fight  the  battle  under  the  flag  of  Mr.  Gladstone.     The  passionate 


1880.      A    NOyQQNfQRWST  ON  THE  ELECTION.         637 

enthusiasm  which  he  has  awakened  among  us  is,  I  believe,  absolutely 
without  parallel,  and  the  feeling  is  as  deep  and  intelligent  as  it  is  fervid. 
It  is  the  result  of  a  profound  admiration  of  his  transcendent  genius,  of 
a  grateful  sense  of  the  work  he  has  done  in  every  field  of  reform,  but, 
above  all,  of  an  undoubting  faith  in  his  conscientious  earnestness. 
It  may  be,  as  our  enemies  would  say,  very  weak  and  sentimental,  but 
we  are  not  ashamed  of  acknowledging  the  power  of  sentiment ;  and, 
whatever  else  it  is,  it  has  at  least  no  taint  of  selfishness.     We  expect 
nothing  from  Mr.  Gladstone  but  that  service  to  his  country  which 
his  pure  patriotism  will  dictate,  and  his  distinguished  ability  will 
enable  him  to  render.     Nor  is  our  devotion  to  him  mingled  with  any 
distrust  of  Lord  Hartington.     There  is  not  and  cannot  be  rivalry 
between   them;   and   Lord  Hartington,   by   the   bold   and   decidecfc 
tone  which  he  has  taken,  the  high  qualities  for  leadership  he  has* 
developed,  and  the  true  view  of  Liberalism  which  is  heard  in  all  his, 
utterances,  has  won  the  confidence  of  Nonconformists  as  other  Liberals*. 
But  it  is  impossible  wholly  to  exclude  the  personal  element  from  ous. 
political  controversies.     Mr.  Gladstone  has  done  his  party  incomparable 
service,  and  it  would  be  a  poor  return  if  now  the  neglect  or  in- 
difference of  his  friends  should  even  seem  to  ratify  the  persistent  and 
malignant  calumnies  of  his  foes.     Such  an  issue  of  the  struggle  is 
surely  impossible,  and  the  warmest  admirers  of  Mr.  Gladstone  may 
cherish  the  assurance  that  the  Liberal  party  will  not  deprive  itself 
and  the  country  of  the  services  of  its  greatest  statesman,  nor  lay  itself 
open  to  a  charge  of  ingratitude  as  deficient  in  chivalry  as  it  would  be 
lacking  in  practical  wisdom. 

J.  GUINNESS  ROGERS. 


VOL.  VII.— No.  38.  U  U 


638  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  April 


DAYS  IN   THE    WOODS. 

TOWARDS  August  or  September,  any  man  who  has  once  been  in  the 
woods  will  begin  to  feel  stirring  within  him  a  restless  craving  for  the 
forest— an  intense  desire  to  escape  from  civilisation,  a  yearning  to 
kick  off  his  boots,  and  with  them  all  the  restraints,  social  and 
material,  of  ordinary  life ;  and  to  revel  once  again  in  the  luxury  of 
mocassins,  loose  garments,  absolute  freedom  of  mind  and  body,  and  a 
complete  escape  from  all  the  petty  moral  bondages  and  physical 
bandages  of  society.  To  a  man  who  has  once  tasted  of  the  woods, 
the  instinct  to  return  thither  is  as  strong  as  that  of  the  salmon  to 
seek  the  sea.  Let  us,  then,  go  into  the  woods.  I  will  ask  per- 
mission to  skip  all  preliminary  travelling,  and  consider  that  we  have 
arrived  at  the  last  house,  where  Indians  and  canoes  are  waiting  for 
us.  Old  John  Williams,  the  Indian,  beaming  with  smiles,  shakes 
hands,  and  says  :  '  My  soul  and  body,  sir,  I  am  glad  to  see  you  back 
again  in  New  Brunswick.  How  have  you  been,  sir?  Pretty 
smart,  I  hope.'  c  Oh,  first-rate,  thank  you,  John ;  and  how  are  you, 
and  how  did  you  get  through  the  winter,  and  how  is  the  farm  getting 
on  ?  '  *  Pretty  well,  sir.  I  killed  a  fine  fat  cow  moose  last  December, 
that  kept  me  in  meat  most  all  winter  ;  farm  is  getting  on  splendid. 
I  was  just  cutting  my  oats  when  I  got  your  telegram,  and  dropped 
the  scythe  right  there  in  the  swarth,  and  left.  I  hear  there's  a  sight 
of  folks  going  in  the  woods  this  fall ;  more  callers  than  moose.  I 
.  guess.'  And  so,  after  a  little  conversation  with  the  other  Indians,  in 
the  course  of  which  we  discover  that  though  they  have  been  there 
three  days,  they  have  never  thought  of  patching  up  the  canoes,  and 
have  left  the  baking-powder  or  frying-pan  or  some  equally  essential 
article  behind,  we  enter  the  settlers  house,  and  so  to  supper  and  bed. 

The  first  day  is  not  pleasant.  The  canoes  have  to  be  carted  ten 
miles  to  the  head  of  the  stream  we  propose  descending,  and  the  hay 
wagon  wants  mending,  or  the  oxen  have  gone  astray.  Patience 
and  perseverance,  however,  overcome  all  these  and  similar  difficulties, 
and  at  last  we  are  deposited  on  the  margin  of  a  tiny  stream ;  the 
settler  starts  his  patient,  stolid  oxen,  over  the  scarcely  perceptible 
track,  saying,  '  Well,  good  day,  gents  ;  I  hope  you  will  make  out  all 
right,'  and  we  are  left  alone  in  the  forest. 

The  first  thing  to  be  done  is  to  make  a  little  fire,  and  then  with 


1880.  DAYS  IN  THE   WOODS.  639 

a  hot  brand  melt  the  gum  on  the  seams  of  the  canoes  where  it  may 
have  been  cracked  by  the  jolting  of  the  wagon,  and  to  patch  up  with 
resin  and  pieces  of  calico,  brought  for  the  purpose,  any  holes  in  the 
bark.  An  Indian  ascertains  that  his  canoe  is  watertight  by  the 
simple  method  of  applying  his  lips  to  every  seam  that  appears  leaky, 
and  seeing  whether  the  air  sucks  through.  This  ceremony  he  re- 
ligiously performs  every  morning  before  launching  his  canoe,  and  every 
evening  when  he  takes  her  out  of  the  water.  It  looks  as  though  he  were 
embracing  her  with  much  affection,  and  it  sounds  like  it ;  but  in  reality 
it  must  be  an  osculatory  process  more  useful  than  agreeable,  for  a 
canoe,  like  an  Indian  squaw,  though  excellent  for  carrying  burdens, 
cannot  be  particularly  pleasant  to  kiss.  Our  canoes  having  success- 
fully passed  through  this  ordeal,  they  are  carefully  placed  upon  the 
water,  brush  is  cut  and  laid  along  the  bottom,  the  baggage  carefully 
stowed,  and  away  we  start  at  last,  three  canoes  with  a  white  man  in 
the  bow  and  a  red  man  in  the  stern  of  each.  Civilisation,  with  all 
its  worries,  anxieties,  disappointments,  heat,  dust,  restraint,  luxury 
and  discomfort  are  left  behind ;  before  us  are  the  grand  old  woods, 
the  open  barrens,  stream,  lake,  and  river — perfect  freedom,  lovely  cool 
autumnal  weather,  three  weeks'  provisions,  plenty  of  ammunition,  the 
forest  and  the  stream  to  supply  food,  and  the  fishing-rod  and  rifle 
with  which  to  procure  it. 

Down  we  go,  very  slowly  and  carefully,  wading  half  the  time, 
lifting  stones  out  of  the  way,  tenderly  lifting  the  canoes  over  shallows, 
for  the  stream  scarcely  trickles  over  its  pebbly  bed.  After  a  while 
the  water  deepens  and  becomes  still.  We  take  to  the  paddles  and 
make  rapid  progress. 

4  Gruess  there's  a  dam  pretty  handy,'  says  John,  and  so  it  turns  out 
to  be,  for  after  a  mile  of  dead  water  we  are  brought  up  by  a  beaver- 
dam,  showing  an  almost  dry  river-bed  below  it.  Canoes  are  drawn 
up  and  the  dam  is  demolished  in  a  few  minutes,  giving  a  couple  of 
nights'  hard  labour  to  the  industrious  families  whose  houses  we  had 
passed  a  little  way  above  the  dam.  Then  we  have  to  wait  for  half 
an  hour  to  give  the  water  a  start  of  us,  and  then  off  again,  poling, 
wading,  paddling  down  the  stream,  until  the  sinking  sun  indicates 
time  to  camp. 

In  a  few  minutes — for  all  hands  are  used  to  the  work — canoes  are 
unladen,  two  tents  pitched,  soft  beds  of  fir-tops  spread  evenly  within 
them,  wood  cut,  and  bright  fires  burning,  more  for  cheerfulness  than 
warmth.  A  box  of  hard  bread  is  opened,  tea  brewed,  and  ham  set 
frizzling  in  the  pan.  Tea  is  a  great  thing  in  the  woods.  Indians 
are  very  fond  of  it ;  their  plan  is  to  put  as  much  tea  as  they  can  get 
hold  of  into  a  kettle,  and  boil  it  until  it  is  nearly  strong  enough  to 
stand  a  spoon  upright  in.  Of  this  bitter  decoction  they  drink  enor- 
mous quantities  for  supper,  and  immediately  fall  fast  asleep,  having 
nothing  about  them  that  answers  to  civilised  nerves. 

u  u  2 


640  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  April 

Sunrise  finds  us  up ;  breakfast  is  soon  over,  tents  are  struck, 
canoes  loaded,  and  we  are  on  our  way  down  the  deepening  stream. 
It  is  a  river  now,  with  lots  of  trout  in  the  shallows,  and  salmon  in 
the  deep  pools.  About  noon  we  turn  sharp  off  to  the  eastward  up  a 
little  brawling  brook,  forcing  our  way  with  some  difficulty  up  its 
shallow  rapids  till  it  gets  too  dry,  and  we  are  compelled  to  go  ashore 
and  to  '  carry  '  over  to  the  lake  whither  we  are  bound.  One  of  us 
stops  behind  to  make  a  fire,  boil  the  kettle,  and  prepare  the  dinner, 
while  the  Indians,  swing  each  a  canoe  on  to  his  shoulders  and  start 
through  the  woods.  In  three  trips  everything  is  carried  across,  and 
we  embark  again  upon  a  lovely  lake. 

The  '  carry '  was  not  long,  only  about  half  a  mile,  and  there  was  a 
good  blazed  trail,  so  that  it  was  a  comparatively  easy  job ;  but  under 
the  most  favourable  circumstances  this  portaging,  or  carrying,  is 
very  hard  work.  It  is  hard  enough  to  have  to  lift  eighty  or  one 
hundred  pounds  on  your  back.  It  is  worse  when  you  have  to  carry 
the  burden  half  a  mile,  and  get  back  as  quickly  as  you  can  for  another 
load ;  and  when  you  have  to  crawl  under  fallen  limbs,  climb  over 
prostrate  logs,  balance  yourself  on  slippery  tree  trunks,  flounder 
through  bogs,  get  tangled  up  in  alder  swamps,  force  yourself  through 
branches  which  slap  you  viciously  in  the  face,  with  a  big  load  on 
your  back,  a  hot  sun  overhead,  and  several  mosquitoes  on  your  nose. 
I  know  of  nothing  more  calculated  to  cause  an  eruption  of  bad 
language,  a  considerable  gain  in  animal  heat,  and  a  correspond- 
ing loss  of  temper.  But  it  has  to  be  done,  and  the  best  way  is  to 
take  it  coolly,  and,  if  you  cannot  do  that,  to  take  it  as  coolly  as 
you  can. 

Out  on  the  lake  it  was  blowing  a  gale,  and  right  against  us. 
We  had  to  kneel  in  the  bottom  of  the  canoes,  instead  of  sitting  on 
the  thwarts,  and  vigorously  ply  our  paddles.  The  heavily  laden  craft 
plunged  into  the  waves,  shipping  water  at  every  jump,  and  sending 
the  spray  flying  into  our  faces.  Sometimes  we  would  make  good  way, 
and  then,  in  a  squall,  we  would  not  gain  an  inch,  and  be  almost 
driven  on  shore ;  but  after  much  labour  we  gained  the  shelter  of  a 
projecting  point,  and  late  in  the  evening  reached  our  destination,  and 
drew  up  our  canoes  for  the  last  time. 

While  others  make  camp,  old  John  wanders  off  with  head  stooped, 
and  eyes  fixed  on  the  ground,  according  to  his  custom.  The  old 
man  always  looks  as  if  he  had  lost  something  and  was  searching  for 
it.  Indeed,  this  is  very  often  the  case.  I  remember,  after  watching 
him  one  day  prying  and  wandering  about  an  old  lumber  camp,  asking 
him  what  on  earth  he  was  doing.  *  Oh,  nothing,  sir,'  he  answered  ; 
4 1  hid  a  clay  pipe  here,  somewhere — let  me  see,  about  thirty-five 
years  ago,  and  I  was  looking'  for  it.'  After  dark  he  comes  quietly  in, 
sits  down  by  the  fire  and  lights  his  pipe,  and,  after  smoking  a  little 
while,  observes  :  4  Moose  been  here,  sir,  not  long  ago.  I  saw  fresh 


1880.  DAYS  IN   THE   WOODS.  641 

tracks,  a  cow  and  a  calf  close  handy  just  around  that  little  point  of 
woods.'  Another  silence,  and  then  he  looks  up  with  a  smile  of  the 
most  indescribable  cunning  and  satisfaction,  and  adds :  '  I  think, 
mebbe,  get  a  moose  pretty  soon  if  we  have  a  fine  night.'  '  Well,  I 
hope  so,  John,'  say  I.  '  Yes,  sir,  I  see  where  he  rub  his  horn,  sir  ; 
you  know  the  little  meadow  just  across  the  hard  wood  ridge  ?  why, 
where  we  saw  the  big  cariboo  track  three  years  ago.  He's  been 
fighting  the  bushes  there.  My  soul  and  body,  a  big  bull,  sir,  great 
works,  tracks  seven  inches  long.'  And  so  we  fall  to  talking  about 
former  hunting  excursions  till  bedtime,  or  rather  sleepy  time, 
comes,  and  we  curl  up  in  our  blankets,  full  of  hopes  for  the  future, 
which  may  or  may  not  be  disappointed. 

Moose-calling  commences  about  the  1st  of  September  and  ends 
about  the  15th  of  October.  A  full  moon  occurring  between  the 
middle  and  end  of  September  is  the  best  of  all  times.  The  best  plan 
in  calling  is  to  fix  upon  a  permanent  camp  and  make  little  expedi- 
tions of  two  or  three  days'  duration  from  it,  returning  to  rest  and 
get  fresh  supplies.  Then  you  enjoy  the  true  luxury  of  hunting. 
Then  you  feel  really  and  thoroughly  independent  and  free.  The  In- 
dian carries  your  blanket,  your  coat,  a  little  tea,  sugar,  and  bread,  a 
kettle,  and  two  tin  pannikins.  The  hunter  has  enough  to  do  to  carry 
himself,  his  rifle,  ammunition,  a  small  axe,  hunting-knife,  and  a  pair 
of  field-glasses.  Thus  accoutred,  clad  in  a  flannel  shirt  and  home- 
spun continuations,  moose-hide  mocassins  on  your  feet,  your  trousers 
tucked  into  woollen  socks,  your  arms  unencumbered  with  that  useless- 
article,  a  coat,  you  plunge  into  the  woods,  the  sun  your  guide  in 
clear  weather,  your  pocket-compass  if  it  is  cloudy,  the  beasts  and 
birds  and  fishes  your  companions  ;  and  wander  through  the  woods  at 
will,  sleeping  where  the  fancy  seizes  you,  'calling'  if  the  nights  are 
calm,  or  still  hunting  on  a  windy  day.  Calling  is  the  most  fascinating, 
disappointing,  exciting,  of  all  sports.  You  may  be  lucky  at  once  and 
kill  your  moose  the  first  night  you  go  out,  perhaps  at  the  very  first 
call  you  make.  You  may  be  weeks  and  weeks,  perhaps  the  whole  call- 
ing season,  without  getting  a  shot.  Moose-calling  is  simple  enough  in 
theory  ;  in  practice  it  is  immensely  difficult  of  application.  It  con- 
sists, as  I  have  before  explained  in  this  Keview,  in  imitating  the  cry 
of  the  animal  with  a  hollow  cone  made  of  birch  bark,  and  endeavour- 
ing by  this  means  to  call  up  a  moose  near  enough  to  get  a  shot  at 
him  by  moonlight  or  in  the  early  morning.  He  will  come  straight 
up  to  you,  within  a  few  yards — walk  right  over  you  almost — answer- 
ing, '  speaking,'  as  the  Indians  term  it,  as  he  comes  along,  if  nothing 
happens  to  scare  him ;  but  that  is  a  great  if.  So  many  unavoidable 
accidents  occur.  The  great  advantage  of  moose-calling  is,  that  it 
takes  one  out  in  the  woods  during  the  most  beautiful  period  of  the 
whole  year  ;  when  Nature,  tired  with  the  labour  of  spring  and  summer, 
puts  on  her  holiday  garments,  and  rests  luxuriously  before  falling  into 


642  TEE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  April 

the  deep  sleep  of  winter.  The  great  heats  are  past,  though  the 
days  are  still  warm  and  sunny ;  the  nights  are  calm  and  peaceful,  the 
mornings  cool,  the  evenings  so  rich  in  colouring,  that  they  seem  to 
dye  the  whole  woodland  with  sunset  hues,  for  the  maple,  oak,  birch, 
and  beech  trees  glow  with  a  gorgeousness  unknown  to  similar  trees 
in  this  country.  If  the  day  is  windy,  you  can  track  the  moose  and 
cariboo,  or  perchance  a  bear,  through  the  deep  shady  recesses  of  the 
forest.  On  a  still  day,  you  may  steal  noiselessly  over  the  smooth  sur- 
face of  some  lake,  or  along  a  quiet  reach  of  still  river  water,  fringed 
with  alder,  winding  tortuously  through  natural  meadows,  or  beneath 
a  ridge  crowned  with  birch  and  maples,  whose  feathery  branches  and 
crimson  leaves  are  so  clearly  reflected  on  a  surface  perfectly  placid, 
that  you  seem  to  be  gliding  over  a  forest  of  submerged  trees.  Or  you 
may  indulge  to  perfection  in  that  most  luxurious  pastime — doing 
nothing.  I  know  a  lovely  place  for  that,  on  a  hunting-ground  I  use 
to  frequent,  a  little  island  of  woods  about  a  quarter  of  a  mile  from 
camp,  with  a  tall  pine-tree  in  the  middle,  which  was  kind  enough  to 
arrange  its  branches  in  such  a  way  that  it  was  very  easy  to  climb. 
Thither  I  would  go  on  lazy  days,  when  tired  with  hunting,  with  my 
gun  and  a  book,  and,  leaning  against  its  friendly  trunk,  read  till  I  was 
tired  of  literature,  and  then  climb  up  in  the  breezy  branches  and  look 
out  far  and  wide  over  the  barrens  on  either  side.  Many  a  cariboo  have  I 
seen  from  thence,  and  shot  him  after  an  exciting  stalk  out  on  the  plain. 
Let  us  imagine  a  party  of  three  men  to  burst  out  of  the  thick 
woods  on  to  a  little  open  space,  or  barren,  hot  and  tired,  about  four 
o'clock  on  a  fine  October  day.  Before  them  lies  a  still  deep  reach  of 
a  little  river,  fringed  on  the  near  side  with  brown  alders ;  on  the 
opposite  side  lies  a  piled-up  ragged  heap  of  loose  grey  granite  blocks, 
with  one  solitary  dead  pine-tree,  stretching  out  its  gaunt,  bare, 
shrivelled  limbs  against  the  clear  sky.  Just  beyond  is  a  little  clump 
of  pines,  and  all  around  a  grey  meadow,  quite  open  for  some  fifty 
yards  or  so,  then  dotted  with  occasional  unhappy-looking  firs,  sad 
and  forlorn,  with  long  tresses  of  grey  moss  hanging  from  their 
gtunted  limbs.  The  trees  grow  closer  and  closer  together,  and  become 
more  vigorous  in  appearance  till  they  merge  into  the  unbroken  forest 
beyond.  Supposing  that  I  formed  one  of  the  party,  I  should  imme- 
diately take  measures  to  make  myself  comfortable  for  the  night,  for  I 
am  of  a  luxurious  habit.  I  should  set  one  Indian,  say  John  Williams, 
to  look  for  water,  which  he  would  find  by  scooping  a  hole  in  the  moss 
with  his  hands,  into  which  cavity  a  black  and  muddy  liquid  would 
presently  flow,  not  inviting  to  look  at,  but  in  an  hour's  time  it  will 
have  settled  clear  enough  to  drink — in  the  dark.  I  and  the  other 
Indian,  say  Noel  Grlode,  would  turn  to  and  make  camp.  That  is 
easily  done  when  you  know  how — so  is  making  a  watch.  You  clear 
away  a  space  beneath  some  tree,  making  it  nice  and  level,  and  set  up 
a  shelter  on  whichever  side  you  apprehend  the  wind  will  come  from. 


1880.  DAYS  IN  THE   WOODS.  643 

You  stick  some  poles  or  young  fir-trees  into  the  ground,  prop  them 
up  with  other  trees,  lash  a  pole  horizontally  along  them,  with  a  bit  of 
string  if  you  have  it,  or  the  flexible  root  of  a  fir  if  you  have  not. 
Cut  down  a  lot  of  pine  branches,  and  thatch  the  framework  with  them 
till  you  have  formed  a  little  lean-to,  which  will  keep  off  a  good  deal 
of  wind  and  all  the  dew.  Then  you  strew  the  ground  thickly  with 
fir-tops  or  bracken,  gather  a  lot  of  dry  wood  in  case  you  want  to  make 
a  fire,  and  all  is  ready  for  the  night. 

In  a  scene  very  like  that,  I  spent  the  last  two  nights  of  the  calling 
season,  not  a  hundred  years  ago.  It  was  nearly  sundown  before  our 
work  was  over,  and,  leaving  Noel  to  finish  camp,  I  sent  John  to  a  tree- 
top  to  look  out,  and  sat  down  myself  on  a  rock  at  a  little  distance  to 
smoke  the  calumet  of  peace.  These  '  barrens '  are  very  melancholy 
at  the  decline  of  day,  intensely  sad,  yet  -in  their  own  way  beautiful, 
full  of  delicate  colouring.  The  grey,  dead,  tufted  grass  lies  matted 
by  the  margin  of  the  stream,  over  which  brown  alders  droop,  looking 
at  their  own  images  in  the  water,  perfectly  still,  save  when  some 
otter,  beaver,  or  musk-rat  plunges  sullenly  in  and  disturbs  it  for  a 
moment.  The  ground,  carpeted  with  cariboo  moss,  white  as  ivory 
but  with  purple  roots,  is  smooth,  save  for  a  few  detached  rugged 
masses  of  granite  covered  with  grey  or  black  lichens.  An  occasional 
dwarfed  pine,  encumbered  with  hanging  festoons  of  moss,  strives  to 
grow  in  the  wet  soil ;  and  on  drier  spots,  two  or  three  tall,  naked, 
dead  firs  that  have  been  burned  in  some  bygone  fire,  look  pale,  like 
ghosts  of  trees  in  the  deepening  twilight. 

Beyond  all,  the  forest  rises,  gloomy,  black,  mysterious.  Nature 
looks  sad,  worn-out,  dying ;  as  though  lamenting  the  ancient  days 
and  the  inevitable  approach  of  the  white  man's  axe.  Well  in 
harmony  with  her  melancholy  mood  are  the  birds  and  beasts  that 
roam  those  solitudes,  and  haunt  the  woods  and  streams.  The  hooting 
owl,  the  loon  or  great  northern  diver,  that  startles  the  night  with  its' 
unearthly  scream,  are  weird  uncanny  creatures ;  the  cariboo  or  rein- 
deer, which  was  contemporary  with  many  extinct  animals  on  this 
globe — mammoths,  cave  bears,  and  others — and  which  has  seen 
curious  sights  among  aboriginal  men,  has  a  strange  look  as  if  belong- 
ing to  some  older  world  and  some  other  time,  with  his  fantastic 
antlers  and  great  white  mane ;  and  so,  too,  has  the  huge  ungainly 
moose,  that  shares  with  him  the  forest  and  the  swamps. 

I  had  not,  however,  much  time  to  indulge  in  reverie,  for 
scarcely  had  I  sat  down  before  I  heard  old  John  call  gently  like 
a  moose  to  attract  my  attention.  Now  it  must  be  borne  in  mind 
that  when  hunting  you  never  call  to  any  one  like  a  human  being, 
for  to  do  so  might  scare  away  game ;  but  you  grunt  like  a  moose, 
or,  if  you  prefer  it,  hoot  like  an  owl,  or  make  any  other  sound 
emitted  by  one  of  the  brute  creation.  I  crept  up  quickly,  and  in 
obedience  to  John's  whisper  gave  him  the  moose-caller,  and,  following 


644  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY.  April 

ihc  direction  of  his  eyes,  saw  a  small  bull  moose  slowly  crossing  the 
barren   some   four  or  five  hundred  yards  to  our  left.     At  the  first 
sound  from  John's  lips,  the  moose  stopped  dead  short,  and  looked 
round,  then  moved  a  few  steps  towards  us  and  stopped  again.     We 
watched  him  for  some  time.     He  was  evidently  timid,  and  it  seemed 
doubtful  whether  he  would  come  up ;  and,  as  it  was  growing  dark, 
Noel  and  I  started  to  try  and  steal  round  the  edge  of  the  wood  in 
order  to  cut  him  off  before  he  could  get  into  the  timber  and  cross 
our  tracks.  We  had  not  gone  a  hundred  yards  before  we  heard  another 
bull  coming  up  from  a  different  direction  through  the  forest,  answer- 
ing John's  call.     We  could  tell  by  the  sound  that  he  was  a  large  one, 
and  that  he  was  coming  up  rapidly.     The  small  bull  heard  him  also, 
and  stopped.     We  were  now,  of  a  truth,  in  a  dilemma.     There  was  a 
moose  in  sight  of  us,  but  it  was  ten  to  one  that  he  would  smell  our 
tracks  and  get  scared  before  we  could  reach  him.     There  was  a  larger 
moose  coming  through  the  woods,  but  where  he  would  emerge  it  was 
impossible  to  say ;  and,  to  make  matters  worse,  it  was  rapidly  getting 
dark.     The  difficulty  was  soon  settled,  for  the  smaller  moose  moved 
on  again  towards  the  woods,  crossed  our  track,  snuffed  us,  and  started 
off  across  the  barren  at  a  trot :  so  we  had  to  turn  our  attention  to  the 
larger  one.     He  came  on  boldly ;  we  could  hear  him  call  two  or  three 
times  in  succession,  and  then  stop  dead  silent  for  a  few  minutes  to 
listen,  and  then  on  again,  speaking.     We  planted  ourselves  right  in 
his  way,  just  on  the  edge  of  the  woods,  and,  crouching  close  to  the 
ground,  waited  for  him.    Presently  we  heard  his  hoarse  voice  close  to 
us,  and  the  crackling  of  the  bushes  as  he  passed  through  them ;  then 
silence  fell  again,  and  we  heard  nothing  but  the  thumping  of  our 
hearts ;  another  advance,  and  he  stopped  once  more,  within  appa- 
rently about  fifty  yards  of  us.     After  a  long,  almost  insupportable 
pause,  he  came  on  again  ;  we  could  hear  his  footsteps,  we  could  hear 
the  grass  rustling,  we  could  hear  him  breathing,  we  could  see  the 
bushes  shaking,  but  we  could  not  make  out  even  the  faintest  outline 
of  him  in  the  dark.     Again  he  stopped,  and  our  hearts  seemed  to 
stand  still  also  with  expectation ;  another  step  must  have  brought 
him  out  almost  within  reach  of  me,  when  suddenly  there  was  a  tre- 
mendous crash !     He  had  smelt  us,  and  was  off  with  a  cracking  of 
dead  limbs,  rattling  of  horns,  and  smashing  of  branches,  which  made 
the  woods  resound  again.     Disappointed  we  were,  but  not  unhappy, 
for  the  first  duty  of  the  hunter  is  to  drill  himself  into  that  peculiar 
frame  of  mind  which  enables  a  man  to  exult  when  he  is  successful, 
and  to  accept  ill-luck  and  defeat  without  giving  way  to  despondency. 
It  was  by  this  time  pitch  dark,  and  there  was  no  use  therefore  in 
calling  any  more.     So  in  a  few  minutes   we  were    seated  round  a 
bright  cheerful  little  fire  :  the  kettle  was  boiled,  and  we  consoled 
ourselves  with  what  story-books  call  '  a  frugal  meal '  of  bread  and 
tea ;  and  then  reclining  on  our  beds  of  bracken,  with  our  backs  to 


1880.  DAYS  JiV  THE    WOODS.  645 

the  fire,  smoked  and  chatted  till  sleep  began  to  weigh  our  eyelids- 
down.  I  have  observed  that  in  most  accounts  of  travel  and  hunting 
adventure  people  are  represented  as  lying  with  their  feet  to  the  fire.1 
That  is  a  great  blunder.  Always  keep  your  shoulders  and  back 
warm,  and  you  will  be  warm  all  over.  If  there  are  a  number  of 
people  round  one  fire,  and  it  is  necessary  to  lie  stretched  out  like 
the  spokes  of  a  wheel,  with  the  fire  representing  the  axle,  it  is1 
advisable,  no  doubt,  to  lie  with  your  head  outwards,  for  it  is  better  to 
toast  your  heels  than  to  roast  your  head ;  but  if  there  is  room  to 
lie  lengthways,  always  do  so,  and  keep  your  back  to  the  fire.  Of 
course  we  talked  about  the  moose  we  had  so  nearly  killed.  '  My 
soul  and  body,  sir,'  says  John,  '  never  see  such  luck  in  all  my  life  ; 
most  as  bad  as  we  had  two  years  ago  when  we  was  camped  away 
down  east  by  the  head  of  Martin's  River.  You  remember,  sir,  the 
night  we  saw  the  little  fire  in  the  woods  close  by,  when  there  was  no 
one  there  to  make  it.  Very  curious  that  was ;  can't  make  that  out 
at  all.  What  was  it,  do  you  think  ?  ' 

*  Well,  John,'  I  said,  '  I  suppose  it  must  have  been  a  piece  of 
dead  wood  shining.' 

'  Yes,  sir ;  but  it  did  not  look  like  that ;  most  too  red  and  flicker- 
ing for  dead  wood.'  4 

4  Perhaps  ghosts  making  a  fire,  John,'  said  I. 

'  Yes,  sir,  mebbe ;  some  of  our  people  believes  in  ghosts,  sir ; 
very  foolish  people,  some  Indians.' 

'  Don't  you,  John  ?  ' 

'  Oh  no,  sir  ;  I  never  seed  no  ghosts.  I  have  seen  and  heard 
some  curious  things,  though.  I  was  hunting  once  with  two  gentle- 
men near  Rocky  River — you  know  the  place  well,  sir.  We  were  all 
sitting  in  the  camp  ;  winter  time,  sir  ;  pretty  late,  about  bed  time. 
The  gentlemen  were  drinking  their  grog,  and  we  was  smoking  and 
talking,  when  we  heard  some  one  walking,  coming  up  to  the  camp. 
"  Holloa !  "  says  one  of  the  gentlemen,  "  who  can  this  be  at  this  time 
of  night  ?  "  Well,  sir,  we  stopped  talking,  and  we  all  heard  the  man 
walk  up  to  the  door.  My  soul,  sir,  we  could  hear  his  mocassins 
crunching  on  the  hard  dry  snow  quite  plain.  He  walked  up  to  the 
door,  but  did  not  open  it,  did  not  speak,  did  not  knock.  So,  after  a 
little,  one  of  us  looked  out — nobody  there  ;  nobody  there  at  all,  sir. 
Next  morning  there  was  not  a  track  on  the  snow — not  a  track — and 
no  snow  fell  in  the  night.  Well,  sir,  we  stayed  there  a  fortnight, 
and  most  every  night  we  would  hear  a  man  in  mocassins  walk  up  to 
the  door  and  stop ;  and  if  we  looked  there  was  no  one  there,  and  he 
left  no  tracks  in  the  snow.  What  was  it,  do  you  think,  sir  ?  ' 

'  Don't  know,  John,  I  am  sure,'  I  said,  '  unless  it  was  some 
strange  effect  of  wind  in  the  trees.' 

'  Well,  sir,  I  seed  a  curious  thing  once.  I  was  hunting  with  a 
gentleman — from  the  old  country,  I  think  lie  was — my  word,  sir,  a 


646  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY.  April 

long  .time  ago,  mebbe  thirty  years  or  more.  My  soul  and  body,  sir, 
what  a  sight  of  moose  there  was  in  the  woods  in  those  days !  and  the 
cariboo  run  in  great  herds  then ;  all  failing  now,  sir,  all  failing.  We 
were  .following  cariboo,  right  fresh  tracks  in  the  snow ;  we  were  keep- 
ing a  sharp  look-out,  expecting  to  view  them  every  minute,  when  I 
looked  up  and  saw  a  man  standing  right  between  us  and  where  the 
cariboo  had  gone.  He  was  not  more  than  two  hundred  yards  off — I 
could  see  him  quite  plain.  He  had  on  a  cloth  cap  and  a  green 
blanket-coat  with  a  belt  round  the  middle — not  a  leather  belt  like 
we  use,  sir,  but  a  woollen  one  like  what  the  Frenchmen  uses  in  Canada. 
There  was  braid  down  the  seams  of  his  coat  and  round  the  cuffs.  I 
could  see  the  braid  quite  plain.  He  had  no  gun,  nor  axe,  nor  no  - 
thing  in  his  hands,  but  just  stood  there  with  his  hand  on  his  hip,  that 
way,  right  in  the  path,  doing  nothing.  "  Our  hunting  all  over,  sir," 
I  said  to  the  gentleman.  "  We  may  as  well  go  home."  "  Why, 
what  is  the  matter,  John?  "  says  he.  "  Why,  look  at  the  man  there 
right  in  the  track ;  he's  scared  our  cariboo,  I  guess."  Well,  sir,  he 
was  very  mad,  the  gentleman  was,  and  was  for  turning  right  round 
and  going  home ;  but  I  wanted  to  go  up  and  speak  to  the  man.  He 
stood  there  all  the  time — never  moved.  I  kind  of  bowed,  nodded 
my  head  to  him,  and  he  kind  of  nodded  his  head,  bowed  just  the 
same  way  to  me.  Well,  I  started  to  go  up  to  him,  when  up  rose  a 
great  fat  cow-moose  between  him  and  me.  "  Look  at  the  moose, 
captain  !  "  I  said.  "  Shoot  her  !  "  "  Good  heavens,  John  ! "  he  says, 
"  if  I  do,  I  shall  shoot  the  man  too  !  "  "  No,  no,  sir,  never  mind,"  I 
cried,  "  fire  at  the  moose."  Well,  sir,  he  up  with  the  gun,  fired,  and 
downed  the  moose.  She  just  ran  a  few  yards,  pitched  forward,  and 
fell  dead.  When  the  smoke  cleared  off,  the  man  was  gone ;  could 
not  see  him  nowheres.  "  My  soul  and  body !  what's  become  of  the 
man,  Captain  ?  "  I  says.  "  Dunno,  John  ;  perhaps  he  is  down  too," 
says  he.  "  Well,  sir,"  says  I,  "  you  stop  here,  and  I  will  go  and 
look ;  mebbe  he  is  dead,  mebbe  not  quite  dead  yet."  Well,  I  went 
up  to  the  place,  and  there  was  nothing  there — nothing  but  a  little 
pine-tree,  no  man  at  all.  I  went  all  round,  sir — no  tracks,  no  sign 
of  a  man  anywhere  on  the  snow.  What  was  it,  do  you  think,  sir,  we 
saw  ? ' 

1  Well,  John,'  I  replied,  '  I  think  that  was  a  curious  instance  of 
refraction.'  '  Oh,  mebbe,'  says  John ;  '  guess  I  will  take  a  little 
nap  now — moon  get  up  by-and-by  ; '  and  in  another  instant  he  was 
fast  asleep.  Indians  have  a  wonderful  faculty  for  going  to  sleep. 
They  seem  to  shut  themselves  up  at  will,  with  a  snap  like  slamming 
down  the  lid  of  a  box  with  a  spring,  and  are  fast  asleep  in  a  second ; 
and  there  they  will  lie,  snoring  and  shivering  with  cold  until  you 
touch  or  call  them,  and  then  they  are  wide  awake  in  an  instant,  as  if 
they  pressed  some  knob  concealed  in  their  internal  mechanism,  and 
flew  suddenly  open  again. 


1808.  DAYS  IN  THE   WOODS.  647 

I  remember  seeing  a  curious  instance  of  refraction  once  myself. 
We  were  paddling  home  one  evening,  old  John  and  I,  along  a  still 
deep  reach  of  dead  water,  gliding  dreamily  over  a  surface  literally  as 
smooth  as  a  polished  mirror.  It  was  evening,  and  the  sun  was  only 
just  clear  of  the  tree-tops  on  the  western  side.  Happening  to  look 
up,  I  saw  on  the  eastern  side  a  shadow,  a  stooping  form,  glide  across 
the  trees  about  twenty  or  thirty  feet  from  the  ground  and  disappear. 
It  looked  very  ghost-like,  and  for  an  instant  it  startled  me.  In  a 
few  seconds  it  reappeared,  and,  the  trees  growing  thicker  together 
and  affording  a  better  background,  I  saw  the  shadows  plainly — two 
figures  in  a  canoe  gliding  along  in  the  air,  the  shadows  of  John  and 
myself,  cast  up  at  an  obtuse  angle  from  the  surface  of  the  water  by 
the  almost  level  rays  of  the  setting  sun. 

The  Indians  soon  were  comfortably  sleeping,  and  had  wandered 
off  into  the  land  of  dreams ;  but  I,  my  nature  being  vitiated  by 
many  years  of  civilisation,  could  not  so  easily  yield  to  the  wooing  of 
the  drowsy  god.  For  some  time  I  lay  awake,  blinking  lazily  at 
the  fire,  watching  flickering  forms  and  fading  faces  in  the  glowing 
embers,  speculating  idly  on  the  fortunes  of  the  Red  Indian  race,  and 
on  the  destinies  of  the  vast  continent  around  me — in  memory  re- 
visiting many  lovely  scenes,  and  going  over  again  in  thought  the 
hunting  adventures  and  canoeing  voyages  of  former  days.  The  palmy 
days  of  canoeing  are  past  and  gone.  Time  was  when  fleets  of  large 
birch-bark  canoes,  capable  of  carrying  some  tons  weight,  navigated 
the  waters  of  the  St.  Lawrence,  of  the  Ottawa,  and  of  the  great 
lakes  to  the  mouths  of  different  rivers  on  the  north  shore  of 
Lake  Superior,  where  they  are  met  by  smaller  canoes  arriving 
from  the  shores  of  the  Frozen  Ocean,  from  unnamed  lakes  and  un- 
known rivers,  from  unexplored  regions,  from  countries  inhabited  by 
wild  animals  and  fur-bearing  beasts — districts  as  large  as  European 
countries  lying  unnoticed  in  the  vast  territories  of  British  North 
America. 

All  that  is  changed,  though  a  great  trade  is  still  carried  on  by 
means  of  these  primitive  but  most  useful  and  graceful  boats. 
Steamers  ply  upon  the  lakes  and  ascend  the  rivers,  the  country  is 
being  rapidly  opened  up,  wrested  from  wild  nature,  and  turned  into 
a  habitation  fit  for  civilised  man.  One  of  the  pleasantest  canoe 
voyages  I  ever  made  was  from  Fort  William,  at  the  mouth  of  the 
Kaministiquoya,  to  Fort  Garry,  situated  close  to  the  junction  of  the 
Assineboin  with  the  Eed  River  of  the  North,  and  near  to  the  shores 
of  Lake  Winnipeg.  That  was  but  a  few  years  ago ;  but  how  all 
that  country  has  changed  since  then !  Winnipeg  was  a  very  small 
place  then,  scarcely  known  to  the  outside  world.  I  remember  I 
met  a  family  in  the  steamer  on  Lake  Superior,  a  lady  and  gentleman 
and  their  children,  and  when  in  the  course  of  the  conversation  it 
came  out  that  they  were  going  to  Winnipeg,  I  felt  almost  as  much 


648  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY.  April 

astonished  as  if  they  had  told  me  they  were  on  their  way  to  spend 
the  summer  at  their  country  residence  at  the  North  Pole.  Now 
Winnipeg  has  become  a  flourishing  town.  The  trading  post  of 
Fort  Garry  is  submerged  and  overwhelmed  by  a  mass  of  civilisation ; 
Manitoba  is  a  province,  and  a  growing  and  prosperous  one.  One 
of  the  finest,  if  not  the  very  finest,  agricultural  districts  in  the 
world  has  been  opened  up  to  man.  It  is  a  district  capable  of  pro- 
ducing the  choicest  wheat  in  practically  limitless  quantities.  It  is 
blessed  with  many  advantages,  but  it  also  labours  under  certain  dis- 
advantages which  must  not  be  overlooked.  Three  great  rivers 
flow  into  Lake  Winnipeg — the  Red  River,  the  iSaskatchewan,  and 
the  Winnipeg.  The  latter  river  is  magnificent  so  far  as  scenery 
is  concerned,  but  it  is  full  of  dangerous  rapids,  and  will  never 
be  of  any  great  commercial  value  to  the  country.  The  Red 
River  is  navigable  for  steamers  for  a  distance  of  six  hundred 
miles.  One  hundred  and  eighty-five  miles  only  of  its  course  lie  in 
British  territory ;  the  remainder  of  the  distance  it  traverses  the  state 
of  Minnesota.  The  land  it  drains  is  rich  alluvial  prairie.  At  a 
distance  of  forty  miles  from  its  mouth  it  receives  the  waters  of  the 
Assineboin,  a  river  flowing  entirely  through  British  territory ;  it  is 
said  to  be  navigable  for  three  hundred  miles.  The  two  Saskatchewans 
rise  in  the  Rocky  Mountains  about  thirty  miles  apart,  and  pursue 
slightly  diverging  courses,  till  they  become  separated  by  a  distance 
of  nearly  three  hundred  miles.  They  then  gradually  converge  again 
until  they  join  together  at  a  distance  of  about  eight  hundred  miles 
from  their  head-waters,  and  then  after  a  united  course  of  nearly  three 
hundred  miles,  discharge  their  mingled  waters  into  Lake  Winnipeg. 
With  the  exception  of  the  last  few  miles  of  their  course,  these 
rivers  are  navigable  for  steamers,  the  one — that  is,  the  North  Saskat- 
chewan— for  one  thousand,  and  the  South  branch  for  eight  hundred 
miles.  Between  them,  and  on  each  side  of  them,  lies  the  fertile 
belt,  a  virgin  soil  of  any  depth.  No  forests  encumber  the  land. 
The  farmer  has  but  to  turn  up  the  soil  lying  ready  waiting  for  the 
seed.  It  is  a  mistake  to  suppose  that  all  this  great  Western  country 
is  good  land  ;  that  is  nonsense.  There  is  good  and  there  is  bad ;  but  it 
is  true  that  there  is  little  bad  and  much  good.  Hundreds  and  hundreds 
of  thousands  of  acres  of  the  best  land  in  the  world  are  lying  there 
idle,  waiting  for  man.  From  the  southern  boundary  of  the  United 
States  to  the  South  Saskatchewan,  there  is  no  such  fertile  tract  as 
this.  It  is  like  a  huge  oasis  lying  between  the  parched  pastures  of 
the  south  and  the  frozen  solitudes  of  the  icy  north.  Nor  is  the  wheat- 
growing  country  confined  to  the  great  tract  that  drains  into  Lake 
Winnipeg.  If  the  reader  will  look  at  the  isothermal  line  upon  a  map, 
he  will  find  that  it  takes  a  tremendous  sweep  northward  a  little  to  the 
west  of  the  centre  of  the  continent,  and  includes  the  great  Peace  River 
valley,  a  portion  of  the  Athabaska  district,  and  of  the  valley  of  the 


1880.  DAYS  IN  THE   WOODS.  649 

Mackenzie  River.  The  day  will  come  when  wheat  will  be  grown  in  that 
country  within  a  very  few  degrees  of  the  Arctic  Circle.  Nature  has 
"beenbountiful  to  these  north- western  provinces.  The  warm  breezes  from 
the  west  waft  them  prosperity,  but  it  is  their  northern  position  which 
proves  the  only  drawback  to  them.  The  chief  difficulty  is  a  difficulty 
of  communication.  The  value  of  land,  in  a  country  where  land  is 
plentiful  and  cheap,  depends  upon  the  cost  of  transporting  the  produce 
of  the  soil  to  market.  The  great  wheat-producing  region  I  have 
described  is  at  present  tapped  by  a  line  of  railway  running  south 
through  the  United  States.  That  cannot  be  called  a  natural,  or 
altogether  a  proper  outlet.  It  is  not  worth  while  anticipating  any 
serious  difficulty  between  the  United  States  and  the  British  Empire. 
We  may  for  practical  purposes  dismiss  that  contingency  from  our  cal- 
culations, as  one  most  unlikely  to  occur.  It  is  becoming  more  and 
more  improbable  every  year  as  the  two  nations  learn  to  understand  and 
appreciate  each  other  better.  But,  at  the  same  time,  it  is  highly  in- 
expedient that  the  produce  of  any  portion  of  the  British  Empire 
should,  in  seeking  its  natural  market  in  other  portions  of  the  same 
Empire,  be  compelled  to  pass  through  the  territories  of  another  nation. 
When  that  produce  consists  of  the  first  necessary  of  life,  the  inex- 
pediency is  increased. 

There  is  another  line  of  railway  in  course  of  construction  which 
will  carry  grain  from  Manitoba  to  the  north  shore  of  Lake  Su- 
perior, whence  it  can  be  transported  by  ships  or  barges  over  the 
broad  waters  of  the  great  lakes,  and  down  the  majestic  current  of  the 
St.  Lawrence  to  the  ocean.  But  on  this  line  also  there  is  a  difficulty, 
an  obstruction.  The  waters  of  that  inland  sea,  Lake  Superior,  pour 
themselves  into  Lake  Huron  in  a  boiling,  tumultuous  flood  down  the 
rapid  known  as  the  Sault  St.  Mary.  This  rapid  is  quite  impassable, 
and  ships  go  round  it  through  a  canal  which  is  in  the  State  of  Mi- 
chigan. This  is  a  disadvantage  to  the  route,  but  not  a  very  great 
one,  for  the  canal  is  only  a  few  miles  in  length.  '  A  convention,  I  be- 
lieve, exists  between  the  Canadian  and  United  States  Governments, 
regulating  the  rates  to  be  charged  upon  it,  and,  moreover,  there  is 
no  engineering  difficulty  whatever  in  constructing  a  canal  on  the 
British  side  of  the  river.  It  is  true  that  the  canal  is  closed  by  ice 
during  the  winter  months,  but  free  navigation  exists  during  the 
greater  part  of  the  year,  and  the  St.  Lawrence  is  also  closed  during 
the  winter.  Any  one  looking  at  a  map  of  British  North  America 
will  say  at  once,  '  But  neither  of  these  routes  is  the  natural  geo- 
graphical road  in  and  out  of  this  country.  The  Hudson's  Bay  Com- 
pany long  ago  discovered  and  made  use  of  the  proper  outlet,  and  the 
grain  of  thousands  and  thousands  of  fertile  acres  will  find  its  way  to 
London  by  the  same  means,  and  over  the  same  roads,  as  the  skins 
of  wild  animals  have  been  brought  to  that  market.'  I  wish  I 
could  think  that  was  true.  Then  indeed  would  Manitoba  and  the 


650  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  April 

great  North-West  be  the  most  favoured  country  in  the  world — the 
earthly  paradise  of  the  agriculturist. 

Hudson's  Bay  and  the  river  flowing  into  it  from  Lake  Winnipeg 
form  the  natural  gateway  to  the  great  North- West,  and  Lake  Winni- 
peg is  the  natural  centre  of  distribution  and  collection  for  a  large 
portion  of  that  vast  region.  But  there  is  an  icy  bolt  drawn  across 
the  door,  barring  the  way.  Lake  Winnipeg  is  a  huge  lake,  an 
inland  sea  of  some  three  hundred  miles  in  length  and  fifty  or  sixty 
in  breadth.  It  receives  the  drainage  of  the  fertile  belt  through 
navigable  rivers,  and  it  sends  off  that  drainage  towards  the  North 
through  a  large  river — the  Nelson — which  pours  its  waters  into 
Hudson's  Bay.  The  Nelson  is,  in  fact,  the  continuation  of  the  Sas- 
katchewan. Lake  Winnipeg  is  in  the  very  centre  of  the  continent. 
If  ocean  steamers  could  penetrate  to  that  lake,  it  would  be  like  des- 
patching a  steamer  direct  from  the  port  of  London  to  the  gram 
elevators  of  Chicago.  It  would  be  even  better,  for  a  vessel  loading 
in  Lake  Winnipeg  could  take  in  her  grain  at  the  mouth  of  rivers 
penetrating  to  the  very  base  of  the  Rocky  Mountains,  navigable  for  a 
thousand  miles  through  the  richest  land  of  the  continent.  Cannot 
this  magnificent  water  system  be  utilised  ?  I  fear  not.  There  are 
two  obstacles  which  I  am  afraid  will  prove  insurmountable.  These 
are,  the  navigation  of  Hudson's  Straits,  and  the  navigation  of  the 
Nelson.  Of  Hudson's  Bay  and  Straits  we  can  speak  with  some  con- 
fidence, for  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company  have  for  a  long  period  sent 
two,  and  occasionally  three,  ships  every  year  to  their  two  principal 
posts  on  Hudson's  Bay  ;  namely,  Moose  Factory,  situated  at  the  head 
of  James  Bay,  the  most  southern  indentation  of  Hudson's  Bay,  and 
York  Factory,  which  is  placed  close  to  the  mouth  of  the  Nelson 
River. 

Hudson's  Bay  is  open  for  four  or  five  months  in  the  year.  But 
Hudson's  Straits  are  not,  and  there  is  little  comfort  in  having  open 
water  inside  in  the  'Bay  when  you  cannot  reach  it,  and  it  is  a  poor 
consolation  to  know  that  the  warm  ocean  is  close  to  you  outside, 
when  you  cannot  get  out.  There  are  years  in  which  the  straits  are 
not  open  for  more  than  two  or  three  weeks.  Ships  have  occasion- 
ally failed  to  force  a  passage  through  the  Straits,  and  ships  have  been 
detained  in  the  Bay  all  the  summer,  unable  to  work  their  way  out. 

The  average  duration  of  open  navigation  of  the  Straits  is  about 
five  or  six  weeks  in  the  year  ;  you  cannot  depend  upon  more  than  that, 
though  it  may  be  open  for  nearly  as  many  months.  Of  course  the 
substitution  of  steam  vessels  for  sailing  ships  would  make  considerable 
difference  ;  but,  even  supposing  steamers  adapted  to  the  purpose  to  be 
used,  it  must,  I  fear,  be  conceded  that  the  navigation  would  be  pre- 
carious, and  the  open  season  short.  Moreover,  the  navigation  is 
difficult  and  peculiar  at  the  best  of  times,  and  it  is  doubtful  whether 
ordinary  steam  vessels  could  be  used ;  and  problematical  whether  a 


1880.  DAYS  IN   THE   WOODS.  651 

trade  could  possibly  be  made  to  pay,  requiring  especially  constructed 
ships,  which  would  be  idle  for  eight  or  ten  months  of  the  year.  So 
much  for  the  Straits — now  as  to  the  rivers. 

Formerly  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company  transported  all  the  peltry 
— that  is,  furs  and  skins — collected  over  a  vast  area,  to  Lake  Winni- 
peg. Over  that  lake  it  was  taken  in  large  boats  to  Norway  House,  at 
the  head  of  the  Nelson,  and  down  that  river  to  York  Factory  at  the 
mouth  of  it.  And  all  supplies,  all  the  necessaries  and  all  the  luxuries 
of  life,  all  that  white  men  and  Indians  required,  were  transported  up 
the  Nelson  to  Norway  House  ;  thence  carried  to  various  parts  of  the 
lake,  and  then  disseminated  through  the  land  by  boats,  canoes,  and 
dog  sleighs. 

Some  time  ago  the  Company  abandoned  the  Nelson,  adopted 
Hayes  Eiver,  and  have  used  that  route  ever  since.  Hayes  Eiver  is 
not  an  outlet  of  Lake  Winnipeg.  Properly  speaking,  it  is  a  small 
river  flowing  into  Hudson's  Bay  close  to  the  mouth  of  the  Nelson. 
But  the  name,  Hayes  River,  is  generally  given  to  that  series  of  lakes 
and  streams  which  constitutes  the  route  for  canoe  and  boat  naviga- 
tion between  Norway  House  on  Lake  Winnipeg  and  York  Factory  on 
the  sea.  In  referring  to  the  line  of  water  communication  at  present 
in  use  between  Lake  Winnipeg  and  Hudson's  Bay,  I  shall  therefore 
call  it  Hayes  River.  The  Hudson's  Bay  Company  use  large  boats 
capable  of  carrying  ten  tons  burden ;  so  I  assume  that  Hayes  River  is 
the  better  river  of  the  two,  and  the  more  easily  navigated  by  vessels 
of  any  size. 

Hayes  River  has  a  course  of  somewhere  about  300  miles  in  length. 
In  the  course  of  that  300  miles  there  are  twenty  or  thirty  portages. 
That  is  to  say,  obstructions  occur  at  average  intervals  of  ten  or  fifteen 
miles,  so  serious  as  to  necessitate  the  immense  labour  of  dragging 
over  land  boats  capable  of  carrying  ten  tons,  and  the  merchandise 
within  them.  That  does  nots  ound  like  a  waterway  that  could  be 
navigated  by  steamers  of  any  kind — as  a  matter  of  fact,  Hayes  River 
is  a  mere  boat  route.  There  remains,  then,  the  great  Nelson  River, 
the  outlet  of  Lake  Winnipeg.  The  Nelson  or  Saskatchewan  is  a  first- 
class  river  in  point  of  size  and  volume  of  water,  but  it  is  not  navi- 
gable. Although  the  average  depth  of  water  for  about  ninety  miles  is 
said  to  be  twenty  feet,  yet  it  is  stated  that  there  is  only  ten  feet  of 
water  at  the  head  of  the  tideway  ;  a  fact  which  of  course  entirely 
precludes  ocean  steamers  from  ascending  the  river.  For  vessels 
drawing  less  than  ten  feet  it  is  navigable  for  about  100  miles ;  but 
at  that  distance  from  the  sea  there  is  a  rapid  or  fall  that  entirely 
puts  a  stop  to  navigation,  and  renders  it  impossible  for  vessels  of 
light  draught  to  descend  the  river  from  the  lake  to  the  sea. 

I  do  not  suppose  that  either  the  Nelson  or  Hayes  River  has 
ever  been  thoroughly  and  accurately  surveyed,  sounded,  or  reported 
on  by  engineers  with  a  view  to  future  navigation ;  and  so  wonderful 


652  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  April 

is  the  way  in  which  man  wars  against  nature  by  means  of  engineer- 
ing skill,  that  I  should  be  sorry  to  assert  that  this  route  is  now,  and 
always  will  remain,  impracticable.  But  I  know  that  it  presents 
great,  and  I  fear  it  presents  insuperable,  difficulties.  It  is  certain 
that  the  Nelson,  a  river  which,  as  far  as  the  volume  of  water  dis- 
charged by  it  is  concerned,  ought  to  be  navigable  for  large  ships,  is 
rendered  useless  and  impassable  by  obstructions  which  must  be  of  a 
serious  nature,  seeing  that  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company  prefer  Hayes 
River  to  it.  Hayes  Eiver  is  merely  a  boat  route,  and  not  even  a  good 
one,  for  it  contains,  as  I  have  before  stated,  twenty  or  thirty  portages 
in  some  300  miles.  The  fact,  therefore,  that  it  is  better  for  large 
boats  than  the  Nelson,  does  not  lead  one  to  form  a  very  favourable 
estimate  of  the.  latter  river. 

Even  without  this  direct  communication  by  sea  with  Europe, 
Manitoba  and  the  western  fertile  tract  must  become  one  of  the  most 
prosperous  regions  of  the  earth;  and  I  think  it  affords  a  better 
opening  for  farming  industry  at  the  present  time  than  any  other 
district  on  the  globe.  If  this  route  proved  practicable,  the  prosperity 
of  the  country  would  be  enormously  increased ;  and  it  is  to  be 
sincerely  hoped  that  the  sanguine  views  of  some  writers  on  the 
subject  may  not  prove  fallacious.  But  until  they  are  demonstrated 
to  be  correct,  it  would  be  unwise  to  attach  too  much  importance  to 
them.  Disappointed  immigrants  form  but  a  dejected  and  heart- 
broken population,  and  the  strength  of  a  young  country  was  never 
healthily  fostered  by  delusive  hopes,  mistaken  statements,  or  thought- 
less exaggeration. 

I  have  alluded  to  this  vast  fertile  region  only  in  connection  with 
the  advantages  it  offers  to  the  grower  of  wheat,  but  it  must  not  on 
that  account  be  supposed  that  it  is  unfitted  in  any  way  for  the  rais- 
ing of  stock.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  a  vast  natural  pasture  land — the 
true  home  and  breeding  ground  of  the  American  bison,  commonly 
called  the  buffalo.  Formerly  a  vast  herd  of  buffalo,  numbering 
many  millions,  wandered  through  the  continent ;  their  range  ex- 
tending from  as  high  as  60°  north  down  to  the  southern  parts  of 
Texas.  In  winter  they  moved  towards  the  south,  migrating  again 
northward  with  summer-time. 

This  vast  herd  is  now  entirely  broken  up,  and  buffalo  are  dis- 
appearing out  of  the  land.  All  the  Indians  on  the  plains  subsist  by 
means  of  them,  living  on  their  flesh,  and  making  houses  of  their 
skins.  Besides  the  thousands  killed  by  Indians  for  food  and  robes, 
incredible  numbers  are  slain  every  year  by  white  hunters  for  the 
hides  and  horns.  Owing  to  this  indiscriminate  slaughter,  and 
to  the  fact  that  their  pastures  are  cut  by  railways  and  intrusive 
settlements,  the  herd  has  become  permanently  divided  into  three. 
One  band  ranges  in  British  territory  about  the  Saskatchewan,  west 
of  Ked  Eiver  settlement  ;  the  second  over  the  middle  western  Terri- 


1880.  DAYS  IN  THE   WOODS.  653 

tories  about  the  Platte  and  Republican  Elvers,  while  the  third,  or 
southern  herd,  roams  through  Texas  and  the  neighbouring  States.  As 
these  the  indigenous  cattle  of  the  country  disappear,  their  place  is  to  a 
certain  extent  taken  by  the  cattle  originally  imported  from  Europe. 
The  shaggy-headed,  short-horned  bison  passes  from  the  scene,  and 
with  it  the  painted  whooping  savage,  naked  himself,  and  on  a  naked 
horse  pursuing  his  natural  prey  with  bow  or  spear ;  and  in  their 
place  come  herds  of  long-horned,  savage-tempered,  Spanish  cattle, 
tended  and  driven  by  men  wild  to  look  at,  strange  of  speech,  and 
picturesque  in  garment,  but  white  men  and  very  different  beings  from 
the  Indian  hunters  that  came  before  them.  Though  Texas  may  be 
called  the  home  of  the  Spanish  cattle,  and  though  vast  unnumbered 
herds  pasture  on  its  luxuriant  grasses,  yet  States  lying  further  to  the 
north  are  more  suitable  for  cattle-breeding  purposes.  A  mountainous 
country,  affording,  as  it  does,  shelter  in  winter  and  some  variety  of 
temperature,  is  better  adapted  to  cattle  than  the  plains,  which  are  either 
parched  by  the  summer's  sun,  or  covered  with  the  snows  of  winter. 

On  the  great  plains  extending  west  from  Manitoba  to  the  Rocky 
Mountains,  the  snow  does  not  lie  so  deep  as  it  does  in  districts  within 
the  same  degrees  of  latitude,  but  further  to  the  south,  and  con- 
sequently that  country  is  well  adapted  by  nature  for  stock-raising. 
But  until  means  of  cheap  transportation  are  provided,  it  cannot 
compete  with  other  and  less  naturally  favoured  regions ;  it  cannot 
hope  to  vie  with  Colorado,  Wyoming,  and  the  other  States  and 
Territories  that  include  the  foot-hills  and  fertile  plains,  packs,  and 
valleys  that  lie  within  the  eastern  ranges  of  the  Rocky  Mountains. 

So,  while  the  Indians  slept,  I  strayed  in  thought  over  hunting- 
grounds  of  the  past,  and  marvelled  at  the  changes  that  had  taken 
place  and  the  greater  changes  yet  to  ccme,  till  my  musings  were 
interrupted  by  old  John,  who  awoke,  sat  up,  shook  his  long  hair  out  of 
his  eyes,  pulled  his  old  black  clay  pipe  out  of  his  belt,  placed  a  glowing 
ember  in  the  bowl,  and  commenced  smoking,  with  that  expressive 
sound,  half  sigh,  half  suck,  that  tells  of  perfect  satisfaction.  'Why, 
old  man,  what  is  the  matter,'  I  said,  '  have  you  been  dreaming  ? ' 
'  Yes,  sir,  I  dreamed  very  hard,  very  hard  indeed,  very  good  dream 
too ;  see  moose  soon,  I  know — big  one  too.  I  see  a  big  ship,  with  a 
big  hull  all  black,  oh  black  as  pitch.  I  had  a  job  to  get  on  board, 
but  I  did  get  on  board.  It  is  all  right,  you'll  get  one  pretty  soon. 
My  shoulders  and  legs  ache  awful  bad  too,  sir.  I  shall  be  carrying  a 
heavy  load  of  meat  soon,  I  know.'  It  is  a  curious  fact  that  the  strange 
conceit  in  '  Alice  through  the  Looking-glass,'  where  effects  are  made 
to  precede  their  causes,  and  the  Queen  cries  before  she  has  pricked 
her  finger,  is  actually  believed  in  and  recognised  as  a  law  of  nature 
by  many  people.  Indians  and  half-breeds  are  usually  very  shy  of 
mentioning  their  superstitions,  for  they  hate  ridicule.  If  they  do 
speak  of  them,  they  affect  to  laugh  at  them  themselves.  Time  and 
VOL.  VII.— No.  38.  X  X 


654  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  April 

again  I  have  heard  Indians  declare  as  a  joke  that  they  could  feel  the 
muscles  of  their  backs  ache  where  the  withy  rope  cuts  into  them  by 
which  they  carry  a  load  of  moose  meat,  and  declare  that  it  was  a  sure 
sign  that  a  moose  was  shortly  to  die.  But  though  they  affected  to 
laugh,  they  in  their  hearts  believed  thoroughly  all  they  said. 

'Well,  John,'  I  said,  'I  hope  your  dream  will  come  true;  but, 
talking  of  dreams,  what  was  that  story  you  began  to  tell  me  the 
other  day  about  the  bullets  ? ' 

'  Oh  yes,  sir,  that  was  a  very  curious  dream,  that  was ;  many 
gentlemen  won't  believe  that  story,  but  it's  true  though.  I  was 
hunting  with  a  gentleman  long  ago — in  the  winter  time  it  was — and 
as  we  left  the  camp  after  breakfast,  he  laughed,  and  asked  me  what 
kind  of  dreams  I  had  in  the  night.  He  wanted  to  know  whether  we 
should  have  any  luck,  you  know,  sir.  He  was  a  very  funny  gentle- 
man ;  he  used  always  to  tell  the  cook  at  night,  "  You  give  John 
plenty  fat  pork  for  supper,  make  him  dream  good."  Well,  sir,  I  told 
him  I  had  a  very  curious  dream.  I  thought  he  fired  both  barrels 
at  a  cariboo,  and  that  I  caught  both  the  bullets  in  my  hand  and 
gave  them  to  him.  Well,  he  laughed  at  that,  and  said  it  could  not 
be  true,  and  that  I  could  not  dream  good  anyhow.  But  I  thought 
to  myself,  we'll  see.  So  we  hunted  all  day,  and  in  the  afternoon 
came  upon  a  large  herd  of  cariboo  out  on  a  lake.  We  crept  up 
behind  some  little  bushes  to  within  sixty  or  eighty  yards,  and  then 
I  told  the  gentleman  to  put  on  a  fresh  cap — it  was  in  the  old  days 
of  muzzle  loaders,  you  know,  sir — and  shoot,  for  I  could  not  get  him 
any  nearer.  Well,  sir,  he  took  a  long  aim,  and  fired.  The  cariboos 
were  all  lying  down  on  the  ice,  you  know,  sir,  and  they  just  jumped 
up  and  stood  all  bunched,  up  together,  looking  about  them.  "  Fire 
again,  sir,"  I  said,  and  he  took  another  steady  aim,  and  fired 
Nothing  hit,  nothing  down,  away  the  cariboo  went,  tails  up,  not 
a  sign  of  a  wounded  one  among  them.  Every  now  and  then  they 
would  stop  and  turn  round  to  see  what  had  scared  them,  and  then  off 
again  in  a  minute.  Oh  !  we  might  have  got  plenty  more  shots,  if  we 
had  had  a  rifle  like  what  you  have  now,  sir,  but  it  took  some  time  to 
load  a  rifle  in  those  days,  especially  in  winter  time,  when  a  man  can 
scarcely  take  his  fingers  out  of  his  mits — and  so  they  got  clean  away. 
The  gentleman  was  terribly  mad,  threw  his  rifle  down,  and  swore  he 
would  never  use  it  again.  It  seemed  to  me  the  shots  sounded  kind 
of  curieus  somehow,  and  I  thought  I  would  just  go  and  see  where  the 
bullets  went  to.  I  had  not  gone  twenty  yards,  when  I  found  the 
place  where  one  of  them  had  struck  the  snow.  A  little  further  on  I 
found  where  it  had  struck  again,  and  then  where  it  had  struck  a  third 
time  a  little  further  on  still.  And  so  it  went  on  hopping  in  the  snow, 
the  jumps  getting  shorter  and  shorter  each  time,  and  the  trail  circling 
round  as  it  went,  till  finally  the  track  ran  along  in  the  snow  for  a 
few  feet  and  stopped.  And  there  I  found  the  bullet,  picked  it  up, 
and  put  it  in  my  pocket.  Well,  having  got  one,  I  thought  I  would 


1880.  DAYS  IN  THE   WOODS.  655 

go  and  trail  the  other  bullet :  I  soon  found  where  that  had  struck.  It 
acted  just  like  the  first  one,  and  I  picked  it  up  also.  So  I  went  back 
to  the  gentleman,  and  as  he  was  loading  the  gun,  I  said,  kind  of  in- 
different like, "  Just  see  if  those  bullets  fit  your  gun,  captain."  "  Yes, 
John,"  he  says, "  and  suppose  they  do,  what  of  that  ?  " — "  Why,  captain," 
says  I,  "  those  are  your  bullets,  and  I  picked  them  up.  Now  what  do 
you  say  about  my  dream  ?  "  Well,  he  would  not  believe  me  until  I 
showed  him  the  marks  in  the  snow,  and  he  found  that  the  bullets 
fitted  his  rifle  exactly,  and  then  he  had  to.  Lord,  sir,  I  have  heard 
him  tell  that  story  scores  of  times,  and  he  would  get  quite  angry  when 
people  would  not  believe  it.' 

So  we  talked  and  yarned  till  I  grew  sleepy  and  dozed  off, 
somewhat  against  my  will,  for  the  nights  are  too  lovely  to  waste 
in  sleep.  Nothing  can  exceed  the  beauty  of  these  northern  nights, 
a  beauty  so  calm,  grand,  majestic,  almost  awful  in  its  majesty, 
that  there  exists  not  a  man,  I  believe,  on  the  face  of  this  earth  with 
a  spirit  so  dulled,  or  a  mind  so  harassed,  that  he  could  withstand  its 
peace-giving  power.  By  day  his  troubles  may  be  too  heavy  for  him, 
but  the  night  is  more  potent  than  any  drug,  than  any  excitement,  to 
steep  the  soul  in  forgetfulness.  You  cannot  '  bind  the  sweet  influence 
of  the  Pleiades,' nor  resist  the  soothing  touch  of  mother  Nature,  when 
she  reveals  herself  in  the  calm  watches  of  the  night,  and  her  presence 
filters  through  all  the  worldly  coverings  of  care,  down  to  the  naked 
soul  of  man.  It  is  a  wonderful  and  strange  experience  to  lie  out 
under  the  stars  in  the  solemn,  silent  darkness  of  the  forest,  to  watch 
the  constellations  rise  and  set,  to  lie  there  gazing  up  through  the 
branches  of  the  grand  old  trees,  which  have  seen  another  race  dwell 
beneath  their  boughs  and  pass  away,  whose  age  makes  the  little 
fretful  life  of  man  seem  insignificantly  small ;  gazing  up  at  planet 
after  planet,  sun  beyond  sun,  into  the  profundity  of  space,  till  this 
tiny  speck  in  the  universe,  this  little  earth,  with  all  its  discontent  and 
discord,  its  wrangling  races,  its  murmuring  millions  of  men,  dwindles 
into  nothing,  and  the  mind  looks  out  so  far  beyond,  that  it  falls 
back  stunned  with  the  vastness  of  the  vision  which  looms  over- 
whelmingly before  it. 

The  earth  sleeps.  A  silence  that  can  be  felt  has  fallen  over  the 
woods.  The  stars  begin  to  fade.  A  softer  and  stronger  light  wells 
up  and  flows  over  the  scene  as  the  broad  moon  slowly  floats  above 
the  tree  tops,  shining  white  upon  the  birch  trees,  throwing  into  black 
shadow  the  sombre  pines,  dimly  lighting  up  the  barren,  and  reveal- 
ing grotesque  ghost-like  forms  of  stunted  fir  and  grey  rock.  The  tree 
trunks  stand  out  distinct  in  the  lessening  gloom ;  the  dark  pine  boughs 
overhead  seem  to  stoop  caressingly  towards  you.  Amid  a  stillness 
that  is  terrifying,  man  is  not  afraid.  Surrounded  by  a  majesty  that 
is  appalling,  he  shrinks  not,  nor  is  he  dismayed.  In  a  scene  of  utter 
loneliness  he  feels  himself  not  to  be  alone.  A  sense  of  companion- 

xx  2 


656  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  April 

ship,  a  sensation  of  satisfaction,  creep  over  him.  He  feels  at  one 
with  Nature,  at  rest  in  her  strong  protecting  arms. 

As  soon  as  the  moon  was  high  enough  to  shed  a  good  light, 
Noel  and  I  walked  down  to  a  little  point  of  woods  jutting  out 
into  the  barren  to  call.  Putting  the  birch-bark  caller  to  his  lips, 
Noel  imitated  the  long-drawn,  wailing  cry  of  the  moose,  and  then  we 
sat  down  wrapped  in  our  blankets,  patiently  to  listen  and  to  wait. 
No  answer,  perfect  stillness  prevailed.  Presently,  with  a  strange, 
rapidly  approaching  rush,  a  gang  of  wild  geese  passed,  clanging 
overhead,  their  strong  pinions  whirring  in  the  still  air.  After  paus- 
ing about  half-an-hour  Noel  called  again,  and  this  time  we  heard  a 
faint  sound  that  made  our  hearts  jump.  We  listened  intently  and 
heard  it  again.  It  was  only  an  owl  a  long  way  off  calling  to  its  mate 
in  the  woods.  After  a  while  we  heard  a  loon's  melancholy  quavering 
scream  on  the  lake,  taken  up  by  two  or  three  other  loons.  '  Some- 
thing frightens  the  loons,'  whispers  Noel  to  me.  '  Mebbe  moose 
coming.  I  will  try  another  call ; '  and  again  the  cry  of  the  moose 
rolled  across  the  barren,  and  echoed  back  from  the  opposite  wood. 
'  Hark  ! '  says  Noel,  *  what's  that  ?  I  hear  him  right  across  the  wood 
there,'  and  in  truth  we  could  just  make  out  the  faint  call  of  a  bull 
moose  miles  away.  The  sound  got  rapidly  nearer,  he  was  coming  up 
quickly,  when  we  heard  a  second  moose  advancing  to  meet  him. 
They  answered  each  other  for  a  little  while,  and  then  they  ceased 
speaking,  and  the  forest  relapsed  into  silence,  so  death-like  that  it 
was  hard  to  believe  that  it  ever  had  been  or  could  be  broken  by  any 
living  thing.  Nothing  more  was  heard  for  a  long  time ;  not  a  sound 
vibrated  through  the  frosty  stillness  of  the  air,  till  suddenly  it  was 
rudely  broken  by  a  crash  like  a  dead  tree  falling  in  the  forest,  fol- 
lowed by  a  tremendous  racket ;  sticks  cracking,  hoofs  pawing  the 
ground,  horns  thrashing  against  bushes. 

There  the  moose  fought  at  intervals  for  about  two  hours,  when  the 
noise  ceased  as  suddenly  as  it  began,  and  after  a  pause  we  heard  one 
bull  coming  straight  across  the  barren  to  us,  speaking  as  he  came  along. 

The  moose  arrived  within  about  fifty  or  sixty  yards  of  us.  We 
could  dimly  see  him  in  the  dark  shadow  of  an  island  of  trees.  In 
another  second  he  would  have  been  out  in  the  moonlight  if  we  had 
left  him  alone,  but  Noel,  in  his  anxiety  to  bring  him  up,  called  like 
a  bull,  and  the  moose,  who  had  probably  had  enough  of  fighting  for 
one  night,  turned  right  round  and  went  back  again  across  the 
barren.  We  did  not  try  any  more  calling,  but  made  up  our  fire  and 
lay  down  till  daylight. 

The  next  night,  or  rather  on  the  morning  after,  we  called  up 
two  moose  after  sunrise,  but  failed  from  various  causes  in  getting  a 
shot,  but  on  the  day  succeeding  that  I  killed  a  very  large  bull.  We 
had  called  without  any  answer  all  night,  an'!  n'or-j  going  home  to 
the  principal  camp  about  ten  in  the  day,  when  w  heard  cow 
call.  It  was  a  dead  calm,  and  the  woods  weue  very  noisy,  dry  as 


1880.  DAYS  ZAr  THE   WOODS.  657 

tinder,  and  strewn  with  crisp,  dead  leaves,  but  we  determined  to  try 
and  creep  up  to  her.  I  will  not  attempt  to  describe  how  we  crept 
up  pretty  near,  and  waited,  and  listened  patiently  for  hours,  till  we 
heard  her  again,  and  fixed  the  exact  spot  where  she  was :  how  we 
crept  and  crawled,  inch  by  inch,  through  bushes,  and  over  dry 
leaves  and  brittle  sticks,  till  we  got  within  sight  and  easy  shot  of 
three  moose — a  big  bull,  a  cow,  and  a  two-year-old.  Suffice  it  to 
say,  that  the  big  bull  died ;  he  paid  the  penalty.  Female  loquacity 
cost  him  his  life.  If  his  lovely  but  injudicious  companion  could 
have  controlled  her  feminine  disposition  to  talk,  that  family  of 
moose  would  still  have  been  roaming  the  woods,  happy  and  united. 

I  have  wandered  over  a  wide  field  in  this  paper,  but  there  are  still 
many  things  which  I  should  like  to  have  brought  before  the  reader  if 
there  had  been  sufficient  space — say  a  number  or  two  of  the  Nine- 
teenth Century — I  should  like  to  have  given  him  one  run  with 
buffalo  on  the  plains,  and  one  really  good  exciting  gallop  after  a  herd 
of  great  Wapiti  deer  among  the  sand  hills  of  Nebraska.  I  would 
fain  have  asked  him  to  follow  me  to  Estes  Park  in  Colorado,  during 
a  fourteen  hours'  stalk  after  the  '  biggest  mountain  sheep  that  ever 
was  seen,'  and  to  try  in  the  same  locality  for  grizzlies  feeding  on  heaps 
of  locusts,  just  under  the  snow  line  on  the  range.  I  wish  I  could 
have  described  a  mountain  lion  which  I  once  saw  in  the  middle  of  a 
Avarm  summer's  night  in  Estes  Park,  when  I  was  lying  awake  in  bed, 
and  which  I  pursued  some  distance  in  the  costume  peculiar  to  that 
part  of  the  four-and-twenty  hours  usually  devoted  to  sleep.  I  might 
have  carried  him  with  me  to  Newfoundland,  to  stalk  cariboo  on  the 
great  barrens,  and  taken  him  on  snow-shoes  in  the  winter  to  track 
moose  upon  the  hard  wood  ridges,  when  the  forest  is  more  glorious 
perhaps  even  than  in  the  fall.  I  could  have  shown  him  glimpses  of 
primitive  life  among  the  French-speaking  '  habitants '  of  Lower 
Quebec,  and  the  simple  Celtic,  Gaelic-speaking  population  of  eastern 
Nova  Scotia ;  and  given  him  a  peep  into  lumber  camps,  and  birch- 
bark  wigwams,  and  talked  much  to  him  about  Indians — that  strange 
race,  which,  even  when  it  shall  have  entirely  disappeared,  will  have 
left  an  enduring  mark  behind  it.  Civilised  nations  have  passed  and 
left  no  sign ;  but  the  Indian  will  be  remembered  by  two  things  at 
least ; — the  birch-bark  canoe,  which  no  production  of  the  white  man 
can  equal  for  strength,  lightness,  gracefulness,  sea-going  qualities, 
and  carrying  capacity ;  and  the  snow-shoe,  which  appears  to  be 
perfect  in  its  form  and,  like  a  violin,  incapable  of  development  or 
improvement.  There  are  three  inventions  which  the  ingenuity  of 
man  seems  to  be  unable  to  improve  upon,  and  two  of  them  are  the 
works  of  savages,  namely,  the  violin,  snow-shoes,  and  birch-bark 
canoes.  My  subject  is,  however,  a  large  one,  and  since  I  must  stop 
somewhere,  it  may  as  well,  perhaps,  be  here. 

DUN  RAVEN. 


658  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  April 


BRITISH  INTERESTS  IN   THE  EAST. 

IN  the  world  of  ideas  the  saying  is  emphatically  true,  '  That  only  is 
destroyed  which  is  replaced.'  An  old  belief,  an  old  political  system, 
may  die  down  to  the  root,  but  it  is  not  entirely  dead  till  the  ground 
which  it  occupied  has  begun  to  give  its  strength  and  fertilising  power 
to  another  growth. 

There  sprang  up  a  year  or  two  ago,  under  the  care  of  the  present 
Government,  a  tangled  thicket  of  false  opinion  about  British  interests 
in  the  East.  That  tangled  thicket  has  to  some  extent  died  down,  but 
it  is  impossible  to  feel  quite  certain  that  under  some  malign  influence 
or  other  it  may  not  begin  to  shoot  again  if  the  soil  which  it  cum- 
bered is  not  soon  covered  by  a  healthy  growth  of  sound  opinion  upon 
that  great  subject.  To  try  to  help  on  a  little  the  growth  of  this 
sound  opinion,  is  the  object  of  the  remarks  which  I  propose  now  to 
make. 

And  first,  let  us  be  just  to  our  opponents.  The  Jingoes,  bad  as 
they  are,  are  not  all  equally,  or  nearly  equally  bad.  They  may  be 
divided,  roughly,  into  two  classes,  which  we  may  call  the  Black 
Jingoes  and  the  White  Jingoes.  Of  the  first,  I  need  say  nothing. 
They  are  persons  who  are  grappled  to  their  bad  opinions  by  all  kinds 
of  sinister  interests,  and  we  may  say  in  the  words  of  the  poet  tra- 
versing the  dreary  realm  at  the  gate  of  which  hope  is  left  behind, 
1  Let  us  not  speak  of  them  but  look  and  pass.' 

Happily  for  human  nature  the  second  class,  the  class  of  the  White 
Jingoes,  is  immensely  more  numerous.  It  consists  largely  of  well- 
intentioned,  but  ill-informed  persons  who  desire  to  be  patriotic  but 
who  have  been  led  away,  sometimes  by  their  own  hot  heads,  some- 
times by  the  arts  of  the  evil  advisers  to  whom  I  alluded  above. 

Looking  back  on  the  history  of  the  late  administration,  I  cannot 
but  regret  that  those  at  the  head  of  it,  who  acted  so  wisely  as  well  in 
foreign  as  in  domestic  affairs,  did  not  recognise  the  necessity  of 
keeping  clearly  before  their  own  countrymen  and  before  foreign 
nations  what  they  were  doing  and  thinking  with  reference  to  the 
great  events  that  were  passing  around  them.  By  neglecting  to  do 
this,  they  allowed  a  totally  erroneous  impression  to  arise  in  certain 
circles  both  here  and  abroad,  the  impression  that  England  had  for- 
gotten that  she  was  a  part  of  the  European  Political  State  System, 
as  well  as  the  greatest  extra-European  Empire  in  the  world.  I  have 


1880.          BRITISH  INTERESTS  IN  THE  EAST.  659 

said  before  now,  more  than  once,  but  I  will  repeat  it,  for  I  hold  that 
for  political  purposes  O'Connell  was  right  when  he  said,  *  I  go  on 
repeating  a  thing  till  it  begins  to  come  back  to  me,' — that  the  motto 
of  this  Government  with  reference  to  our  foreign  relations  has  been 
'  to  seem,  not  to  be ; '  the  motto  of  the  late  government  with  re- 
ference to  our  foreign  relations  was,  '  to  be,  not  to  seem ; '  the 
motto  of  the  next  Liberal  Government,  warned  by  the  misfortunes 
of  the  past,  will  be,  I  make  no  doubt,  alike  in  foreign  and  domestic 
politics  '  to  be  and  to  seem.' 

No  department  of  foreign  politics  is  more  important  to  British 
statesmen  than  that  which  concerns  the  affairs  of  the  East,  by  which 
rather  vague  term  I  mean,  the  affairs  of  the  larger  and  more 
important  countries  which  lie  east  of  the  Gulf  of  Bothnia  or  the 
Adriatic,  and  west  of  the  Ocean  which  washes  the  further  shores  of 
Asia. 

If  it  were  not^jthat  within  those  limits  we  possess  many  colonies 
and  one  gigantic  empire,  a  continent  in  itself,  we  could  afford  to  look 
with  far  greater  equanimity  upon  the  chances  and  changes  of 
European  politics  ;  we  might  leave  undone  much  which  we  do,  and 
do  much  which  we  leave  undone.  The  hardy  adventurers  who  laid 
in  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries  the  foundation  of  our 
Indian  Empire,  little  dreamt  how  profoundly  they  were  modifying 
the  whole  course  of  British  politics  for  ages  to  come.  Far  on  in  the 
last  century  the  idea  does  not  seem  to  have  dawned,  even  amidst  the 
victories  of  Clive,  upon  the  keen  and  practised  intelligence  of 
Chesterfield. 

The  larger  countries  with  whose  affairs  we  are  brought  into  close 
connection  by  our  Indian  Empire  and  our  other  Eastern  dependencies, 
are  Greece,  Turkey,  Egypt,  Russia,  Persia,  Afghanistan,  China,  and 
Japan  ;  but  in  this  paper  I  must  limit  myself  to  the  first  six,  because 
the  problems  which  are  connected  with  them  all  hang  together,  and 
because  they  are  the  problems  which  have  been  raised  before  the 
country  in  recent  discussions. 

I  will  then  attempt  to  answer,  of  course  merely  in  outline,  the 
question,  '  What  are  our  interests  in  Greece,  Turkey,  Egypt,  Russia, 
Persia,  and  Afghanistan ; '  I  will  take  them  in  the  order  in  which  I 
have  enumerated  them. 

First,  then,  with  regard  to  Greece  ?  What  are  British  interests 
in  Greece  ?  The  answer  is  happily  a  simple  one  :  We  have  no  in- 
terest whatever  in  Greece,  except  that  Greece  should  be  prosperous. 
Her  trade  with  us  is  larger  than  it  is  with  any  other  State,  but  still 
it  is  very  small,  far  smaller  than  it  ought  to  be.  She  sends  us  already 
a  great  many  currants,  she  might  send  us  more  and  cheaper ;  she 
sends  us  a  little  wine,  some  of  it  extremely  good,  she  might  send  us 
a  great  deal  more  of  that  and  in  return  she  might  take  many  things 
from  us  that  she  has  not  got  at  home.  Then  she  might  improve  her 


660  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  April 

roads,  which  are  detestable,  improve  her  inns,  which  are  abominable, 
and  turn  herself  into  a  sort  of  infinitely  more  interesting  Switzerland, 
a  good  acquaintance  with  which  should  be  a  necessary  part  of  the  higher 
education  of  every  country  in  Europe.  All  that  she  could  do  per- 
fectly easily,  if  she  would  only  set  about  it  with  a  will.  She  is  not 
a  rich  country  in  the  sense  of  being  a  country  which  has  much  accumu- 
lated capital,  or  which  produces  any  large  number  of  articles  which 
cannot  be  produced  more  cheaply  elsewhere,  but  in  'her  historical 
recollections  and  in  the  extraordinary  beauty  of  her  scenery  she  pos- 
sesses a  perfect  mine  of  treasure.  If  her  government  were  only  wise 
enough  to  work  this  mine,  there  would  pour  into  Greece  a  flood  of 
gold,  not  less  marvellous  than  that  other  flood  to  which  the  great 
Philhellenic  poet  alluded  when,  speaking  of  the  hoary  rock  of  Corinth, 
he  said : — 

But  could  the  Hood  before  her  shed 

Since  first  Timoleon's  brother  bled, 

Or  baffled  Persia's  despot  fled, 

Arise  from  out  the  earth  which  drank 

The  stream  of  slaughter  as  it  sank, 

That  sanguine  ocean  would  o'erflow 

Her  isthmus  idly  spread  below. 

Unhappily  this  is  the  very  last  thing  which  Greece  thinks  of  doing, 
infinitely  to  her  disadvantage  and  to  ours.  Nor  do,  I  am  sorry  to  say, 
some  of  the  most  zealous  friends  of  that  country  in  Western  Europe 
give  her  altogether  wise  advice  in  this  matter.  By  all  means  let  us 
settle  in  favour  of  King  George's  kingdom  all  the  territorial  ques- 
tions which  are  open  between  her  and  the  Ottoman  Empire.  Des- 
tiny has  spoken  her  Fate-word.  Greece  must  increase,  Turkey 
must  decrease,  but  do  not  let  us  make  to  ourselves  any  illusions. 
Unless  we  can  alter  the  spirit  that  prevails  at  Athens,  unless  we  can 
make  the  Greeks  see  that  even  the  greatest  territorial  extension, 
which  any  sane  man  has  asked  for  them,  would  be  a  worthless  boon 
as  compared  with  a  steady  national  determination  to  make  the  best 
of  the  unique  advantages  which  the  Hellenic  kingdom  already  pos- 
sesses, the  present  generation  of  Philhellenes  will  be  as  bitterly 
disappointed  as  were  those  who  cast  in  their  lot  with  Byron,  and 
Hastings,  and  Santa  Eosa.  What  Eichard  Froude  said  long  ago,  in 
his  beautiful  poem  *  Old  Self  and  New  Self,'  is  as  true  in  the  poli- 
tical and  material,  as  it  is  in  the  spiritual  world — 

Heaven  must  be  won,  not  dreamed. 

Quite  the  best  thing  that  Greece  has  done  for  the  world  since  the 
conclusion  of  the  War  of  Independence  has  been  the  purification  of 
her  language — an  artificial  process,  no  doubt,  but  still  a  process  which, 
if  she  would  only  take  the  steps  necessary  to  make  travelling  and 
living  in  Greece  as  easy  as  travelling  and  living  in  Switzerland, 
would  be  of  quite  enormous  service  to  mankind.  Even  now,  if  our  great 


1880.          BRITISH  INTERESTS  IN  THE  EAST.  661 

schools  would  be  at  a  little  pains,  they  could  make  the  learning  of 
ancient  Greek  twice  as  easy  as  it  is  by  teaching  Greek  as  a  modern 
language,  and  if  Greece  would  make  herself  decently  safe  and  habit- 
able this  could  be  done  without  any  trouble  at  all,  while  the  demand 
for  its  being  done  amongst  the  educated  classes  in  all  countries  would 
become  so  irresistible  that  it  would  be  done.  If  it  were  done,  not 
only  would  a  far  larger  number  of  persons  be  brought  into  contact 
with  ancient  Greek  thought  and  literature,  which  are  amongst  the 
most  valuable  of  the  possessions  of  the  human  race,  but  a  vast  amount 
of  time  would  be  saved  at  schools  and  universities,  which  might  be 
devoted  to  the  acquisition  of  branches  of  knowledge  even  more  im- 
portant than  ancient  Greek,  and  still  too  much  neglected. 

Those  who  study  Greece  in  foreign  lands,  and  those  who  direct 
her  fortunes  at  home,  will  find  far  more  real  guidance  in  the  volumes 
of  Finlay,  stern  friend  as  he  was,  than  in  those  of  the  too  partial 
critics  who  try  to  prove  that  the  causes  of  her  ill-success  up  to  this  time 
are  to  be  sought  in  the  errors,  undoubted  though  they  were,  of  those 
who  gave  her  too  small  a  territory,  in  the  incapacity  of  Otho,  in 
anything  and  everything  except  in  the  faults,  the  great  and  grievous 
faults  which  are  mingled  with  the  fine  qualities  of  her  people.  My 
own  impression  is,  that  it  is  no  real  kindness  to  Greece  to  encourage 
her  to  compete  with  the  Bulgarian  in  the  interior  of  the  Balkan 
Peninsula.  The  Greek  is  no  doubt  the  higher  civilisation,  but  the 
Bulgarian  has  more  '  staying  power.'  The  modern  Greek  (like  those 
from  whom  he  is  with  a  good  deal  of  foreign  admixture  descended) 
does  best  on  the  seaboard.  Already  he  is  in  possession  of  most  of 
the  famous  sites  connected  with  his  histqry,  and  I  heartily  hope  that 
he  may  soon  possess  everything  that  can  with  any  justice  be  claimed 
for  him.  But  we  might  take  away  a  large  part  even  of  King  George's 
too  small  kingdom,  and  yet  leave  to  it  all  which  in  the  hands  of  the 
Greeks  of  the  pure  blood  was  sufficient  for  immortality.  Be  this, 
however,  as  it  may,  I  repeat  that  the  one  British  interest  in  Greece 
is  that  Greece  should  be  prosperous,  by  which  I  mean  richer,  safer, 
more  accessible,  more  worthy  in  all  respects  of  her  great  traditions. 

We  come  next  to  Turkey.  What  then  are  our  interests  in 
Turkey  ?  Our  one  great  interest  in  Turkey,  is  th.at  the  people  who 
live  in  Turkey  should  rise  as  rapidly  as  possible  to  a  level  with  those 
portions  of  Europe  which  have  lived  under  happier  conditions, 
developing  as  they  do  so  their  natural  capabilities,  each  in  its  own 
way.  That  is  our  first  great  interest  in  Turkey,  and  our  second 
interest  is,  that  Constantinople  should  not  pass  into  the  hands  of 
any  Power,  which  would  be  at  all  likely  to  use  that  position  so  as  to 
domineer  over  the  Mediterranean. 

British  statesmen  have  sought  to  reconcile  these  two  interests  in 
different  ways  at  different  times.  For  our  present  purpose  we  need 
not  go  back  beyond  the  Crimean  War.  The  idea  which  lay  at  the 


662  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  April 

root  of  the  settlement  which  was  effected  after  the  Crimean  War  in 
1856,  was,  that  the  power  of  the  Sultan  had  not  been  proved  by  any- 
thing that  had  occurred  to  be  absolutely  incompatible  with  its  con- 
tinuance as  a  part  of  the  European  political  State  system,  if  not  for 
ever,  at  least  for  a  very  long  time  to  come  ;  that  if  the  authorities  at 
Constantinople  would  take  a  lesson  by  the  past,  and  use  wisely  the 
new  opportunities  which  the  Western  Powers  had  won  for  them  on 
so  many  bloody  fields,  they  might  remain  the  rulers  of  their  subject 
provinces  in  Europe  and  Asia,  and  the  masters  of  the  Straits  which 
divide  these  continents,  for  many  a  day. 

I  will  not  stop  to  inquire  how  far  this  view  was  founded  upon  a 
clear  knowledge  of  facts :  that  is  an  interesting  inquiry.  Now,  how- 
ever, it  is  merely  an  historical  not  a  political  question :  '  Let  the 
dead  past  bury  its  dead ' — we  have  to  deal  with  the  present  and 
future. 

What  is  certain  is  this,  that  whether  or  not  the  ruling  powers 
at  Constantinople  could  have  wisely  used  their  breathing  time, 
whether  or  not  other  Powers,  who  meant  fairly  by  them,  acted  wisely, 
and  whether  or  not  certain  other  Powers  did  act  fairly  by  them,  at 
least  when  the  '  occasion  sudden  '  arose  in  1876,  they  were  not  equal 
to  it.  The  Bulgarian  massacres  of  that  summer  were  a  terrible 
crime,  but  they  were  not  only  a  terrible  crime  ;  they  were  the  most 
fearful  of  political  blunders.  Gradually  as  the  months  went  on,  it 
became  clearer  and  clearer  that  no  more  breathing  time  would  be  of 
any  use,  that  in  spite  of  the  horror  which  those,  who  had  most 
studied  that  group  of  problems  which  are  confusedly  lumped  together 
under  the  name  of  the  Eastern  Question,  had  of  their  requiring  to  be 
dealt  with  in  our  times,  dealt  with  they  had  to  be,  and  dealt  with 
boldly,  even  daringly,  if  you  will.  Public  opinion  upon  such  tremen- 
dous difficult  questions  as  those  which  were  presented  in  the  autumn 
of  1876  is  of  slow  growth,  and  at  such  moments  it  is  of  the  last 
possible  importance  to  have  at  the  head  of  affairs  statesmen  who 
thoroughly  know  their  own  mind,  who  can  take  a  lead,  and  give  the 
lead  to  the  country.  But  no  man  will  say  that  that  was  the  case 
with  the  Cabinet  which  then  presided  over  our  destinies.  The  very 
able  man  who  was  at  the  head  of  the  Foreign  Office,  the  most  con- 
siderable statesman,  beyond  all  comparison,  who  had  a  seat  in  that 
Cabinet,  I  mean,  of  course,  Lord  Derby,  did  not  see  his  way,  and  did 
not  give  to  the  country  any  definite  lead  at  all.'  ,'  The  views  which  were 
put  forward  by,  or  reasonably  attributed  to,  other  members  of  the 
Cabinet,  such  as  Lord  Beaconsfield  and  Lord  Carnarvon,  were  entirely 
conflicting.  What  wonder  then  if  the  Opposition,  which  had  no 
access  to  much  of  the  information  possessed  by  the  Cabinet,  was 
unable  to  agree  in  any  policy,  except  in  blaming  those  whose  duty 
it  was  to  find  a  policy  for  not  finding  one,  after  they  had  taken  the 
great  responsibility  of  declining  to  accede  to  the  policy  which  had 
been  suggested  in  the  Berlin  Memorandum  ? 


1880.          BRITISH  INTERESTS  IN  THE  EAST.  663 

A  great  many  Liberals,  and  some  of  the  most  authoritative,  were 
satisfied  by  what  was  called,  at  the  time,  the  '  bag  and  baggage 
policy,'  that  is,  by  saying  that  the  power  of  the  Sultan  must  be  re- 
moved from  certain  very  large  districts  in  European  Turkey.  Others 
said,  '  No,  if  Europe  is  going  to  open  up  this  great  group  of  questions, 
if  it  is  going  to  sweep  the  Sultan's  power  out  of  so  large  a  part  of  the 
Balkan  Peninsula,  do  not  let  us  be  satisfied  with  destruction,  let  us 
have  some  construction.  If  you  merely  sweep  away  the  Sultan's 
power  from  these  districts,  you  leave  open  that  tremendous  question 
of  Constantinople  for  your  sons,  if  not  yourselves,  to  settle.  The  same 
amount  of  effort  which  will  be  required  to  carry  into  effect  the  "  bag 
and  baggage  "  policy  will  enable  you  to  create  a  new  and  infinitely 
improved  state  of  things  in  European  Turkey,  and  to  settle  the 
question  of  Constantinople  and  the  guardianship  of  the  Straits  Joy 
putting  there  the  western  Prince  who  may  be  most  acceptable  to  the 
Great  Powers,  and  under  whose  civilised  administration  the  races  of 
the  Balkan  Peninsula,  ^Bulgarians,  Greeks,  Albanians,  and  all  the 
rest  of  them,  including  the  Turks,  may  develop  themselves  and  rise 
to  a  level  of  prosperity  of  which  they  have  hitherto  never  dreamed.' 

The  Cabinet,  however,  had,  as  I  have  said,  no  definite  idea  of 
their  own,  and  they  naturally  would  not  take  an  idea  from  any  section 
of  the  Opposition.  They  went  into  the  luckless  Constantinople 
Conference,  which  naturally  came  to  nothing,  and  in  1877  the 
crusading  spirit  in  Eussia  hurried  the  unwilling  Government  of  the 
Czar  into  the  'Kusso-Turkish  War. 

Nothing  occurred  on  which  we  need  dwell  at  present,  till  the 
Treaty  of  Berlin  in  1878.  That  Treaty  was  a  very  different  piece 
of  work  from  the  settlement  of  1856.  The  idea  which  lay  at  the 
bottom  of  the  settlement  of  1856^  was,  as  I  have  shown,  a  per- 
fectly clear  and  definite  one.  It  may.  or  may  not  have  been  founded 
on  an  erroneous  appreciation  of  facts,  but,  at  least,  it  was  onejyhich 
was  worthy  of  the  great  statesmen  who  put  their  names  to  it ;  it  was 
an  honest  attempt  to  settle,  perhaps  for  a  very  long  time,  a  great  and 
ancient  problem. 

The  Treaty  of  Berlin  is  a  very  different  thing.  That  Treaty  is 
not  based  upon  any  idea.  The  politicians  who  took  part  in  it  had 
no'  sort  of  belief  in  the  permanence  of  their  own  work.  It  was  a 
mere  patching  up,  intended  to  prevent  a  European  war,  to  the  very 
edge  of  which  we  had  been  brought  by  the  folly  of  Lord  Beaconsfield 
and  his  associates,  who  deserve  no  credit  even  for  the  miserable 
patching  up,  since,  had  it  not  been  for  the  timely  and  patriotic  action 
of  Lord  Derby  and  Lord  Carnarvon,  into  war  they  would  have 
blundered  before  the  opportunity  of  patching  up  had  arrived. 

We  know  with  what  ignoble  circumstances  this  patching  up  was 
connected,  the  secret  agreement,  which  was  only  revealed  to  the 
British  public  by  a  writer  in  the  Foreign  Office,  and  about  which 


664  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY.  April 

such  strange  statements  were  made  in  the  House  of  Lords  ;  the 
filching  of  Cyprus  and  the  Anglo-Turkish  Convention,  which  binds 
us,  a  great  naval  power,  to  defend  against  a  great  military  power,  all 
the  Asiatic  dominions  of  the  Sultan,  and  enables  that  military  power, 
if  ever  we  are  engaged  in  a  serious  war,  to  defy  us  to  carry  into  effect 
our  engagements  without  resorting  to  the  continental  system  of 
universal  military  service,  with  the  most  disastrous  effect  upon  the 
industries  of  the  country. 

I  have  gone  into  this  narrative  of  events,  in  order  to  make  clear, 
that  in  spite  of  all  the  expense  we  have  incurred  during  the  last  six 
years,  we  have  not  advanced  one  step  nearer  towards  the  safe-guarding 
of  British  interests  in  Turkey,  than  we  had  done  when  the  present 
Government  came  into  office,  except  in  so  far  as  we  have  been  parties, 
much  against  the  will  of  the  Turcophiles,  to  placing  a  German 
Prince,  closely  connected  with  England  and  with  the  Russian  Im- 
perial family,  in  the  northern  portion  of  Bulgaria,  precisely  what 
some  persons  wanted  to  do  in  a  much  larger  area  of  the  Balkan 
peninsula,  and  in  so  far  as  we  have  not  altogether  got  rid  in  spirit  of 
the  provisions  of  the  Treaty  of  San  Stefano  in  their  application  to 
Bulgaria,  south  of  the  Balkans,  or  as  our  Government  prefers  to  call 
it,  Eastern  Roumelia. 

In  one  respect  we  have  distinctly  slipped  back,  we  have  diminished 
the  moral  influence  of  England  all  through  the  Balkan  Peninsula. 
We  have  allowed  despotic  Russia  to  gain  the  credit  with  the  Christian 
populations  of  which  England,  the  mother  of  free  nations,  might  have 
had  a  large  share.  And  further  we  have,  if .  not  nominally  at  least 
really,  put  an  end  to  that  general  understanding  of  Europe  about 
Turkey  which  prevailed  from  1856  to  1876.  Full  career  is  now 
opened  to  half  a  dozen  conflicting  ambitions  in  the  Balkan  Peninsula 
and  opened  by  our  unreadiness  and  want  of  foresight. 

Well,  but  some  one  may  ask,  and  rightly  ask,  assuming  that  this 
is  all  so,  what  would__you  do  now,  how  would  you  safeguard  English 
interests  in  European  Turkey,  how  would  you,  that  is,  promote  the 
prosperity  of  the  populations  of  that  country  and  provide  for  the  safe 
custody  of  the  Straits  ?  First  I  reply,  I  would  admit  frankly  that 
the  policy  of  1856  has  been  a  failure,  and  that  whatever  was  or  was 
not  possible  in  that  year,  it  is  now  quite  impossible  to  keep  up  for 
any  long  time  the  Turkish  domination  in  any  part  of  Europe.  I  do 
not  at  all  go  with  those  who  talk  of  the  '  unspeakable  Turk  ; '  the 
Turk  has  many  good  qualities  :  but  things  have  now  got  into  such  a 
position  that  Europe  is  not  a  proper  place  for  the  exercise  of  any 
good  qualities  he  may  have  as  a  ruler  of  men.  There  is  plenty  of 
room  for  him  as  a  subject,  and  God  forbid  that  any  violence  should 
be  used  towards  him  in  his  capacity  of  subject ;  but  he  is  no  longer 
capable  either  of  working  the  prosperity  of  the  races  of  the  Balkan 
Peninsula  or  of  guarding  the  Straits.  Constantinople  must  pass  into 


1880.          BRITISH  INTERESTS  IN  THE  EAST.  665 

the  hands  of  some  ruler  who  can  do  both.  The  so-called  Eastern 
question  will  never  cease  to  torment  us  till  that  comes  about. 

How,  then,  is  this  to  be  accomplished?  Some  say  that  Austria 
must  go  to  Constantinople.  Of  course  that  only  means  that  the 
Hapsburgs  must  go  to  Constantinople ;  it  does  not,  and  cannot, 
mean  that  the  Austro-Hungarian  Empire  as  now  constituted  is  to 
annex  all  the  Balkan  Peninsula.  Well,  but  one  objection  to  that 
proposal  seems  quite  decisive.  It  could  only  be  accomplished  after 
a  war,  to  which  the  recent  contest  between  Russia  and  Turkey  was 
mere  child's  play,  a  war  in  which  Russia  and  Austria,  Moscow  and 
Rome,  the  Greek  and  the  Latin  Church,  would  struggle  with  all  the 
fury  of  religious  and  political  hatred.  There  are  only  two  courses 
possible.  The  first  is  that  Constantinople  should  be  made  a  free 
city  with  a  certain  territory  on  either  side  of  the  Straits,  guaranteed 
by  all  Europe,  and  the  second  is,  that  it  should  become  the  seat  of 
the  western  prince,  whoever  he  may  be,  who  may  best  unite  the 
interests  of  all  Europe,  including  England  and  Russia. 

There  are,  I  am  quite  aware,  objections  to  both  of  these  proposals, 
especially  to  the  first,  and  neither  of  them  could  be  carried  into  effect 
to-day  or  to-morrow.  But  the  two  cardinal  ideas  which  I  wish  to 
impress  are,  first,  that  British  interests  in  the  East  do  not  require 
us  any  longer  to  respect  the  fiction  that  the  Turkish  domination 
can  long  continue  in  Europe,  and  secondly,  that  no  settlement  in. 
European  Turkey  can  be  satisfactory  which  is  not  just,  which  does 
not  fairly  recognise  the  political  and  religious  rights  of  each  of  the  dif- 
ferent races  which  inhabit  European  Turkey,  and  the  rights  of  all  the 
Powers  of  Europe  with  reference  to  the  guardianship  of  the  Straits. 
Whatever  is  done  should  be  done  by  the  general  concert  of  Europe. 
We  must  avoid  all  purely  artificial  and  selfish  combinations,  all 
putting  forward  Greece  unduly  as  if  she  were  the  English  candidate 
for  empire  against  Bulgaria,  the  Russian  candidate — all  intriguing 
with  Russia  against  Austria,  all  intriguing  with  Austria  against 
Russia.  In  this,  as  in  other  cases,  honesty  will  be  the 'best  policy, 
Let  us  in  concert  with  Europe  make  up  our  minds  what  settlement 
in  the  Eastern  Peninsula  is  best  for  Europe  in  general  and  for  the 
inhabitants  of  the  Balkan  Peninsula  in  particular  :  we  may  be  per- 
fectly certain  that  what  is  best  for  all  will  be  best  for  us.  Nothing 
could  be  done  prejudicial  to  our  interests  on  the  Bosphorus  or  on  the 
JEgean  which  would  not  be  a  great  deal  more  prejudicial  to  the  in- 
terests of  other  very  powerful  states. 

I  pass  now  to  the  Sultan's  dominions  in  Asia  ?  What,  then,  are 
British  interests  there  ?  And  again  I  answer,  the  prosperity  of  the 
people.  It  is  to  our  interest  that  the  people  may  be  peaceful,  that 
they  may  work  for  us,  and  rich,  that  they  may  buy  from  ^s.  We 
have  only  to  open  such  a  book  as  Mr.  Grattan  Geary's  very  in- 
teresting travels  in  Asiatic  Turkey,  to  see  that  there  is  a  vast  field 


666  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY.  April 

there  for  the  profitable  development  of  commercial  relations.  But 
we  shall  see  also  another  thing  which  Ministers  have  unhappily 
overlooked,  and  that  is,  that  we  know  exceedingly  little  about  these 
countries,  and  that  while  it  is  wise  to  do  everything  we  can  to  foster 
all  legitimate  enterprises,  such  as  the  navigation  of  the  Tigris, 
we  must  think  once,  and  twice,  and  thrice,  before  we  engage  in 
vast  schemes  to  be  paid  for  by  the  blood  and  the  money  of  England. 
When  a  friend  of  the  Government  tells  me  that  it  has  done  a 
great  thing  for  the  population  of  the  Sultan's  Asiatic  dominions,  by 
guaranteeing  those  dominions  against  Eussia,  I  can  merely  say,  '  If  you 
can  make  such  an  assertion  of  your  own  knowledge,  you  must  be  an 
uncommonly  well-informed  and  far-travelled  person,  whose  brains  I 
should  extremely  like  to  pick ;  but  if  you  merely  say  so  because 
some  member  of  the  Cabinet  told  you  so,  I  will  venture  to  remind 
you  of  the  old  saying,  If  the  blind  lead  the  blind  shall  not  both  fall 
into  the  ditch  ? ' 

But  whatever  may  be  the  amount  of  benefit  which  the  population 
of  the  Sultan's  Asiatic  dominions  may  derive  from  our  guarantee,  I  am 
very  certain  that  for  England  it  is  a  most  disastrous  obligation,  if 
indeed  it  is  not  a  mere  impudent  imposture  intended  to  mask  the 
Salisbury-Schouvaloff  agreement.  Possibly  if  Mr.  Marvin  had  never 
given  that  document  to  the  world,  we  should  never  have  heard  of 
that  grand  stroke  of  policy,  the  Anglo-Turkish  Convention.  But  if 
we  are  to  treat  it  seriously  and  Ministers  have  not  been  hoodwink- 
ing the  Turks,  and  Parliament,  and  mankind  at  large,  it  is  one  of 
the  maddest  things  that  ever  was  done.  Granted  even  that  it  were 
a  benefit  to  the  Sultan's  Asiatic  dominions,  a  most  doubtful  proposi- 
tion, it  is  a  heavy  burden  laid  upon  a  people  already  sorely  burdened. 
Either  it  will  remain  a  mere  engagement  on  paper  or  it  will  involve 
our  fighting  Russia  where  we  are  weak  and  she  is  strong ;  it  will  in- 
volve the  expenditure  of  vast  sums  of  money  in  railways  and  other 
works  to  be  guaranteed  by  the  British  taxpayer.  It  will,  by  damming 
up  the  Russian  advance  on  the  side  of  Armenia,  increase  her  pres- 
sure upon  Persia  and  along  the  Oxus,  and  it  will  divert  money 
belonging  to  our  fellow-subjects  in  India  from  its  legitimate  use,  the 
development  of  India,  to  wild  schemes,  such  as  the  sending  of  sixty- 
thousand  men  from  India  via  Bagdad  to  fight  to  keep  up  the  hor- 
rible Turkish  domination  in  Armenia,  a  country  in  which  at  any 
moment  we  may  have  an  exact  repetition  of  the  Bulgarian  atrocities. 
An  attempt  has  been  made  to  represent  a  project  of  this  kind, 
which  was  elaborated  by  a  high  officer  in  the  service  of  the  Indian 
Government,  as  having  been  merely  the  project  of  an  individual,  but 
that  is  not  so.  The  project  was  sent  to  the  press  in  Calcutta  with 
the  view  of  preparing  opinion  for  such  an  act  of  unwisdom,  and  for  such 
acts  of  unwisdom  we  must  always  be  prepared  as  long  as  we  have  the 
advantage  of  the  light  and  leading  of  our  present  Prime  Minister. 


1880.          BRITISH  INTERESTS  IN  THE  EAST.  667 

Some  may  remember,  perhaps,  the  words  of  Tancred,  the  novel  from 
which  he  draws  nearly  all  his  foreign  and  Indian  policy :  '  Then  again, 
the  lesser  Asia ;  you  should  never  lose  sight  of  the  lesser  Asia,  as  the 
principal  scene  of  our  movements ;  the  richest  regions  in  the  world, 
almost  depopulated,  and  a  position  from  which  we  might  magnetise 
Europe.' 

Next  I  come  to  Egypt.  What  are  our  interests  in  Egypt.  First, 
the  absolute  freedom  of  the  Isthmus  transit,  and  secondly  the  good 
government  of  the  valley  of  the  Nile.  Amongst  the  many  blunders 
of  the  present  Cabinet,  its  conduct  with  regard  to  Egypt  has  not  been 
the  least.  The  purchase  of  the  Suez  Canal  shares,  injudicious  in 
itself  for  many  reasons,  was  managed  in  a  way  which  was  perfectly 
scandalous,  a  large  sum  of  money  having  been  quite  unnecessarily 
taken  out  of  the  pocket  of  the  British  taxpayer,  and  put  into  the 
pocket  of  a  fortunate  capitalist.  Then  with  a  view  to  reconcile 
France  to  our  filching  of  Cyprus,  her  influence  was  allowed  to  become 
coequal  with  our  own  at  Cairo,  and  lastly  the  attention  of  a  large 
portion  of  our  countrymen  was  called  off  from  the  supreme  importance 
of  Egypt,  by  the  will-o'-the-wisp  of  the  Euphrates  Valley  railway. 
Now  I  should  be  very  glad  to  see  a  Euphrates  Valley  railway,  provided 
I  was  not  obliged  to  pay  for  it ;  but  I  am  thoroughly  convinced  that 
I  and  my  brother  taxpayers  will  have  to  pay  for  it  if  it  is  to  be  speedily 
made,  and  half  the  support  which  '  Cyprus  the  absurd '  has  obtained 
has  come  from  people  who  saw  in  it  the  promise  of  a  railway  begin- 
ning at  some  point  opposite  to  Cyprus,  and  running  to  the  Persian 
Gulf.  My  advice  is,  let  us  keep  our  eyes  fixed  upon  Egypt,  improv- 
ing in  every  possible  way  our  influence  in,  and  our  means  of  transit 
through  that  country.  That  is  the  true  policy  for  a  great  naval  power, 
which  can  be  strong  at  any  moment,  at  once  in  the  Levant  and  in  the 
Red  Sea.  Let  us  attend  to  that,  and  do  all  we  can  without  undue 
interference,  to  obtain  good  government  for  the  Egyptian  peasantry. 
Their  lot,  I  should  say,  from  personal  observation,  is  not  so  bad  as  has 
been  sometimes  represented,  but  it  may  unquestionably  be  vastly  im- 
proved— much  to  their  advantage  and  to  the  general  advantage  of 
the  world. 

I  pass  now  to  Russia.  Well,  our  interest  in  Russia  is  very  much 
the  same  as  Russia's  interest  here.  Our  interest  in  Russia  is  that  the 
Muscovite  Jingoes  should  learn  a  little  more  geography,  and  come  to 
know  a  little  more  what  is  possible  and  impossible.  I  believe  that 
the  antagonism  between  the  two  countries  depends  very  largely  upon 
ignorance.  If  each  would  only  go  its  own  way,  do  what  it  thinks  best 
for  itself  without  troubling  itself  very  much  as  to  what  the  other  was 
doing,  I  think  our  interests  would  be  about  as  likely  to  collide  as  those 
of  a  shark  and  a  tiger. 

Both  creatures  are  very  ugly  customers  in  their  own  element.  If 
we,  whose  element  is  the  sea,  will  insist  upon  going  hundreds  of  miles 


668  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  April 

from  it  to  fight  Eussia,  where  she  is  Dear  her  resources  and  where  we 
are  far  from  ours,  it  stands  to  reason  that  some  day  we  shall  have  a 
disaster,  and  most  assuredly  if  Russia  ever  tries  conclusions  with  us  on 
or  near  our  own  element,  she  will  have  a  disaster,  and  a  crushing  one. 

But  India,  some  one  says, — Russia  may  attack  us  in  India.  Well, 
but  India,  until  the  Beaconsfield  Government  came  into  power,  was, 
for  all  practical  purposes,  an  island.  We  could  reinforce  her  to  any 
extent  from  the  sea,  while  Russia  had  no  power  whatever  of  ap- 
proaching her  either  by  sea  or  land.  No  serious  person,  not  even  Sir 
Henry  Rawlinson,  dreams  of  Russia  being  able  to  invade  India  in  our 
generation.  It  is  the  merest  nightmare.  If,  however,  instead  of 
keeping  Russia  at  a  distance,  we  are  foolish  enough  to  extend  our- 
selves over  the  countiy  which  lies  between  iis,  getting  with  every 
mile  of  our  advance  further  and  further  from  our  true  base,  the  sea, 
we  are  simply  playing  into  the  hands  of  our  enemies  in  Russia,  and 
weakening  the  influence  of  the  reasonable  party  in  that  country, 
which  keeps  pointing  out  the  folly  of  squandering  the  scanty  resources 
of  what  is  after  all  a  very  poor  population,  in  enterprises  which  can 
by  no  possibility  lead  to  good. 

What  we  have  most  earnestly  to  desire  for  Russia  is  that  en- 
lightenment should  spread  through  the  land.  In  the  train  of 
enlightenment  will  follow  Free  Trade,  and  under  a  system  of  Free 
Trade  the  Russian  Empire  will  become  one  of  the  very  best  markets 
for  all  the  products  of  our  skilled  industries.  Her  manufactures  are 
almost  entirely  an  artificial  product,  sustained  at  a  frightful  loss  to 
the  Empire  by  a  mischievous  and  corrupt  fiscal  policy.  Sooner  or 
later  she  will  find  out  this.  There  is  no  country  in  Europe  which 
loses  so  much  by  not  opening  her  frontiers  without  let  or  hindrance 
to  the  exports  of  England.  There  is  no  country  in  reference  to  our 
strained  relations  with  which  we  may  more  emphatically  use  the 
words  of  Carlyle,  *  All  battle  is  misunderstanding.' 

I  believe  that  Russia  has  a  very  great  destiny,  though  she  may 
have  some  very  dark  days  to  traverse  before  she  arrives  at  the  goal ; 
but  I  believe  that  her  arrival  at  the  goal  of  her  destiny  will  be  only 
postponed  by  those  among  her  ruling  classes  who  are  foolish  enough 
to  reciprocate  the  dislike  which  is  felt  to  them  by  a  portion  of 
our  own. 

With  the  settlement  of  the  question  of  Constantinople  in  some 
such  way  as  I  have  suggested,  there  ought  to  be  once  and  for  ever 
an  end  to  the  jealousies  between  the  two  empires.  To  arrive  at  a 
co-operative  policy  in  Asia  should  be  the  aim  of  the  statesmen  of 
both,  an  aim  Avhich  need  not  and  should  not  exclude  the  most  perfect 
diplomatic  caution  in  all  their  dealings  with  each  other.  Nothing 
could  have  been  more  successful  in  itself  than  the  only  effort  that 
was  ever  made  in  that  direction,  that  namely  which  was  made  from 
1869  to  1873,  by  Mr.  Gladstone's  Government,  but  an  error  was 


1380.          BRITISH  INTERESTS  IN  THE  EAST.  669 

undoubtedly  committed  in  not  putting  what  was  done  before  this 
country  as  what  it  really  was,  a  great  diplomatic  success.  If  that 
had  been  done,  the  White  Jingoes  would  not  have  listened  so  easily 
to  the  evil  teachings  of  the  Black  ones,  during  the  last  four  years. 

Next  I  arrive  at  Persia.  What  are  our  interests  in  Persia  ?  Our 
interests  in  Persia  are  that  Persia  should  do  well,  nothing  more  and 
nothing  less.  There  are  few  countries  with  regard  to  which  a  very 
limited,  but  very  influential,  class  of  Englishmen  has  indulged  in 
more  delusions  than  Persia.  The  favourite  scare  in  India  during 
the  early  years  of  this  century  was  the  Persian  scare.  In  those  days 
our  countrymen  in  the  East  were  not  Russo-phobic  but  Gallo-phobic. 
Napoleon  had  done  such  wonderful  things,  that  they  thought  he 
could  perform  miracles,  and  one  of  those  miracles  was  to  be  the 
invasion  of  India  through  Persia  and  by  the  help  of  that  Power.  In 
order  to  avert  such  a  calamity,  the  India  House  and  the  Foreign 
Office  spent  a  vast  deal  of  superfluous  energy,  the  two  Powers  some- 
times counter-working  each  other  in  a  sufficiently  foolish  way. 
Nothing  however  came  of  it  or  could  have  come  of  it.  On  the  side 
alike  of  Napoleon  and  of  ourselves  it  was  a  mere  piece  of  telescopic 
politics,  the  worst  of  all  kinds  of  politics.  In  the  old  Gallo-phobic 
days  the  idea  was  started  of  sending  British  officers  to  drill  the 
armies  of  the  Shah,  and  the  same  policy  was  carried  into  days  when 
the  Gallic  scare  had  been  superseded  by  a  Russian  one. 

Of  the  two  scares  the  latter  was,  from  the  Persian  point  of  view, 
very  much  the  more  rational.  Persia,  indeed,  ever  since  the  Treaty 
of  Turkomantchai,  has  been,  so  far  as  her  northern  provinces  are 
concerned,  at  the  mercy  of  Russia,  and  our  whole  policy  with  regard 
to  her  in  her  relations  with  her  neighbours  the  Afghans,  has  been 
founded  on  our  knowledge  of  that  fact.  If  this  had  not  been  so,  we 
should  have  allowed  the  Afghans  and  the  Persians  to  settle  which  of 
them  should  possess  the  city  of  Herat  Avithout  any  interference  of 
ours,  but  as  it  was  we  expres-sly  forbade  Persia  to  meddle  with  Herat, 
and  went  to  war  with  her  mainly  because  she  did  so. 

Now  what  is  Herat  ?  Herat  is  a  fortress  strong  even  now,  and 
capable  of  being  made  by  European  engineers  a  place  of  enormous 
strength,  situated  in  a  fertile  country,  about  as  far,  speaking  roughly, 
from  the  old  frontier  of  India,  that  is  the  frontier  which  existed 
when  the  Beaconsfield  Government  came  into  power,  as  Dover  is 
from  Cape  Wrath.  It  lies,  however,  on  the  only  road  by  which  an 
army,  organised  as  modern  armies  are,  could  attempt  to  invade 
India.  If  everything  were  quite  different  from  what  it  is  now,  if 
Russia  were  twice  as  strong  as  well  as  far  more  populous  than  she  is, 
and  had  at  her  head  a  man  with  the  genius  for  war  of  the  Great 
Frederick,  who  desired  to  attack  India,  he  might  conceivably  do  so 
via  Herat.  That  place  besides  is  utterly  out  of  what,  to  use  a 
familiar  expression,  may  be  called  Russia's  beat.  People  who  think 
VOL.  VII.-  No.  38.  Y  Y 


670  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  April 

that  it  is  the  most  natural  thing  in  the  world  for  Eussia  to  advance 
in  Central  Asia,  and  have  long  foreseen  that  her  eating  up  Khiva 
and  Kokand  and  Bokhara  and  the  Turkomans  into  the  bargain,  was 
a  mere  question  of  time,  are  altogether  opposed  to  the  idea  of  her 
going  to  Herat,  and  I  am  bound  to  say  that  Russia  'has  never  shown 
any  inclination  to  go  thither.  Still,  partly  from  its  own  importance 
and  partly  from  the  fact  that  we  have  become  so  committed  in  the 
sight  of  all  Asia  to  insisting  upon  Herat  not  falling  under  Eussian 
influence,  Liberal  statesmen  have  always  been  and  are  strongly 
opposed  to  its  passing  into  the  hands  of  Persia. 

And  this  leads  me  to  make  some  observations  upon  Sir  Henry 
Eawlinson's  remarkable  paper  in  the  February  number  of  this  Eeview. 
Sir  Henry  proposes  that  the  6th  Article  of  the  Treaty  of  Paris  should 
be  cancelled,  and  that  Persia  should  be  allowed  to  seize  Herat,  and 
he  adds : 

The  first  consideration  that  arises  is, '  What  guarantee  have  we  that  Persia 
would  not  abuse  our  confidence,  and  sooner  or  later  make  use  of  Herat  to  our  in- 
jury ?  In  reply  to  this  I  inquire,  What  is  the  alternative  ?  Herat  cannot  remain 
as  it  is,  a  hotbed  of  anarchy  and  violence,  and  a  nuisance  to  the  surrounding1  dis- 
tricts. Are  we  prepared  to  occupy  the  city  ourselves  as  an  outwork  to  our  position 
at  Candahar  ?  If  not,  there  is  positively  no  resource,  it  would  seem,  but  to  confide 
it  provisionally  to  the  keeping  of  Persia.  As  for  guarantees,  there  are,  first,  Persia's 
own  interests  :  secondly,  the  popular  feeling,  which  is  altogether  in  favour  of  Eng- 
land, and  which  is  strong  enough  to  control  the  possible  inclinations  of  the  Shall 
in  the  other  direction  ;  and  thirdly,  we  are  fully  as  competent  as  Russia  to  exert 
pressure  upon  Persia,  in  case  of  necessity,  her  whole  seaboard  being  as  open  to 
attack  from  India  as  are  the  Caspian  provinces  to  attack  from  the  army  of  the 
Caucasus.  Altogether  I  am  disposed  to  revert  to  the  position  from  which  1  -was 
driven  in  1853,  and,  notwithstanding  all  that  is  past,  to  counsel  the  transfer  of 
Herat  to  Persia.  It  is  a  maxim  which  I  have  long  held,  and  the  truth  of  which 
is,  I  believe,  beginning  to  dawn  upon  statesmen  both  in  England  and  Persia,  that 
the  common  interests  of  both  countries  in  the  East  point  to  a  defensive  alliance 
against  Russia.  That  the  co-operation  of  Persia  would  be  most  valuable  to  us  iu 
checking  the  further  extension  of  Russian  power  towards  Afghanistan  and  India 
needs  hardly  to  be  insisted  on  ;  while  it  is  equally  certain  that  we  are  fully  as  well 
able  to  protect  Persia  as  to  protect  Asia  Minor  against  renewed  aggression  from 
Russia. 

Now  to  this  I  reply  that  the  alternative  is  to  leave  things  alone. 
What  have  we  got  to  do  with  Herat's  being  a  hot-bed  of  anarchy  and 
violence  ?  It  is  a  pity  that  any  place  should  be  a  hot-bed  of  anarchy 
and  violence,  and  it  is  a  still  greater  pity  that  it  should  have  been 
made  so  by  the  mischievous  folly  of  Sir  Henry  Eawlinson's  pupils, 
the  present  Cabinet.  But  is  this  country  to  be  committed  to  con- 
stantly increasing  danger  and  expense  by  the  blunders  of  a  single 
Government  not  destined,  let  us  hope,  long  to  misrule  us  ?  Why 
should  bad  be  made  worse  ?  Why  can  we  not  keep  to  and  be  satis- 
fied with  the  arrangement  come  to  with  Eussia  in  1869  and  in  1873? 
Eussia  has  in  no  way  whatever  transgressed  that  understanding, 
for  her  conduct  in  1878,  when  war  was  on  the  very  point  of  breaking 


1880.          BRITISH  INTERESTS  IN  THE  EAST.  G71 

out  between  the  two  countries,  must  not  be  taken  into  account,  since 
a  state  of  war  abrogates  ipso  facto  not  only  understandings  of  this 
kind,  however  binding  under  ordinary  circumstances,  but  likewise 
many  of  the  most  formal  treaties. 

Next  I  have  to  observe  that  we  are  not  as  competent,  or  anything 
like  as  competent,  to  exert  pressure  upon  Persia  as  Russia  is.  Of 
course  the  Persian  sea-board  is  open  to  our  attack ;  but  what  should 
we  gain  by  attacking  her  sea-board  ?  It  would  be  a  mere  infliction 
of  '  misery  in  waste,'  and  we  should  find  ourselves,  even  if  we  annexed 
it,  at  the  bottom  of  the  flight  of  stairs,  so  to  speak,  which  leads  up 
to  the  centre  of  Persia,  while  Russia  if  she  really  meant  seriously  to 
put  pressure  upon  the  Shah,  would  be  in  possession  of  Tabreez  and 
Teheran.  We  can  quite  easily  put  sufficient  pressure  upon  Persia  to 
make  her  respect  our  interests  in  the  Gulf  and  elsewhere,  but  we 
cannot  put  sufficient  pressure  upon  her  to  enable  her  to  stand  up 
against  Russia.  It  is  most  desirable  that  we  should  be  on  friendly 
terms  with  Persia,  and  do  Persia  any  good  turns  that  come  in  our 
way,  for  her  unfortunate  people  need  all  the  good  turns  they  can 
get,  and  the  trade  of  the  Gulf  and  of  the  Karun  river  might  be 
developed  very  greatly  to  our  mutual  advantage.  But  the  idea  of 
making  Persia  a  bulwark  against  Russia  is  purely  illusory.  Turkey 
and  the  Turks  are  unpleasant  proteges  enough,  but  Persia  and  the 
Persians  are  by  many  degrees  worse. 

Here  are  some  observations  by  Mr.  Grattan  Geary,  who  visited 
the  Shah's  dominions  only  two  years  ago : 

If  backsheesh  to  the  officials  be  not  forthcoming,  and  that,  too,  on  a  grand 
scale,  which  will  enable  all  in  the  service  to  get  something  handsome,  permission 
to  undertake  the  most  obvious  improvement  is  uniformly  refused.  No  Persian 
dreams  of  getting  himself  into  a  sea  of  troubles  by  undertaking  anything  in  the 
way  of  improvement.  He  would  have  the  officials  down  upon  him  at  once  for  a 
share  of  the  spoil. 

All  whom  I  meet  tell  me  that  Turkey  is  far  in  advance  of  Persia  in  these 
things.  In  the  Ottoman  Empire,  as  all  over  the  East,  backsheesh  plays  its  part ; 
but  some  outward  veil  of  decency  is  rarely  dispensed  with.  Bribery  is  illegal,  and 
discovery  may  have  very  serious  consequences  if  a  man  has  many  enemies.  Cases 
of  oppression  occur,  but  they  are  not  the  rule,  but  the  exception  ;  they  occur  in 
defiance  of  laws  and  regulations  which  are  clearly  laid  down,  and  are  in  the  main 
observed  in  a  certain  oriental  fashion.  But  in  Persia  the  caprice  and  avarice  of 
the  governors  form  the  only  rule.  The  consequence  is  that  there  is  a  constant 
migration  from  the  Persian  western  provinces  into  the  adjoining  Turkish  territory, 
on  the  opposite  bank  of  the  Shat-el-Arab.  The  traveller  sees  a  marked  difference 
between  the  Turkish  and  Persian  sides  of  the  river,  cultivation  and  prosperity 
being  evident  on  the  former  and  evidences  of  retrogression  on  the  latter. 

A  defensive  alliance  between  England  and  Persia  against  Russia 
would  be  the  defensive  alliance  of  a  lion  and  a  fox  against  a  tiger  ; 
the  lion  might  or  might  not  be  victorious  in  the  end,  but  the  fox 
would  certainly  not  be  of  much  use  to  the  nobler  animal,  and  would, 
if  he  attempted  to  show  fight,  unquestionably  come  to  a  very  bad  end. 

T  Y  2 


672  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY.  April 

It  is  sad  that  in  thoroughly  weak  and-ignorant  hands,  so  admirable 
and  valuable  an  instrument  as  Sir  Henry  Rawlinson  should  have 
become  a  mere  cause  of  mischief  to  his  country.  As  long  as  the  Duke 
of  Argyll  was  at  the  India  Office,  with  Lord  Clarendon  and  Lord 
Granville  in  charge  of  our  foreign  affairs,  he  was  most  useful,  for 
while  his  large  knowledge  of  geographical  and  historical  details 
connected  with  Persia,  Afghanistan  and  Central  Asia  was  always 
respected  and  turned  to  account  whenever  occasion  arose,  while  he 
was  treated  as  a  most  valuable  member  of  the  Secretary  of  State's 
Council  and  as  a  great  Asiatic  statesman,  he  was  not  allowed  to  mould 
the  policy  either  of  the  Home  or  of  the  Indian  Government. 

A  knowledge  of  history  is  a  most  important  element  in  the  conduct 
of  public  affairs,  and  one  too  much  undervalued  in  this  country,  but 
when  Sir  Henry  Eawlinson  informs  us  that  the  importance  of 
Badakshan  to  India  may  be  estimated  from  the  fact  that  it  was  the 
appanage  of  the  Crown  Prince  Humayun  in  Baber's  original  distri- 
bution of  the  frontier  provinces,  we  can  only  say,  Solvuntur  risu 
tabula'. 

If  Sir  Henry  is  to  mould  our  policy,  as  he  has  been  allowed  to  do 
to  a  great  extent  by  the  present  possessors  of  power,  Heaven  help 
the  Empire !  Here  are  a  few  of  the  things  he  proposes  that  we 
should  do.  After  arguing  rather  against  the  annexation  of  Cabul, 
but  much  more  strongly  against  withdrawing  from  it  altogether,  he 
observes — 

Coitte  quo  coute,  we  must  now  bold  on,  either  as  the  possessors  or  the  protectors 
of  Cabul.  We  must,  I  submit,  under  any  circumstances,  incorporate  Jellalabad 
in. our  Indian  territory,  and  extend  the  Punjaub  railway  to  that  point ;  and  even 
if  we  were  presently  to  withdraw  our  British  force  from  Cabul,  with  the  exception 
of  the  permanent  garrison  located  in  the  place  d'armes  to  which  I  have  before  al- 
luded, we  must  be  prepared  at  any  moment  to  reoccupy  the  place  if  our  garrison 
should  require  support,  or  if  serious  danger  threatened  us  from  beyond  the  Oxus. 

And  again : — 

How  the  responsible  authorities  will  ultimately  determine  this  knotty  question 
of  the  future  government  of  Eastern  Afghanistan  I  shall  not  venture  to  predict  ; 
but  if,  as  appears  probable,  they  decide  against  annexation,  and  recur  to  the  fami- 
liar model  of  a  protected  Indian  State — if,  in  fact,  they  resolve  to  withdraw  from 
all  executive  detail,  leaving  to  the  native  chiefs  as  much  liberty  of  action  as  is 
compatible  with  the  dependence  of  Afghanistan  upon  Great  Britain,  then  I  would 
venture  to  submit  that,  in  order  to  confirm  our  supremacy  and  guarantee  our  right 
to  an  exclusive  political  control  over  the  nation,  it  would  be  of  the  first  importance 
to  establish  a  strong  nucleus  of  power  at  the  capital,  and  to  retain  in  our  hands  a 
complete  command  of  the  military  organisation  of  the  province.  Undoubtedly  if 
we  were  prepared  to  maintain  a  permanent  garrison  of  2,000  British  troops  of  all 
arms  in  an  unassailable  position  at  Cabul,  amply  provisioned  and  stored,  so  as  to 
bid  defiance,  if  necessary,  to  the  whole  power  of  Eastern  Afghanistan  ;  and  if  we 
further  raised  a  contingent  of  20,000  men  from  the  Hazarehs,  Kizzilbashis,  and 
Parsivans,  furnishing  them  with  arms  of  precision,  and  placing  them  under 
British  oflbers,  as  in  the  case  of  the  Hyderabad  contingent,  then  we  might  safely 


1880.  BRITISH  INTERESTS  IN  THE  EAST.  673 

allow  the  local  Sirdars  to  levy  revenue  and  exercise  all  the  functions  of  executive 
government :  our  Resident  in  the  meantime  remaining  in  the  British  citadel,  from 
whence,  secure  against  all  personal  danger,  he  might  direct  the  Afghan  councils, 
watch  the  northern  frontier,  and  act  as  referee  between  rival  interests.  Under 
such  a  system  there  Avould  be  friction  at  first  starting,  and  to  a  very  serious  extent. 
The  jealousy  of  the  chiefs  who  had  formerly  held  military  command,  hut  were  now 
unemployed,  would  keep  alive  disaffection  among  the  peasantry,  and  it  would  be 
long  before  the  country  settled  down  into  anything  like  order  or  content ;  but 
still  patience  and  firmness  will  do  wonders,  and  looking  at  the  results  obtained  in 
other  quarters  where  our  officers  have  undertaken  to  civilise  communities  not  less 
fierce  and  untameable  than  the  Afghans,  it  would  not  be  presumptuous  to  expect  an 
ultimate  success. 

Then  Ghuznee  is  to  be  treated  like  Cabul,  confided  to  an  indepen- 
dent native  chief  '  who  would  be  dominated  from  our  permanent 
camp  at  Ali  Kheil  or  Kuram.'  Further,  Kandahar  is  to  be  retained 
and  the  railway  extended  up  to  it ;  Kandahar,  in  other  words,  with  of 
course  all  that  is  necessary  to  hold  it,  is  to  be  annexed. 

Such  being  the  views  of  the  man  to  whose  piping  the  Govern- 
ment has  danced  into  two  Afghan  wars,  what  are  we  to  make  of  the 
assertions  which  are  put  forward  on  all  sides  by  it  and  its  friends, 
when  they  wish  to  minimise  the  operations  in  Afghanistan,  that  they 
mean  to  stand  by  the  arrangements  of  the  Treaty  of  Gandamak  ?  It  is 
clear  that  that  is  a  statement  thrown  out  merely  to  catch  the  gul- 
lible portion  of  the  public.  They  know  perfectly  well  that  they 
cannot  fall  back,  if  they  would,  on  the  provisions  of  Gandamak.  They 
have  no  alternative  except  to  defy  the  forward  school  and  to  go  back 
to  something  very  like  our  old  frontier,  or  to  embark  in  a  course  of 
policy  which  sooner  or  later  will  involve  the  annexation  of  the  whole 
country  between  our  own  frontier  and  the  crest  of  the  Hindoo  Koosh, 
if  not  the  line  of  the  Oxus. 

Who  that  knows  anything  of  Indian  History  is  so  blind  as  not  to 
see  that  not  only  Sir  Henry  Rawlinson's  proposals,  but  even  the 
provisions  of  the  Treaty  of  Gandamak,  lead  straight  to  annexation  ? 
Sir  Henry  Rawlinson,  far  as  he  goes,  is  by  no  means  the  most  forward 
of  the  forward.  Colonel  Malleson,  for  instance,  would  advocate  things 
from  which  Sir  Henry  would  shrink,  and  treat  him  as  a  mere  timid 
temporiser  because  he  proposes  not  to  annex  Herat  but  to  give  it  to 
Persia. 

I  will  not  engage  in  any  controversy  with  Sir  Henry  Rawlinson 
about  the  historical  narrative  with  which  he  commences  his  paper. 
Any  one  who  does  me  the  honour  to  read  the  pamphlet  published  by 
the  Liberal  Central  Association  called  the  Afghan  Policy  of  the 
Beaconsfield  Government  and  its  results,  will  see  that  I  disagree 
with  almost  every  sentence  in  Sir  Henry's  account  of  what  occurred. 
On  one  thing  only  I  would  remark.  After  all  that  the  Duke  of 
Argyll  has  said  and  written  on  this  subject,  it  is  surely  going  very  far 


XIXETEEXTII  CENTURY.  April 

indeed  to  say  as  Sir  Henry  does  'If  the  Duke  of  Argyll  had  b>een 
at  the  India  Office  in  1878,  he  would,  equally  with  Lord  Cranbrook, 
have  recognised  it  as  an  imperative  duty  for  the  safety  of  British 
India  to  break  up  the  Russo-Afghan  Confederacy.' 

The  Duke  of  Argyll  would  never  have  insulted  and  alienated  the 
unhappy  Shere  Ali,  and  is  far  too  courageous  a  man  to  lose  his  head 
and  rush  forward  into  danger  because  he  trembled  before  a  Russo- 
Afghan  confederacy.  The  very  fact  that  a  person  who,  like  Sir  Henry, 
possesses  the  key  to  all  the  information  in  the  hands  of  the  Govern- 
ment as  to  Russia's  dealings  with  Afghanistan,  is  nevertheless  obliged 
to  bring  forward  Yakoob  Khan's  utterly  worthless  statements  on  the 
subject,  is  surely  most  significant.  What  importance  can  be  attached 
to  the  testimony  about  state  affairs  of  a  man,  who  was  in  close  confine- 
ment at  the  time  the  alleged  facts  occurred,  and  who  had  the  strongest 
possible  motives  at  once  of  revenge  and  fear,  to  misrepresent  the 
facts '?  There  is  no  proof  of  any  arrangements  hostile  to  us  having 
been  made  between  Russia  and  Afghanistan  before  we  broke  off 
diplomatic  relations  with  the  Ameer,  and  threatened  Russia  with 
attack,  both  in  Europe  and  Asia.  If  Sir  Henry  Rawlinson  could 
have  adduced  anything  which  could  be  taken  as  evidence  to  go  to  a 
jittry,  depend  upon  it  he  would  have  done  so. 

But  to  return  to  Persia  ;  the  line  we  should  take  with  reference  to 
her  is,  first,  to  support  her  from  motives  of  good  neighbourhood  and 
because  it  is  the  obvious  interest  of  Great  Britain  that  every  civilisa- 
tion should  develope  itself  in  its  own  way  ;  secondly,  to  support  her  in 
order  that  we  may  work  in  the  interests  of  peace,  because  whenever 
she  quarrels  with  her  neighbours,  we  are  put  to  trouble  and  expense 
in  ordering  out  the  fire-engines  ;  thirdly,  to  support  her  in  order  that 
we  may  advance  her  material  prosperity  and  civilisation. 

When  will  a  certain  class  of  our  countrymen  get  into  their  heads 
the  idea,  that  it  is  not  the  warlike  Englishman,  but  the  peaceful 
Englishman,  who  most  strikes  the  imagination  of  Asiatics  ? — not  mas- 
querading but  solid  power,  not  Lord  Lytton  in  that  wonderful  dress 
which  he  wore  at  the  Delhi  pageant,  and  the  bare  idea  of  wearing  which 
would,  I  am  sure,  a  year  or  two  before,  have  made  him  die  with  laugh- 
ing, but  plain  John  Lawrence  in  his  white  jacket,  or  even  (horresco  re- 
ferens]  in  his  shirt-sleeves.  Asiatics  can  beat  Europeans  in  glitter  and 
fanfaronade ;  they  cannot  beat  them  in  war,  but  they  can  approach 
them,  andsometimes  approach  them  very  nearly ;  while  in  the  arts  of 
peace  they  are  still  children.  I  read  the  other  day,  in  a  letter  pub- 
lished by  the  Scotsman  from  a  gentleman  who  has  been  travelling  near 
Mecca,  a  paragraph  which  illustrates  this  so  well  that  I  will  quote  it : 

The  Arabs  are  immensely  impressed  by  the  kind  of  power  embodied  in  our  in- 
dustries and  trade,  by  the  power  of  English  knowledge  to  control  the  forces  of 
nature  for  the  service  of  man.  '  There  is  nothing  stronger  than  the  English  except 
God.'  It  is  not  our  ships  of  war  in  the  lied  Sea  that  draw  out  this  acknowledg- 


1880.  BRITISH  INTERESTS  AY  THE  EAST.  675 

ruent.  The  Arabs,  at  least  in  the  uplands,  are  not  greatly  afraid  of  any  military 
power,  partly  from  ignorance,  and  partly  from  a  just  sense  of  the  impossibility  of  a 
substantial  conquest  of  the  desert.  It  is  the  steamers,  the  telegraph,  the  diving- 
bell,  and  things  like  these  that  raise  our  name,  or  rather  the  possession  of  these 
inventions  in  connection  with  the  faculty  of  organisation  on  a  great  scale,  in  which 
Arabs  are  altogether  lacking.  The  regular  visits  of  such  a  line  of  steamers  as  the 
British  Indian  are  a  more  forcible  lesson  than  any  display  of  martial  strength, 
llespect  thus  obtained  contains  no  germs  of  hatred,  if  those  whose  power  is  admired 
use  it  in  justice,  honour,  and  kindliness. 

These  were  the  ideas  which  guided  Mr.  Gladstone's  Government 
with  reference  to  Persia.  I  know  the  fact,  because  it  fell  to  my  lot 
to  state  what  its  policy  was  with  respect  to  Persia.  What  was  wise 
in  1869  is,  I  am  sure,  wise  now  ;  let  us  do  everything  to  help  her  in 
peaceful  ways,  but  do  not  let  us  involve  her  in  any  alliance  against 
her  great  northern  neighbour ;  if  we  do  we  shall  not  only  ruin  her,  but 
find  her  a  reed  that  will  break  in  our  hand  and  pierce  it. 

One  closing  word  as  to  Afghanistan. 

What  then  are  our  interests  in  Afghanistan  ?  If  any  one  had 
nsked  me  that  question  when  the  Gladstone  government  was  in  power, 
I  should  have  replied  in  words"  which  I  used  in  July,  1869,  when 
speaking  on  behalf  of  that  Government :  '  What  we  want  is  a  quiet 
Afghanistan,  just  as  we  want  a  quiet  Burmah ;  we  desire,  in  short,  to 
see  a  fine  country  rescued  from  miserable  anarchy.'  But  what  am  I 
to  say  now  ?  The  policy  of  Sir  John  Lawrence,  taken  up  by  Lord 
Mayo,  and  most  strongly  supported  by  the  Duke  of  Argyll,  did  rescue 
that  fine  country  from  miserable  anarchy ;  but  the  blunders  of  the 
present  Government  have  thrown  Afghanistan  (which  they  found 
quieter  and  more  prosperous,  and  with  its  population  better  disposed 
towards  us  than  it  had  ever  been  since  1838)  into  a  state  of  the  most 
pitiable  anarchy,  into  anarchy  the  end  of  which  cannot  be  foreseen 
by  the  most  clear-sighted  statesman  in  Europe  or  Asia.  For  the 
present,  I  can  only  answer  the  question,  what  are  our  interests  in 
Afghanistan  by  saying,  our  interests  are  to  get  out  of  the  frightful 
scrape  into  which  Lord  Beacon sfield  and  Lord  Salisbury  have  got  us 
with  as  little  loss  and  discredit  as  possible.  The  discredit  is  im- 
measurable, but  I  will  not  dwell  on  that.  The  loss,  a  less  important 
thing,  will  be  measured  by  millions  and  millions.  Already  the 
Government  own  to  many  millions,  but  I  do  not  believe  that  we  have 
yet  even  an  approximate  idea  of  what  the  present  war  will  cost, 
directly  and  indirectly,  before  it  is  over.  Let  us  remember  Abyssinia, 
and  the  statements  that  were  made  by  the  same  men  and  colleagues 
of  the  same  men  ;  remember  how  utterly  at  variance  they  turned  out 
to  be  with  the  facts  of  the  case,  and  then  let  us  believe  just  as  much 
as  we  please  of  what  we  are  told  about  the  expense  of  the 'second  and 
third  Afghan  wars. 

Now  then,  I  have  run  through  the  programme  which  I  sketched 
at  the  commencement  of  this   article.       India   is  far  too  large  a 

o 


676  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  April 

subject  to  enter  upon  at  the  end  of  a  paper,  but  our  interest  in  all 
the  countries  of  which  I  have  been  writing  dovetail  in  a  hundred 
•*»  ways  into  our  interests  in  India.  Those  interests  are  closely  con- 
nected with  our  duties  there,  and  what  my  conception  of  our  duties 
there  is,  I  think  I  can  best  explain  by  a  paragraph  from  a  speech 
which  I  made  to  my  constituents,  when  I  was  a  member  of  that  (as 
the  Jingoes  think)  extremely  parochially-minded  Administration 
which  was  presided  over  by  him  whom  we  soon  expect  to  hail  as  the 
member  for  Midlothian.  I  think  I  will  venture  to  stake  my  'paro- 
chial' views  with  regard  to  India  and  to  British  interests  in  the 
whole  East,  against  what  a  great  jurist  has  well  called  the  '  bloody 
meddlesomeness'  of  the  Black  Jingoes  and  the  rashness,  inspired  by 
ignorance,  of  the  White  ones. 

What  [I  said]  are  our  duties  in  India?  They  are  far  too  numerous  to  detail,, 
but  the  chief  are,  I  think,  these :  to  keep  the  peace  among  two  hundred  (I  might 
have  said  two  hundred  and  fifty)  millions  of  men  ;  to  raise  the  material  prosperity  of 
the  regions  subject  to  our  rule  to  a  point  to  which  they  could  not  possibly  have  at- 
tained while  split  up  amongst  countless  petty  rulers,  even  if  all  these  petty  rulers  were 
as  virtuous  as  that  princess  whom  Sir  John  Malcolm  described  as  goodness  personi- 
fied; to  pit  the  intelligence  and  science  of  the  AYest  against  those  terrible  natural 
calamities  which  are  the  scourge  of  that  portion  of  the  earth's  surface  ;  to  curb 
rivers ;  to  cleanse  towns  ;  to  lead  waters  through  the  desert ;  to  make  famines  as  rare 
as  they  have  become  in  Europe  ;  to  extend  geographical  and  scientific  research 
through  every  corner  of  India,  and,  as  occasion  serves,  through  all  those  countries 
adjacent  to  India,  for  the  exploration  of  which  its  rulers  have  facilities  not  shared 
by  other  men  ;  to  raise  the  standard  of  justice  and  administration;  to  impart  all 
"Western  culture  that  can  be  expected  to  flourish  on  Indian  soil ;  to  make  a  royal  road 
for  every  inquirer  who  withes  to  collect  whatever  of  value  to  mankind  at  large  has, 
through  countless  ages,  been  carved  on  stone,  or  stamped  on  metal,  or  recorded  in 
manuscripts,  or  handed  down  by  tradition  throughout  Southern  Asia  ;  to  ofier  to  the 
youth  of  Britain  their  choice  of  a  variely  of  careers,  by  all  of  which,  in  return  for 
good  work  done  to  the  natives  of  India,  which  those  natives  of  India  cannot,  in  the 
present  stage  of  their  history,  do  for  themselves,  an  early  and  honourable  indepen- 
dence may  be  won  far  more  easily  than  in  this  country  of  overcrowded  professions  and 
fierce  competition  ;  to  increase  the  riches  of  the  world  by  developing  to  the  fullest 
possible  extent  the  resources  of  its  most  favoured  portions ;  and  to  hold  in  no 
spirit  of  narrow  monopoly,  but  from  the  mere  necessity  of  the  case,  the  keys  of  the 
gates  by  which  the  greater  portion  of  that  wealth  flows  out  to  bless  matkind;  to 
give  to  all  other  nations  an  example  how  a  strong  race  should  rule  weaker  ones : 
those  are  some  of  the  principal  objects  which  are  within  our  reach,  and  towards- 
the  attainment  of  which  we  are  steadily  advancing. 

M.  E.  GEANT  DUFF. 


1880.  677 


THE  PRESENT  CRISIS  A  T  GUY'S  HOSPITAL. 

THE  affairs  of  one  of  our  largest  hospitals  are  at  this  present  time 
occupying  an  unusual  share  of  public  attention  among  Londoners 
generally,  and  among  medical  men  particularly.  The  struggle  now 
going  on  at  Guy's  Hospital,  and  which  may  be  shortly  stated  to  be  a 
difference  of  opinion  between  the  Treasurer  and  the  Medical  Staff  as 
to  the  way  in  which  the  nursing  in  the  hospital  shall  for  the  future 
be  conducted,  and  which  has  been  referred  to  the  Governors  of  the 
Institution  for  final  settlement,  is  not  by  any  means  one  of  the  merely 
local  and  passing  storms  by  which  from  time  to  time  all  large  in- 
stitutions containing  men  with  conflicting  interests  bound  up  more 
or  less  in  those  institutions  are  convulsed.  The  matter  ought,  I  think, 
to  be  looked  upon  as  having  a  wider  significance  than  is  generally 
supposed.  It  is  not  a  mere  quarrel  over  the  patients  in  Guy's  Hospital ; 
in  point  of  fact  it  is  rather  a  typical  struggle,  showing  symptoms  of  a 
combined  and  resolute  attempt  on  the  part  of  the  medical  profession 
generally  to  retain  the  old  system  of  employing  untrained  women  as 
nurses  in  our  hospitals,  instead  of  making  use  of  the  trained  labour 
which  is  now  at  their  disposal  in  this  special  branch  of  work. 

In  the  largest  institution  of  the  kind,  the  London  Hospital,  the 
old  system  is  still  in  full  force,  and  until  November  last  it  was  main- 
tained in  Guy's  Hospital.  Perhaps  it  may  be  well  to  state  what  con- 
stitutes the  difference  between  the  old  and  the  new  systems  of 
nursing.  Until  comparatively  lately  our  hospitals  have  been  nursed 
by  women  drawn  mainly  from  ths  claes  to  which  the  domestic  char- 
woman belongs,  who,  having  received  no  kind  of  training  whatever, 
were,  perhaps,  first  taken  into  the  hospital,  after  a  superficial  inquiry, 
or  no  inquiry  at  all,  had  been  made  into  their  character,  in  the  position 
of  scrubber  or  ward-maid,  in  order  that  they  might  see  and  learn,  as 
well  as  they  could,  what  went  on  there  ;  or  perhaps  they  were  received 
at  very  small  pay,  or  none,  as  a  probationer  or  assistant  nurse,  to  help 
in  the  work  of  nursing  patients.  At  the  end  of  three  months,  less  or 
more,  according  to  the  convenience  of  the  matron,  and  at  the  recom- 
mendation probably  of  the  head  nurse  or  sister  of  the  ward,  these  women 
would  be  promoted  to  the  position  of  head  nurses  themselves — having 
learnt,  it  is  true,  all  that  their  superiors  were  able  to  teach  them 
about  the  art  of  nursing,  but  being  totally  without  experience  of 
their  own.  Physically  and  morally  untrained  as  they  were,  they 
were  then  immediately  liable  to  be  put  in  charge  of  patients  who 
were  more  or  less  seriously  ill,  by  day  or  by  night  as  the  case  might 
be  ;  the  main  duty  which  was  inculcated  on  them  from  their  first 


678  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY.  April 

acquaintance  with  hospital  work  being  that  they  must  study  the 
character  and  special  requirements  and  fancies  of  the  particular 
medical  man  or  surgeon  under  whom  they  were  placed,  with  a  view 
of  gaining  his  approbation  by  every  means  in  their  power. 

The  day  nurses  were  seldom  if  ever  allowed  to  be  absent  from  the 
ward  when  the  medical  officer  came  his  rounds  ;  therefore  the  only  time 
at  which  they  could  obtain  air  and  exercise  was  after  nightfall,  when 
the  visits  of  the  medical  staff  were  over  and  their  day's  work  was  ended. 
Their  meals,  sometimes  with  the  single  exception  of  dinner,  were  taken 
in  the  kitchen  or  day-room  of  the  ward.  In  the  evening,  by  arrange- 
ment with  the  matron,  who  was  a  kind  of  upper  servant  or  housekeeper, 
the  lower  order  of  nurse,  or  scrubber,  was  left  in  charge  of  the  patients, 
while  the  old-fashioned  head  nurse  went  out  to  take  her  hardly  earned 
holiday,  too  often,  alas !  in  the  nearest  public-house.  She  came  back 
at  the  regulation  hour,  more  or  less  the  worse  for  drink  as  the  case 
might  be,  and  went  to  bed  to  sleep  off  the  effects  of  it ;  no  inquiry  . 
was  made  into  her  condition,  since  it  was  nobody's  business,  as  long 
as  she  satisfied  the  medical  men  by  the  work  which  came  under  their  . 
notice,  to  ask  how  her  hours  off  duty  were  spent,  or  what  her  own 
moral  condition  might  be. 

I  am  far  from  saying  that  every  nurse  under  the  old  system, 
was  drunken  or  dissolute,  but  I  do  say  that,  as  a  rule,  their  moral 
character  was  unsatisfactory,  and  that  the  long  hours  of  work,  with 
no  regular  interval  allowed  during  the  daytime  -for  proper  air  and. 
exercise,  together  with  the  practice  of  eating  their  food  in  the 
impure  air  of  the  wards,  render  the  supporters  of  the  old  system 
largely  responsible  for  the  low  moral  as  well  as  physical  condition  of 
the  nurses  who  work  under  it.  It  is  obvious  that  in  an  article  like 
the  present,  details  of  nursing  would  be  out  of  place.  It  ought, 
however,  to  be  equally  obvious,  without  going  into  details,  that  a 
woman  untrained,  undisciplined,  and  overworked,  such  as  I  have 
described,  however  intelligent  she  may  naturally  be,  is  not  in  any 
sense  of  the  word  fit  to  be  called  a  nurse. 

So  much  for  day  nurses  under  the  old  system.  A  few  words  about 
night  nurses  must  be  added.  These  were  even  more  hardly  dealt 
with  in  the  matter  of  long  hours  and  work  than  the  day  nurses,  and 
they  accordingly  revenged  themselves  upon  the  authorities  by  sleeping 
whenever  they  were  pretty  safe  from  the  chance  of  a  visit  from  the 
house  doctors  to  the  ward,  regardless  of  the  wants  and  dangers  of 
their  patients,  of  whose  pillows  and  blankets  they  often  made  free 
use  for  their  own  convenience  and  comfort.  A  medical  man  told  me 
that  when  he  was  a  student  at  St.  Bartholomew's,  a  patient  who  had 
only  had  on  six  leeches  was  left,  in  consequence  of  this  practice  of 
the  night  nurses,  to  bleed  to  death.  At  certainly  one  large  hospital, 
probably  at  others,  no  food  whatever  was  allowed  for  the  nurse's  use 
during  the  night.  She  was  fed  during  the  day,  and  was  supposed  to 
be  able  to  provide  her  own  provisions  for  the  night  out  of  her  small 


1880.  THE  PRESENT  CRISIS  AT  GUY'S  HOSPITAL.  679 

wages.  The  consequences  of  this  arrangement  are  not  far  to  seek ; 
the  nurses  helped  themselves  from  the  patients'  private  store  of  food, 
and,  whenever  it  was  practicable,  from  the  patients'  allowance  of  wine 
or  spirits  as  well.  Those  nurses  who  were  not  too  sleepy,  sometimes  occu- 
pied themselves  in  washing  their  oivn  clothes  an  the  wards,  thus  convert- 
ing the  hospital  into  a  drying-ground  for  .the  benefit  of  the  patients. 

The  main  duty  of  the  day  nurse,  which  was  noticed  above,  that 
of  attendance  upon  the  visiting  medical  staff,  never  of  course  de- 
volved upon  the  night  nurse.  Therefore  a  still  lower  and  less  in- 
telligent class  of  women  might  with  propriety,  it  was  thought,  be 
employed  on  night  than  on  day  duty,  and  constantly  very  aged  and 
feeble,  to  say  nothing  of  hopelessly  drunken,  women  were  considered 
fit  for  nothing  else  but  this  branch  of  duty.  They  .perhaps  remained 
on  night  duty  for  years  without  intermission*  except  a  short  holiday. 
The  day  and  night  nurses  were  a  distinct  class.  . .  If  the  night  nurse 
became  ill,  or  otherwise  unfit  for  her  work,  she  would  apply  and 
obtain  leave  from  the  matron  or  superintendent  to  '  hire,'  as  she 
called  it,  to  do  her  work.  By  this  nueans  she  was  enabled  to  spend 
the  night  in  resting  herself,  while  a  charwoman  friend,  who  had  prob- 
ably been  at  work  all  day  already,  looked  after,  the  patients  and  gave 
(or  did  not  give  ?)  medicines,  wine,  and  brandy,  under  occasional 
direction  from  the  nurse  herself.  The  wages,  of  both  night  and  day 
nurses  varied  from  16/.  to  221.  per  annum,  according  to  the  rules  of 
the  institution  to  which  they  might  be  attached. 

Both  kinds  of  nurses  were  under  the  direct  control  of  a  woman, 
called  the  '  sister,'  in  each  ward.  Under  the  ojd  system  it  was  necessary 
for  her  to  be  little  more  than  an  experienced  housekeeper.  She 
had  charge  of  the  linen,  and  herself  superintended  a  great  deal  of 
the  cooking ;  she  received  the  orders  of  the  medical  men  with  regard 
to  the  patients;  she  was  responsible  for  the  punctual  administra- 
tion of  their  medicines ;  she  kept  and  gave  out  the  wine  and 
spirits  ordered  by  the  doctor,  and  either  partook  of  them  or  not 
herself  as  she  felt  disposed.  She  was  responsible  for  her  patients 
during  the  night  as  well  as  during  the  clay,  and  was  liable  to  be 
roused  from  sleep  at  any  moment,  should  an  emergency  arise.  It 
was  unusual  for  a  '  sister '  to  be  moved  from  one  ward  to  another, 
and  therefore  in  course  of  time,  if  she  were  at  all  an  intelligent 
woman,  in  spite  of  a  want  of  general  education  and  a  total  absenceof  any 
special  training  in  the  work  of  her  calling,  she  would  become  expert 
in  various  ways,  especially  in  attendance  upon  the  medical  staff,  and  in 
prompt  and  skilful  obedience  to  their  orders.  She  would  learn  to  watch 
critical  cases  in  the  doctor's  absence,  and  to  act  -with  ability  under  his 
orders.  After  some  years  at  her  work  it  would  be  strange  indeed  had 
she  not  accumulated  a  certain  amount  of  experience  in  the  treatment  of 
various  diseases  of  the  particular  kind  she  may  have  had  to  deal  with 
in  her  own  ward.  But  all  this  time  she  must  have  remained  in  abso- 
lute ignorance  of  the  first  principles  of  nursinglhe  sick;  for  she  had  never 


C80  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY.  April 

seen  nursing  practised,  much  less  had  she  been  taught  to  nurse  herself. 
She  was  therefore  not  only  wholly  incapable  of  training  her  nurses  and 
probationers,  but  she  was  unaware  of  her  own  ignorance,  and  would, 
in  all  good  faith,  have  called  herself  a  thoroughly  trained  nurse. 

So  much  for  the  old  system,  of  which,  however,  I  have  been  able 
to  give  little  more  than  a  sketch.  Let  those  who  desire  to  know 
more  of  it  go  into  the  wards  of  any  of  the  great  hospitals  where  it 
is  still  at  work.  Less  need  be  said  about  the  new  system,  because 
in  these  days,  when  nursing  is  rapidly  becoming  a  fashionable  mania, 
and  books  about  the  subject  are  widely  read,  the  principles  of 
modern  nursing  are  pretty  well  known.  Had  the  old  system  ever 
been  as  well  understood  by  the  public,  our  hospitals  would  all  of 
them  by  this  time  have  been  placed  on  a  better  fo  jting.  Under  this 
new  system  of  nursing,  such,  that  is,  as  prevails  in  St.  Thomas's, 
King's  College,  Charing  Cross,  and  possibly  other  Hospitals,  no  woman 
is  considered  qualified  to  be  put  in  charge  of  any  patient,  i.e.  to  be 
head  nurse,  until  after  one,  two,  or  three  years'  probation.  She 
must  have  had  a  good  general  education,  and  bear  an  excellent 
character,  before  she  be  admitted  into  the  hospital,  and  she  then 
receives  during  her  probation  regular  and  severe  training  in  her 
work,  and  in  all  the  details  of  nursing,  from  women  who  have  been 
themselves  thoroughly  educated  and  trained.  If  she  show  herself 
to  be  in  any  way  unfitted  for  the  calling  of  a  nurse,  she  is  dismissed 
at  the  end  of  a  month  ;  if  she  remain  and  become  a  head  nurse  she 
receives  wages  like  those  of  the  nurses  under  the  old  system.  But 
she  has  besides  her  dress  given  her,  a  uniform  which  she  is  required 
always  to  wear,  in  order  that  she  may  be  recognised  everywhere  as 
belonging  to  the  institution  to  which  she  is  attached. 

She  has  regular  hours  appointed  to  her  during  the  daytime  for 
air  and  exercise,  and  is  rarely  if  ever  allowed  to  leave  the  hospital 
after  nightfall.  Hence  she  is  constantly  absent  during  the  visits  of  the 
doctors  to  the  wards,  and  the  nurse  next  in  order  takes  her  place,  and 
thus  learns  her  duty  gradually.  She  takes  her  meals  in  a  special  room 
appointed  for  the  purpose,  and  has  sufficient  time  allowed  her  for  them. 
In  her  case  the  temptation  to  drink  spirits  to  which  hard  work  and  bad 
air  combined  are  liable  to  lead,  is,  as  far  as  possible  under  the  circum- 
stance?, removed.  Should  she  yield  to  it,  however,  she  is  considered  as 
no  longer  fit  for  her  calling,  and  is  dismissed  from  it  by  the  authorities. 

The  conduct  and  management  of  the  ward,  together  with  the 
absolute  control  of  nurses  and  probationers,  are  in  the  hands  of  the 
'  sister.'  She  is  a  woman  of  good  general  education,  besides  that  she 
must  have  passed  satisfactorily  through  the  regular  course  of  proba- 
tion and  severe  training  in  every  department  of  hospital  work,  and 
be  fully  competent  therefore  herself  to  train  her  probationers,  and 
to  be  responsible  for  the  work  of  her  head  nurses.  The  cleanliness 
and  due  ventilation  of  the  ward  are  her  charge,  the  care  of  the 
linen,  the  more  refmed  part  of  the  cookery,  the  administration  of 


1880.  THE  PRESENT  CRISIS  AT  GUY'S  HOSPITAL.  681 

medicines,  and  the  receiving  and  carrying  out  of  the  orders  of  the 
physician  or  the  surgeon  of  the  ward.  But  if  in  the  proper  sense  of  the 
word  she  be  really  a  '  sister,'  she  regards  the  moral  and  physical  wel- 
fare of  her  patients,  nurses,  and  probationers,  and  the  general  tone  of 
the  ward,  as  her  main  duty  and  responsibility.  To  this  end  it  is 
desirable  that  she  be  not  only  a  gentlewoman  by  birth  and  education, 
but  a  thorough  woman  of  the  world  as  well ;  able  to  enter  into  and 
to  deal  with  the  wants  and  difficulties  of  men  and  women  of  diverse 
dispositions  ;  to  understand,  and  intelligently,  loyally,  and  faithfully 
to  carry  out  the  orders  of  the  physician  or  the  surgeon,  having  regard 
to  the  spirit  as  well  as  to  the  letter  of  his  injunctions.  Above  all  she 
must  be  able  to  put  some  degree  of  her  own  spirit  into  those  who 
work  under  her.  She  is,  and  ought  to  be,  a  paid  officer  of  the  hospi- 
tal, like  the  sister  under  the  old  system,  and  whether  she  need  a 
salary  or  not  does  not  of  course  affect  this  question. 

She  is  not  responsible  for  her  patients  during  the  night,  but  she 
delivers  a  report  of  their  condition  to  a  night  '  sister,'  or  superintend- 
ent, also  a  highly  trained  and  educated  woman,  who  is  in  charge  prob- 
ably of  the  whole  number  of  patients  contained  in  the  hospital 
during  the  night,  and  is  responsible  for  the  conduct  and  discipline  of 
the  night  nurses.  Under  the  new  system,  these  women  are  strictly 
obliged  to  spend  a  certain  number  of  hours  in  bed  during  the  day, 
and  are  forbidden,  under  pain  of  dismissal,  like  soldiers  at  their  post, 
to  sleep  during  the  night.  Proper  food  is  provided  for  them  by 
night  as  well  as  by  day,  and  thus  the  temptation  to  steal  the  patients' 
food  is  removed  from  them.  The  night  and  day  nurses  are  all  One 
class,  recognised  only  as  regularly  trained  head  nurses,  and  they  take 
it  in  turns  to  perform  night  and  day  duty.  In  some  cases  the  '  sisters  ' 
also  take  it  in  regular  turns  to  act  as  night  superintendents. 

The  '  sisters '  are  liable  to  be  moved  from  ward  to  ward  at  the  con- 
venience of  the  matron,  in  order  that  they  may  understand  the  super- 
intendence of  both  surgical  and  medical  wards,  that  they  may  be  accus- 
tomed to  the  ways  and  requirements  of  different  medical  men,  and  that 
they  may  thus  be  the  better  fitted  for  their  work,  and  able,  if  need  be, 
in  their  turn  to  fill  the  responsible  post  of  matron  in  a  large  hospital. 

I  call  this  a  responsible  post,  because  the  matron,  superintendent, 
or  whatever  she  may  be  called,  ought  invariably  to  be  a  gentle- 
woman, possessing  what  are  perhaps  the  rarest  of  all  qualities,  true 
tact  and  discernment.  It  is  scarcely  necessary  to  say  that  she  must 
be  a  highly  trained  nurse,  and  must  have  acted  as  a  sister  herself. 
As  soon  as  she  becomes  matron,  the  very  word  suggests  what  is  ex- 
pected of  her.  She  is  the  '  mother '  of  the  members  of  the  nursing 
staff. .  Just  as  the  medical  men  are  absolutely  supreme  with  regard 
to  the  general  treatment  of  the  patients,  their  diet,  medicines,  &c., 
so  is  the  matron  the  supreme  authority  with  regard  to  the  general 
rules  of  the  nursing.  The  discipline  of  the  whole  nursing  staff,  and 
the  care  of  the  moral  and  physical  well-being,  as  well  as  the  thorough 


682  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  April 

training,  of  each  nurse,  is  solely  under  her  control.  She  is,  in  her 
turn,  bound  to  act  under  the  authority  of  her  masters,  the  Governors, 
Committee,  or  Treasurer  ot  the  institution,  and  unless  she  be  deficient, 
in  the  tact  already  mentioned  as  one  of  the  proper  characteristics  of  a 
matron,  she  will  consider  herself  also  bound  to  regard,  as  far  as  in  her  lies, 
the  wishes  of  those  without  whom  no  hospital  can  exist,  the  doctors. 

This  short,  and  I  believe  fair,  account  of  the  two  systems,  will 
enable  those  who  care  to  enter  upon  the  subject  to  compare  them, 
and  will  cause  them  to  wonder  why  certain  members  of  the  medi- 
cal profession,  who  are  on  the  acting  staff  in  hospitals  where  there 
is  a  large  medical  school,  should  oppose  with  remarkable  pertina- 
city the  employment  in  their  hospitals  of  the  intelligent  class  of 
trained  women  who  are  supporting  the  new  system.  They  carry  their 
opposition  so  far  as  to  affirm  that  under  the  old  system,  if  the  nurses 
were  drunken  and  dissolute,  it  was  of  no  consequence,  so  long  as,  as 
far  as  they  could  see,  the  patients  did  not  suffer.  This  saving  clause 
'  as  far  as  they  could  see '  is  perhaps  one  clue  to  the  strange  pertina- 
city of  the  doctors.  They  do  not  see  very  far,  because  the  nurses  take 
care  that  their  eyes  shall  be  blinded  whenever  it  suits  their  own  pur- 
poses. Even  were  the  medical  men  allowed  to  see  clearly,  it  does  not  at 
all  follow  that  they  would  be  able  to  distinguish  good  from  bad  nurs- 
ing, except  by  results.  A  doctor  is  no  more  necessarily  a  judge  of  the 
details  of  nursing  than  a  nurse  is  acquainted  with  the  properties  and 
effects  of  the  administration  of  certain  drugs.  But  to  return  to  the 
doctors.  They  add  that  the  physical  condition  of  the  nurses  is 
not  their  business,  but  that  they  consider  the  presence  of  the  head 
nurse  in  the  wards  during  the  visiting  hours  of  the  staff  to  be  essential 
to  their  usefulness  and  convenience,  and  that  therefore  the  new  system, 
whereby  the  nurses  obtain  air  and  exercise,  is  objectio 

These  and  other  such  like  reasons  for  their  support  of  the  old  system 
are  of  course  insufficient,  and  we  must  therefore  seek  further  for  the 
truth.  Doctors  and  nurses  in  our  hospitals  where  the  old  system  of  nurs- 
ing prevails  are  much  in  the  position,  with  regard  to  each  other,  of  head 
and  under  servants  in  a  large  household.  Does  not  a  kind  of  tacit 
understanding  exist  between  them  that  public  opinion  (represented  by 
masters  and  mistresses)  is  not  to  be  roused  on  certain  points  ?  I  ask, 
are  not  practices  and  experiments  indulged  in  by  the  medical  men,  and 
permitted  by  them  to  the  members  of  medical  schools  which  it  is  under- 
stood had  better  not  be  mentioned  beyond  the  walls  of  the  hospital  ? 
If,  however,  such  things  should  be  talked  of  by  the  class  of  women 
who  are  employed  as  nurses  under  the  old  system,  their  character  is 
such  that  little  credence  can  be  given  to  their  word;  besides  that, 
the  testimony  of  untrained  and  uneducated  persons  is  acknowledged 
to  be,  to  a  great  degree,  valueless.  I  trust  I  may  not  be  misunder- 
stood. There  is  no  profession  which  numbers  so  many  noble,  self- 
sacrificing  men  among  its  members  as  the  medical  profession,  and 
there  are  happily  many  men  in  its  ranks  who  would  scorn  to  practise 


1880.  THE  PRESENT  CRISIS  AT  GUY'S  HOSPITAL.  683 

in  a  hospital  what  they  would  not  consider  fair,  and  therefore  would 
not  venture  upon,  with  their  private  patients. 

But  further,  and  quite  apart  from  this,  there  can  be  no  manner  of 
doubt  that  a  kind  of  moral  restraint  is  exercised  upon  the  conduct  and 
general  behaviour  of  the  young  house  physicians  and  surgeons,  as  well  as 
upon  the  medical  students,  consciously  or  unconsciously  to  themselves, 
by  the  mere  presence  of  a  higher  class  of  women  as  nurses  in  the 
wards  of  hospitals.  Under  the  old  system,  doctors  and  students  alike 
were  at  no  trouble  to  consider  either  their  own  manners  or  the  feelings 

O 

of  the  nurses,  and  there  was  little  occasion.  They  became  accustomed, 
therefore,  to  behave  in  the  wards  exactly  as  their  natural  disposition 
prompted  them.  That  the  actual  results  of  such  liberty  are  not 
desirable,  either  for  nurses  or  patients,  may  easily  be  imagined. 
The  presence  of  refined,  intelligent  women  in  the  wards  imposes  a 
kind  of  moral  restraint  upon  the  words  and  ways  of  both  doctors 
and  students,  which  some  of  them  desire  to  get  rid  of,  and  I  have  no 
hesitation  in  saying  that  it  is  against  this,  as  much  as  anything  else,  that 
they  are  now,  at  Guy's  Hospital,  resisting  with  all  the  might  they 
possess.  Yet  this  unconscious  restraint  might  in  time  prove  powerful 
to  smooth  down  the  roughnesses  of  medical  students,  who  are,  as  a 
class,  universally  acknowledged  to  be  uncouth. 

As  regards  Guy's  Hospital  itself,  it  seems  desirable  to  add  a  few 
words  about  the  famous  Medical  School  attached  to  it,  because  the  visit- 
ing staff  have  founded  most  of  the  general  arguments  which  they  have 
placed  before  the  notice  of  the  Governors  on  the  ground  that  the  new 
system  of  nursing  is  calculated  to  interfere  with,  and  in  time  to 
destroy,  the  Medical  School.  It  ought  to  be  generally  known  that 
Guy's  Hospital  was  founded  solely  for  patients.  Although  the  doctors 
were  allowed  to  bring  their  private  pupils  to  study  there,  no  medical 
school  was  attached  to  it  until  some  forty  years  after  its  foundation, 
and  long  after  the  death  of  the  Founder.  Therefore,  it  would  seem 
that  the  welfare  of  the  patients,  and,  next  to  the  employment  of  the 
services  of  able  physicians  and  surgeons,  the  choice  of  the  best  nurses 
to  be  procured,  are  chiefly  incumbent  on  the  authorities.  Further,  if 
the  Medical  School  is  to  exist  (and  of  course  no  one  in  his  senses 
could  wish,  even  were  it  possible,  to  weaken,  much"  less  to  destroy,  an 
institution  of  such  vast  public  benefit),  it  ought  surely  to  be  subordi- 
nate to  the  comfort  and  due  consideration  of  the  patients,  and  not  to 
be  looked  upon,  as  it  now  is,  contrary  to  the  Founder's  intention,  as 
the  main  object  for  which  the  hospital  was  built.  '  Doctors  are  made 
for  the  sick,  not  the  sick  for  doctors.' 

The  mere  fact  of  the  presence  in  the  wards,  at  all  hours,  of  the 
members  of  the  Medical  School  is  often  a  hindrance  of  a  serious  kind 
to  the  nurse's  work.  Ought  not  every  care  to  be  taken  to  avoid  those 
unnecessary  annoyances  which  thoughtless  young  men  constantly  inflict 
upon  the  more  refined  class  of  nurses  ?  Ought  they  to  be  privileged 
to  investigate  at  their  own  pleasure  whatever  may  be  going  on  in 
the  wards  ?  to  go  behind  any  screen  without  even  the  form  of 


684  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  April 

courtesy  involved  in  asking  the  leave  of  the  officiating  nurse  ?  The 
medical  student  at  Ghiy's  Hospital  has  established  a  kind  of  right,  not 
only  to  enter  the  wards  where  he  is  employed,  when  and  how  he  pleases, 
but  to  give  orders  to  the  nurses.  He  looks  upon  them  as  mainly  there 
to  answer  his  questions,  to  prepare  his  dressings,  to  wait  upon  him 
while  he  performs  his  duties  to  the  patients,  and  finally,  to  set  to  rights 
any  disorder  and  to  clear  away  any  mess  that  he  may  choose  to  make 
in  the  performance  of  those  duties.  This  last-mentioned  task  is  by 
no  means  inconsiderable.  I  contend  that,  in  return  for  these  gratui- 
tous services,  he  ought  to  be  required  at  least  to  show  some  considera- 
tion for  the  nurses,  who  are  after  all,  according  to  the  original  intention 
of  the  Founder  of  the  hospital,  a  necessary  part  of  the  Institution,  while 
the  student  is  only  a  modern  addition  to  it. 

But  let  the  doctors  by  all  means  stand  up  for  the  right  of  supreme 
authority  in  their  own  department,  and  let  them,  in  the  interests  of 
their  patients,  resist  every  attempt  to  interfere  with  that  authority. 
It  is  a  real,  and  not  only  an  imaginary  danger,  that  highly-trained 
nurses  are  more  likely  to  be  tempted  to  overstep  the  true  limits  of 
their  position  than  were  the  old-fashioned  charwomen.  It  is  there- 
fore the  business  of  the  managers  in  each  hospital  to  secure,  by 
every  means  in  their  power  with  the  hearty  co-operation  of  their 
servant  the  matron,  that  the  doctors,  within  their  own  province, 
shall  always  remain  supreme. 

The  familiarity  which  proverbially  breeds  contempt  was  the  state 
of  things  existing  between  house  doctors  and  students  on  the  one 
hand,  and  sisters  and  nurses  on  the  other,  under  the  old  system. 
This  contributed  largely  to  the  low  tone  of  morality  for  which  the 
wards  were  remarkable.  If,  instead,  a  consistent  example  of  courtesy 
and  consideration  towards  the  sisters  and  nurses  were  set  by  the  doctors 
themselves,  the  Medical  School  would  speedily  follow  suit,  and  there 
could  then  be  no  reason  why  efficient  medical  and  nursing  schools 
should  interfere  with  one  another,  or  why  they  should  not  exist,  side 
by  side,  at  Guy's  or  at  any  other  hospital. 

These  matters,  though  they  are  undoubtedly  of  public  interest, 
have  hitherto  been  exclusively  discussed  in  the  medical  papers,  which 
are  not  read  by  the  public. 

But  a  general  movement  in  the  direction  of  a  thorough,  as  opposed 
to  a  superficial,  execution  of  the  offices  which  nurses  perform  for  the 
sick,  is  taking  place.  The  torrent  of  public  opinion  is  setting  in  the 
right  direction.  Able  and  scientific  physicians  and  surgeons  are 
gladly  steering  their  course  with  the  current,  which  is  rapidly  be- 
coming so  strong,  that  soon  it  will  be  no  longer  possible  for  anything 
to  make  head  against  the  stream.  In  fact  there  seems  to  be  every 
chance  that  those  who  try  to  remain  motionless  will  be  carried  along, 
whether  they  like  it  or  not  ;  whilst  those  who  still  try  to  force  their 
way 'against  the  flood  stand  a  fair  chance  of  being  swampeJ. 

MAIGARET  LONSDALE. 


1880.  685 


NATIVE  ARMIES  OF  INDIA. 

I. 

UPWARDS  of  fifty  years  since,  in  a  work  now  probably  little  known  or 
consulted,  but  still  of  great  interest  from  its  accurate  summary  of 
our  early  conquests  in  India,  and  from  the  wise  and  liberal  prin- 
ciples it  inculcates  as  to  our  dealings  with  the  natives,  Sir  John 
Malcolm  wrote  as  follows : — 

The  great  Empire  which  England  has  established  in  the  East  will  be  the  theme 
of  wonder  to  succeeding  ages.  That  a  small  island  in  the  Atlantic  should  have 
conquered  and  held  the  vast  continent  of  India  as  a  subject  province,  is  in  itself  a 
fact  which  can  never  be  stated  without  exciting  astonishment.  But  that  astonish- 
ment will  be  increased  when  it  is  added  that  this  great  conquest  was  made,  not  by 
the  collective  force  of  the  nation,  but  by  a  company  of  merchants,  who,  originally 
vested  with  a  charter  of  exclusive  commerce,  and  with  the  privilege  and  right  to 
protect  their  property  by  arms,  in  a  few  years  actually  found  themselves  called 
upon  to  act  in  the  character  of  sovereigns  over  extended  kingdoms  before  they  had 
ceased  to  be  the  mercantile  directors  of  petty  factories.1 

Sir  John  goes  on  to  show  that  our  rapid  progress  was  due  in  a 
great  measure  to  two  leading  causes  :  one,  that  coming  originally  as 
unpretending  traders  we  disarmed  suspicion,  and  were  indeed  wel- 
comed by  the  natives ;  the  other,  that  the  gradual  rise  of  our  power 
was  coincident  with  the  decline  of  the  Mogul  Empire. 

One  of  the  earliest  measures  taken  to  strengthen  our  position  and 
protect  our  interests  was  the  raising  of  Sepoy  battalions  after  the 
example  of  the  French  ;  and  before  we  proceed  to  consider  the  present 
organisation  and  military  value  of  our  native  armies,  it  will  be  inte- 
resting to  study  their  early  history,  and  to  ascertain  the  principles 
which  guided  us  in  their  original  formation. 

Sir  John  Kaye  remarks  : — 

Our  first  Sepoy  levies  were  raised  in  the  southern  peninsula,  when  the  English 
and  the  French  powers  were  contending  for  the  dominant  influence  in  that  part  of 
the  country.  They  were  few  in  number,  and  at  the  outset  commonly  held  in 
reserve  to  support  our  European  fighting  men.  But  little  by  little  they  proved 
that  they  were  worthy  to  be  entrusted  with  higher  duties;  and,  once  trusted, 
they  went  boldly  to  the  front.  Under  native  commandants,  for  the  most  part 

1  The  Political  History  of  India.  By  Major-General  Sir  John  Malcolm,  K.C.B. 
(John  Murray,  1826.) 

VOL.  VII.— No.  38.  Z  Z 


686  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  April 

Mahometans,  or  high-caste  Rajpoot  Hindoos,  but  disciplined  and  directed  by  the 
English  captains,  their  pride  was  flattered  and  their  energies  stimulated  by  the 
victories  they  gained.  How  they  fought  in  the  attack  of  Madura,  how  they  fought 
in  the  defence  of  Arcot,  how  they  crossed  bayonets,  foot  to  foot,  with  the  best 
French  troops  at  Cuddalore,  historians  have  delighted  to  tell.  All  the  power  and 
all  the  responsibility,  all  the  honours  and  rewards,  were  not  then  monopolised  by 
the  English  captains.  Large  bodies  of  troops  were  sometimes  despatched  on 
hazardous  enterprises  under  the  independent  command  of  a  native  leader ;  and  it 
was  not  thought  an  offence  to  a  European  soldier  to  send  him  to  fight  under  a 
black  commandant.  That  black  commandant  was  then  a  great  man,  in  spite  of  his 
colour.  He  rode  on  horseback  at  the  head  of  his  men,  and  a  mounted  staff  officer, 
a  native  adjutant,  carried  his  commands  to  the  subadars  of  the  respective  com- 
panies. And  a  brave  man  or  a  skilful  leader  was  honoured  for  his  bravery  or  his 
skill  as  much  under  the  folds  of  a  turban  as  under  a  round  hat.2 

Malcolm,  in  his  description  of  the  early  levies,  says :  '  A  jacket  of 
English  broadcloth,  made  up  in  the  shape  of  his  own  dress,  the 
knowledge  of  his  manual  exercise  and  a  few  military  evolutions,  con- 
stituted the  original  Sepoy.'  He  goes  on  to  tell  us  that  the  only 
English  officers  were  a  captain  and  adjutant  per  battalion;  that  the 
native  officers  were  treated  with  great  kindness  and  consideration, 
were  often  in  high  command,  and  that  many  of  the  oldest  battalions 
of  the  army  were  known,  down  to  the  period  when  he  wrote,  by  the 
names  of  their  former  native  commandants. 

The  Rev.  Mr.  Grleig,  in  a  remarkable  article  in  the  Edinburgh 
Review,  written  in  1853,3  to  which  I  shall  have  to  refer  again, 
says : — 

The  original  native  army  consisted  chiefly  of  infantry,  who,  though  drilled  after 
European  fashion,  worked  both  in  peace  and  war  under  chiefs  connected  with  the 
men  by  ties  of  consanguinity  and  friendship.  Occasionally,  indeed,  though  not 
always,  there  was  attached  to  a  battalion  a  European  officer  well  versed  in  the 
native  language,  and  capable  of  appreciating  the  native  character.  But  his  duties 
were  rather  those  of  a  commissioner  or  field  deputy,  than  of  a  commandant. 

The  late  Lord  Ellenborough  wrote : 4 — 

I  can  recollect  the  late  Duke  of  Wellington  speaking  to  me  once,  as  I  thought, 
with  approval,  of  the  practice  formerly  prevailing  in  the  Madras  army  of  having 
what  he  termed  a  '  black  commandant.'  This  commandant  was  of  course  a  sub- 
ordinate to  the  European  commanding  officer  of  the  regiment ;  but  his  allowance 
was  very  large,  and,  as  I  understood,  he  must  have  had.  the  substantive  rank  of 
major,  and  could  in  no  case  be  commanded  by  a  captain ;  but  I  have  never  in- 
vestigated the  subject,  and  do  not  know  how  the  system  was  introduced,  or  why 
it  was  abandoned.  Probably  the  '  black  commandant '  was  a  gentleman  of  large 
property,  who  raised  the  regiment. 

The  above  quotations  will  convey  a  general  idea  of  the  principles 
on  which  our  early  levies  were  raised ;  and  I  propose  throughout  this 

2  Kayo's  Sepoy  War. 

3  '  India  and  its  Army.'    Edin'bwrgJi  Review,  1853. 

4  '  Organisation  of  the  Indian  Army.'     Parliamentary  Papers,  18o!\ 


1880.  NATIVE  ARMIES  OF  INDIA.  687 

paper  to  quote  freely  the  opinions  of  various  high  authorities,  as  being 
of  more  interest  and  as  carrying  greater  weight  than  a  mere  historical 
narrative  of  the  rise  and  progress  of  our  Indian  armies. 

It  will  be  observed  that  in  the  primary  organisation  of  our  native 
battalions  we  acted  on  the  principle  that,  whilst  they  would  be 
strengthened  by  drill,  discipline,  and  the  knowledge  of  European 
tactics,  their  leaders  for  the  most  part  should  be  men  of  their  own 
race,  language,  religion,  and  habits.  We  merely  imported,  as  it 
were,  a  superior  knowledge  of  the  art  of  war,  and  gave  the  cohesion 
of  discipline  to  their  irregular  masses ;  but,  whilst  retaining  in 
our  hands  the  paramount  power,  carefully  refrained  from  putting 
forward  alien  leaders  in  large  numbers  to  native  levies;  and  it  is 
essential  to  bear  in  mind  that  under  this  system  our  Sepoy  battalions 
fought  with  marvellous  success,  and  contributed  in  a  great  measure 
to  the  solid  foundation  of  our  Indian  Empire.  As  Sir  Henry  Law- 
rence wrote  in  1 844— '  dive's,  Lawrence's,  and  Coote's  battalions 
had  seldom  with  them  more  than  three  or  four  officers,  and  yet 
the  deeds  of  those  days  are  not  surpassed  by  those  of  the 
present.' 5 

But  we  must  pass  on  to  the  next  stage.  Unfortunately,  the 
simple  and  liberal  principles  of  our  early  days  did  not  long  prevail  in 
their  pristine  integrity.  They  were  predestined  perhaps  to  gradual 
decay,  under  the  influx  of  English  ideas  and  prejudices.  As  our 
dominion  extended,  the  European  element  increased,  and  almost 
insensibly,  as  the  responsibilities  became  greater  and  warfare  more 
scientific,  it  seemed  to  follow  that  a  larger  proportion  of  English 
officers  should  be  added  to  our  native  battalions.  The  very  same 
arguments  prevailed  at  that  time  as  are  so  often  put  forward  now, 
that  natives,  though  brave,  are  liable  to  panic,  and  cannot  be 
thoroughly  relied  upon  unless  closely  associated  with  Europeans 
and  led  by  English  officers ;  that  they  are,  as  it  were,  men  of  inferior 
races,  who  must  always  be  watched  rather  than  trusted.  The  assump- 
tion is  so  easy,  and  so  flattering  to  our  pride,  that  then  as  now 
it  almost  naturally  received  a  general  consent.  The  subtle  dangers 
which  underlie  such  false  principles,  the  evils  which  are  almost  sure 
to  follow  the  constant  assertion  of  natural  superiority  of  an  alien  race 
over  those  of  the  country,  were  only  perceived  by  a  few,  and  their 
words  of  warning  were  little  listened  to  amidst  the  rapid  campaigns 
by  which  year  after  year  our  conquests  in  India  were  completed.  But 
it  is  well  to  know  that  there  were  statesmen  who  from  the  first  gave 
warning  of  the  dangers  ahead — who  perceived  that  whilst  our  native 
armies  were  gradually  increasing  in  numbers,  they  were  declining  in 

5  Essays.  By  Sir  Henry  Lawrence,  K.C.B.  See  also  instances,  given  by  Lord 
Napier  of  Magdala,  of  the  brilliant  services  performed  in  years  gone  by,  by  native 
regiments  with  very  few  English  officers  ('Organisation  of  the  Native  Army,'  1877, 
p.  56). 

zz  2 


688  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  April 

military  virtues,  and  in  devotion  to  the  ruling  power — and  whose 
opinions  are  more  than  ever  important  in  the  present  day. 

A  careful  consideration  of  the  question  will  moreover  soon  prove 
that  it  is  not  a  simple  matter  of  regimental  arrangement,  or  a  mere 
difference  of  opinion  as  to  how  many  English  officers  can  usefully  be 
employed  with  a  native  battalion.  The  real  point  at  issue  lies  far 
deeper.  It  involves  the  whole  question  of  alien  government ;  and 
although  the  extraordinary  position  we  hold  in  India,  and  the  events 
by  which  it  has  been  achieved,  may  be  to-  us  matters  of  legitimate 
pride,  our  power  can  never  rest  secure  upon  assertions  of  our  natural 
capacity  as  leaders  ;  its  only  solid  foundation  depends  on  the  justice 
of  our  rule,  on  consideration  for  the  natives,  and  perhaps,  more  than 
all,  on  our  giving  them  opportunities  of  rising  to  distinction,  and  to 
high  positions  both  civil  and  military  in  their  own  country. 

Malcolm,  in  his  History,  after  dwelling  on  the  efficiency  of  our 
early  native  corps,  goes  on  to  relate  that  their  constitution  was  gradu- 
ally changed  by  the  increase  of  European  officers,  involving  alterations 
of  dress,  more  rigid  rules,  and  with  so-called  improvements  in  disci- 
pline; until  at  length,  in  1796,  they  were  organised  like  the  King's 
regiments,  with  a  full  complement  of  officers,  and  with  the  expectation 
of  greatly  increased  efficiency,  an  expectation  which  was  never  ful- 
filled. The  German  school  of  tactics  prevailed  at  the  time,  and  the 
native  battalions,  fully  officered,  were  drilled,  clothed,  and  trained, 
until  they  became  in  external  appearance  and  in  reality  bad  imitations 
of  English  regiments. 

The  principles  which  had  led  to  the  formation  of  our  early  levies 
were  thus  apparently  forgotten.  The  native  officers,  badly  paid,  little 
trusted,  and  without  prospects  of  promotion,  became  old,  apathetic, 
and  useless,  and  were  no  longer  treated  with  either  consideration  or 
respect. 

As  Sir  John  Malcolm  wrote  in  1826  :  '  In  the  native  army,  as  it 
is  at  present  constituted,  no  native  can  rise  to  the  enjoyment  of  any 
military  command :  that  is,  he  cannot,  unless  in  extraordinary  cases, 
when  the  European  officers  are  sick  or  absent,  expect  to  have  under 
his  own  orders  a  body  of  more  than  thirty  or  forty  men.' 

Mr.  Gleig  said : — 

The  first  marked  change  in  the  organisation  of  the  native  army  occurred  in  the 
year  1766,  when  all  the  battalions  were  raised  to  a  uniform  strength  of  a  thousand 
men  apiece,  and  had  permanently  attached  to  each  of  them  one  European  captain, 
with  two  European  lieutenants.  The  duties  of  these  gentlemen,  however,  scarcely, 
if  at  all,  interfered  with  those  of  the  native  officers.  The  captain  became  to  his 
battalion  what  the  brigadier  used  to  be  to  his  brigade.  He  gave  orders  through 
his  European  adjutants  in  the  field  and  in  quarters,  which  the  native  commandants 
carried  into  effect.  But  with  respect  to  the  internal  economy  of  the  battalion,  that 
was  still  conducted  under  the  native  commandant,  by  one  subadar,  or  native 
captain,  with  three  jemadars  or  native  lieutenants  in  each  company.  Hence, 
though  European  superintendence  might  be  more  widely  diffused,  it  was  nowhere 
exercised  so  as  to  lower  the  position  or  wound  the  feelings  of  the  r.ative  officers. 


1880.  NATIVE  ARMIES  OF  INDIA.  689 

They  still  felt  that  their  rank  in  society  was  an   elevated  one,  and  were  still 
regarded  by  the  non-commissioned  officers  and  men  as  their  natural  supeiiors. 

It  is  worthy  of  remark,  that  so  long  as  the  native  armies  retained  this  consti- 
tution the  battalions  got  their  officers  from  the  native  gentry  of  the  provinces,  all 
of  whom  entered  the  service  as  privates,  though  they  rarely  continued  in  that 
grade  more  than  two  or  three  years  at  the  most.  These  brought  with  them  their 
retainers,  every  man  born  and  reared  on  their  own  lands,  &c. 

Mr.  Grleig  goes  on  to  show  that  the  English  element  gradually 
increased  until  1784,  when  a  European  subaltern  was  allotted  to  com- 
mand each  company,  and  he  says : — 

Though  the  subalterns  thus  disposed  of  were  carefully  selected,  and  the 
feelings  of  the  subadars  spared  as  much  as  possible,  the  native  gentleman  could  no 
longer  disguise  from  himself  or  from  his  men  that  his  shadow  was  growing  less. 
He  supported  himself,  however,  tolerably  well  till  the  tide  which  had  begun  to  set 
in  against  him  acquired  greater  force.  In  1790,  and  again  in  1796,  the  European 
element  became  still  stronger,  and  then,  and  not  till  then,  the  spirit  of  the  native 
sank  within  him. 

Mr.  Gleig's  article,  written,  be  it  borne  in  mind,  in  1853,  shortly 
before  the  Mutiny,  concludes  as  follows : — 

We  have  won  an  enormous  empire  with  the  sword,  which  is  growing  continually 
larger.  We  have  established  a  system  of  civil  administration  there  which  protects 
the  peasant  and  disgusts  all  the  classes  above  him.  If  we  could  exterminate  these 
classes  or  stop  education,  and  reduce  120,000,000  of  people  to  the  social  condition 
of  cultivators  of  the  soil,  then  with  our  army  even  weaker  in  point  of  numbers  than 
it  is,  we  might  be  safe ;  for  it  is  not  among  the  peasant  classes  in  any  country 
that  seditions  and  rebellions  originate.  But  this  we  cannot  do  ;  and  with  a  large 
body  of  discontented  gentry  everywhere,  and  whole  clusters  of  native  princes  and1 
chiefs  interspersed  through  our  dominions,  it  is  idle  to  say  that  the  continuance  of 
our  sovereignty  depends  from  one  day  to  another  on  anything  except  the  army. 
Now,  the  army  is  admitted  by  all  competent  judges  to  be  very  far  in  many  respects 
from  what  it  ought  to  be. 

Sir  John  Kaye,  in  his  History  of  the  Sepoy  War,  discusses  at  some 
length  the  principles  on  which  our  native  armies  were  founded,  and 
clearly  depicts  their  gradual  decline.  He  says : — 

The  founders  of  the  native  army  had  conceived  the  idea  of  a  force  recruited 
from  among  the  people  of  the  country,  and  commanded  for  the  most  part  by  men 
of  their  own  race,  but  of  higher  social  position, — men,  in  a  word,  of  the  master 
class,  accustomed  to  exact  obedience  from  their  inferiors.  But  it  was  the  inevi- 
table tendency  of  our  increasing  power  in  India  to  oust  the  native  functionary 
from  his  seat  or  to  lift  him  from  his  saddle,  that  the  white  man  might  fix  himself 
there,  with  all  the  remarkable  tenacity  of  his  race.  ...  So  it  happened  in  due 
course  that  the  native  officers,  who  had  exercised  real  authority  in  their  battalions, 
who  had  enjoyed  opportunities  of  personal  distinction,  who  had  felt  an  honourable 
pride  in  their  position,  were  pushed  aside  by  an  incursion  of  English  gentlemen, 
who  took  all  the  substantive  power  into  their  hands  and  left  scarcely  more  than 
the  shadow  of  rank  to  the  men  whom  they  had  supplanted.  A.n  English  subaltern 
was  appointed  to  every  company,  and  the  native  officer  then  began  to  collapse  into 
something  little  better  than  a  name. 

As  the  degradation  of  the  native  officer  was  thus  accomplished,  the  whole 
character  of  the  Sepoy  army  was  changed.  It  ceased  to  be  a  profession  in  which 
men  of  high  position,  accustomed  to  command  might  satisfy  the  aspirations  and 


690  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  April 

expend  the  energies  of  their  lives.  All  distinctions  were  effaced.  The  native 
service  ot  the  Company  came  down  to  a  dead  level  of  common  soldiering,  and 
rising  from  the  ranks  by  a  painfully  slow  process  to  merely  nominal  command. 
There  was  employment  for  the  many ;  there  was  no  longer  a  career  for  the  few. 
Thenceforth,  therefore,  we  dug  out  the  materials  for  our  army  from  the  lower 
strata  of  society,  and  the  gentry  of  the  land,  seeking  military  service,  carried  their 
ambitions  beyond  the  red  line  of  the  British  frontier,  and  offered  their  swords  to 
the  princes  of  the  native  states. 

But  there  is  an  authority  greater  perhaps  than  any  of  those  yet 
quoted  ;  one  who,  year  after  year,  before  the  Mutiny,  urged  that  we 
should  give  openings  to  the  natives  and  enable  them  to  rise  to  power 
civil  and  military  ;  and  who  prophesied  that  unless  this  were  done 
our  system  must  collapse  either  in  a  mutiny  or  in  general  despair. 
That  authority  is  Sir  Henry  Lawrence,  who  fell  at  his  post  in  the 
Residency  of  Lucknow,  killed  by  the  mutineers  in  the  very  crisis 
which  he  had  so  often,  as  it  were,  foretold.  Writing  in  1855,6  he 
pointed  out  that  the  natives  had  no  outlet  for  their  talents  and 
ambition  as  of  old,  and  said  : — 

Those  outlets  for  restlessness  and  ability  are  gone ;  others  are  closing.  It 
behoves  us  therefore,  now  more  than  ever,  to  give  legitimate  rewards,  and,  as  far 
as  practicable,  employment,  to  the  energetic  few — to  that  leaven  that  is  in  every 
lump — the  leaven  that  may  secure  our  empire,  or  may  disturb,  nay,  even  destroy  it. 

Again  he  says  : — 

Legitimate  outlets  for. military  energy  and  ability  in  all  ranks,  and  among  all 
classes,  must  be  given.  The  minds  of  subadars  and  resseldars,  sepoys  and 
sowars,  can  no  more  with  safety  be  for  ever  cramped,  trammelled,  and  restricted, 
as  at  present,  than  can  a  twenty  foot  embankment  restrain  the  Atlantic.  It  is 
simply  a  question  of  time.  The  question  is  only  whether  justice  is  to  be  gracefully 
conceded  or  violently  seized.  Ten  or  twenty  years  must  settle  the  point. 

It  will  be  interesting  now  to  quote  some  of  the  opinions  of 
General  Sir  Thomas  Munro,  an  officer  who,  entering  the  Madras 
service  of  the  East  India  Company  as  a  cadet  in  1780,  by  dint  of 
his  own  genius  and  integrity  rose  to  the  highest  station  in  the 
Presidency — an  officer  of  whom  Mr.  Canning  declared,  '  Europe  never 
produced  a  more  accomplished  statesman;  nor  India,  so  fertile  in 
heroes,  a  more  skilful  soldier.' 

Writing  to  the  Governor-General  of  India,  in  1817,  on  the  general 
effects  of  our  policy,  and  on  the  degradation  of  the  natives,7  he  says : — 

The  strength  of  the  British  government  enables  it  to  put  down  every  rebellion, 
to  repel  every  foreign  invasion,  and  to  give  to  its  subjects  a  degree  of  protection 
which  those  of  no  native  power  enjoy.  Its  laws  and  institutions  also  afford  them 
a  security  from  domestic  oppression  unknown  in  those  states ;  but  these  advantages 
are  dearly  bought.  They  are  purchased  by  the  sacrifice  of  independence  of 
national  character  and  of  whatever  renders  a  people  respectable.  The  natives  of 
the  British  provinces  may  without  fear  pursue  their  different  occupations  as 

«  Essays.     By  Sir  Henry  Lawrence,  Bart.,  K.C.B.,  1859. 
7  Gleig's  Life  of  Sir  T.  Munro,  Bart.,  K.C.B. 


1880.  NATIVE  ARMIES  OF  INDIA.  691 

traders,  meerassidars,  or  husbandmen,  and  enjoy  the  fruits  of  their  labours  in  tran- 
quillity ;  but  none  of  them  can  aspire  to  anything  beyond  this  mere  animal  state  of 
thriving  in  peace ;  none  of  them  can  look  forward  to  any  share  in  the  legislation  or 
civil  or  military  government  of  their  country. 

It  is  from  men  who  either  hold,  or  are  eligible  to  public  office,  that  natives 
take  their  character :  where  no  such  men  exist,  there  can  be  no  energy  in  any 
other  class  of  the  community.  The  effect  of  this  state  of  things  is  observable  in  all 
the  British  provinces,  whose  inhabitants  are  certainly  the  most  abject  race  in  India. 
No  elevation  of  character  can  be  expected  among  men  who,  in  the  military  line, 
cannot  attain  to  any  rank  above  that  of  subadar,  where  they  are  as  much  below  an 
ensign  as  an  ensign  is  below  the  commander-in-chief,  and  who  in  the  civil  line  can 
hope  for  nothing  beyond  some  petty  judicial  or  revenue  office,  in  which  they  may 
by  corrupt  means  make  up  for  their  slender  salary, 

The  consequence,  therefore,  of  the  conquest  of  India  by  the  British  arms 
would  be,  in  place  of  raising,  to  debase  the  whole  people.  There  is  perhaps  no 
example  of  any  conquest  in  which  the  natives  have  been  so  completely  excluded 
from  all  share  of  the  government  of  their  country  as  in  British  India. 

Again,  in  1824: — 

With  what  grace  can  we  talk  of  our  paternal  government,  if  we  exclude  them 
from  every  important  office,  and  say,  as  we  did  till  very  lately,  that  in  a  country 
containing  150,000,000  of  inhabitants  no  man  but  a  European  shall  be  trusted  with 
so  much  authority  as  to  order  the  punishment  of  a  single  stroke  of  a  rattan  ?  Such 
an  interdiction  is  to  pass  a  sentence  of  degradation  on  a  whole  people  for  which  no 
benefit  can  ever  compensate. 

There  is  no  instance  in  the  world  of  so  humiliating  a  sentence  having  ever  been 
passed  upon  any  nation.  ...  It  would  certainly  be  more  desirable  that  we  should 
be  expelled  from  the  country  altogether,  than  that  the  result  of  our  system  of 
government  should  be  such  a  debasement  of  a  whole  people. 


II. 

The  evil  effects  caused  by  erroneous  principles  in  the  military 
organisation  of  an  army  are  often  slow  in  their  development,  and 
the  native  troops  in  India  assisted  in  achieving  many  a  triumph,  and 
contributed  greatly  to  the  establishment  of  our  rule  in  the  country, 
ere  their  radically  unsound  condition  finally  betrayed  itself.  Their 
defects,  it  is  true,  sometimes  suddenly  glared  out,  and  ugly  symptoms 
of  disaffection  manifested  themselves  from  time  to  time  ;  and  even 
in  military  prowess  the  native  legions  latterly  did  not  always  excel ; 
nevertheless,  more  than  half  the  present  century  had  passed  away 
ere  the  actual  crisis  arrived,  when  the  greater  part  of  the  Bengal  army 
violently  dissolved  itself,  and  our  power  was  for  the  time  almost 
subverted  by  a  gigantic  military  revolt.  There  is  nothing  really 
inconsistent  in  such  a  career  so  abruptly  closed  by  a  tragic  disso- 
lution. The  armies  of  India  had  been  almost  constantly  employed 
in  the  field  ;  the  love  of  fighting,  the  very  looting  and  prize  money, 
all  served  to  attract  the  natives  to  our  standards.  The  successful  re- 
sults of  the  various  campaigns  not  only  added  lustre  to  our  arms,  but 
tended  for  the  time  to  hide  the  radical  defects  into  which  our  military 
organisation  had  gradually  and  almost  insensibly  fallen. 


692  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  April 

Brigadier-General  Sir  Charles  Brownlow,  speaking  of  the  Bengal 
army  as  it  existed  before  the  Mutiny,  said  that  '  the  records  of  the 
last  thirty  years  of  its  existence  are  not  devoid  of  glory,  but  disaffec- 
tion and  misbehaviour  disfigure  every  page  of  it  more  or  less.' 8 

In  the  meantime,  however,  and  before  the  crisis  came,  certain 
changes  of  importance  had  been  gradually  brought  about  in  the 
officering  and  arrangements  of  our  native  battalions  to  which  it 
will  be  convenient  now  to  advert.  Owing  to  the  large  number  of 
English  officers  appointed  to  native  regiments,  it  was  soon  found 
that  they  had  not  sufficient  duties,  at  all  events  in  times  of  peace. 
At  the  same  time  the  rapid  extension  of  our  territories  led  to  the 
creation  of  numerous  appointments,  to  fill  which  the  officers  of  the 
army  offered  an  apparently  inexhaustible  reserve.  These  appoint- 
ments were  of  a  very  varied  character — either  political,  semi-mili- 
tary, or  connected  with  the  civil  administration  of  the  country ; 
and  being  for  the  most  part  well  paid,  and  likely  to  lead  to  dis- 
tinction, it  was  only  natural  that  they  should  be  sought  after ;  so 
much  so,  that  a  very  general  feeling  prevailed  that  a  regimental 
position  was  a  mere  stepping-stone  to  something  better  ;  and  but 
few  officers  remained  of  their  own  free  will  permanently  with 
their  corps.  Indeed  the  authorities  took  much  the  same  view,  and 
rather  inculcated  the  doctrine  that  staff  employ  was  the  legitimate 
ground  of  rising  talent.  It  does  not  seem  to  have  been  fully  per- 
ceived that  to  entice  away  the  best  English  officers  in  succession  from 
their  corps  by  the  prospect  of  high  position  and  lucrative  civil  or 
other  employ  must,  if  carried  out  on  an  extensive  scale,  exercise  a 
deteriorating  effect  on  the  morale  of  the  army  from  which  they  were 
taken.  The  system  indeed  was  carried  so  far,  that  in  cases  of  failure 
or  misconduct,  officers  in  civil  or  staff  employ  were  remanded  ta 
their  corps  as  a  punishment,  thus  treating  the  army  not  only  as  a 
depot,  but  as  a  refuge  for  the  incapable.  It  was  formerly  a  favourite 
argument,  and  one  not  yet  obsolete,  that  what  was  called  mere 
regimental  routine  required  little  energy  or  talent,  but  rather  tended 
to  cramp  the  intellect — that  to  give  officers  civil  duties  in  peace,  by 
developing  their  powers,  served  to  render  them  more  efficient  in  time 
of  war.  But  those  who  argue  in  this  way  know  little  of  the  great 
principles  by  which  an  army  is  maintained  in  its  pride  and  efficiency., 
They  forget  that  whilst  to  lead  and  command  men  is  the  most  inte- 
resting and  most  ennobling  of  professions,  so  also  it  is  the  most 
difficult,  and  that  distinction  can  only  be  acquired  by  true  devotion, 
by  long  practical  experience,  and  by  careful  study  of  the  individual 
characters  of  soldiers. 

Sir  John  Kaye  speaks  very  plainly  on  the  fatal  effect  of  the  policy 
above  described.     He  says : — 

•  '  Organisation  of  the  Native  Army.'     Parliamentary  Papers,  1877. 


1880.  NATIVE  ARMIES  OF  INDIA.  693 

While  these  influences  were  sensibly  weakening  the  attachment  which  had 
existed  between  the  native  soldier  and  the  English  officer,  another  deteriorating 
agent  was  at  work  with  still  more  fatal  effect.  The  Staff  was  carrying  off  all  the 
best  officers  and  unsettling  the  rest.  As  the  red  line  of  British  empire  extended 
itself  round  new  provinces,  and  the  administrative  business  of  the  State  was  thus 
largely  increased,  there  was  a  demand  for  more  workmen  than  the  Civil  Service 
could  supply,  and  the  military  establishment  of  the  Company  was,  therefore, 
indented  upon  for  officers  to  fill  the  numerous  civil  and  political  posts,  thus  opened 
out  before  them.  Extensive  surveys  were  to  be  conducted,  great  public  works 
were  to  be  executed,  new  irregular  regiments  were  to  be  raised,  and  territories  not 
made  subject  to  the  '  Regulations '  were,  for  the  most  part,  to  be  administered  by 
military  men.  More  lucrative,  and  held  to  be  more  honourable,  than  regimental 
duty,  these  appointments  were  eagerly  coveted  by  the  officers  of  the  Company's 
army.  The  temptation,  indeed,  was  great.  The  means  of  marrying,  of  providing 
for  a  family,  of  securing  a  retreat  to  Europe  before  enfeebled  by  years  or  broken 
down  by  disease,  were  presented  to  the  officer  by  this  detached  employment.  And 
if  these  natural  feelings  were  not  paramount,  there  was  the  strong  incentive  of 
ambition,  or  the  purer  desire  to  enter  upon  a  career  of  more  active  utility.  The 
number  of  officers  with  a  regiment  was  thus  reduced  ;  but  numbers  are  not 
strength,  and  still  fewer  might  have  sufficed,  if  they  had  been  a  chosen  few.  But 
of  those  who  remained,  some  lived  in  a  state  of  restless  expectancy,  others  were 
sunk  in  sullen  despair.  It  was  not  easy  to  find  a  Sepoy  officer,  pure  and  simple, 
with  no  aspirations  beyond  his  regiment,  cheerful,  content,  indeed  proud  of  his 
position.  All  that  was  gone.  The  officer  ceased  to  rejoice  in  his  work,  and  the 
men  saw  his  heart  was  not  with  them. 

The  Government  of  India  had  indeed  ample  warning  from  compe- 
tent authority,  long  before  the  Mutiny,  of  the  evil  effects  of  constantly 
withdrawing  officers  from  their  military  duties.  For  instance : 
General  Sir  Edward  Paget,  Commander-in-Chief  in  India,  writing  in 
1826  on  the  circumstances  connected  with  a  mutiny  at  Barrackpore, 
pointed  out  that  an  immense  mass  of  the  English  infantry  officers 
were  constantly  absent  from  their  regimental  duties,  engaged  on  civil, 
political,  or  other  staff  employ  ;  and  he  adds  :  9 — 

What  makes  the  fact  more  palpably  mischievous  is,  that  for  the  most  part  these 
officers  are,  from  character  and  talent,  the  best  that  can  be  selected  from  theii 
corps.  The  consequence  of  this  deplorable  system  is,  that  the  regiments  are  left  to 
the  management  and  direction  of  old  gentlemen  without  energy,  and  children 
without  instruction  or  experience,  all  hungry  and  thirsty  for  any  employment 
which  will  exempt  them  from  the  performance  of  the  duties  of  a  battalion.  .  .  . 
The  time  was  that  the  Sepoy  looked  up  to  the  European  officer  as  to  a  being  of  a 
superior  nature,  and  the  privilege  of  entering  into  our  service  was  considered  an 
honour  and  distinction.  Wofully  indeed  have  our  thirst  for  civil  institutions  and 
predilections  for  British  customs  and  fashions  changed  the  nature  of  the  relation 
between  the  European  officer  and  the  Sepoy. 

General  Sir  Henry  Fane,  Commander-in-Chief  in  India  in  1836, 
pointed  out  in  forcible  terms  the  objectionable  system  which  prevailed 
of  constantly  withdrawing  officers  from  their  regiments  for  civil  or 
other  employ,  not  only  without  the  sanction  of  the  military  authori- 

9  '  Organisation  of  the  Native  Army,'  1877,  p.  68. 


694  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY.  April 

ties,  but  often  in  defiance  of  their  opinions,  and  that  the  discipline  of 
the  army  was  thus  injuriously  affected.10 

Lieutenant-General  Sir  Patrick  Grant,  in  1858,  was  equally  em- 
phatic on  the  subject,  and  said  : — 

Officers  must  be  taught  to  look  upon  their  regiments  as  their  home,  and  not  to 
fix  their  whole  thoughts,  as  they  now  do,  on  devising  means  of  getting  away  to 
staff  or  other  detached  employment.  Anything  rather  than  regimental  duty  is  the 
universal  feeling.  The  consequences  of  this  craving  are — utter  indifference,  not  to 
say  positive  dislike,  towards  their  men,  and  the  engendering  of  a  restless,  discon- 
tented disposition,  which  is,  I  doubt  not,  communicated  to  the  soldiers.11 

A  reference  to  the  Bengal  Army  List  of  July  1857  (just  after  the 
Mutiny  commenced)  shows  that  every  native  infantry  regiment  had 
the  greater  proportion  of  its  English  officers  absent ;  whilst  in  many 
cases,  out  of  twenty-three  officers,  fifteen  or  sixteen  were  either  in 
civil  or  military  staff  employ  or  on  leave;  and  of  those  remaining 
young  ensigns  formed  a  large  proportion. 

The  curious  inconsistencies  which  successively  prevailed  in  the 
officering  of  our  native  battalions  are  certainly  remarkable.  Whilst, 
in  the  original  formation,  the  system  was  merely  to  give  a  native 
battalion  one  or  two  English  leaders,  under  which  arrangement  they 
fought  admirably,  in  the  next  era  a  supposed  necessity  arose  for 
flooding  them,  as  it  were,  with  English  officers,  whereby  their  virtues 
languished  and  their  devotion  faded  away.  This  plan  was  again 
succeeded  by  a  gradual  withdrawal  of  nearly  all  the  best  regimental 
officers  for  other  employ,  so  that  the  unfortunate  natives  at  length 
found  themselves  deserted  by  the  majority  of  their  English  leaders, 
whilst  their  native  officers  were  old,  useless,  and  deprived  of  all  real 
power. 

It  may  appear  almost  unnecessary  to  dwell  at  such  length  upon 
this  part  of  the  question,  or  to  enter  so  minutely  into  the  causes 
which  led  to  the  gradual  decline  and  ultimate  reorganisation  of  the 
native  armies  in  India.  It  is,  however,  important  to  point  out  that, 
notwithstanding  the  bitter  experience  of  the  past,  and  the  reiterated 
opinions  of  the  highest  military  authorities  on  the  subject,  both 
before  and  after  the  Mutiny,  the  Government  of  India  has  even  in 
very  recent  days  overruled  the  Commander-in-Chief  as  regards  the 
removal  of  officers,  and  has  laid  down  principles  which,  if  insisted 
on,  will  go  far  to  reproduce  the  original  defects.  In  July  1869, 
the  late  Lord  Sandhurst,  then  Commander-in-Chief  in  India,  brought 
the  subject  forward,  and  Lord  Napier  in  1870  followed  it  up,  and 
in  a  masterly  minute  pointed  out  the  various  evils  of  the  whole 
system,  aud  said  that  he  '  could  not  forget  that  the  withdrawal  of 
officers  from  regiments  for  staff  employ,  and  the  decline  of  the  in- 

10  '  Organisation  of  the  Native  Army,'  1877. 

11  *  Organisation  of  the  Indian  Army,'  1859.     The  late  General  Sir  Sidney  Cotton 
expressed  similar  views  in  1858. 


1880.  NATIVE  ARMIES  OF  INDIA.  695 

terest  of  officers  in  their  military  duties,  caused  by  their  being  led 
to  look  to  civil  employment,  was  prominently  brought  forward  in  the 
Parliamentary  inquiry  as  one  of  the  causes  leading  to  the  Mutiny.' 12 
The  reply  of  the  Government  of  India,  dated  September  1870, 
may  be  found  at  length  in  the  papers  presented  to  Parliament,  but  is 
virtually  contained  in  the  following  sentences : — 

The  Governor-General  in  Council  will  ever  esteem  it  a  paramount  duty  to 
support  to  the  utmost  the  efforts  which  may  be  made  by  the  Cormnander-in-Ohief 
for  the  maintenance  of  the  discipline  and  efficiency  of  the  army;  but  his  Excellency 
in  Council  cannot  consent  to  forego  his  right  as  the  head  of  the  Government  to 
select  any  officer  whom  he  may  deem  best  qualified  to  fill  posts  in  the  civil  admini- 
stration of  the  country,  or  other  important  positions  under  the  Government  of 
India.  .  .  . 

The  Viceroy  must  retain  in  his  own  hands  the  power  of  selecting  those  officers 
whom  his  Excellency  may  deem  most  fitted  for  the  situations  they  may  be  required 
to  fill. 

A  retrospect  of  the  history  of  our  native  armies  clearly  proves 
that,  beginning  on  true  principles,  we  gradually  drifted  from  one  error 
into  another,  until  at  last  the  whole  fabric  tumbled  to  pieces  in  our 
hands,  and  we  had  literally  to  begin  almost  de  novo  in  the  reorganisa- 
tion of  our  Indian  forces. 

Another  gradual  change  in  the  organisation  of  a  portion  of  the 
native  forces  now  deserves  consideration.  Years  previous  to  the 
Mutiny  it  became  the  custom,  especially  in  Bengal,  to  raise  a  certain 
number  of  what  were  called  Irregular  Corps,  chiefly  cavalry,  with  only 
three  English  officers  attached  to  them ;  and  it  is  really  a  curious 
commentary  upon,  and,  indeed,  a  strong  proof  of  the  correctness  of 
the  foregoing  remarks,  that  many  of  these  very  regiments  became 
more  celebrated  than  the  ordinary  battalions,  and  distinguished  them- 
selves highly  in  war.  By  reverting,  as  it  were,  to  original  principles, 
we  at  once  tended  to  renew  the  loyalty  and  to  restore  the  waning 
military  virtues  of  our  native  levies. 

I  am,  of  course,  aware  of  the  reply  which  will  be  made,  that  the 
men  in  question  were  enlisted  from  very  martial  races,  that  the 
English  officers  with  irregular  corps  were  specially  selected,  and  that 
the  case  was  therefore  exceptional.  Even  were  this  so,  the  reply  would 
by  no  means  cover  the  ground  of  the  argument.  But,  in  truth,  as 
regards  the  English  officers,  there  was  little  real  selection  in  the 
matter.  Young  men  were  appointed  by  favouritism,  or  interest,  or 
by  personal  predilection,  more  than  from  any  proved  capacity  or 
talent,  either  natural  or  acquired.  It  was  the  system  which  pro- 
duced the  men,  and  not  the  men  the  system. 

Brigadier-Greneral  Sir  Charles  Brownlow,  K.C.B.,  a  distinguished 
and  experienced  officer  of  the  Bengal  army,  who  has  commanded 
native  regiments,  and  who  thoroughly  understands  the  subject,  gives 

12  '  Organisation  of  the  Native  Army,'  1877,  p.  78. 


696  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  April 

evidence  on  this  and  other  points  of  organisation,13  which  deserves 
careful  attention.     Writing  in  1875,  he  says  : — 

The  advantages  of  the  Irregular  system  are,  that  it  provides  enough,  and  not 
too  many  British  officers  for  the  work  required  of  them ;  keeps  them  constantly 
"before  their  men,  and  developes  the  intelligence,  authority,  and  character  of  the 
native  officers,  who  should  constitute  the  backbone  of  a  native  corps,  and  without 
whom  there  can  be  no  reliable  connecting  link  between  the  British  officers  and  the 
men.  .  .  . 

Under  the  Irregular  system,  as  long  as  there  remain  three  officers  with  a 
regiment — one  to  command  it,  and  the  others  to  direct  the  two  half-battalions — there 
is  no  absolute  break  in  the  chain  of  responsibility,  and  the  machine  continues  to 
work.  The  native  officer  can  moreover  be  replaced  as  fast  as  he  is  wanted.  Not 
so  the  British  officer ;  and  the  system  that  is  most  dependent  on  the  latter  is,  in  my 
opinion,  the  soonest  likely  to  break  down.  The  keynote  of  my  observations  and  my 
belief  is,  that  you  cannot  have  a  good  native  regiment  without  good  native  officers, 
and  that  you  cannot  have  good  native  officers  if  you  deprive  them  of  the  command 
of  their  companies. 

Another  strong  argument  against  the  Irregular  system  is,  that  it  demands 
selected  officers,  and  that  there  is  no  longer  a  field  for  selection.  I  am  not  quite 
sure  that  the  system,  as  long  as  it  was  worked  in  its  integrity,  did  not  make  the 
officers,  just  as  much  as  the  officers  made  the  system. 

After  speaking  of  the  decadence  in  military  virtues  of  our  old 
(fully-officered)  Sepoy  battalions,  and  stating  that  it  required  fifteen 
or  sixteen  English  officers  and  two  sergeants  to  get  our  native  regi- 
ments in  the  Sutlej  campaign  to  face  the  Sikh  artillery,  Sir  Charles 
Brownlow  goes  on  as  follows  : — 

On  the  other  hand,  what  has  the  Irregular  system  done  for  us  ?  In  the  time  of 
our  direst  need  (besides  many  others  of  equal  note,  but  which  suffered  less),  it 
gave  us  regiments  like  the  2nd  Goorkhas,  the  Guide  Corps,  the  1st,  2nd,  and  4th 
Punjab  Infantry,  that  fought  at  Delhi  and  Lucknow  till  more  than  half  their 
numbers  were  killed  or  wounded  ;  and  in  some  cases,  when  all  the  British  officers 
were  put  hors  de  combat,  continued  to  fight  under  their  native  officers,  following 
the  lead  of  any  Englishman  who  might  be  temporarily  attached  to  them. 

This  may  prove  too  much  ;  but  the  spectacle  of  sixteen  British  officers  and  two 
sergeants  in  vain  exhorting  a  regiment  to  advance  is  surely  worse  than  that  of  a 
regiment  going  on  fighting  without  any  officers  at  all. 

It  may  moreover  be  said  that  the  different  pictures  represent  different  races. 
This  is  true ;  but  I  believe  that  the  Hindustani  Sepoy  of  the  last  century,  when  he 
was  to  all  intents  and  purposes  an  irregular,  and  recruited  from  a  fighting  class, 
was  little  inferior  to  the  Punjabee  of  1857  in  courage,  endurance,  or  good  will ; 
and  that  his  deterioration  dates  from  the  time  when  we  put  a  shako  on  his  head  as 
a  symbol  of  reform,  and  gave  him  the  Articles  of  War  instead  of  a  good  command- 
ing officer  as  his  friend  and  guide. 

13  'Organisation  of  the  Native  Army.'     Parliamentary  Papers,  1877,  p.  155. 


1880.  NATIVE  ARMIES  OF  ISDIA.  697 


III. 

Viewed  by  the  light  of  our  present  knowledge,  the  great  Mutiny 
of  the  Bengal  army  in  1857  seems  almost  the  natural  finale  of  a 
gradual  deterioration,  through  which  the  native  forces  had  been 
passing  for  years  previously.  It  would,  however,  be  incorrect  to  assume 
that  military  maladministration  alone  led  to  the  final  crisis.  Its  com- 
plex causes  were  also  partly  political  and  partly  religious.  A  policy 
of  annexation,  the  system  of  recruiting  too  exclusively  from  one  class, 
an  over-concentration  of  authority  at  head-quarters,  and  other  matters, 
have  been  urged  as  tending  to  disaffection.  It  would  be  beyond  the 
scope  of  this  paper  to  enter  into  these  points ;  but  it  may,  at  all  events, 
be  assumed,  that  the  gradual  decline  of  our  native  forces  in  loyalty 
and  efficiency  prepared  the  ground  for  that  final  catastrophe  which 
in  Bengal  led  to  the  destruction  of  the  army,  and  rendered  necessary 
a  reorganisation  of  our  native  forces  all  over  India. 

At  the  conclusion  of  those  remarkable  campaigns  of  1857-58,  by 
which,  against  enormous  odds,  we  were  enabled  to  recover  the  shattered 
elements  of  our  power,  the  whole  subject  called  for  solution,  and 
some  portions  of  it  pressed  for  immediate  action.  It  was  not  merely 
that  the  regimental  arrangements  required  to  be  recast ;  there  were 
many  appointments,  political,  semi-military,  or  civil,  hitherto  held  by 
officers  of  the  army  ;  and  the  interests  of  the  present  individuals,  as 
well  as  the  machinery  of  future  supply,  required  prompt  treatment. 
We  had,  in  short,  not  only  a  very  large  body  of  officers  whose  regi- 
ments had  disappeared,  and  whose  future  therefore  was  precarious, 
but  various  employments  extraneous  to  the  army  which  had  to  be 
provided  for.  The  disorganised  condition  of  our  native  forces,  and 
the  conflicting  opinions  which  almost  naturally  arose  out  of  such  a 
chaos  of  revolution,  added  greatly  to  the  difficulties  of  the  situa- 
tion. In  April  1861,  however,,  a  Staff  Corps  was  created  in  each 
Presidency.  It  was  not  limited  in  numbers  14  in  any  of  its  ranks, 
and  its  object  was  '  to  provide  a  body  of  officers  for  service  in  India 
by  whom  various  offices  and  appointments,  hitherto  held  by  officers 
borne  on  the  strength  of  the  several  corps  or  regiments  in  India,  shall 
in  future  be  held.' 15  The  general  provisions  of  the  warrant  were, 
that  military  rank,  rising  according  to  length  of  service,  with  com- 
mensurate pay  and  pension,  should  be  given  to  all  who  entered, 
irrespective  of  their  departmental  position,  or  of  the  duties  they 
might  be  performing;  and  as  the  terms  were  liberal,  the  great 
majority  of  officers  who  were  then  employed  away  from  their 
regiments  were  induced  to  accept  them  This  arrangement  pro- 

14  Lord  Hotham's  Report,  August  1860. 

15  Report  of  the  Commission  on  the  Memorials  of  Indian  Officers  (Lord  Cran- 
worth's),  1864. 


698 


THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY. 


April 


vided  as  it  were  for  immediate  requirements ;  and  it  was  also  laid 
down  that  vacancies  arising  from  time  to  time  should  be  filled  by 
young  officers  from  Queen's  regiments,  who  (after  fulfilling  certain 
tests  as  to  languages,  &c.),  in  consideration  of  the  advantages  held 
out  to  them,  would  leave  their  original  service,  enter  the  Staff  Corps, 
and  adopt  an  Indian  career.  The  scope  of  the  warrant  of  1861 
was  confined  to  the  object  of  providing  a  body  of  officers  for  staff 
duties,  extraneous  as  it  were  to  the  army  ;  but  in  its  practical  appli- 
cation it  at  once  went  far  beyond  this ;  and  ever  since  the  formation 
of  the  three  Staff  Corps  they  have  in  addition  included  the  regimental 
officers  of  the  whole  of  the  native  armies.  In  short,  all  officers  now 
seeking  what  is  called  an  Indian  career  in  any  capacity — regimental, 
staff,  or  civil — must  enter  one  of  the  three  Staff  Corps. 

That  some  such  scheme  was  desirable  as  a  temporary  measure, 
and  in  order  to  assure  the  future  of  a  large  body  of  officers  whose 
prospects  were  uncertain,  and  to  prevent  a  paralysis  of  the  public 
service,  may  be  true ;  but  it  does  not  follow  that  it  is  an  advan- 
tageous permanent  arrangement  for  the  public  service,  or  that  its 
provisions  are  suitable  for  the  promotion  of  regimental  officers. 
The  subject  is  a  very  difficult  one,  and  requires  careful  considera- 
tion ;  but  as  it  has  now  been  in  force  for  about  nineteen  years, 
it  is  possible  by  a  study  of  the  Staff  Corps  lists  to  ascertain  some- 
thing of  its  general  working,  both  as  to  efficiency  and  cost. 

The  following  table  gives  an  abstract  of  the  numbers  and  duties 
performed  by  the  officers  of  the  three  Indian  Staff  Corps  in  January 
1880,  and  which  will  be  useful  as  a  reference  in  the  remarks  which 
follow. 

Abstract  of  the  Duties  performed  by  the  Officers  of  the  Three  Indian  Staff  Corps, 

January  1880. 


Purely  Civil  Duties 

Oivil  Departments 
of  the  Army 

Military 
Duties 

|| 

1 

1 

ff| 

g. 

0> 

1 

^  T3      • 

§* 

c/i  fc  ^ 

*cfi 

fl 

a 

Banks 

*J5 

| 

Q 

a 

8«! 

iK 

fl 

o 

E^j 

jj 

8 

•s  «• 

(B 

*« 

•o 

1 

ij 

^ 

| 

1 

T.a'H 

4 

^ 

1 

0 

B 

£P 

CO 

ft 

jZi 

p. 

*3 

•s&y 

& 

1 

.2  t 

I* 

II 

O 

n 
& 

•«5rS  o 

goi^ 

B 

! 

g 
^ 

.c 

i 

1 

1 

§ 

o 

Lieutenant-  Colonels  1     87 

32 

23 

30 

15 

19 

50 

28 

223 

97 

604 

Majors 
Captains  .        .        . 
Lieutenants     .        . 

109 
40 
15 

51 
9 
3 

46 
26 
4 

27 
19 
10 

14 
4 
4 

2 

1 

29 

56 
52 
88 

227 
148 
225 

20 
6 
1 

581 
313 
350 

251 

95 

99 

86 

37 

87 

224 

823 

445 

145 

1,134 

124 

1,848 

1880:  NATIVE  ARMIES  OF  INDIA.  699 

It  will  be  observed  that  the  duties  divide  themselves  into  three 
distinct  classes,  namely :  — 

1.  Civil  duties. 

2.  Duties  of  the  Supply  departments  of  the  army. 

3.  Military  duties. 

The  first  class  comprises  political  residents,  commissioners  of 
provinces,  magistrates,  officers  of  police  and  public  works,  &c.  In 
former  days  many  of  these  appointments  were  held  by  officers, 
because,  as  already  pointed  out,  the  regimental  establishments  were 
looked  upon  as  an  unlimited  reserve,  and  partly  because,  in  the  then 
half-subjugated  condition  of  the  country,  some  of  the  more  important 
of  these  duties  were  really  semi-military,  and  it  seemed  appropriate 
that  they  should  be  held  by  officers ;  but  the  circumstances  have 
been,  and  are  still,  rapidly  changing,  and  the  duties  every  day 
become  more  of  an  ordinary  and  civil  character. 

It  is  not,  however,  to  the  exceptional  employment  of  officers  in 
positions  where  their  military  knowledge  may  be  of  real  use  that 
objection  can  be  made ;  but  by  the  present  system  that  object  is  only 
accomplished  in  name.  Formerly  the  officers  so  employed  had,  at 
various  periods  of  their  career,  joined  their  regiments  on  service,  and 
consequently  possessed  a  considerable  amount  of  real  military  expe- 
rience. It  is  hardly  the  case  now,  and  will  not  be  so  in  future.  The 
officers  who  for  years  past  have  been  joining  the  three  Staff  Corps,  and 
have  been  appointed  to  the  civil  duties  under  consideration,  have  done 
so  early  in  life,  as  subalterns,  after  two  or  three  years'  duty  with  their 
corps ;  so  that  they  join  with  little  or  no  military  knowledge,  and  never 
add  to  it.  They  have  no  regiments  ;  and  on  being  posted  to  magisterial, 
police,  public  works,  or  other  civil  departments,  they  naturally  become 
absorbed  in  their  new  duties.  Nevertheless  they  rise  gradually  in 
military  rank,  and  will  ultimately  become  colonels  and  generals 
without  ever  having  performed  the  duties,  or  incurred  the  responsi- 
bilities, of  the  intermediate  grades.  Their  military  rank  is  therefore 
fast  becoming  fictitious  and  nominal,  and  confers  no  real  distinction 
on  themselves,  nor  does  it  enable  them  to  perform  their  duties  any 
better  than  if  they  were  in  name,  as  they  are  in  fact,  civilians.16 

The  Times,  in  a  leading  article,  July  28,  1873,  sums  up  the 
objections  to  the  Staff  Corps  very  clearly.  It  says  that  '  the  whole 
system  is  condemned  by  many  excellent  authorities,  not  only  on 
account  of  the  anomalous  terms  of  the  service,  but  also  on  account  of 
the  alleged  impolicy  of  giving  military  rank  and  titles  to  a  mis- 
cellaneous assemblage  of  civil  administrators,  magistrates,  collectors, 

18  Major-General  Sir  Henry  Norman — who  is  much  in  favour  of  the  Staff  Corps 
system — writing  in  1869  of  the  employment  of  officers  in  civil  duties,  said  :  '  They 
are  practically  civilians  for  life,  if  found  suited  for  civil  employment,  and  henceforth 
really  fit  officers  will  rarely  return  to  military  employ  if  once  confirmed  in  civil 
employments.' — '  East  India  Staff  Corps,'  Parliamentary  Papers,  April  1869. 


700  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  'April 

postmasters,  police  superintendents,  and  what  not,  who  are  never 
called  upon  for  any  military  duty,  and  who  are  soldiers  only  in  name.' 

The  arrangement  is  a  very  costly  one,  because  these  officers  all  receive 
promotion  and  pay  (in  addition  to  that  of  their  special  appointments) 
after  stated  periods  of  service,  whatever  their  employment  may  be. 
This  remark  indeed  applies  to  the  three  Staff  Corps  generally,  in  all 
their  various  grades  and  duties.  No  officer  waits  for  vacancies  by  the 
death  or  retirement  of  his  superiors,  as  in  all  other  armies,  but 
receives  his  graduated  promotion  as  a  matter  of  course,  and  a 
handsome  retirement  on  '  colonel's  allowances,'  without  any  limit  as  to 
numbers.  The  late  Colonel  Broome,  Controller-General  of  Military 
Expenditure  in  1869,  after  describing  the  extravagant  cost  of  the 
Staff  Corps  system,  said  that  '  military  history  presents  no  instance  of 
an  army  so  constituted,  or  of  one  so  costly ; '  and  he  added,  '  but 
unsatisfactory  as  is  the  present  financial  condition  of  the  Indian 
army,  the  future  prospect  is  far  worse  ! ' 17 

With  regard  to  the  police,  it  is  sometimes  argued  that  in  a 
country  such  as  India  their  employment  is  virtually  military,  and 
that  this  is  a  reason  for  giving  the  command  of  them  to  officers ;  but 
there  is  a  danger  under  such  circumstances  that  we  may  be  creating 
a  second  native  army  of  undefined  dimensions ;  and  my  view  is  that 
a  clear  distinction  should  be  drawn  between  military  and  police 
duties,  and  that  the  latter  should  be  divorced  entirely  from  the 
armed  power  of  the  State.18  The  commissioners  appointed  in  1859 
to  inquire  into  the  organisation  of  the  Indian  army  spoke  very 
clearly  on  the  point,  as  follows : — 

Your  commissioners  observe  that  military  police  corps  have  been  formed,  or 
are  in  course  of  formation,  throughout  India.  They  see  in  this  force,  in  its 
numerical  strength  and  military  organisation,  differing,  as  it  does,  in  no  essential 
respect  from  the  regular  Sepoy  army,  the  elements  of  future  danger.  They  would 
therefore  recommend  that  great  caution  be  used  in  not  giving  to  this  force  a  stricter 
military  training  than  may  be  required  for  the  maintenance  of  discipline,  lest  a 
new  native  force  be  formed  which  may  hereafter  become  a  source  of  embarrass- 
ment to  the  Government. 

It  would  not  be  necessary  to  interdict  officers  from  obtaining  per- 
manent civil  employment  in  India  in  any  department  should  they 
elect  to  do  so,  but  they  should  leave  the  army,  as  there  is  no  advan- 
tage in  their  retainiog  the  fictitious  privilege  of  rising  military  rank. 
Any  diplomatic  appointments  of  an  exceptional  or  a  temporary  nature 
to  which  it  might  be  desirable  that  officers  should  be  appointed  in 
future,  could  be  met  in  the  usual  way  by  treating  them  as  super- 
numeraries of  the  army,  as  is  done  at  home. 

The   second   class   of  the   Staff  Corps  is  composed   of    officers 

17  Parliamentary  Papers,  I860. 

18  The  late  Lord  Sandhurst  was  of  opinion  that  officers  should  not  be  appointed, 
to  the  police  (/W/7.). 


1880.  NATIVE  ARMIES  OF  INDIA.  701 

who  are  employed  in  the  civil  non-combatant  duties  of  army 
supply,  such  as  commissariat,  pay,  and  other  auxiliary  services.  It 
is  not  necessary  to  enlarge  on  the  important  functions  of  these 
departments,  because  they  are  well  understood  and  recognised ;  but 
the  occupations  are  not  military  in  the  usual  acceptation  of  the  term ; 
they  require  special  training  of  their  own,  and  it  would  seem  more 
appropriate  to  organise  them  as  separate  branches,  with  departmental 
titles  and  promotion  as  in  other  armies,  and  with  relative  rank,  so 
as  to  give  the  officers  adequate  status.  This  is  all  the  more  im- 
portant, because,  under  the  present  system,  these  officers,  on  rising  to 
high  military  rank,  may  consider  they  have  a  claim  to  army  com- 
mands, for  which  their  departmental  experience  does  not  qualify 
them  ;  or  if,  on  the  other  hand,  they  relinquish  the  hope  of  command- 
ing troops,  then  the  military  rank  becomes  a  fiction.  It  may  be 
concluded,  that  the  Staff  Corps  arrangements  are  neither  necessary 
nor  suitable  to  the  officers  of  the  two  classes  above  noted,  that  is, 
to  officers  performing  civil  duties,  and  to  those  employed  in  non- 
combatant  military  administration. 

The  last  and  most  important  class  of  the  Indian  Staff  Corps  is 
composed  of  about  1134  officers  who  are  really  employed  in  military 
duties,  the  great  majority  being  with  native  regiments  of  infantry 
and  cavalry.  In  the  arrangements  of  1861  it  was  laid  down  that  six  19 
English  officers  should  be  appointed  for  the  higher  and  most  respon- 
sible posts  in  each  regiment,  the  subordinate  duties  connected  with 
troops  and  companies  being  assigned  to  the  native  officers.  To'a  cer- 
tain extent  this  system,  which  is  still  in  force,  is  an  improvement  'on 
that  previously  maintained.  Instead  of  a  nominal  aggregate  of 
twenty-six  English  officers,  who  were  always  struggling  to  escape 
from  their  legitimate  functions,  we  have  now,  at  all  events,  seven,  who 
are  present  with  their  corps,  and  who  in  point  of  pay  and  army 
rank  have  every  reason  to  be  satisfied  with  their  condition.  But 
there  are  palpable  defects  and  anomalies  in  the  Staff  Corps  arrange- 
ments as  regards  the  posting  of  the  regimental  officers,  which  were 
pointed  out  at  the  outset,  and  which  certainly  do  not  improve  as  time 
goes  on.  One  great  drawback  is  that,  as  the  English  officers  obtain 
their  promotion  from  one  rank  to  another  by  fixed  periods  of  service, 
and  are  not  permanently  posted  to  regiments,  it  follows  that  their 
attachment  to  their  corps  is  comparatively  of  a  temporary  nature. 
All  regimental  appointments  are  by  selection  of  the  Commander-in- 
Chief,  so  that  when  officers  gain  advancement  in  regimental  status, 
in  many  cases  they  have  to  leave  the  particular  corps  and  nationality 
with  which  they  have  been  serving.  This  is  not  only  injurious  to 
the  officers,  but  very  much  so  to  the  men,  who  find  themselves  con- 
stantly under  the  command  of  strangers.  Thus  officers  might  serve 

19  A  seventh  has  since  been  added. 

VOL.  VII.— Xo.  38.  3  A 


702  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  April 

in  succession  with  Ghoorkas,  Mahrattas,  Sikhs,  Punjabee  Mussulmans, 
or  any  other  of  the  various  races  who  serve  in  our  ranks. 

In  the  papers  recently  published  20  on  the  organisation  of  the 
native  army,  the  subject  is  discussed,  and  the  evil  pointed  out ;  and 
no  doubt  the  distinguished  men  who  from  time  to  time  command 
our  armies  in  India  will  do  their  utmost  to  promote  officers  in  the 
regimeats  to  which  they  are  attached ;  but  the  principle  is  at  fault, 
and  the  broad  facts  cannot  be  disputed.  Instances  are  quoted  of  one 
regiment  which  had  had  seventy-five  officers  in  it  in  ten  years,  and 
another  fifty  in  the  same  period  ! 21  Nothing  can  be  more  dishearten- 
ing to  officers  and  men,  or  injurious  to  the  service  where  such  con- 
stant changes  are  possible. 

The  Staff  Corps  system  not  only  fails  to  afford  any  certainty  that 
officers  shall  remain  and  rise  in  their  own  regiments,  and  with  men 
with  whose  national  characteristics,  language,  and  religion  they  are 
acquainted,  but  it  throws  every  difficulty  in  the  way  of  their  doing 
so ;  and  this  alone  is  a  great  defect.  Although  I  am  strongly 
of  opinion  that  few  English  officers  are  required  as  leaders  of 
native  battalions,  still  any  system,  whether  of  few  or  many,  must  be 
bad  which  leaves  out  of  account  the  first  principle  of  regimental 
efficiency,  that  is,  of  giving  officers  pride  and  interest  in  a  particular 
corps,  and  a  personal  knowledge  of  particular  men.  But  there  are 
other  inequalities  and  objectionable  results  which  arise  from  the 
present  system.  Officers  of  long  service  and  of  high  rank  in  the 
Staff  Corps,  when  posted  to  regiments,  do  not  necessarily  hold  com- 
mensurate regimental  positions.  If  we  study  the  pages  of  the  Army 
List,  we  shall  find  frequent  instances  where  majors  are  in  command  of 
regiments ;  whilst  in  other  cases  officers  of  higher  rank  are  only  in 
charge  of  wings  or  squadrons.  In  fact,  colonels,  lieutenant-colonels, 
majors,  and  captains — men  of  very  different  lengths  of  service,  rank, 
and  pay — are  found  performing  identical  duties. 

These  inequalities  are  in  reality  intensified  by  the  desire  of  the 
Coinmander-in-Chief  to  retain  officers  with  the  corps  to  which  they 
are  attached.  He  is  thus,  as  it  were,  compelled  to  leave  officers  of 
higher  rank  in  inferior  positions  in  other  regiments.22  There  is  no 
rule  and  no  certainty  from  beginning  to  end.  Surely  such  a  system, 
or  rather  want  of  one,  must  be  disheartening  to  the  individuals  who 
suffer  by  it.  Officers  may  not  be  all  equal  in  talents  or  in  experience  ; 
but  when  colonels  and  lieutenant-colonels  find  themselves  bracketed 
with  captains,  and  performing  comparatively  subordinate  duties,  in 
one  regiment,  whilst  other  corps  are  commanded  by  their  juniors,  it 

20  '  Organisation  of  the  Native  Army,'  Parliamentary  Papers,  1877. 
;21  Ibid. 

22  A  letter  in  the  Times  (Dec.  30, 1874)  says  :  'Lord  Napier  is  an  ardent  advocate 
of  regimental  promotion,  so  ardent  that  he  permits  field  officers  to  languish  in  sub- 
ordinate positions,  or  in  complete  inactivity,  while  captains  are  raised  to  positions 
they  were  never  intended  to  hold. 


1880.  NATIVE  ARMIES  OF  INDIA.  703 

stands  to  reason  that  they  will  not  only  feel  a  sense  of  injustice,  but 
•will  make  strenuous  efforts  to  induce  the  Commander-in-Chief  to 
remove  them  to  higher  duties  with  any  other  regiment  than  the  one 
in  which  they  are  serving.  It  is  a  constant  system  of  accidental 
leap-frog. 

There  are  no  doubt  difficulties  in  the  way  of  providing  a  remedy, 
but  the  broad  outlines  seem  to  be  clear  enough.  With  only  seven 
officers  in  a  regiment,  a  system  of  pure  regimental  rise  by  single 
battalions  cannot  well  be  applied.  With  such  a  small  cadre  we 
should  find  in  some  regiments  that  during  a  campaign  or  at  a  sickly 
station  the  junior  officer  might  rise  to  the  command  of  it  in  a  very 
short  time,  whereas  in  other  cases  twenty  or  thirty  years  might 
elapse.  The  inequality  of  promotion  in  such  small  cadres  would 
produce  supersession  and  discontent.  Eegimental  promotion  to  be 
at  all  equal  in  different  corps  requires  that  its  chances  should  be 
spread  over  a  larger  number  of  lives. 

But  surely  there  is  a  simple  remedy  for  all  this.  Why  not  group 
the  various  native  corps — by  nationalities — into  regiments  comprised 
of  three  or  four  battalions  each,  and  give  promotion  to  the  English 
officers  in  an  amalgamated  regimental  list  ?  Such  a  scheme  would 
at  once  remove  all  necessity  for  a  Staff  Corps  for  regimental  officers, 
and  would  insure  a  sufficiently  uniform  promotion.  It  would  do 
far  more  than  this.  It  would  engender  between  English  officers 
and  the  men  of  the  various  nationalities  a  mutual  pride  and  confi- 
dence ;  and  would  make  them  feel  that  there  was  some  permanence 
in  the  ties  which  bind  them  together.  It  would  further  enable  the 
battalions  on  active  service  to  be  replenished,  in  case  of  casualties,  by 
officers  and  men  from  those  of  the  same  nationality  in  reserve,  and  in 
short  would  in  every  respect  produce  that  regimental  esprit,  confi- 
dence, and  esteem  which  are  now  so  constantly  snapped  asunder. 

Chesney's  Indian  Polity  contains  an  admirable  chapter  on  this 
part  of  the  subject,  in  which  very  much  the  same  arguments  are  used 
and  the  same  remedies  proposed.  His  conclusions  are :  that  '  the 
Staff  Corps  is  entirely  unsuitable — (1)  as  a  machinery  for  the 
supply  of  officers  for  the  different  branches  of  the  civil  adminis- 
tration; (2)  that  it  is  equally  unsuitable  for  supplying  the  civil 
departments  of  the  army ;  and  (3)  that  it  is  an  inconvenient  and 
unsuitable  machinery  for  officering  the  native  army,  especially  that 
the  system  is  destructive  of  that  bond  of  union  between  officers  and 
men  which  is  a  necessary  condition  of  military  efficiency.' 


IV 

A  consideration  of  the  arrangements  made  since  the  Mutiny  for 
the  command  of  native  regiments  shows  that  they  are  better  than 

3  A2 


704  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  April 

those  previously  in  force.  The  English  officers  are  fewer  in  number, 
and  the  inducements  are  sufficient  to  attract  them  to  a  most  inte- 
resting and  brilliant  career.  The  Earl  of  Northbrook,  Viceroy  of 
India,  General  Lord  Napier  of  Magdala,  Sir  Henry  Norman,  and  the 
other  members  of  the  Council,  writing  in  1875,  expressed  their 
opinions  that  the  present  complement  of  English  officers  is  sufficient 
for  all  purposes  of  Indian  service,  both  for  peace  and  war,  and  that 
the  duties  assigned  to  them  are  appropriate.  In  the  matter  of 
native  officers  there  is  also  a  shade  of  improvement,  a  trace  that  more 
liberal  ideas  prevail — but  it  does  not  amount  to  much.  After  long 
years  of  service  in  the  ranks  they  may  now  finally  attain  to  the 
command  of  troops  and  companies,  but  even  then  are  subordinate  to 
all  English  officers  of  the  corps.  Can  this  be  called  a  career  ? 

The  population  of  our  Indian  empire  is  said  to  exceed  200  mil- 
lions, and  contains  not  only  numerous  princes  of  high  birth  and 
ancient  lineage,  but  great  numbers  of  native  gentlemen,  who  from 
their  large  possessions,  high  character,  and  leading  position,  are 
deservedly  men  of  influence  in  a  very  aristocratic  country.  The 
history  of  India,  not  only  of  bygone  days  but  of  our  own  time, 
is  replete  with  examples  of  natives  distinguished  as  soldiers  and 
as  military  administrators.23  Although  some  of  the  native  officers 
in  our  army  are,  as  a  result  of  our  present  arrangements,  infirm, 
apathetic,  and  useless,  still  even  within  the  poor  and  limited  sphere 
which  the  system  affords,  there  always  have  been,  and  still  are 
many,  distinguished  not  only  for  courage  in  the  field,  but  for  their 
devotion  and  loyalty  to  our  service.  We  have  in  short  every  reason  to 
be  proud  of  and  to  cherish  the  fine  qualities  which  continue  to  flourish, 
as  it  were,  even  in  so  poor  a  soil,  and  in  such  a  chilling  atmosphere. 

We  know  that  of  all  professions,  that  of  a  soldier  is  the  one  which 
most  attracts  the  bolder  spirits  under  our  rule ;  and  yet  we  say  to 
them  all,  that  no  man,  whatever  may  be  his  birth,  position,  talents, 
experience,  or  devotion,  shall  in  any  case  rise  in  the  army  beyond  the 
position  of  a  troop  or  company  leader. 

In  the  various  branches  of  our  civil  administration  we  have 
gradually,  though  somewhat  grudgingly,  opened  out  careers  for  edu- 
cated native  gentlemen  ;  but  with  the  army,  in  spite  of  the  numerous 
proofs  of  the  magnificent  material  lying  ready  at  our  hands,  notwith- 
standing the  success  of  our  early  levies,  we  appear  afraid  to  develop 
our  resources,  and  to  consider  that  safety  depends  in  depreciating 
and  diluting,  as  it  were,  the  strength  of  the  natural  forces  at  our 
disposal.  Not  only  do  we  deprive  the  native  officers  of  all  real  power ; 
but  even  with  the  men,  nationalities  are  mixed  up  in  the  same  regi- 
ment, so  as  to  foster  mutual  distrust ;  and  we  hesitate  to  arm  them 

23  Sir  Henry  Lawrence,  in  his  Essays,  gives  instances  of  natives  who  were  privates 
in  our  army,  but  who  became  distinguished  leaders  in  the  armies  of  some  of  the 
Indian  princes. 


1.880.  NATIVE  ARMIES  OF  INDIA.  705 

with  the  best  weapons  for  fear,  apparently,  that  they  should  turn  them 
against  ourselves.  As  Sir  Henry  Lawrence  said,  '  Where  is  to  be  the 
end  of  our  fears,  if  we  shirk  efficiency  in  dread  of  our  own  tools  turn- 
ing on  us  ?  '  The  Hon.  Mr.  Gibbs,  a  member  of  the  Bombay  Council, 
writing  of  the  native  regiments  in  1875,  said  that  'we  must  pay 
them  well  and  treat  them  well,  and  under  such  circumstances  we 
must  on  economical  grounds  have  as  few  as  we  can  manage  with,  and 
these  should  be  as  efficient  as  we  can  make  them.  To  keep  a  larger 
force  than  is  necessary,  simply  because  we  keep  it  at  a  comparatively 
low  state  of  efficiency,  fearing  that  to  have  it  in  a  high  state  would 
make  it  dangerous,  is  in  my  humble  opinion  a  blunder  of  the  greatest 
magnitude,  both  financially  and  otherwise.'  Mr.  Gribbs  goes  on  to 
advocate  that  native  officers  should  be  considered  the  mainstay  of 
their  regiments,  and  that  the  men  should  be  armed  with  the  most 
efficient  weapons. 

Having  gained  a  magnificent  empire  by  our  enterprise,  we  seem 
of  late  years  to  consider  that  it  can  only  be  retained  by  debasing 
the  natives,  both  the  natural  leaders  and  the  masses.  Frequent 
complaints  are  made  now-a-days  of  the  ignorance  and  incompe- 
tency  of  some  of  our  native  officers,  and  this  is  used  as  an  argu- 
ment that  more  English  ones  are  required.  How  can  we  expect 
the  native  officers  to  be  either  courageous,  enterprising,  or  efficient 
as  a  body,  when  we  never  attempt  to  teach  them  their  art,  or  entrust 
them  with  high  commands  ?  How  can  we  expect  the  native  officers 
or  men  to  serve  us  with  much  zeal  or  devotion,  when  they  are  usually 
armed  with  inferior  weapons,  organised  on  a  policy  of  distrust,  have 
no  chance  of  attaining  to  high  rank,  and  when  every  position  of  con- 
sequence is  absorbed  by  English  officers,  aliens  in  language,  religion, 
and  race,  and  who  too  often  rather  look  down  upon  their  men,  and 
ultimately  leave  them  and  retire  to  England  ? 

The  difficulties  and  responsibilities  of  ruling  such  an  empire  as 
we  have  gained  in  India  are  almost  incalculable ;  but  the  only  chance 
of  success  lies  in  the  maintenance  of  those  courageous  principles  on 
which  it  was  founded ;  and  its  endurance  can  only  rest  on  the  solid 
foundations  of  justice  and  of  trust  in  those  over  whom  we  are  called 
upon  to  rule. 

There  are  many  valuable  remarks  and  suggestions  for  improving 
the  status  of  the  native  officers  of  our  Indian  armies  contained  in  the 
Parliamentary  papers  issued  in  1877.  Sir  Charles  Brownlow  writes  : — 

To  raise  the  condition  and  character  of  the  native  officer,  and  to  make  his 
position  such  as  to  identify  his  interests  with  our  own,  and  to  ensure  his  loyalty  in 
the  day  of  trial,  the  present  scale  of  pay  and  rewards  open  to  him  should  be 
increased  and  graduated  upwards  so  as  to  suit  the  widely  differing  classes  to  whom 
we  give  commissions. 

As  it  now  is,  the  well-bred,  high-spirited,  and  influential  scion  of  some  more  or 
less  distinguished  family,  whose  presence  in  a  regiment  is  of  inestimable  value,  may 
l«e  found  serving  in  the  same  rank,  and  on  the  same  pay,  as  the  meanest  Hindoo, 


706  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY.  April 

whose  only  recommendation  may  be  a  little  reading  and  writing1,  and  the  sort  of 
smartness  which  is  attractive  on  the  parade  ground,  but  of  no  use  in  the  field. 
The  latter  is  well  provided  for;  but  to  meet  such  cases  as  the  former,  there  is  much 
need  of  some  liberal  scale  or  system  of  personal  allowances  and  other  considera- 
tions, ascending  according  to  the  family  status,  rank,  merits,  or  services  of  the 
individual.  The  prizes  of  the  service  are  too  few.  There  are  many  native  officers 
covered  with  wounds,  who,  by  their  gallantry  during  the  mutiny,  at  Unibeyla  and 
elsewhere,  having  achieved  all  the  honours  and  rewards  open  to  them,  are  now 
serving  without  the  hope  of  anything  further — a  state  of  affairs  which  cannot  be 
conducive  to  healthy  feeling. 

More  frequent  grants  of  land,  civil  titles,  and  seats  at  durbars,  etc.,  should  bd 
among  the  advantages  held  out  to  such  men.24 

Lord  Ellenborough,  writing  in  1859,  said: — 

Practically  it  is  only,  or  certainly  most  efficiently,  through  military  service, 
that  education  can  really  be  given  to  the  highest  classes  in  India. 

If  we  desire  to  retain  the  empire  we  have  acquired,  without  incurring  a  cost  far 
exceeding  its  value,  we  must  conciliate  those  who  are  the  natural  leaders  of  the 
people,  we  must  abandon  the  exclusive  British  system  and  nationalise  our  govern- 
ment. I  know  no  better  way  of  doing  so  than  by  bringing  the  first  gentlemen  in 
the  country  into  the  army.  It  is  entirely  in  accordance  with  all  Eastern  feelings  to- 
make  military  service  the  great  road  to  honour  and  to  power ;  and  we  cannot 
greatly  err  if,  in  the  endeavour  to  obtain  the  same  objects,  we  adopt  generally  the 
same  policy  as  every  successful  conqueror  from  the  time  of  Alexander  to  that  of 
Akbar. 

General  Lord  Napier  of  Magdala,  in  his  various  minutes,  is  always 
earnest  in  his  desire  to  raise  the  status  of  the  native  officers,  and  speaks 
highly  of  their  efficiency  when  opportunities  were  afforded  them. 

In  order  that  our  Indian  regiments  may  be  rendered  really 
efficient  and  reliable,  it  seems  to  me  essential  that  more  liberal 
arrangements  should  be  made  as  regards  the  native  officers  than  those 
at  present  in  force.  Instead  of  promoting  them  from  the  ranks,  as 
is  almost  invariably  the  rule  at  present,  native  gentlemen  of  birth 
and  position  should  be  granted  commissions,  and  receive  some  measure 
of  military  education.25  Their  pay  and  allowances  should  be  increased, 
and  in  every  respect  they  should  receive  more  consideration  than  they 
do  now.  Then,  again,  I  would  advocate  that  a  certain  proportion  of  the 
regiments  should  have  only  three  English  officers,  like  the  old  so-called 
irregular  corps,  and  thus  more  scope  would  be  given  for  the  energies 
and  ambition  of  the  native  officers.  The  latter  would  then  begin 
to  lose  that  disheartening  feeling  which  cramps  their  energies  and 
deadens  their  devotion. 

To  those  (and  there  are  many)  who   believe  that  our  Indian 

24  Sir  Henry  Lawrence  in  his  Essays  makes  a  very  similar  recommendation. 
'  Commands  of  irregular  corps,  jagheers,  titles,  civil  honours,  pensions  to  the  second 
and  third  generation,  are  among  the  measures  we  would  advocate  for  such  characters.' 

25  Dr.  W.  Hunter,  speaking  of  the  exclusion  of  the  Mussulmans  from  power,  says 
that '  sooner  or  later  the  native  aristocracy  of  India  must,  under  certain  conditions, 
be  admitted  as  commissioned  officers  in  the  British  army.' — Hunter's  India/n  Nusal- 
mans,  1872. 


1880.  NATIVE  ARMIES  OF  INDIA.  707 

regiments  can  only  be  maintained  in  efficiency  and  loyalty  by  de- 
priving the  natives  of  all  real  power,  and  by  flooding  them  with 
English  officers,  no  doubt  the  above  recommendations  will  be  looked 
upon  with  some  misgiving ;  but  I  must  confess  that,  to  my  mind,  we 
should  gradually  advance  still  further,  and  that  a  few  regiments  should 
be  officered  and  led  entirely  by  natives,  with  rank,  pay,  and  position, 
corresponding  in  all  respects  to  those  now  enjoyed  by  the  English 
officers.  It  would,  of  course,  be  necessary  to  move  cautiously  in  these 
matters,  and  to  take  care  that  native  officers  so  appointed  to  high  and 
responsible  positions  should  have  previously  passed  through  the  lower 
grades,  and  should  have  shown  themselves  real  leaders  of  men,  as  to 
courage  and  skill ;  and  should  have  also  proved  their  undoubted 
devotion  to  our  service  and  our  rule. 

These  propositions  may  to  some  appear  extreme,  but  they  are  not 
altogether  new.  There  is,  at  all  events,  one  great  authority  to  whose 
name  I  so  gladly  allude  in  all  such  questions — the  late  Sir  Henry 
Lawrence — who  made  these  very  proposals  in  an  essay  written  in  1844. 

"We  should  have  three  descriptions  of  native  infantry — the  first  class  regular 
infantry  officered  hy  a  full  complement  of  Europeans ;  the  second  class  partially  so 
officered ;  the  third  class  commanded  and  officered  entirely  by  natives ;  but  the  two- 
last  always  employed  in  brigade,  or  at  least  in  concert  with  the  regular  corps.  .  .  .. 

In  the  Parliamentary  papers  of  1877,  the  system  of  recruiting  our 
native  battalions  receives  considerable  attention,  and  here,  as  in  all 
other  parts  of  the  subject,  great  differences  of  opinion  exist  amongst 
the  various  authorities.  Although,  in  perusing  the  details  and  opinions 
given,  it  may  seem  as  if  mere  regimental  arrangements  were  under 
discussion,  the  real  divergence  always  goes  back,  insensibly  as  it  were, 
to  important  principles.  It  is  so  in  this  particular  phase  of  the  subject ; 
and  we  find  ourselves  again  considering  whether  in  governing  India  we 
should  be  guided  by  what  may  be  called  a  policy  of  distrust,  or  adhere 
to  the  bolder  and  indeed  more  prudent  view,  that  the  empire  should  be 
governed  for  the  benefit  of  the  ruled,  and  not  entirely  of  the  rulers. 
Do  what  we  will  the  same  question  ever  arises  which  was  so  well 
put  and  answered  by  Sir  Thomas  Munro  in  the  days  gone  by.  He 
writes  in  1824: — 

There  is  one  great  question  to  which  we  should  look  in  all  our  arrangements 

what  is  to  be  the  final  result  on  the  character  of  the  people  ?  Is  it  to  be  raised 
or  is  it  to  be  lowered  ?  are  we  to  be  satisfied  with  merely  securing  our  power  and 
protecting  the  inhabitants,  leaving  them  to  sink  gradually  in  character  lower  than' 
at  present,  or  are  we  to  endeavour  to  raise  their  character  and  to  render  them 
worthy  of  filling  higher  situations  in  the  management  of  their  country  and  of 
devising  plans  for  its  improvement?  It  ought  undoubtedly  to  be  our  aim  to 
raise  the  minds  of  the  natives,  and  to  take  care  that  whenever  our  connection  with 
India  might  cease,  it  did  not  appear  that  the  only  fruit  of  our  dominion  there  had 
been  to  leave  the  people  more  abject  and  less  able  to  govern  themselves  than  when 
we  found  them.  .  .  . 

Liberal  treatment  has  always  been  found  the  most  effectual  way  of  elevating 
the  character  of  every  people,  and  we  may  be  sure  that  it  will  produce  a  similar 


708  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  April 

effect  on  that  of  the  people  of  India.  The  change  will  no  doubt  be  slow,  but  that 
is  the  very  reason  why  no  time  should  be  lost  in  commencing  the  work.  We 
should  not  be  discouraged  by  difficulties  ;  nor  because  little  progress  may  be  made 
in  our  own  time,  abandon  the  enterprise  as  hopeless,  and  charge  upon  the  obstinacy 
and  bigotry  of  the  natives  the  failure  which  has  been  occasioned  solely  by  our  own 
fickleness,  in  not  pursuing  steadily  the  only  line  of  conduct  on  which  any  hope  of 
success  could  reasonably  be  founded.  We  should  make  the  same  allowances  for 
the  Hindoos  as  for  other  nations,  and  consider  how  slow  the  progress  of  improve- 
ment has  been  among  the  nations  of  Europe,  and  through  what  a  long  course  of 
barbarous  ages  they  had  to  pass  before  they  attained  their  present  state.  When 
we  compare  other  countries  with  England,  we  usually  speak  of  England  as  she  now 
is  ;  we  scarcely  ever  think  of  going  back  beycnd  the  Reformation,  and  we  are  apt 
to  regard  every  foreign  country  as  ignorant  and  uncivilised  whose  state  of  improve- 
ment does  not  in  some  degree  approximate  to  our  own,  even  though  it  should  be 
higher  than  our  own  was  at  no  very  distant  period. 

In  the  reorganisation  of  our  native  armies  after  the  mutiny  of 
1857,  there  were  three  systems  of  recruiting  advocated  by  different 
authorities,  each  plan  involving  a  decided  policy,  and  the  Govern- 
ment,  apparently  perplexed  by  the  difficulty  of  the  question,  and  by 
the  variety  of  opinions,  very  impartially  adopted  all  three ! 

The  proposals  were : — 

1.  That  each  native  regiment  should  be  composed  of  men  of  some 
distinct  nationality,  religion,  or  race,  with  a  localised  depot. 

2.  That  men  of  different  nationalities  or  religion  should  be  classed  in 
separate  companies  of  a  regiment,  called  the  *  Class  Company  '  system. 

3.  That   every   regiment   should    recruit   without   reference   to 
nationality,  caste,  race,  or  religion,  the  men  being  indiscriminately 
mixed  up  together  in  the  ranks. 

The  palpable  advantages  of  national  regiments  are,  that  they  not 
only  develop  the  pride  and  martial  qualities  of  the  men  and  give 
them  confidence  in  each  other  as  being  of  the  same  race,  but  their 
adoption  would  enable  us  to  form  local  recruiting  depots  in  the 
districts  from  which  the  men  enlist,  and  where  their  families  would 
find  a  home  in  their  absence.  It  would  further  facilitate  the 
grouping  of  three  or  four  battalions  into  one  regiment,  which  could 
reinforce  each  other  in  time  of  war ;  and  the  principle  would  quite 
fall  in  with  the  proposed  system  of  regimental  promotion  for  the 
English  officers. 

Although  we  have  retained  a  few  national  regiments  (such  as  the 
Goorkhas  and  others),  the  objection  raised  against  an  extension  of  the 
system  is  a  fear  that  the  men  might  combine  dangerously  against  us. 
The  Adjutant-General  of  the  army,  in  his  letter  to  Government  of 
August,  1862,  in  recommending  *  class  companies/  suggested  that  it 
should  not  be  publicly  notified, c  inasmuch  that  it  would  be  impossible 
to  disguise  that  the  mixed  composition  recommended  to  be  intro- 
duced in  the  native  army  is  based  on  a  policy,  that  policy  being  in 
fact  one  of  mistrust  of  the  native  character,  and  to  neutralise  the 
chances  of  combination  and  conspiracy  of  native  soldiers  against  the 


1880.  NATIVE  ARMIES  OF  INDIA.  709 

Government  by  means  of  a  mixture  of  antagonistic  races  and  castes.' 
If  the  primary  object  in  organising  an  army  is  to  render  it  innocuous 
in  the  event  of  mutiny,  there  might  be  some  advantage  in  favour  of 
the  '  antagonistic  mixture.'  The  arrangement  however  appears  faulty, 
not  only  on  the  ground  that  regiments  so  constituted  are  avowedly 
mistrusted,  and  therefore  to  some  extent  unreliable  machines ;  but 
there  is  reason  to  believe  that,  whilst  we  thus  depreciate  the  value  of 
our  soldiers  by  mixing  up  castes  and  nationalities  with  a  view  to  class 
antagonism,  the  intended  object  after  all  is  not  likely  to  be  attained. 

Many  officers  are  of  opinion  that  men  so  associated  for  years 
together  gradually  rub  off  their  differences  so  to  speak,  and  become 
assimilated  in  habits  and  feelings,  and  are  not  likely  to  act  as  spies 
on  each  other.26 

As  regards  the  supposed  danger  of  national  regiments,  the  matter 
after  all  lies  in  our  own  hands.  Whilst  we  should  in  every  case 
enlist  only  from  the  most  warlike  races,  as  we  did  in  the  days  of 
Warren  Hastings,  Clive,  and  Wellesley,  we  need  not  maintain  more 
regiments  of  any  particular  class  than  seems  advisable ;  and  in  my 
opinion  we  should  possess  more  sure  means  of  checkmating  possible 
disloyalty  by  keeping  the  nationalities  distinct,  than  we  can  secure 
by  endeavouring  to  sow  distrust  amongst  comrades  in  the  same  corps. 
The  late  Sir  Sidney  Cotton,  Sir  Herbert  Edwardes,  and  Lord  Elphin- 
stone  held  views  entirely  in  accordance  with  those  just  stated,  and 
strongly  urged  them  on  the  Government  at  the  time,  although,  no 
doubt,  other  high  authorities  gave  opposite  opinions,  which  were 
deemed  of  more  weight,  and  finally  prevailed. 

The  principle  which  lies  at  the  root  of  all  my  arguments  and 
proposals  is  this :  that  we  cannot  rule  successfully  over  millions  of 
human  beings  in  India  unless  we  recognise  the  necessity,  not  only  of 
giving  peace,  security,  and  justice  to  the  masses,  but  high  place  and 
responsible  positions  to  the  great,  the  talented,  and  the  deserving. 
Aliens  as  we  are,  it  is  a  very  difficult  matter  under  the  circumstances 
of  our  conquest  of  India  to  uphold  the  dignity  and  importance  of  the 
princes,  landholders,  and  the  aristocracy  of  the  various  races  under 
our  rule,  but  to  do  so  should  be  regarded  as  a  vital  principle ;  and  we 
may  rely  upon  it  that  human  nature  is  the  same  all  over  the  world, 
and  that  to  exclude  the  natural  leaders  of  the  people  from  power  can 
never  succeed.  We  may  indeed  produce  an  appearance  of  quiet  and 
of  content,  but  it  is  at  the  sacrifice  of  all  the  higher  qualities  which 
give  respect  to  nations ;  and  a  kingdom  so  governed  must  ever  be 
a  danger  to  its  rulers. 

JOHN  ADYE. 

26  Colonel  Coke  said  that  '  by  mixing  the  castes  in  one  corps  they  become  amal- 
gamated, and  make  common  cause,  which  they  never  would  do  if  kept  in  separate 
corp?.'  Sir  Sidney  Cotton  said  the  same. 


710  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  April 


.RELIGION,   ACHAIAN  AND  SEMITIC. 


A  DISTINGUISHED  author  has  done  me  the  honour  to  make  a  Reply  !  to 
my  paper  published  in  this  Review,  and  entitled  the  '  Olympian  System 
versus  the  Solar  Theory.'  In  this  reply  he  states  his  objections  with 
a  courtesy,  which  I  shall  strive  to  imitate,  but  cannot  hope  to  excel. 
I  am  sorry,  however,  to  observe  that  they  begin  with  the  title.  The 
Solar  Theory,  he  thinks,  is  not  legitimately  so  called ; 2  and  as  to  the 
Olympian  System,  he  conceives  that  it  does  not  exist.3  Let  me  en- 
deavour to  give  him,  upon  both  points,  such  satisfaction  as  I  can. 

1.  It  is  not  open  to  me  to  claim  the  privilege  of  genius,  and  fall 
back  upon  the  method  of  Lord  Byron  ;  who,  on  finding  himself  wrong 
in  an  assertion  respecting  Mr.  Hallam,  said  the  name  must  stand  in 
the  verse,  until  he  was  supplied  with  some  other  name,  dissyllabic  and 
not  less  euphonious,  of  a  person  respecting  whom  the  assertion  could 
be  truly  made.4     It  is  not  convenient  or  mannerly  to  force  on  the  ad- 
vocate of  any  system  a  name  for  it  which  he  disavows  ;  but  Sir  George 
Cox  has  not  supplied  me  with  a  substitute  for  a  phrase  which  I 
thought  had  been  accepted,  inasmuch  as  the  sun  is  the  centre  of  what 
is  called  the  Solar  Theory,  as  he  is  of  what  is  called  the  Solar  System, 
though  in  both  there  are  other  things  besides  the  sun.     By  the  Solar 
Theory,  I  mean  that  theory  which  teaches  that  the  religion  of  all  the 
Aryan  races  had  the  worship  of  external  nature,  and  especially  of 
light,   and  the  sun  as  the  centre  of  light,  for   its  source,   and  its 
primary  stage.    But  I  will  avoid  as  far  as  possible  the  use  of  an  epithet, 
which  one   of  the  most  distinguished  among  the  champions  of  the 
theory  appears  to  disavow. 

2.  On  the  other  hand,  it  seems  hard  to  deny  the  existence  of  the 
'  Olympian  System,'  seeing  that  I  have  described  it  as  '  the  Greek  My- 
thology of  the  Troic  Epoch,  or  as  exhibited  in  the  Poems  of  Homer,' 
meaning  of  course  the  Iliad  and  Odyssey  ;  and  seeing  that  those  poems 
unquestionably  set  forth  a  thearchy  of  a  very  marked  and  particular 

1  '  Homeric  Mythology  and  Religion.'    A  Reply  to  Mr.  Gladstone.     By  Sir  George 
Cox.     Fraser's  Magazine,  December  1879. 

2  P.  798.  3  P.  806. 

4  '  See  honest  Hallam  lay  aside  the  fork, 

Resume  his  pen,  and  praise  his  Lordship's  work.' 

English  Bard*  and  Scotch  Reviewers. 


1880.          RELIGION,  ACHAIAN  AND   SEMITIC.  711 

form,  as  well  as  a  scheme  of  worship,  and  a  set  of  moral  ideas  placed 
in  a  certain  relation  to  that  scheme. 

My  object  has  been  to  give  aid  towards  ascertaining  what  is  the 
relation  between  the  Olympian  System,  so  described,  and  the  doc- 
trine of  those  who  deny  any  other  fountain-head  of  Aryan  religions 
than  the  worship  of  external  Nature. 

There  is  not,  Sir  George  Cox  appears  to  think,  a  real  or  necessary 
antagonism  between  his  theory  and  my  own  view.5  If  there  is  such 
an  antagonism,  it  is  only,  in  my  view,  to  the  monopoly  claimed  for  it 
as  a  thing  universally  proved.  I  do  not  presume  to  construct  a 
theory,  but  I  uphold  certain  propositions  at  which  I  have  arrived, 
without  any  preconceptions  whatever,  from  patient  and  prolonged 
study  of  the  text  of  Homer ;  not  any  wider  or  more  comprehensive 
belief,  drawn  from  other  sources.  These  propositions  include  the 
avowal  ( 1 )  that  Nature-worship  seems  to  have  entered  largely  and  fun- 
damentally into  the  religion  of  the  Trojans  as  represented  in  the 
Iliad ;  and  (2)  that  there  are  traces  of  it  among  his  Achaian  Greeks, 
as  a  system  superseded,  in  his  '  Olympian '  scheme,  by  a  different  for- 
mative idea,  yet  one  which  apparently  had  had  its  period  of  ascendency 
in  the  country,  and  which  may  probably  have  survived  its  own  down- 
fall as  a  central  idea  in  the  obscurer  forms  of  merely  local  practice 
and  belief. 

This  rejection  or  supersession  of  Nature-worship  as  a  central  idea 
was  not,  in  my  view  as  drawn  from  the  Poems,  a  gratuitous  act  due  to 
the  mere  fancy  or  inclination  of  the  Poet.  It  was  the  casting  out  of 
the  strong  man  by  a  stronger  man  :  a  displacement  due  to  the  entrance 
into  the  land  of  persons  and  races  distinct  from,  and  superior  in  in- 
tellect, or  knowledge,  or  capability,  or  energy,  or  in  all  or  some  of 
these  to,  the  inhabitants  whom  they  found  already  in  possession.  Of 
these  it  is  evident,  from  the  Poems,  that  a  portion  were  non-Aryan, 
and  were  included  under  that  name  which  Homer  employed  with  so- 
wide  a  range,  the  name  of  Phoenicians.  But  there  is  also  a  portion  of 
the  population,  to  whom  we  have  no  reason  for  denying  the  name  of 
Aryans,  and  in  whose  case  we  can  find  no  trace  of  a  basis  of  Nature- 
worship  for  their  religion.  This  is  the  Achaian  or  properly  Hellenic 
portion  :  and  these  are  they,  to  whom  it  is  most  reasonable  to  ascribe, 
if  not  under  the  direct  dictates  of  the  text,  yet  in  obedience  to  its 
suggestions  and  in  conformity  with  its  contents,  those  elements  of  the 
Olympian  System  which  lifted  it  above  the  materialism  or  pantheism 
of  Nature-worship,  as  well  as  above  the  gross  and  filthy  sensualism  of 
the  East.  This,  I  say,  was  the  Hellenic  portion  ;  the  third,  and  the 
loftiest,  of  the  great  factors  which  supply  in  the  Poems  the  materials 
of  their  Olympian  System.  This  Hellenic  element,  of  which  Achilles 
is  the  flower  and  the  pattern,  had  already  gained  its  social  and 
political  ascendency,  and  become  the  basis,  or  norm,  of  national 

5  P.  798. 


712  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  April 

character.  But,  as  is  usual  in  matters  of  history,  facts  preceded 
theories ;  and  these  facts  in  times  later  than  that  of  Homer,  found 
their  indication  in  the  epigram  which  invents  a  supposititious  Hellen, 
with  Doros,  Ion,  Aiolos,  and  Achaios  for  his  sons  or  descendants. 

That  system  was  accordingly  in  my  view  the  composite  result  of 
an  ethnical  fusion  of  a  number  of  races,  influences,  and  traditions  : 
and  therefore  very  far  from  '  the  result  of  a  deliberate  revolt  against 
an  elemental  or  Nature-worship.'  6  Here  again  the  facts  preceded 
the  theory ;  and  these  facts  were  ethnical.  The  composite  origin  of 
the  Greek  nation  is  undeniable.  Every  page  of  Homer  bears  witness 
to  it ;  and  tradition  outside  of  the  Poems,  diversified  as  it  is,  testi- 
fies in  a  variety  of  forms  to  the  same  truth.  I  greatly  mistrust  the 
predominant  authority,  sometimes  assigned  to  a  priori  reasoning. 
Yet  it  has  its  place  ;  and,  without  presuming  to  build  upon  it,  I  will 
observe  that,  where  serious  diversity  of  race  coincides  with  the  preva- 
lence of  a  strong  political  genius,  there  could  hardly  be  any  result  in 
the  domain  of  religion  other  than  that  it  should  be  composite.  I  speak 
of  cases  where  the  ethnical  elements  were  well  suited  for  cohesion,  and 
where  the  several  creeds  did  not  claim  to  be  stamped  with  the  marks 
of  special  origin  or  of  an  exclusive  authority.  The  aim  of  what  I 
have  written  is  to  place  the  origin  of  the  Olympian  system  in 
accordance  with  facts :  with  ethnical  facts  which  dictated  silently, 
and  by  no  means  in  the  manner  of  a  deliberate  revolt  against  any  thing, 
the  limits  of  existence  and  development  for  the  several  forms  of 
religious  tradition  brought  into  the  country ;  which  established  a 
modus  vivendi  between  them;  and  which  (apparently)  made  it 
possible  for  the  powerful,  comprehensive,  and  sympathetic  genius  of 
Homer  to  compound  or  adjust  them  into  a  literary  system,  which 
took  its  commanding  place  in  Greek  tradition,  and  which  through 
some  fifteen  centuries,  for  purposes  practical,  or  political,  or  at  the  least 
negative,  satisfied  the  mind  of  Greece  and  of  the  Western  civilisation. 

But  for  all  these  ethnical  facts,  in  connection  with  the  genesis  of 
the  Olympian  system,  undoubtedly  the  poems  of  Homer  are  the 
great  source  of  testimony.  And  here  I  find  in  the  method  followed 
by  Sir  George  Cox  what  seems  to  me  a  bar  to  progress.  While  I 
try  the  character  of  Apollo  upon  Homeric  evidence,  he  refers  that 
Divinity  to  a  pure  Light-parentage  mainly  by  evidence  which  is 
non-Homeric  ;  take  for  example  the  Hymn  to  Apollo,  as  to  which 
I  think  I  may  claim  to  have  performed  the  easy  and  almost  super- 
fluous task  of  demonstrating 7  that  it  is  not,  cannot  be,  Homer's.  In 
truth  he  declines  my  first  and  main  postulate ;  which  is,  that  the 
Poems  shall  be  recognised  as  an  independent  source  of  evidence,  and 
that  the  determination  to  throw  them  into  hotchpot  along  with  the 
whole  promiscuous  mass  of  Greek  traditions  resting  upon  much  later 
testimony  can  only  result  in  confusion  and  give  scope  to  the  votaries 
6  P.  798.  T  See  Homeric  St/ncJironinni,  chap.  i. 


1880.          RELIGION,  ACHA1AND  AN  SEMITIC.  713 

of  every  theory  to  establish  it  by  choosing  out  of  the  miscellaneous 
mass  such  ingredients  as  they  find  suitable  to  their  purpose.  In  the 
Iliad  and  the  Odyssey,  Sir  George  Cox  sees  the  work  not  of  one 
Homer  but  of  several,8  denies  that  the  Homer  known  to  Plato  was 
the  Homer  known  to  ^Eschylus,9  and  denies  also  that  the  mass  of 
Greek  mythology  ie  is  to  be  regarded  as  of  later  growth  than  the  pic- 
ture of  it  drawn  in  the  Poems.  But  in  all  my  reasoning  upon  the 
Olympian  system  I  presuppose  certain  conclusions  about  the  au- 
thority due  to  the  Poems  ;  I  claim  for  them  that  they  offer  a  vast 
body  of  ancient  and  consistent  testimony,  standing  by  itself,  with 
little  or  nothing  which  can  be  shown  to  approach  to  it  in  antiquity, 
stamped  with  all  the  internal  features  of  unity,  and  subjected  in  a 
marked  degree  to  all  the  best  tests  of  verification  by  applying  to  the 
several  portions  of  an  extensive  and  highly  varied  text  the  rules  of 
a  truly  comparative  mythology. 

When  therefore  Sir  George  Cox  asks  why  we  are  to  gather  the 
Achaian  conception  of  Demeter  only  from  the  Iliad  and  the  Odyssey,11 
the  reply  is  ready  made  for  me.  It  is  because  there  is  no  other  body 
of  evidence  relating  to  the  Achaian  or  heroic  period  :  and  this  witness, 
when  interrogated  about  '  the  bright-eyed  maiden  dragged  away  by 
the  chariot  of  Hades  from  the  plains  of  Enna '  and  the  bitter  grief  of 
the  mother  transfigured  into  radiant  joy,  replies  that  there  are  no 
plains  of  Enna  within  his  circumscribed  geography ;  that  his  Demeter 
is  not  agitated  either  by  any  bitter  grief,  or  the  sweet  troubles  of 
radiant  joy  ;  that  his  Persephone  is  not  a  bright-eyed  maiden  12  un- 
willingly detained  below  ground,  but  a  solemn  unseen  Queen,  who  is 
apt  to  send  forward  a  Gorgon  head  to  warn  off  those,  who  may  be 
disposed  to  pierce  the  penetralia  of  the  Underworld  and  appear  in 
her  awful  Presence-chamber.13  And  I  as  counsel  suggest  that  this 
beautiful  photograph  of  the  Sicilian  scene  bears  unmistakeably  a 
master's  name,  with  a  place  and  a  date,  far  other  than  those  claimed 
by  my  client,  the  Achaian  Homer. 

The  next  case  taken  is  that  of  Hermes.  His  acts  in  the  Odyssey, 
in  the  opinion  of  Sir  G.  Cox,  are  marked  by  great  gravity  and 
decorum :  but  how  can  we  be  sure  that  the  Poet  of  the  Odyssey  knew 
nothing  of  the  tale  told  in  the  Hymn  ?  Now,  we  cannot  be  sure  that  he 
was  ignorant  of  political  economy,  or  of  natural  selection.  But  surely 
in  archaic  as  well  as  in  modern  inquiry  we  must  deal  with  what  a 
witness  gives  us,  and  we  are  not  free  to  speculate  on  what  we  'cannot 
be  sure '  but  that  he  might  have  given  us.  In  this  case  indeed  it  is 
evident  that  the  Poet  of  the  Odyssey  had  some  knowledge  common 
to  him  with  the  author  of  the  Hymn  ;  for  his  Hermes  is  by  no  means 
a  pattern  of  gravity  and  decorum,  inasmuch  as  (Od.  xix.  396)  he 
instructed  Autolukos  in  theft  and  perjury.  But  neither  this  tradition 

8  P.  804.  •  Ibid.  ">  P.  806. 

11  P.  799.  »*  Ibid.  »  Od.  xi.  634. 


714  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  April 

nor  anything  else  in  the  Odyssey  in  the  least  degree  sustains  the 
conception  of  Hermes  as  a  solar  or  elemental  power.  Sir  Gr.  Cox 
asks 14  whether  the  Achaians  may  not  have  worshipped  him  as  the 
wind.  But  (1)  the  burden  of  proof  lies  with  him,  and  he  gives  none. 
(2)  The  poet  of  the  Iliad  with  some  appearance  of  care  excludes  the 
winds  from  the  Olympian  Court  (xxiii.  192-216)  ;  to  which,  in  both 
the  poems,  Hermes  evidently  belongs. 

The  third  case  is  that  of  Zeus.  And  here  it  is  admitted  that  his 
relation  to  the  material  heaven  is  that  of  a  ruler,  but  alleged  that  he 
is  always 15  bound  to  remain  in  it  while  other  gods  can  4  visit  the  earth 
and  take  part  in  the  quarrels  of  mortal  men.'  Now  undoubtedly 
Zeus  does  not  enter  into  the  details  of  battles ;  this  is  forbidden  by 
his  dignity.  But  he  visits  the  earth  freely,  if  not  familiarly.  He 
directs  the  battle  through  other  agents,  or  without  any  second  cause 
(II.  xiii.  2) :  he  uses  the  earth  for  his  own  purposes,  and  its  grass  and 
flowers  are  made  to  minister  to  his  enjoyment  (xiv.  338). 

Lastly,  says  Sir  Gr.  Cox,  the  parentage  of  Apollo  is  still  less 
equivocal.  But  again  he  has  to  flood  his  pages  with  matter  drawn 
from  the  Hymn  which  cannot  be  the  work  of  Homer  (or  let  him  show 
that  it  can),  and  with  Indian  tradition  whose  relevancy  is  assumed. 
Now  this  case  is  the  one  most  fatal  of  all  to  those  who  are  daring 
enough  to  associate  the  Nature-cult  with  the  Olympian  system.  For 
if  Apollo  be  in  that  scheme  of  cultus  at  all,  he  can  be  nothing  but 
the  Sun  :  and  from  the  place  of  the  Sun  Homer  has  shut  him  out  in 
the  most  effectual  manner,  by  providing  another  individuality  to 
fill  it.  As  far  as  we  can  judge  from  the  Poems,  Apollo  was  a 
divinity  of  universal  worship  :  and  if  in  lands  not  Achaian  he  stood 
for  the  Sun,  this  fact  only  gives  greater  emphasis  to  the  opposing 
Achaian  tradition  recorded  in  the  Poems,  where  he  is  so  carefully 
severed  from  all  solar  action,  and  is  not  even  among  the  deities 
provided  with  a  chariot  and  horses,  possibly  to  make  this  severance 
more  thorough. 

I  do  not  for  a  moment  dispute,  indeed  I  am  forward  to  allege, 
that  Homer  was  acquainted  with  notions,  or  even  perhaps  systems,  of 
elemental  religion.  But  the  evidence  stands  before  us,  as  a  strong 
impregnable  fact,  that  he  framed  or  followed  a  scheme  which  passed 
them  by,  cast  them  into  the  shade,  put  in  their  place  another  dominant 
idea,  and  worked  it  out  in  a  manner  singularly  dominant  and  compre- 
hensive. He  did  this,  without  doubt,  not  as  an  arbitrary  instructor, 
but  as  the  masterly  manipulator  of  the  specific  tradition  of  his  own 
race,  the  Achaian  race  :  that  tradition  is  a  great  fact  of  archaeology, 
and  I  want  to  fasten  attention  on  the  question  what  was  its  origin  ? 

Not  only  does  the  text  of  Homer  offer  itself  to  us  armed,  or 
burdened,  as  the  case  may  be,  with  these  aspiring  claims,  but  it 
derives  a  tenfold  importance  from  the  fact  that  the  Grecian  records 
11  P.  800.  15  P.  802. 


1880.          RELIGION,   ACHAIAN  AND   SEMITIC.  715 

nowhere  else  offer  us  any  similar  code  of  information.  No  human 
ingenuity  could  draw-  from  Pausanias  or  Apollodoros  the  materials 
of  a  consistent  and  full-bodied  scheme.  It  is  impossible  to  construct 
out  of  the  rich  and  splendid  literature  of  the  classical  age,  or  from  the 
works  of  the  philosophers,  any  consistent,  comprehensive,  and  living 
conception,  either  of  Greek  mythology,  or  of  Greek  religion,  in  relation 
to  the  nation  and  its  daily  life.  But  such  a  conception  it  is  that,  as 
matter  of  fact  and  not  speculation,  is  presented  to  us  by  the  Poems 
as  they  stand.  It  would  hardly  be  too  much  to  say  that  we  can 
understand  from  them  the  religious  life  of  the  Homeric  period  as  well 
as  we  can  understand  from  the  records  of  the  Christian  Church  and  of 
Christendom  what  has  been  the  religious  life  of  the  early  and  of  many 
later  Christians.  We  are  not  on  this  account  to  tamper  with  the  laws  of 
evidence.  Nay,  rather  than  this,  it  might  be  held  that  we  ought  to 
put  the  Poems  all  the  more  rigidly  to  the  proof  of  their  title.  Be  it 
so.  But  let  us  keep  the  two  questions  distinct  in  our  minds,  as  they 
are  distinct  in  their  nature.  And  they  are  no  less  distinct,  than  the 
question  of  the  title  to  an  estate,  from  the  question  of  the  quality 
of  its  climate,  or  the  amount  of  its  rental. 

Nothing  then,  it  is  evident,  can  be  more  clearly  separated  than 
the  argument  for  the  Homeric  text,  and  the  argument  from  the 
Homeric  text ;  the  argument  for  the  unity,  and  the  argument  from 
the  unity.  To  mix  the  two  is  simply  to  bewilder  the  whole  con- 
troversy. 

Besides  postulating  the  recognition  of  the  text,  my  design 
requires  that  it  shall  be  sifted  and  canvassed  with  the  utmost 
minuteness.  It  is  to  be  searched,  not  like  a  picture  gallery  by  a 
visitor,  but  like  a  vein  of  earth  in  a  good  '  placing '  by  a  gold-finder. 
The  items  of  evidence  it  supplies  are  not  to  be  counted  by  units  or 
by  tens,  nor  yet  by  hundreds,  but  by  thousands.  And  here  we  come 
upon  one  of  the  greatest  of  our  difficulties :  the  great  breadth  and 
diversity  of  the  fields  of  archaeological  and  philological  inquiry 
over  which  the  Homeric  question,  when  taken  in  its  entirety,  is 
found  to  range.  I  have  not  yet  seen  or  heard  of  any  man,  who  has 
adequately  studied  them  all.  For  myself  I  tremble  to  pronounce 
any  judgment,  or  even  to  hazard  a  conjecture  outside  the  immediate 
area  of  the  Homeric  Poems.  And  I  must  say  boldly,  though  I  trust 
not  offensively,  that  I  have  not  yet  known  of  any  case  in  which  the 
able  and  ingenious  reasoners  on  the  origin  of  religion  in  general,  or  of 
Aryan  religion,  have  at  all  recognised  the  duty  of  that  minute  in- 
vestigation of  the  evidence  of  the  Poems,  without  which  I  am  con- 
fident no  trustworthy  results  can  be  drawn  from  this  particular 
portion  of  the  field  of  archaic  inquiries.  These  results,  when  drawn 
out  and  stated,  can  of  course  have  no  convincing  force  with  those 
whose  minds  are  already  possessed  by  a  pre-conceived  theory  that 
excludes  them.  That  they  should  reject  them  is  a  matter  of  course : 


716  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  April 

that  they  should  accept  them  can  only  be  desired  when  they  shall  have 
conformed  to  the  severe  conditions  of  a  laborious  and  minute 
inquiry,  which  if  they  had  the  inclination  they  probably  have  not 
the  time  to  undertake.  The  true  Homeric  reader  has  not  yet 
acquired  an  adequate  knowledge  of  the  results  obtained  from  com- 
parative philology  or  religion  outside  Homer :  and,  if  I  am  right, 
the  labourers  in  this  wider  field  have  not  yet  appropriated  and 
digested  the  results  of  thorough  Homeric  reading. 

It  may  be  said  that  this  representation  of  the  case  condemns 
inquirers  to  perplexity,  and  readers  to  despair.     Not  so.     What  it 
really  inculcates  is  not  despair,  but  patience.     Let  Egyptology,  As- 
syriology,  Homerology,  and  the  whole  chubby  and  growing  family  of 
ologies  work  on  steadily  in  the  collection  and  classification  of  materials, 
without  limit,  and  in  the  suggestion  of  inferences  from  them  with  no 
other  reserve  than  this  one  important  condition,  that  they  shall  not 
present  to  the  world  their  provisional  and  hypothetical  results  as  ac- 
cepted facts,  or  demonstrated  conclusions.     How  much  error  and  con- 
fusion  have  arisen  or    may  arise   from    overleaping  this  barrier  of 
reserve,  there  is  no  present  occasion  to  consider.     The  office  of  a 
genuine  inquirer  and  collector  of  facts,  if  humble,  is  honourable.   But 
if  he  is  determined  to  forestall  the  future,  if  the  grub  is  resolved  to 
play  the  butterfly,  then,  inasmuch  as  his  future  is  one  that  never  may 
arrive,  instead  of  growing  into  a  discoverer,  he  may  eventually  stand 
revealed  as  an  impostor. 

When  the  realien  or  positive  contents  of  the  Homeric  Poems 
shall  have  been  at  length  collected  and  published,  they  will  with  a 
vast  economy  of  labour  be  gradually  distilled  through  the  brains  of  a 
number  of  competent  men,  such  for  example  as  those  who  have 
theorised  at  large  on  Nature-worship,  men  who  will  have  time  to 
consider  the  evidence,  but  would  not  have  had  time  to  collect  it. 
Then  there  will  grow  up,  one  by  one,  a  body  of  approved  results ; 
and  these,  taking  their  proper  places  through  the  force  of  intellectual 
gravitation,  will  obtain  their  final  certificates  as  portions  of  the 
established  knowledge  of  mankind. 

Having  stated,  above,  the  two  propositions  in  which  I  find  myself  on 
ground  which  accords  with  the  theory  of  Nature-worship,  I  will  now 
state  my  propositions  as  to  that  portion  of  the  evidence  from  the 
Poems  which  gives  no  support  to  the  theory.  I  premise  that  for 
brevity's  sake  I  shall  call  the  three  great  factors  of  Greek  religion 
by  the  respective  names  of  Pelasgian,  Asiatic,  and  Hellenic. 

In  the  Asiatic  factor  I  include  all  that  may  have  come  through 
the  Phoenician  channel,  whether  from  Assyria,  or  Syria,  or  Egypt. 
Of  the  Homeric  deities  Poseidon,  Hephaistos,  Hermes,  and  Aphro- 
dite plainly  are  associated  with  it.  My  further  propositions  then  are 
these : 

1 .  This  Asiatic  element  seems  to  have  no  positive  signs  in  the 


1880.          RELIGION,  ACHAIAN  AND  SEMITIC.  717 

Poems  of  elemental  connection  in  any  of  its  deities,  except  a  resi- 
duary trace  in  Hephaistos  of  a  relation  to  fire,  which  may  or  may 
not  be  indicative  of  a  more  extended  or  intimate  relation  of  the  same 
kind  outside  the  Homeric  or  Achaian  system.  Thus,  for  example  ; 
where,  in  Troas,  Hephaistos  overcomes  the  hostile  action  of  the  rivers 
by  the  element  of  fire  at  his  command,  the  expression  used  is  (II. 
xxi.  342)  TiTva-Ksro  OsaTTiSaes  7rvp,  which,  though  it  does  not  require, 
yet  from  its  simple  directness  admits,  the  materialising  idea.  With 
regard  to  Poseidon  in  particular,  it  is  impossible  to  bring  any  theory 
of  an  elemental  origin  into  accordance  with  the  Homeric  evidence. 
If  the  theory  of  Nature-worship  is  to  be  made  good  for  him,  or  for 
Hermes,  or  for  Aphrodite,  it  must  be  by  testimony  drawn  from  sources 
wholly  separate. 

2.  With  regard  to  the  Hellenic  element  of  the  Olympian  religion, 
the  presumptions  against  the  theory  are  stronger.  The  case  stands 
thus.  We  find  in  the  Poems  a  group  of  traditions,  apparently  asso- 
ciated with  the  Achaian  factor  of  the  nation,  which  are  anthropomor- 
phic in  a  fashion  and  degree  such  as  to  render  it  highly  improbable 
that  they  could  have  been  mere  impersonations  of  natural  phenomena, 
with  an  exception  (Iris)  such  in  its  character  as  to  confirm  the  rule. 
It  is  still  more  in  opposition  to  the  theory,  that  this  group  of 
Olympian  facts  and  personages  bears  a  strong  resemblance  to  the 
Semitic  traditions  of  the  Book  of  Genesis.  I  have  found  the  force  of 
this  resemblance  continually  to  grow  with  the  careful  and  compre- 
hensive collection  of  the  evidence  in  detail.  And  the  presumptions 
adverse  to  the  theory  of  Nature-worship,  as  an  exclusive  theory,  are 
still  further  heightened  when  we  observe  in  certain  of  the  Hellenic 
personages  of  the  Olympian  system,  such  as  Apollo,  signs  that  in 
some  other  lands  divine  personages  having  points  of  correspondence 
with  him  had  such  attributes  as  to  connect  them,  more  or  less,  with 
systems  of  Nature-worship.  For  the  question  then  arises  whether 
this  purely  personal  and  theanthropic  conception  is  not  the  original 
conception,  whether  the  relation  to  natural  objects  is  not  later  and 
superinduced,  whether  the  Homeric  Poems  may  not  be  a  corroborative 
witness  to  the  Book  of  Genesis  as  to  the  form  under  which  the  idea 
of  God  was  first  made  known  to  or  conceived  by  the  race  of  Adam  ? 

I  will  not  at  present  use  the  phrase,  however  familiar,  of  primi- 
tive revelation,  because  that  involves  the  consideration  and  solution  of 
other  questions  not  necessary  for  the  present  purpose,  and  likely  to 
import  warmth,  or  at  least  prepossession,  into  the  inquiry.  It  is  an 
inquiry  which  ought  to  be  carried  on  with  the  same  cool  and  clear 
impartiality  as  if  we  were  osteologists  who  had  found  a  bone  and 
were  trying  to  fix  the  animal  to  whose  configuration  it  belonged,  or 
mathematicians  who  had  to  choose  between  the  best  probable  modes 
of  solving  a  complicated  equation.  Here  are  before  us  a  group  of 
traditions  which  appear  to  connect  themselves  with  the  Hellenic  or 
VOL.  VII.— No.  38.  3  B 


718  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  April 

Achaian  factor  of  the  Greek  nation  :  whose  entire  spirit  is  alien  alike 
to  the  worship  of  animals  and  of  inanimate  nature :  and  which 
present' marked  resemblances  to  many,  and  marked  conformity  or 
compatibility  with  all  the  main  features  of  the  Hebrew  tradition 
recorded  in  Genesis.  The  whole  question  is  whether  these  resem- 
blances and  this  compatibility  indicate  a  common  origin  ?  It  is 
neither  more  than  this,  nor  less.  And  it  cannot  be  disposed  of  by 
contempt,  or  neglect,  or  indolent  superficiality,  or  adventurous  theory 
made  conspicuous  in  the  world's  eye  by  walking  upon  stilts.  It 
must  be  tried  by  the  laws  of  evidence,  the  established  rules  of  reason 
and  probability.  It  will  not  do  to  say — 

All  the  Aryan  religions  had  their  origin  in  Nature-worship. 
This  is  a  case  of  an  Aryan  religion. 
Therefore  it  had  its  origin  in  Nature-worship ; 

as  long  as  the  major  proposition  is  faced  by  a  set  of  pre-historic 
traditions,  belonging  to  a  particular  Aryan  race,  strongly  opposed  in 
their  present  form  to  the  idea  and  scope  of  Nature-worship,  and  not 
yet  shown  to  have  been  converted  into  that  present  form  by  a  meta- 
morphic  operation  such  as  to  reverse  the  whole  principle  of  their 
life,  the  whole  basis  on  which  they  rest,  by  the  substitution  of  the 
theanthropic  or  anthropomorphic  idea  for  the  cultus  of  external 
nature. 

Mr.  Fairbairn,  in  the  first  part  of  his  lately  published  Studies 
on  the  Philosophy  of  Religion,  has  rendered  much  aid  to  inquirers  by 
his  independence  of  sentiment,  and  his  directness  and  clearness  in 
expression.  It  is  our  own  fault  if  we  fail  to  understand  him  :  and  a 
sketch  of  his  leading  propositions  will  set  out  for-  us  a  well-defined 
position  in  the  face  of  the  problem  that  we  have  to  solve. 

On  grounds  which  appear  to  me  quite  insufficient,  but  which  it  is 
unnecessary  now  to  discuss,  Mr.  Fairbairn  wholly  repudiates  the  idea 
of  a  primitive  revelation  (p.  13).  I  accept  his  dictum  under  protest 
for  the  purpose  of  the  present  argument,  since  the  aim  of  that  argu- 
ment is  to  deal  with  the  evidence  and  the  probabilities  of  the  case  on 
grounds  entirely  apart  from  either  the  proof  or  the  assumption  of  such 
a  revelation.  If  the  upshot  of  this  process  shall  be  to  bring  out  the 
primitive  idea  of  God  in  a  form  accordant  with  that  form  which 
certain  records  purporting  to  embody  such  a  revelation-  exhibit,  that 
is  a  fit  matter  for  consideration  in  its  own  place  :  at  present  we  have 
nothing  to  do  with  it. 

Mr.  Fairbairn  seeks  to  follow  up  to  its  very  cradle  the  idea  of 
God  among  our  Indo-European  or  Iranian  ancestors,  and  to  trace  its 
lineaments  as  he  finds  them  there  exhibited.  He  recognises  the 
tendency  of  the  Semitic  races  to  Monotheism  (p.  16),  and  considers 
that  Indo-European  man  not  only  has  been  tolerant  of  the  different 
gods  of  different  .nations,  but  has  conceived  the  Divine  unity  as 
abstract,  wnile  the  Semite  holds  it  as  personal.  The '  Indo-European 


1880.          RELIGION,  ACHAIAN  AND  SEMITIC.  719 

tendency  was  to  religious  multiplicities,  but  to  philosophic  unities ' 
(p.  17).  The  God  of  a  religion  is  an  object  of  worship  ;  the  Deity  of 
a  philosophy  is  a  product  of  speculation. 

As  an  historical  basis,  Mr.  Fairbairn  assumes  (1)  the  original 
unity  of  the  Indo-European  nations  ;  (2)  the  existence  of  the  rudimen- 
tary form  of  their  civilisation  before  they  separated;  (3)  the  connec- 
tion of  their  several  mythologies  with  the  faith  of  the  still  united 
family,  as  of  branches  with  their  parent  stem  (p.  18).  These  proposi- 
tions will  probably,  in  their  general  form  of  expression,  be  admitted. 

He  considers  it  undeniable  that  these  mythologies  resolve  them- 
selves into  simpler  and  fewer  elements,  the  farther  they  are  traced 
back.  The  Greek  Polytheism  is  formed  by  a  confluence  of  several 
streams,  which  can  be  traced  to  their  respective  Indo-European, 
Pelasgic,  Hellenic,  Oriental,  and  Egyptian  fountain-heads  (p.  20).  So 
likewise,  '  centuries  behind  the  Vedas,'  we  can  trace  the  point  of 
severance  between  two  streams,  which  parted  to  form  the  Indian  and 
Iranian  peoples,  with  their  respective  religions.  Subsequently  to  this 
parting,  philology  shows  us  that  there  were  fewer  gods  than  in  the 
Vedic  age,  but  more  than  before  the  separation  (p.  22).  With  these 
new  gods  a  priesthood  had  arisen ;  during  the  time  of  the  unity  of 
the  Aryan  race,  '  the  proper  name  of  one  God '  had  come  into  use, 
and  this  name  in  its  different  forms,  Dyaus,  Zeus,  and  the  rest,  per- 
vades the  branches  of  the  Aryan .  family  (p.  24).  There  was  also  a 
term  expressive  of  the  idea  of  Deity  similarly  pervasive;  subject 
however,  to  a  doubt  whether  the  Greek  frsos  has  a  radical  affinity 
with  deus  and  the  other  unquestioned  members  of  the  family  (p.  25).. 
The  co-existence  of  the  two  is  an  indication  of  polytheism ;  for  us, 
there  is  no  distinction  between  Deity  and  God.  The  general  or 
abstract  name  seems  to  have  been  the  older,  and  to  have  been  at  first 
individual,  so  that  individuality  is  the  starting  point  (p.  28).  Dyaus 
was  Deva,  Zsvs  6  Osos  (p.  29) ;  it  is  in  conformity  with  this  repre- 
sentation that  amidst  the  strongly  marked  polytheism  of  the  Homeric 
Poems  we  find  their  Zeus  holding  a  relation  to  their  theos,  which  is 
held  by  none  other  of  the  gods. 

Admitting  the  sense  of  Dyaus,  and  of  Deva,  to  be  related  to  light, 
Mr.  Fairbairn  refuses  to  admit  that  the  distinction  of  sex  in  Deities, 
and  the  marriage  of  heaven  and  earth,  belongs  to  a  primitive  stage  of 
religion.  Earth  is  not  so  old  a  goddess,  as  heaven  is  a  god  (p.  30). 
The  German  Zio  has  no  consort.  '  The  separation  of  the  sexes  im- 
plies an  anthropomorphism,  rudimentary  indeed  but  real'  (p.  31). 
This,  I  apprehend,  is  a  proposition  alike  true  and  pregnant.  It 
leads,  of  course,  to  this  among  other  modes  of  application — that 
whenever  we  find  in  a  mythology  facts  which  belong  to  an  order  not 
based  on  separation  of  the  sexes,  we  have  an  indication  of  a  primitive 
or  very  ancient  tradition.  Such,  in  the  Homeric  Poems,  is  the  re- 
markable case  of  Athene.  Ares,  after  he  has  been  wounded  by 

3B2 


720  THE  NINETEENTH'  CENTURY.  April 

Diomed,  sharply  expostulates  with  his  father  Zeus  for  the  partiality 
which  induces  him  to  allow  to  this  goddess  unbridled  freedom  of 
action.  She  was  a  pet,  and  a  privileged  disturber  of  the  peace  of 
the  Olympian  halls,  because  he  was  her  sole  parent. 

aXX'  dviels,  fTTfl  avros  eyeiVao  TraiS'  aiSijAov.16 

Hence  arises  a  presumption  that  the  mythological  origin  of  Athene 
from  the  brain  of  Zeus  was  the  mythical  form  of  a  tradition  older 
than  the  anthropomorphic  constitution  of  the  Olympian  Court ;  and 
this  presumption  is  sustained  by  a  great  deal  of  independent  evidence. 
And  the  worship  of  Dyaus,  says  Mr.  Fairbairn,  may  be  termed  a 
Nature-worship,  because  one  word  was  the  name  both  of  Heaven  and 
of  Grod  ;  but  Nature  is  here  only  a  synonym  for  God  (pp.  33,  38). 
Nature  personified  was  only  nature  conceived  as  living  (p.  34)  ;  but 
Indo-European  religion  founded  itself  on  Divine  Fatherhood,  Semitic 
on  Divine  Sovereignty  (p.  37).  Imagination  supplied  the  physical, 
conscience  the  moral  part  of  the  conception. 

Terror,  distempered  dreams,  fear  of  the  unknown  causes  of  the  accidents  and 
destructive  phenomena  of  nature,  the  desire  to  propitiate  the  angry  ghosts  of  an- 
cestors deceased — none  of  these  could  have  produced  the  simple,  sublime  faith  of 
our  Indo-European  manchild — p.  38. 

Here  subsisted  a  faith,  in  which  Naturalism  and  Spiritualism  existed 
together  harmoniously  as  form  and  matter,  letter  and  spirit  (p.  42)  ; 
when  they  part,  the  higher  element  predominates  in  the  Iranian,  the 
lower  in  the  Indian  branch.  In  later  developments  we  find  not  the 
moral  emerging  slowly  from  the  physical,  but  the  physical  eclipsing 
the  moral. 

We  require,  therefore,  a  faculty  generative  of  these  primary  religious  acts  and 
ideas,  and  we  have  it  in  conscience.  Consciousness  and  conscience  rose  together — 
p.  43. 

The  idea  of  God  was  thus  given  in  the  very  same  act  as  the  idea  of  self :  neither 
could  be  said  to  precede  the  other — p.  43. 

A  priesthood  was  developed  in  course  of  time,  the  result  of  more 
toilsome  and  occupied  life,  and  of  a  sense  of  faults  and  sins  (p.  47). 
And  Mr.  Fairbairn  traces  in  some  detail  the  probable  forms  of  theo- 
gonic  and  anthropomorphic  evolution ;  as  likewise  the  formation  of 
amalgamated  religions,  formed  from  confluences  of  a  diversity  of 
ethnical  elements  (p.  53). 

The  general  result  then  is  that  Mr.  Fairbairn  traces  upwards  Indo- 
European  religion  from  its  more  complete  to  its  simpler  forms,  until 
he  finds  it  in  that  condition  which  is  generally  understood  by  the 
word  Monotheism,  but  which,  it  must  be  admitted,  is  more  accurately 

16  II.  v.  880.  The  same  meaning-  is  perhaps  conveyed  by  v.  875  <rv  yap  re'/ces  &<f>pova 
Kovpriv,  as  rexes  in  the  Iliad  is  usually  applied  to  the  mother ;  there  are,  however,  in- 
stances, in  ordinary  parentage,  to  the  contrary. 


1880.  RELIGION,  ACHAIAN  AND   SEMITIC.  721 

designated  as  Henotheism,  the  affirmative  belief  in  one  God  without 
the  sharply  defined  exclusive  line,  which  makes  it  a  belief  in  Him  as 
the  only  God.  This  latter  form  of  monotheism  proper  may  be  rather 
the  Semitic  than  the  Aryan  conception.  But  having  mounted  up  so 
far  towards  the  fountain-head,  is  there  anything  to  prevent  us  from 
proceeding  further  ?  Having  got  behind  the  elemental  forms  in  which 
the  Indian  conceptions  of  Deity  were,  as  time  flowed  on,  more  and 
more  thickly  clothed ;  having  dismissed  the  motley  tribe,  the  bunt 
gewimmel  of  the  European  mythologies,  and  reached  that  inner  sanc- 
tuary, in  which  God  is  conceived  as  one  God,  ruler  of  the  world  and 
man  ;  having  come  within  an  easy  stage  of  the  Semitic  conception  as 
it  is  defined  by  historical  and  philological  inquirers,  is  there  any 
reason  why  we  should  halt  at  such  a  point,  or  why  that  stage  also 
should  not  be  traversed,  and  why  we  should  not  examine  whether 
there  be  or  be  not  an  original  identity  between  the  Indo-European 
and  the  Semitic  conceptions  of  the  Deity  respectively  ? 

Let  it  not  for  a  moment  be  supposed  that  I  seek  to  beg  this 
question.  I  have  only  pleaded,  thus  far,  that  there  is  no  legitimate 
bar  to  an  examination  into  the  evidence. 

The  great  authority  for  the  Semitic  conception  of  God  is  acknow- 
ledged to  be  found  in  the  Scriptures  of  the  Old  Testament,  and 
especially,  I  apprehend,  in  the  traditions  which  the  Book  of  Genesis 
records.  Around  these  records  there  gathered  among  the  Jews  a  group 
of  illustrative  oral  traditions,  only  committed,  or  only  known  to  have 
been  committed,  to  writing  at  periods  comparatively  so  late,  that  their 
claim  to  authority  must  principally  depend  upon  their  accordance, 
their  inner  sympathy,  so  to  speak,  with  the  more  authentic  forms  of 
the  written  Books. 

Now  the  idea  of  Deity  is  revealed,  or  let  me  say  exhibited,  in  these 
ancient  records  not  alone  but  with  accompaniments.  It  is  ( 1 )  ex- 
hibited not  absolutely  and  exclusively  under  the  idea  of  an  Unity, 
but  also  under  the  idea  of  a  Tri-unity.  Man,  the  vassal  and  creature 
of  this  Deity,  is  also  subjected  to  the  action  (2)  of  a  tempting  spirit, 
that  solicits  and  misleads  him  into  disobedience,  sorely  perverting  and 
enfeebling,  without  wholly  destroying,  his  true  relation  to  his  legiti- 
mate Kuler.  This  tempting  and  misleading  spirit,  which  brings  no 
compensation  for  the  injury  it  inflicts,  is  exhibited  (3)  under  the 
figure  of  the  Serpent.  (4)  The  Tree,  as  well  as  the  Serpent,  forms  a 
prominent  figure  in  the  imagery,  which  describes  the  great  moral 
catastrophe  of  our  race.  (5)  There  is  a  Deliverer  who,  in  the  future, 
not  without  suffering  to  himself,  shall  effectually  quell  the  Serpent- 
Tempter,  working  the  Divine  Will  against  him,  and  re-establishing 
the  harmony,  of  which  he  had  brought  about  the  breach.  (6)  In  this 
Deliverer,  the  purpose  of  whose  life  and  being  is  so  identified  with 
the  will  of  the  Supreme,  the  character  of  humanity  is  strongly  marked 
by  his  description  as  the  seed  of  the  woman,  and  to  the  woman,  who 


722  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY.  April 

thus  forms  the  link  between  him  and  our  common  humanity,  a  certain 
glory  cannot  but  attach  in  respect  of  this  most  solemn  and  mysterious 
relationship.  (7)  One  and  only  one  physical  phenomenon  is,  in 
Grenesis,  associated  with  the  establishment  and  assurance  of  peace  in 
the  natural  world  between  Grod  and  man.  It  is  the  rainbow,  which 
is  appointed,  says  the  Book,  to  tell  from  God  to  man,  as  often  as  it 
appears,  that  the  covenant  of  order  is  still  in  force.  (8)  The  sublime 
conception  of  the  Wisdom  of  Grod  appears  only  in  the  later  Scriptures 
in  connection  with  a  Personality ;  but  it  is  claimed  by  the  Hebrews  as  a 
part  of  their  tradition,  and  when  it  thus  appears,  it  appears  as  annexed 
to  the  character  of  the  Deliverer,  and  as  forming  one  side  or  mani- 
festation of  that  character.  (9)  We  are  also  from  nearly  the  earliest 
date  introduced  to  the  practice  of  animal  sacrifice,  which  is  offered, 
after  man  has  developed  at  least  into  nomad  communities,  without 
the  medium  of  a  priestly  caste.  (10)  These  later  Scriptures  also  de- 
scribe to  us  a  'war  in  heaven,'  with  the  defeat  and  ejectment  of  the 
spirits  rebellious  against  the  Most  High.  So  far  all  I  may  say  is  un- 
disputed. Nor  is  any  question  thus  raised  as  to  a  primitive  revela- 
tion. These  traditions  are  placed  before  us  only  as  being,  like  other 
traditions,  matter  of  fact ;  and  this,  whether  they  truly  report  facts,  or 
whether  they  do  not. 

It  is  at  this  point  that  the  evidence  offered  to  us  with  remarkable 
abundance  and  multiformity  by  the  Poems  of  Homer  puts  in,  as  I 
conceive,  its  claim  to  a  distinctive  function  altogether  its  own.  It  is 
true  indeed,  that  in  various  quarters  we  may  find  abundance  of  frag- 
mentary coincidences,  in  the  practice  or  religion  of  Indo-European 
races,  with  the  remarkable  group  of  Hebrew  traditions,  of  which  I  have 
thus  briefly  reminded  the  reader.  It  may  suffice  for  the  present  to 
refer  to  the  worship  of  the  Serpent  and  the  Tree,  and  the  remarkable 
association  between  them.  But  it  is  only  in  the  Homeric  Poems,  so 
far  as  I  know,  that  we  find  a  reproduction  of  every  one  of  these  extra- 
ordinary characteristics  of  the  Hebrew  narrative ;  an  assemblage 
which  nearly  exhausts  the  distinctive  features  of  the  most  ancient 
Scriptures.  For,  among  these  features,  there  is  only  the  Deluge  of  which 
the  Poems  do  not  bear  the  trace.  It  is  found  in  other  tracts  of 
literature  and  tradition,  but  as  having  probably  come  in  through  later 
contact  with  the  East,  and  not  presenting  the  presumptions  of  direct 
derivation  from  an  archaic  source,  which  I  contend  may  reasonably 
attach  to  the  Poems.  And  the  analogues  of  these  Hebrew  traditions, 
which  the  verse  of  Homer  supplies,  are  not  mere  copies  or  mechanical 
reproductions,  but  bear  the  marks  of  transmission  through  the  mind 
of  a  race  with  a  different  tendency  and  a  genius  original  to  itself,  and 
appear  in  forms  attempered  to  that  genius  and  that  tendency.  Those 
marks  are  principally  as  follows. 

1.  In  the  Hebrew  Scriptures  not  only  is  the  idea  of  sin,  which 
had  been  manifested  at  the  first,  carefully  preserved,  but  it  is  educated, 


1880.          RELIGION,  ACHAIAN  AND  SEMITIC.  723 

enlarged,  and  developed,  so  that  in  the  historic  ages  it  becomes  a  strong 
and  sharp  mark  of  mental  and  moral  severance  between  the  Jew  and 
the  Gentile.  In  the  Hellenic  race,  which  is  cut  off  from  the  searching 
discipline  and  training  accorded  to  the  Semitic  Hebrews,  this  idea 
becomes  by  degrees  more  and  more  faint. 

2.  The  powerful  imagination  of  the  Greek,  seeking  for  congenial 
pasture,  lays  hold  upon  the  anthropomorphic  element,  which  the 
Hebrew  tradition  of  the  Deliverer  manifestly  introduces  into  religion, 
that  is  to  say  into  the  consideration  of  the  relation  between  God  and 
man.     The  idea  thus  supplied  it  freely  enlarges  and  applies  in  the 
prevailing  humanism  of  the  entire  Olympian  system. 

3.  As  in  these  two  particulars  the  Hellenic,  and  especially  the 
Achaian,  form  of  religion  is  broadly  distinguished  from  that  of  the 
Hebrew-Semite,  so  in  a  third  point  it  is  marked  off  from  the  systems 
of  other  races,  who  had  a  less  elevated  conception  of  human  nature 
than  the  children  of  Hellas.     Wherever,  in  the  Hebrew  tradition, 
there  is  an  opening  for  religious  reverence  or  superstition  to  gather 
itself  round   an    object   inferior   to   man,  that   opening   is   in   the 
Homeric  Poems,  and  in  the    Olympian  system,  effectually  barred. 
The  ox,  habitually  offered  in  sacrifice,  grew  into  an  object  of  worship, 
and   to  such  worship,  as   we  know,  the  Hebrews  themselves  were 
curiously  and  fatally  prone.   In  Homer  there  is  not  so  much  as  the  idea 
of  animal  worship ;  but  the  ox,  in  the  Eastern  sphere  of  his  Outer 
Geography,  becomes  the  consecrated  animal  and  favourite  of  the  Sun, 
whom  he  evidently  regards  as  the  prevailing  divinity  of  the  Eastern 
lands.     The  worship  of  the   serpent,  again,  spread   quickly  through 
the  world,  and  may  even  be  found  to  throw  some  light  on  the  con- 
tested question  as  to  the  unity  of  the  race.     In  the  Hebrew  history, 
the  animal  has  a  place  most  singular  and  significant.     In  Homer, 
there  are  indeed  legendary  traces  of  serpent  worship  not  Achaian, 
but  the  creature  comes  no  nearer  to  the  sphere  of  religion,  than  by 
appearing  as  a  portent  for  the  augur  to  interpret,  and  mostly  fills 
the  harmless  though  high  character  of  an  heraldic  symbol. 

If  the  AcLoian  system  refused  to  bow  the  lofty  head  of  man  be- 
fore the  inferior  orders  of  animated  nature,  still  less  would  it  stoop- 
before  objects  belonging  to  the  vegetable  kingdom.  We  have  not 
therefore  a  sign  of  tree-worship  in  Homer  ;  but,  as  in  the  other  cases, 
we  have  the  marks  that  the  Hebrew  tradition  of  the  tree,  associating 
it  with  the  subject  matter  of  religion,  had  passed  into  the  mental 
stock  of  the  ancestors  of  the  Greeks.  Accordingly  the  tree  appears 
connected  with  Deity  in  more  ways  than  one ;  as  the  lofty  oak,  out 
of  which  the  oracles  of  Zeus  were  delivered  at  Dodona,  and  in  the 
consecrated  grove  of  poplars  (afysipoi)  which  fringed  the  bank  of  the 
great  Eiver  Ocean  on  the  way  to  the  Underworld. 

And  yet  once  more.  We  have  no  evidence  from  the  Scriptures 
of  worship,  or  even  reverence,  offered  to  the  rainbow.  But  the  rain- 


724  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  April 

bow  is  placed  in  the  Book  of  Genesis  in  direct  relations  with  religion  ; 
in  such  relations  as  to  be  within  a  proximate  likelihood  of  attracting 
religious  worship.  Accordingly  precaution  is  taken  by  the  Achaian 
mind  against  this  degradation.  And  as  the  ox,  the  serpent,  and  the  tree 
were  confined  within  safe  precincts,  wholly  exterior  to  the  Olympian 
Court,  so,  in  the  case  of  the  rainbow,  there  is  evoked  from  the  bosom 
of  the  natural  phenomenon  a  beautiful  anthropomorphic  impersonation, 
under  the  name  of  Iris,  who  becomes  an  acknowledged  member  of 
the  Olympian  Court,  and  there  fulfils  the  office  of  messenger  between 
God  and  man.  And  it  is  a  striking  though  a  subtle  testimony  to 
the  purity  and  antiquity  of  the  conception,  from  which  she  took  her 
origin,  that  she  is  never  the  messenger  of  the  collective  Court,  as  if  to 
show  that  she  had  no  relations  with  the  variegated  family  of  gods  be- 
longing to  the  composite  order.  She  is  the  personal  messenger  of  Zeus, 
and  of  him  only ;  except  that  Here,  by  a  certain  derivation  or  reflec- 
tion of  his  attributes,  which  practically  marks  this  particular  goddess, 
can  also  put  her  services  in  requisition.  All  this  looks  like  the  poet's 
manner  of  telling  us  that  the  region  of  ideas,  in  which  his  swift  and 
gentle  Iris  had  been  born,  was  the  henotheistic  region,  and  that  ifc 
formed  no  part  of  the  more  promiscuous  and  more  recent  formations. 
So  we  find,  on  the  one  hand,  that  the  Poet,  to  work  out  his  idea, 
keeps  the  Iris  of  Olumpos  all  along  most  carefully  separated  from 
the  Iris  of  the  sky ;  and  that  this  Olympian  agent,  on  the  other  hand, 
never  had  priest,  temple,  or  sacrifice,  never  entered  into  the  operative- 
religion  of  the  race,  but  lived  and  died  only  in  the  theology  of  Homer. 

It  is  surely  no  accident,  but  a  law,  and  a  law  full  of  meaning,  by 
which  in  each  of  these  instances  a  subtle  change  is  brought  to  bear, 
which  does  not  efface  the  identity  of  the  tradition,  but  modifies  it  in 
accordance  with  a  peculiar  genius,  and  upon  a  basis  of  essential  uni- 
formity, such  as  may  almost  seem  to  carry  an  analogy  with  Grimm's 
law,  which  unveils  to  us  the  transmutation  by  an  unvarying  rule  of 
consonants ;  the  one  following  the  structure  of  the  vocal  organs,  the 
other  obedient,  in  a  loftier  sphere,  to  the  varieties  of  mind. 

Now  do  not  let  it  be  imagined  that  I  profess  to  have  exhibited 
in  this  paper  the  full  proof  of  kinship  between  the  Achaian,  or 
Hellenic,  element  of  the  Olympian  religion,  and  those  more  remark- 
able traditions  recorded  or  indicated  in  the  Hebrew  Scriptures,  which 
form  part  of  the  base  of  the  great  scheme  of  Faith  still  dominant 
over  the  civilised  world,  and  the  ruling  development  of  mankind. 
To  draw  out  this  evidence  requires  much  more  than  could  be  supplied 
by  any  paper  in  a  review.  We  should  (for  example)  have  to 
examine  the  peculiar  character  and  formation  of  the  Homeric 
Trinity,  which  are  such  as  to  require  the  supposition  that  it  is 
not  a  thing  indigenous  to  Greece,  or  a  mere  creation  of  the  Poet's 
mind,  but  has  also  an  historical  being,  and  is  imported  from  an 
extraneous  source.  We  should  require  to  show  the  utterly  shadowy, 


1880.          RELIGION,  ACHA1AN  AND  SEMITIC.  725 

nay  I  must  add  futile,  character  of  all  attempts  to  explain  the  cha- 
racter, and  the  Olympian  position,  of  the  profoundly  venerated  Leto,. 
which  do  not  recognise  her  root  in  the  great  Hebrew  tradition  of 
Genesis.  Above  all  we  should  have  to  pursue  through,  not  a  wilder- 
ness, but  an  order  of  almost  countless  details  the  two  great  characters 
of  Athene  and  Apollo  as  they  stand  in  Homer,  stamped  at  almost 
every  point  with  the  clearest  evidence  of  sharp  severances  from  the 
other  members  of  the  Olympian  family  who  gather  around  the 
throne  of  Zeus,  and  with  notes  difficult  or  impossible  of  explanation 
except  when  we  find  the  key  in  the  Hebrew  doctrines  of  the  De- 
liverer and  the  Wisdom. 

What  I  seek  now  to  point  out  is  this :  that  it  is  a  grave  matter 
for  the  inquiry  and  consideration  of  competent  persons  whether  the 
Homeric  Poems,  in  their  representation  of  Achaian  religion,  do  or 
do  not  carry  true  marks  of  kindred  with  the  Semitic  traditions  re- 
corded in  the  Scriptures  of  the  older  Testament.  If  they  do  not, 
cadit  qucKstio.  But  I  have  even  here  shown  certain  tokens  of  pre- 
sumption that  they  do.  If  they  do,  the  concurrence  is  one  full  of 
weight  and  meaning.  For  then  the  religions  of  Semite  and  Indo- 
European  are  shown  to  us  as  springing  from  a  common  source :  as- 
having  once  presented  under  features  of  identity  what  we  now  trace 
as  features  of  resemblance. 

This  chapter  of  inquiry  will  then  be  one  complete  in  itself.  It 
will  only  add  to  the  able  investigation  of  Mr.  Fairbairn  that  one- 
stage,  in  which,  as  it  seems  to  me,  he  still  stops  short  of  the  final 
and  crowning  truth.  It  will  not  be  in  conflict  with  the  evidence  for 
the  Solar  Theory  (so  to  call  it)  at  any  point  short  of  that  at  which 
the  theory,  grown  as  I  think  over-bold,  claims  to  be,  among  Aryans 
at  least,  both  absolutely  original  and  absolutely  universal,  and  dis- 
claims that  region  lying  in  the  dim  distance,  the  true  incunabula 
of  its  historic  or  legendary  life,  which  all  or  some  of  its  most  distin- 
guished champions  cannot  refrain  from  acknowledging.  But  un- 
doubtedly it  will  convert  into  solid  practical  roadway  what  is  other- 
wise morass  or  quicksand.  From  it  we  may  travel  on  to  ulterior 
investigations  with  increased  advantage.  And  among  them  will 
obviously  be  the  inquiry,  whether  those  traditions,  now  called 
Semitic,  so  remarkable  in  themselves,  and  thus  fortified  with  fresh 
evidence  of  their  derivation  from  the  very  cradle  of  our  race,  were 
really,  with  all  the  touching,  all  the  profound,  all  the  noble  elements- 
they  embody,  the  mere  inventions  of  that  race's  infantine  ingenuity, 
like  the  playthings  of  the  child-artificer  Hephaistos  in  his  deep  sea- 
cave  ;  or  whether  the  Almighty  was  pleased,  by  direct  instruction  from 
Himself,  to  supply  the  creatures  of  His  hand,  whom  he  had  made 
subject  to  special  dangers  and  temptations,  with  a  provision  also  of" 
special  guards  and  guarantees. 

W.  E.  GLADSTONE- 


726  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  April 


IMPERIALISM  AND   SOCIALISM. 

THE  present  crisis  in  English  politics  is  intimately  connected  with  a 
still  greater  crisis  in  European  history. 

The  distinctive  and  alarming  feature  of  this  crisis  is  the  terrible 
strain  put  upon  Europe  by  the  fact  that  her  great  empires  are  armed 
to  the  teeth,  living  in  constant  dread  of  one  another,  and  almost 
in  equal  dread  of  their  own  people.  Modern  Imperialism,  wherever 
tried,  has  produced  Socialism.  Imperialism  in  France  produced 
the  Commune.  Before  the  first  German  Emperor  had  become  used  to 
his  Imperial  crown,  he  was  startled  by  the  presence  of  Socialist  repre- 
sentatives in  his  Parliament  and  attempts  upon  his  own  life.  In 
Russia  Nihilism  haunts  the  air  like  an  omnipresent  spectre,  and 
undermines  the  very  palace  of  the  Czar.  These  great  military 
empires  all  have  their  skeleton  in  the  cupboard.  They  are  followed 
by  a  shadow — Socialism. 

There  is  obviously  a  relation  of  cause  and  effect  in  this  terrible 
coincidence.  De  Tocqueville  described  the  great  tidal  wave  of  Demo- 
cracy sweeping  over  the  western  world.  He  likened  its  overwhelming 
force,  and  the  certainty  of  its  onward  movement,  to  the  great  geolo- 
gical changes  which  have  taken  place  on  the  surface  of  the  earth. 
But  Socialism  is  not  Democracy,  though,  under  Imperial  guidance, 
Democracy  seems  always  to  end  in  Socialism.  Democracy  is  the 
claim  of  a  self-reliant  people  for  equal  rights  and  fair  play  for  every 
man,  standing  on  his  own  feet,  to  guide  his  own  life  unfettered 
by  needless  interference  on  the  part  of  the  State.  Socialism  is  the 
sad  opposite  of  this.  It  is  the  cry  of  a  helpless  and  enfeebled 
residuum  unable  to  run  alone,  calling  for  a  State  which,  instead  of 
oppressing  it  and  making  its  life  hard,  shall  do  everything  for  it — 
feed,  clothe,  and  amuse  it.  Nihilism  is  another  form  of  the  same 
social  disease,  another  outcome  of  political  despair.  How  is  it  that, 
under  Imperial  guidance,  Democracy,  instead  of  being  developed  into 
a  healthy  and  self-reliant  manhood,  is  debased  into  the  second  child- 
hood and  helpless  moral  deformity  of  Socialism  ? 

This  terrible  result  seems  to  be  the  logical  consequence  of  a 
necessary  course  of  action  on  the  part  of  modern  Imperialism — viz., 
the  subordination  of  internal  development  to  external  military  ascen- 
dency. It  would  seem  that  the  two  ends  cannot  both  be  attained. 


1880.  IMPERIALISM  AND   SOCIALISM.  727- 

Step  by  step  the  pursuance  of  the  one  cripples  and  confines  the 
other.  A  policy  of  military  ascendency  needs  for  its  success  more 
and  more  of  personal  rule.  This  must  of  necessity  depreciate  repre- 
sentative institutions.  The  more  Napoleon  poses  as  himself  France, 
the  less  can  senates  and  parliaments  be  France.  The  more  Prince 
Bismarck  claims  to  be  the  German  Empire,  the  less  often  will  the 
German  Parliament  be  consulted,  and  the  less  needful  will  it  be  for 
it  even  to  meet  annually. 

The  depreciation  of  Parliamentary  institutions  hits  at  the  root 
of  the  habit  of  self-government.  The  rulers  take  the  reins  into  their 
own  hands,  and  the  nation  expects  everything  from  them  and  less 
and  less  from  itself.  There  may  be  a  semblance  of  rule  by  popular 
will,  but  when  the  popular  will  is  asked  to  act,  it  is  to  surrender  the 
reins  into  the  ruler's  hands.  This  results  in  an  alliance  of  the 
monarch  and  the  mob.  The  popular  will  is  invoked  by  appeals  to 
popular  passions  rather  than  by  argument  addressed  to  the  best 
mind  of  the  nation.  The  reins  are  tightly  grasped  in  Imperial  hands. 
Imperial  interests  rule  the  roast.  The  working  of  the  inevitable 
circle  of  mischief  proceeds.  Imperial  interests  make  everything  bend 
to  the  needs  of  foreign  policy.  Home  questions  are  more  and  more 
neglected.  Popular  wrongs  go  unredressed.  The  burdens  of  taxa- 
tion to  support  an  ever  increasing  army  grow  in  inverse  ratio  to  the 
power  to. bear  them.  Compulsory  military  service  interferes  vexa- 
tiously  with  individual  life,  commercial  education,  and  the  increase 
of  wealth.  Life  becomes  hard  to  the  working  classes,  and  discontent 
arises  with  the  institutions  of  the  country. 

In  former  times  suffering  was  silent,  and  the  crushed  worm  did 
not  turn.  But  since  the  revolutions  of  1848  discontent  has  found  a 
voice  in  Europe.  It  is  no  longer  silent  as  of  old.  It  even  tries  to 
act.  It  uses  constitutional  methods  first.  It  sends  its  Socialists  to 
Parliament.  And  when  Parliamentary  influence  wanes  and  it  finds  no 
efficient  safety-valve  there,  it  takes  a  lesson  from  its  rulers,  who  deify 
force  rather  than  reason  :  it  no  longer  speaks ;  it  resorts  to  diabolical 
attempts  to  assassinate  monarchs  and  blow  up  palaces. 

There  is  a  tightly-tied  logical  sequence  in  this  sad  process  and 
result.  Step  by  step,  by  inexorable  logic,  Democracy  is  guided  and 
turned  by  Imperial  policy  into  the  curse  which  undoubtedly  Social- 
ism is. 

Let  us  not  be  too  hard  upon  the  great  Continental  empires.  A 
policy  of  military  Imperialism  may  at  the  moment  be  a  hard  neces- 
sity to  Russia,  to  Germany,  and  even  as  an  Imperial  legacy  to  now  re- 
publican France.  One  fatal  step  leads  to  another.  The  futile  attempt 
of  the  Second  Empire  to  reproduce  Cresarism  in  the  modern  world  led 
to  Sedan,  and  made  Germany  into  an  empire  whose  existence  between 
France  and  Russia  rests  upon  the  sword.  It  is  a  hard  necessity,  from 
which  these  empires  would  gladly  be  freed. 


728  THE  NINETEENTH    CENTURY.  April 

But  there  was  one  nation  free  from  this  necessity,  which  seemed 
to  be  committed  to  a  policy  the  reverse  of  Imperial.  Its  government 
was  not  a  union  of  the  monarch  and  the  mob,  but  a  free  Parliamentary 
government  under  a  Queen,  whose  special  glory  it  was  that,  aided  by 
the  wisdom  of  the  late  Prince  Consort,  she  had  read  the  signs  of 
the  times  and  proved  how  representative  government  may  best 
flourish  under  a  constitutional  crown.  Through  a  long  reign  of  this 
enlightened  policy  it  had  grown  in  freedom  and  respect  for  law,  as 
well  as  in  population,  commerce,  and  wealth.  It  was  a  nation  of 
whom  alone  among  the  nations  it  could  be  said  that  her  army  wa& 
supplied  entirely  by  voluntary  enlistment,  and  that  the  masses  of  her 
people,  if  they  chose  to  abstain  from  a  few  common  luxuries,  need 
hardly  know  that  they  were  taxed  at  all ;  a  nation  in  whose  expe- 
rience democracy  had  been  trained  and  guided  into  peaceful  paths, 
until  the  people,  habituated  to  self-reliance  and  self-control,  had 
altogether  abandoned  the  old  cry  of  Chartism,  the  product  of  former 
oppressive  taxation  and  unequal  laws ;  a  nation  in  which  it  might 
be  said  without  exaggeration  that  there  was  no  Socialism. 

And  yet  this  moment,  when  Continental  Imperialism  is  everywhere 
confronted  by  Socialism,  is  chosen  by  the  ruling  party  of  the  English 
nation — the  party  calling  itself  conservative — to  let  itself  be  drawn  by 
its  leader  into  a  policy  which  he  himself  has  cynically  and  theatrically 
recommended  to  the  nation  under  the  ill-fated  name  of  *  Imperialism ' ! 

The  new-fangled  policy  of  Lord  Beaconsfield  may  be  only  a  mock 
Imperialism,  and  be  intended  to  stop  far  short  of  a  real  one ;  but  it 
certainly  already  has  to  a  most  ingenious  extent  succeeded  in  adopt- 
ing, and  even  ostentatiously  displaying,  the  distinctive  marks  and 
notes  of  its  Continental  prototype.  It  is  not  only  that  the  Queen 
was  made  to  make  herself  an  Empress,  and  that  the  Prime  Minister 
has  adopted  Imperial  terms  and  used  Imperial  phrases.  With  almost 
incredible  cunning  he  has  succeeded  in  producing  some  of  the  first 
fruits  of  Imperialism  with  even  hothouse  haste.  No  sooner  was 
English  Imperial  policy  commenced  than  it  promptly  proceeded  to 
neglect  home  questions  for  the  sake  of  the  spirited  foreign  policy 
avowedly  aimed  at  from  its  first  advent  on  the  political  stage.  In 
the  Prime  Minister's  latest  manifesto  the  same  neglect  is  continued  ; 
whilst,  in  parading  his  foreign  policy  before  the  electors,  he  cannot 
keep  the  word  '  ascendency '  out  of  his  lips.  Again  and  again  the 
tendency  to  personal  rule  and  the  consequent  depreciation  of  Parlia- 
mentary institutions  has  been  already  witnessed.  The  Prime  Minister 
has  deliberately  used  his  great  Parliamentary  majority,  not  to  in- 
crease, but  to  lessen,  the  influence  of  Parliament  in  the  councils  of  the 
State.  No  recent  Prime  Minister  has  ever  taken  such  pains  as  he 
apparently  has  done  to  elude  Parliamentary  discussion.  His  great- 
strokes  of  policy  have  all  been  achieved  in  secret  behind  the  scenes, 
concealed  till  the  appointed  time — even,  it  would  seem,  sometimes 


1880.  IMPERIALISM  AND  SOCIALISM.  729 

from  his  colleagues — and  sanctioned  by  Parliament  only  after  they 
were  done.' 

It  is  true  that  this  mock  Imperialism  lacks  the  courage  which  the 
real  thing  requires.  Ostentatious  warlike  preparations  have  not 
gone  further  than  threats.  Actual  wars  have  been  rather  '  shabby  ' 
than  heroic,  and  have  earned  for  the  armies  of  England  but  small 
glory.  A  real  Imperial  policy,  on  the  other  hand,  would  require 
doubled  armaments  and  not  a  mere  transfer  of  Indian  soldiers  into 
Europe.  The  present  Government  have  shown  even  a  gingerly  fear 
lest  the  English  tax-payer  should  feel  the  pressure  of  increased 
burdens.  All  this  may  be  conceded.  But  an  Imperial  game  must 
have  its  risks,  and  a  single  accident  at  any  moment  might  have 
drawn  the  nation  into  a  real  war.  Were  such  a  war  to  come  about, 
not  with  Zulus  and  Afghans,  but  with  a  Continental  Imperial  rival, 
the  scale  and  the  cost  of  the  armaments  would  be  fixed  by  the  Con- 
tinental standard,  and  the  hazard  may  be  measured  by  the  enormous 
cost  to  both  winner  and  loser  of  recent  Continental  struggles.  Such 
a  war  commenced  would  require  the  English  army  to  be  doubled  and 
enforced  conscription  to  begin  at  once.  Though,  therefore,  the 
present  Government  may  have  neither  the  will  nor  the  courage  to 
pursue  a  real  Imperial  policy,  still,  in  assuming  its  name  and  aping 
its  methods  at  a  grave  crisis  of  European  history,  they  at  least  have 
been  playing  with  fire. 

It  remains  to  be  seen  whether  the  other  great  English  party  can 
guide  democracy  to  a  better  goal  and  pursue  a  foreign  policy  more 
consistent  with  the  greater  aim.  On  the  solution  of  this  problem  of 
democracy  by  England  a  great  deal  depends ;  for  England  at  the 
present  moment  seems  to  be  the  only  great  European  nation  where 
it  has  a  fair  prospect  of  an  early  and  steady  solution.  And  the  posi- 
tion of  England  in  another  respect  is  altogether  unique. 

We  have  heard  much  of  late  of  English  ascendency  in  Asia  and 
English  ascendency  in  the  councils  of  Europe.  We  have  been  taught 
that  ascendency  comes  with  Imperial  policy,  and  Imperial  policy  is 
obviously  based  on  military  power.  But  military  power  rests  ulti- 
mately on  population.  The  size  of  armies  has  become  the  chief 
factor  in  modern  land  warfare.  And  an  Imperial  policy  in  Asia 
seems  bent  on  giving  to  England  an  extended  land  boundary  between 
Constantinople  and  the  Himalayas.  This  sort  of  ascendency,  then, 
will  require  land  forces.  And  a  nation  in  these  days  can  hardly  be  a 
first-rate  military  power  on  land  without  counting  its  soldiers  almost 
by  millions.  But  the  population  of  England  is,  and  always  must  be, 
limited.  And  to  trust  to  Indian  Sepoys  would  be  doubtful  policy. 
To  arm  provinces  is  to  follow  the  example  which  ruined  Eome.  The 
hundreds  of  millions  of  China  also  can  arm.  Another  generation 
may  see  her  armies  provided  with  European  rifles  and  ordnance,  and 
under  European  drill.  This  is  the  future  of  a  race  for  ascendency  in 


730  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  April 

Asia.  And  the  foundation  on  which  it  must  be  built  is  at  present 
the  apex  of  an  inverted  pyramid — the  handful  of  Englishmen  in 
India.  About  as  many  English  emigrants  have  left  our  shores  every 
year  for  the  West  as  the  whole  number  of  Englishmen  in  India, 
soldiers  and  civilians  taken  together. 

Yes,  let  us  turn  to  the  West  before  we  estimate  the  true  nature 
of  our  duties,  and  incur  these  perils  in  the  East.  Let  us  turn  from 
the  lesser  problem  of  military  ascendency  in  Asia  to  the  greater 
problem  of  the  internal  development  and  true  guidance  of  our  own 
democracy,  and  see  whether  in  the  true  solution  of  that  great 
problem  new  light  may  not  be  thrown  upon  English  relations  to 
other  European  States  and  to  India. 

The  unique  peculiarity  of  the  English  nation  is  this,  that  she  is 
peopling  the  New  World — the  new  Englands  beyond  the  oceans  in 
the  West  and  the  South,  the  temperate  zones  of  the  world,  where  her 
people  can  live. 

Do  we  realise  sufficiently  what  this  great  fact  means  ?  The  English- 
speaking  people  in  a  very  few  years  will  number  100,000,000.  Our 
children  may  well  live  to  see  the  numbers  swell  to  hundreds  of 
millions.  The  present  rate  of  increase  in  the  United  States — by  far 
the  largest  factor  in  the  question — is  said  to  be  2^  per  cent,  per 
annum.  The  question  whether  at  the  end  of  the  next  century  the 
English-speaking  peoples  will  number  more  or  less  than  1,000,000,000 
is  dependent,  of  course,  upon  other  causes  than  the  mere  ratio  of 
increase,  but  as  a  question  of  possible  figures  it  depends  simply 
upon  whether  the  rate  of  increase  in  the  future  slightly  exceeds  or  falls 
short  of  what  it  has  been  in  our  own  times.  And  if  by  a  vast  free-trade 
system  such  a  population  can  be  fed,  there  is  room  in  the  territory 
of  English-speaking  America  for  1,000,000,000  of  population,  without 
coming  up  to  the  limit  of  density  which  prevails  at  the  present 
moment  in  the  old  country.  Does  England,  the  mother  of  these 
future  nations,  realise  what  this  vast  possibility  means  ? 

Is  it  too  much  to  say  that  the  future  of  civilisation  depends 
upon  whether  the  great  problem  of  democracy,  which  it  seems  to  be 
the  chosen  destiny  of  England  and  her  children  to  grapple  with,  can  be 
fairly  solved  ?  Are  we  to  neglect  our  part  in  the  problem  of  the 
internal  development  of  this  vast  people  for  the  sake  of  some  Imperial 
phantom  of  ascendency  in  Asia  ?  Is  a  mind  impregnated  with 
Eastern  mystery  to  lead  us  away,  by  trailing  a  red  herring  in  our 
path,  from  the  great  realities  which  plainly  lie  before  us  in  the  West  ? 
With  this  tremendous  stake  in  the  problem  of  the  guidance  of  our 
own  democracy,  are  we  to  ape  the  methods,  the  style,  and  false 
glitter  of  Continental  Imperialism,  which  has  succeeded  before  our 
own  eyes  in  turning  Democracy  into  Socialism,  and  which  everywhere 
trembles  before  its  own  progeny,  like  Milton's  Sin  in  the  presence  of 
her  offspring  ? 


1880  IMPERIALISM  AND  SOCIALISM.  731 

Nothing  would  guide  the  English  voter  at  the  present  juncture 
with  a  surer  logic  and  to  a  clearer  choice  than  an  adequate  conception 
of  the  magnitude  and  importance  of  the  political  problem  which  lies 
before  the  English  nation.  Its  solution  involves  a  foreign  policy 
consistent  with  it ;  for  the  home  and  foreign  policy  of  a  nation  with 
so  unique  a  destiny  must  be  consistent.  This  fact  alone  excludes 
Imperialism.  Imperialism,  too,  seems  to  fail  altogether  in  its  per- 
ception of  what  democracy  is.  It  poses  as  the  saviour  of  society 
from  it.  It  distrusts  democracy,  whilst  plunging  into  universal 
suffrage  in  order  to  use  it  as  its  tool.  It  distrusts  democracy, 
because  it  confounds  it  with  Socialism.  It  praises  and  imitates 
Caesar,  because  it  thinks  he  saved  society  from  Roman  democracy  and 
founded  the  Eoman  Empire.  It  ends  in  itself  producing,  not  a 
stable  Empire,  but  the  '  Commune.' 

Probably  the  confusion  in  thought  between  democracy  and 
Socialism  comes  from  a  superficial  appreciation  of  the  fact  that  the 
democracy  of  Greece  and  Eome  was  Socialism.  It  was  not  a  true 
democracy,  in  the  modern  sense  of  the  word.  It  was,  in  fact,  a  demo- 
cratic Imperialism,  which  grew  logically  into  an  Imperial-Socialism. 
The  vice  of  Imperialism  which  pervaded  the  false  democracies  of  Greece 
and  Eome  was  exactly  what  forced  them  into  Socialism,  just  as  it 
forces  democracy  into  Socialism  now. 

For  the  classical  democracy  was  a  democracy  of  citizens  ruling 
an  empire.  The  Demos  was  the  despotic  and  tyrannical  ruler  of 
dependent  provinces.  Itself  composed  of  thousands  of  citizens,  it 
governed  hundreds  of  thousands  or  millions  of  enslaved  people.  The 
trading  and  farming  and  working  classes  were,  speaking  roughly,  ex- 
cluded from  citizenship  and  from  the  franchise.  Even  in  the 
governing  city,  Athens  or  Eome,  society  was  based  on  slavery. 
The  trade,  the  work,  was  done  by  slaves.  The  citizen  cared  not  to 
soil  his  fingers  with  such  servile  labours.  There  was  a  democracy 
among  the  citizens,  but  the  curse  of  it  was  that  it  was  an  Imperial 
democracy,  which  ruled  its  empire  to  enrich  its  own  privileged,  and 
therefore  demoralised  and  enervated,  class.  The  upper  ten  thousand 
were  nursed  in  luxurious  ease.  No  wonder  they  excelled  in  taste,  in 
art,  in  education  and  refinement  of  manners.  The  world  has  never 
ceased  to  admire  the  results  of  the  genius  of  cultured  and  refined 
Athens.  But  even  in  the  select  democracy  of  citizens  there  grew  up 
a  proletariate.  Eefined  and  polished  citizens  are  selfish  as  other  men. 
Wealth  gravitates  into  the  hands  of  the  few.  Ambition  and  greed 
seize  the  rich  like  a  disease.  Then  arose,  therefore,  the  inevitable 
contrast  between  rich  and  poor.  Enormous  fortunes  grew  up  in  the 
hands  of  the  few.  The  mass  of  citizens,  proud  and  poor,  enervated 
and  helpless  (like  the  mean  whites  in  the  slave  States  of  America), 
looked  to  the  State  to  provide  them  with  food  and  to  keep  them 
amused.  The  mob  followed  the  leader  who  most  lavishly  fostered 


732  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  April 

and  fed  their  appetites.  This  was  Socialism.  The  true  idea  of 
democracy  did  not  exist  in  reality,  nor  even  in  the  brain  of  the 
classical  world.  Even  the  dream  of  Plato's  Eepublic  is  a  dream,  not 
of  a  true  democracy,  but  of  a  Socialistic  State. 

Therefore,  perhaps,  it  is  not  surprising  that  those  who  are  so 
destitute  of  political  originality  as  to  imitate  Cassar  in  the  nineteenth 
century  are  also  so  destitute  of  political  insight  as  to  confound  modern 
democracy  with  the  Socialism  which  follows  Imperialism  like  a 
.shadow. 

The  true  democracy  has  another  origin,  and  runs  along  entirely 
different  lines.  Its  origin  was  not  classical.  One  finds  here  and 
there  a  stray  glimpse  of  the  true  spirit  which  underlies  it — e.g.  in  the 
remarkable  flash  of  thought  which  Xenophon  puts  into  the  mouth  of 
Cyrus  in  his  romance,  the  Cyropcedeia,  when  he  makes  the  dying- 
monarch  charge  his  sons,  next  to  respect  for  the  gods,  to  have  regard 
to  the  good  of  the  whole  human  race.  But  Grreek  thought  was  neither 
mastered  itself  by  this  nascent  regard  for  the  human  race,  nor  did  it 
impress  it  on  mankind. 

The  real  effective  power  of  modern  democracy  had  its  well-head 
in  a  soul  whose  humility  instinctively  claimed  brotherhood  with  the 
poor  and  the  heavily  burdened,  whose  refinement  of  feeling  and 
tenderness  for  human  nature  surpassed  that  even  of  modern  woman- 
hood. It  was  no  mere  sentimental  feeling,  but  a  deep  and  lasting 
power,  able  as  a  matter  of  fact  in  history  to  enforce  itself  on  others, 
and  thus,  by  sowing  a  seed  in  the  human  heart  the  growth  of  which 
not  even  empires  could  stop,  to  turn  the  civilisation  of  the  leading 
races  of  the  next  2,000  years  into  a  new  channel.  It  is  not  in  the 
history  of  dogmas,  or  in  the  history  of  rival  Churches  with  their  rival 
theologies,  but  in  the  history  of  the  Christian  spirit,  that  the  secret  will 
be  found  of  the  reason  why  modern  civilisation  is  called  Christian,  or 
why  Christian  civilisation  is  identified  with  the  true  development  of 
modern  democracy.  At  this  very  moment  when  the  hold  of  rival 
theologies  on  men's  minds  is  most  loosened,  the  Christian  spirit  is 
achieving  its  highest  political  victory. 

At  this  crisis,  when  there  lies  before  the  English-speaking  race  that 
vast  and  startling  combination  of  expansive  power  and  room  all  ready 
prepared  wherein  to  expand,  so  that  it  might  almost  be  said  that  a 
new  world  of  opportunity  is  opened  to  its  view,  this  victory  of  the 
Christian  spirit  over  the  political  mind  of  England  gives  a  new  possi- 
bility that  the  English  people  may  be  able  to  solve  in  this  vast  field 
and  under  new  conditions  the  problem  which  Continental  Imperialism 
cannot  solve — that  of  guiding  democracy  into  something  better  than 
the  Socialism  which  is  the  shadow  and  curse  of  empires. 

For  the  first  time  in  the  history  of  mankind  has  such  a  vast 
future  been  opened  to  the  conscious  vision  of  any  people :  and,  with 
such  a  prospect  before  it,  for  the  first  time  in  the  history  of  mankind 


1880.  IMPERIALISM  AND  SOCIALISM.  733 

has  a  people  consciously  set  about  so  absolutely  noble  a  political 
task.  I  say  '  consciously,'  because  it  is  consciously  that  the  best  of 
modern  English  statesmen,  of  whatever  political  party,  set  about  the 
solution  of  the  problem  with  the  principle  acknowledged  as  settled 
beforehand,  that  the  State  is  henceforth  to  exist  for  the  good,  not  of 
a  privileged  class,  but  of  the  whole  community,  not  on  the  basis  of  the 
old  classical  Socialism  under  which  the  State  was  to  feed  and  clothe 
and  amuse  its  citizens,  but  on  the  truer  basis  of  individual  freedom 
and  responsibility,  each  man  standing  on  hi  sown  feet,  so  wing  his  own 
seed  and  reaping  himself  the  crop,  whether  sweet  or  bitter ;  every 
man  respecting  every  other's  rights  and  working  under  the  cover  of  just 
laws  which  serve  all  alike  and  meddle  needlessly  with  none.  This  is 
the  avowed  ideal  of  statesmen  for  the  first  time  in  history. 

The  mass  of  the  hundreds  of  millions  of  English-speaking  people 
that  our  children  may  live  to  see  will  dwell  no  doubt  in  the  other 
Euglands  across  the  Atlantic.  It  needs  not  much  political  foresight 
to  see  that  most  of  them  will  be  citizens  of  English-speaking 
America,  in  whose  vast  territory,  as  already  said,  there  is  room  for 
the  whole  thousand  millions  without  its  being  more  thickly  peopled 
than  England  is  now.  The  Australian  colonies  will  have  their 
share.  A  small  portion  only  of  the  English  people  can  possibly  live 
in  the  old  island  ;  and  new  destinies  will  arise  for  England  out  of 
these  new  relations  to  her  children.  She  cannot  cut  up  her  land  at 
home  among  peasant  proprietors  contrary  to  economic  laws,  and  if 
she  could,  only  about  one  million  of  them — whatever  her  population — 
could  be  so*  disposed  of.  Her  peasant  proprietors,  nevertheless,  exist 
across  the  ocean  on  larger  farms  and  under  better  circumstances  than 
they  could  have  done  here.  They  have  helped  us  to  feed  our  own 
millions  at  home  with  cheap  bread,  notwithstanding  the  failure  of 
home  crops  of  corn.  We  cannot  any  more  establish  again  in  our 
Yorkshire  and  Lancashire  dales  peasant  looms  and  spinning-wheels  in 
cottages  and  at  cottage  doors.  That  idyllic  stage  of  manufacturing 
enterprise  has  vanished  for  ever.  We  cannot  for  a  moment,  whatever 
may  have  been  our  manufacturing  ascendency  in  the  past,  dream  that 
we  shall  be  able  to  spin  all  the  cotton  and  weave  all  the  cloth  that 
the  hundreds  of  millions  of  Englishmen  across  the  ocean  will  require 
to  clothe  them.  The  time  may  come  when  we  may  have  to  import 
even  coals  from  America  to  feed  our  furnaces.  "But  the  commercial 
prosperity  of  the  older  England,  if  she  wisely  acts  her  part,  can 
hardly  be  other  than  vastly  increased  by  the  presence  of  fresh 
hundreds  of  millions  of  English  customers  in  the  New  World  for  what- 
ever in  her  own  special  line  she  may  excel  in  making.  England, 
moreover,  ought  to  be  able  to  make  herself  in  some  sense  the  centre 
of  this  extended  English  life.  She  ought  to  be  able  to  make  herself 
the  Athens  of  the  English-speaking  world — their  classical  land — the 
home  of  the  highest  English  culture  without  the  Imperial  vice 
VOL.  VII.— No.  38.  3  C 


734  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  April 

which  confined  it  to  the  few  and  ruined  Athens.  Life  ought  always 
to  be  worth  living  for  Englishmen  in  England,  if  she  can  solve  wisely 
her  social  problems  and  convert  her  proletariate  into  sober  and  edu- 
cated citizens  with  a  stake  and  interest  in  their  country.  Some  of  her 
children  self-dependent,  others  still  choosing  to  remain  as  colonies, 
all  bound  together  by  ties  of  common  kindred  and  mutual  interest, 
the  more  prosperous  they  are  the  more  will  they  be  likely  to  add  to 
the  prosperity  and  dignity  of  the  mother-country ;  provided  that 
England  and  her  children  can  hold  firmly  together  as  one  great 
kindred  of  peoples,  keeping  their  hands  from  Imperial  policy,  and 
guiding  their  own  vast  democracy  into  peaceful  and  orderly  channels. 

This  brings  us  back  to  the  old  question.  The  same  great  common 
domestic  problem  lies  before  England  and  the  new  Englands  to  be 
solved  for  their  own  sake  and  the  sake  of  the  world.  They  are  alike  in 
the  absence  of  Socialism  from  their  midst  now.  They  are  alike  in  prac- 
tical freedom  from  the  excessive  burden  of  Imperial  armaments  on  the 
modern  scale.  But  if  England  allows  the  attraction  of  Continental  Im- 
perialism to  draw  her  away  from  a  true  liberal  policy  and  her  possibly 
noble  future  into  the  trap  of  a  race  for  ascendency  in  Asia ;  if  little  by 
little  she  lets  herself  be  drawn  still  further  into  that  Eastern  policy 
which  the  Liberal  party  honestly  and  solemnly  condemns,  and  asks  the 
voters  at  the  present  election  to  condemn ;  then  a  single  false  step 
may  any  day  lead  to  a  war — the  first,  it  may  be,  in  a  series  of  wars — 
which  may  strangle  and  cripple  her  future,  whilst  (yes,  let  us  even 
then  hope  that  it  may  be  so)  England's  children  may  be  wiser  than 
herself,  refuse  from  the  first  to  listen  to  the  siren's  voice,  and  preserve 
for  us  at  least  new  Englands  where  the  great  problem  of  the  future 
may  yet  be  peaceably  solved. 

In  that  case — we  bearing  the  burdens  of  enormous  armaments, 
enforced  enlistment,  and  consequent  taxation,  whilst  they  are  free  from 
them — the  competition  would  indeed  be  hard  and  ruinous  to  us.  But 
it  would  be  our  own  fault.  The  curse  would  be  brought  upon  our- 
selves with  our  eyes  open.  It  would  be  the  defeat  of  a  destiny  at 
which  wise  men  to  the  end  of  the  world  might  well  grieve. 

There  is  no  possible  need  why  England  should  court  so  adverse  a 
fate. 

The  possession  of  India  is  the  only  argument  ever  used  to  enforce 
the  claims  of  an  Imperial  policy  for  England.  It  was  in  India  that 
the  Queen  was  made  to  make  herself  Empress. 

And  yet  as  regards  the  defence  of  India,  was  there  ever  a  country 
better  defended  from  foreign  foes  ?  With  the  mountains  to  the  north, 
and  the  sea  to  the  south  ;  with  the  English  fleet  mistress  of  the  seas, 
with  this  fleet  in  the  Mediterranean,  and  a  station  at  the  Indian  end  of 
the  Suez  Canal,  from  which  it  would  be  but  a  few  hours'  work  for  a  couple 
of  ironclads  to  stop  the  canal  against  all  comers  at  our  own  free  will ; 
with  the  ocean  route  round  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope,  and  the  Cape 


1880.  IMPERIALISM  AND  SOCIALISM.  735 

itself  in  our  hands — what  more  could  we  ask  ?  By  the  confession 
of  the  present  Government,  all  that  was  wanted  was  a  scientific 
frontier  and  a  friendly  neighbour  in  Afghanistan.  They  have  given 
us  what  they  call  a  scientific  frontier.  But  it  is,  unfortunately,  no 
frontier  at  all.  It  is  merely  two  roads  with  a  military  post  at  the 
end  of  each  road.  They  have  stretched  out  two  vulnerable  points 
like  the  two  sensitive  horns  of  a  snail,  and  call  it  a  frontier.  And 
their  Afghanistan  is  no  friendly  neighbour  as  yet.  They  have  spoiled 
the  simplicity  of  the  defences  of  the  old  India,  and  the  logical  end  of 
the  beginning  they  have  made  of  the  new  Imperial  policy  in  India 
seems  to  be  to  absorb  or  defend  all  the  countries  between  India  and 
the  Levant.  If  we  let  ourselves  be  led  on  this  path,  when  can  we 
stop? 

There  is  surely  a  wiser  foreign  policy  that  a  Liberal  Government 
might  well  pursue  consistently  with  proper  attention  to  home  pro- 
blems and  England's  duties  to  her  colonies  and  kindred  nations. 

Its  cardinal  point  must  doubtless  be  for  England  not  to  isolate 
herself  from  European  politics,  but  to  seek  to  re-establish  the  broken 
concert  of  European  nations  ;  to  abandon  the  Imperial  project  of 
ascendency  as  a  bad  dream,  and  base  her  policy  on  that  real  equality 
in  right  of  nations  which  from  Grotius  downwards  has  been  the  esta- 
blished maxim  of  international  law.  The  concert — the  international 
law — of  Europe  is  the  only  firm  guarantee,  whether  it  be  of  Belgium, 
the  Turkish  principalities,  or  the  future  of  Constantinople.  Go  back 
to  the  policy  of  1856.  Substitute  a  European  treaty  for  separate 
conventions.  Again  revert  to  the  clause  of  1856  abandoned  at 
Berlin,  interposing  the  mediation  of  all  the  contracting  nations 
between  a  quarrel  and  war.  The  hope  may  at  least  be  indulged  that 
when  new  difficulties  arise  and  fresh  Conferences  meet,  like  that  at 
Constantinople  under  the  treaty  of  1856,  there  may  not  happen  to  be 
at  the  head  of  the  English  Government  a  voice  encouraging  the  de- 
faulting nation  to  reject  the  counsels  of  united  Europe. 

The  concert  of  Europe  cannot  be  expected  to  be  reconstructed  by 
those  who  aim  at  ascendency  instead  of  equality  and  justice.  But  a 
Liberal  Government  would  have  different  instincts,  and  probably  with 
patient  labour  secure  that  result  in  the  course  of  time,  as  well  as  a 
fair  working  arrangement  with  Kussia  in  Asia. 

But  the  real  danger  of  India,  as  of  other  empires,  is  not  so  much 
external  as  internal.  The  handful  of  Englishmen  who  hold  India 
can  only  hold  it  by  the  just  government  of  a  contented  people.  In 
India  as  well  as  in  Europe,  Imperial  policy  is  apt  to  subordinate  in- 
ternal development  to  outside  conquests — e.g.,  to  use  funds  set  aside 
for  famines  to  pay  for  wars ! 

It  is  the  Imperial  character  of  the  Indian  Empire  which  is  its 
great  danger  and  its  great  snare.  It  is  not  a  colony  but  an  empire. 
It  is  at  best  an  anomalous  thing  for  a  free  nation  to  govern  despoti- 


736  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY. 

cally,  in  a  country  where  her  people  cannot  permanently  live,  six 
times  as  many  Asiatics  as  she  possesses  citizens  herself.  It  raises  an 
ominous  resemblance,  and  makes  a  parallel  dangerously  true,  between 
the  British  and  the  old  Eoman  Empire.  But  India,  nevertheless,  is 
the  foster-child  of  England.  It  was  not  conquered  by  an  English 
democracy.  It  is  that  corner  of  the  English  Empire  which  has  not 
yet  been  subdued  to  democracy.  The  duty  of  England,  herself  con- 
verted to  democracy  in  its  true  sense,  is  to  keep  India  and  to  govern 
India,  not,  like  the  Eomans,  to  fill  the  coffers  of  the  State,  but  for  the 
good  of  India.  The  success  of  England's  rule  will  be  measured  by 
whether  or  not  some  generations  hence — when  perhaps  there  are 
1,000,000,000  of  Englishmen  in  the  New  World— the  population  of 
India  is  contented  and  happy  and  able  to  govern  itself. 

The  strength  of  both  England  and  India  depends,  therefore,  upon 
the  Liberal  policy  of  steadily  fostering  internal  development.  No- 
thing is  more  likely  to  weaken  both  England  and  India  than  the 
subordination  of  this  internal  development  to  the  necessities  of  a 
false  Imperial  policy.  If  ever  a  struggle  should  come  for  the  life  or 
freedom  of  either,  the  better  prepared  will  both  be  to  bear  the  strain 
and  to  conquer  in  the  struggle  the  further  advanced  they  may  be  in  the 
solution  of  the  internal  problems  which  Imperialism  everywhere  fails 
to  solve,  and  the  less  encumbered  and  fettered  their  free  strength  may 
be  by  the  accumulated  burdens  of  past  wars  and  needless  Imperial 
projects. 

Finally,  even  for  the  sake  of  the  future  of  the  great  Continental 
nations  themselves,  upon  whom  the  burdens  of  Imperialism  weigh 
with  so  heavy  a  weight,  can  there  be  a  better  service  done  by  a 
neighbouring  nation  than  England  could  do  by  the  refusal  to  follow 
their  example,  by  firmly  adhering  herself  to  a  steady  policy  of  peace 
on  the  basis,  not  of  ascendency,  but  of  international  equality  and 
concert  ?  No  other  method  seems  to  lie  before  them  of  reducing 
their  tremendous  armaments  than  joining  with  England  and  other 
nations  in  a  course  so  sound  and  reasonable.  Their  interest,  like  that 
of  England  and  the  English-speaking  nations  and  India,  lies  clearly 
in  a  return  to  the  long-neglected  task  of  internal  development.  If 
by  this  means  they  cannot  convert  their  Socialism  into  the  true 
type  of  a  healthy  and  self-reliant  and  contented  freedom,  Socialism 
may  not  far  hence  become  their  master  and  end  the  useless  race 
in  armaments  by  a  terrible  European  revolution. 

F.  SEEBOHM. 


THE 


NINETEENTH 
CENTURY. 


No.  XXXIX.— MAY  1880. 


DE  PROFUNDIS. 

TWO    GREETINGS. 
I. 

OUT  of  tlie  deep,  my  child,  out  of  the  deep, 
Where  all  that  was  to  be  in  all  that  was 
WhiiTd  for  a  million  a}ons  thro'  the  vast- 
Waste  dawn  of  multitudinous-eddying  light — 
Out  of  the  deep,  my  child,  out  of  the  deep, 
Thro'  all  this  changing  world  of  changeless  law, 
And  every  phase  of  ever-heightening  life, 
And  nine  long  months  of  antenatal  gloom, 
With  this  last  moon,  this  crescent — her  dark  orb 
Touch'd  with  earth's  light — thou  comest,  darling  boy  ; 


VOL.  VII.     X  ).  39.  3  D 


738  ,  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY.  May 

Our  own  ;  a  babe  in  lineament  and  limb 
Perfect,  and  prophet  of  the  perfect  man  ; 
Whose  face  and  form  are  hers  and  mine  in  one, 
Indissolubly  married  like  our  love  ; 
Live  and  be  happy  in  thyself,  and  serve 
This  mortal  race  thy  kin  so  well  that  men 
May  bless  thee  as  we  bless  thee,  0  young  life 
Breaking  with  laughter  from  the  dark,  and  may 
The  fated  channel  where  thy  motion  lives 
Be  prosperously  shaped,  and  sway  thy  course 
Along  the  years  of  haste  and  random  youth 
Unshatter'd,  then  full-current  thro'  full  man, 
And  last  in  kindly  curves,  with  gentlest  fall, 
By  quiet  fields,  a  slowly-dying  power, 
To  that  last  deep  where  we  and  thou  are  still. 


1880.  DE  PROFUNDIS.  739 


II. 


1. 

OUT  of  the  deep,  my  child,  out  of  the  deep, 
From  that  great  deep  before  our  world  begins 
Whereon  the  Spirit  of  God  moves  as  he  will — 
Out  of  the  deep,  my  child,  out  of  the  deep, 
From  that  true  world  within  the  world  we  see, 
Whereof  our  world  is  but  the  bounding  shore — 
Out  of  the  deep,  Spirit,  out  of  the  deep, 
With  this  ninth  moon  that  sends  the  hidden  sun 
Down  yon  dark  sea,  thou  comest,  darling  boy. 

2. 

For  in  the  world,  which  is  not  ours,  They  said 
'  Let  us  make  man '  and  that  which  should  be  man. 
From  that  one  light  no  man  can  look  upon, 
Drew  to  this  shore  lit  by  the  suns  and  moons 
And  all  the  shadows.     0  dear  Spirit  half-lost 
In  thine  own  shadow  and  this  fleshly  sign 
That  thou  art  thou — who  wailest  being  born 


3  D  2 


740  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  May 

Andbanish'd  into  mystery,  and  the  pain 

Of  this  divisible-indivisible  world 

Among  the  numerable-innumerable 

Sun,  sun,  and  sun,  thro'  finite-infinite  space 

In  finite-infinite  time — our  mortal  veil 

And  shatter'd  phantom  of  that  infinite  One, 

Who  made  thee  unconceivably  thyself 

Out  of  His  whole  World-self  and  all  in  all — 

Live  thou,  and  of  the  grain  and  husk,  the  grape 

And  ivyberry,  choose  ;  and  still  depart 

From  death  to  death  thro'  life  and  life,  and  find 

Nearer  and  ever  nearer  Him  who  wrought 

Not  Matter,  nor  the  finite-infinite, 

But  this  main  miracle,  that  thou  art  thou, 

With  power  on  thine  own  act  and  on  the  world. 


1880.  DE  PROFUXDIS.  741 


THE   HUMAX   CRY. 

I. 

HALLOWED  be  Thy  name — Halleluiah  ! — 

Infinite  Ideality  ! 

Immeasurable  Reality ! 

Infinite  Personality ! 

Hallowed  be  Thy  name — Halleluiah  ! 

IT. 

We  feel  we  are  nothing — for  all  is  Thou  and  in  Thee  ; 
We  feel  we  are  something — tltat  also  has  come  from 

Thee  ; 
We  are  nothing,  0  Thou — but  Thou  wilt  help  us  to 

be. 
Hallowed  be  Thy  name — Halleluiah  ! 

ALFRED   TENNYSON. 


742  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  May 


MARC-AURELE.1 


MESDAMES  ET  MESSIEURS  :  J'ai  accepte  avec  grande  joie  de  venir 
echanger  quelques  idees  avec  vous.  Je  suis  Breton  de  France ;  or, 
de  toutes  les  races,  la  race  bretonne  est  p'eut-etre  celle  qui  a  pris  la 
religion  le  plus  au  serieux.  Meme  quand  le  progres  de  la  reflexion 
nous  a  ruontre  que  quelques  articles  sont  a  modifier  dans  la  liste  des 
choses  que  nous  avions  d'abord  tenues  pour  certaines,  nous  ne  rompons 
jamais  avec  le  symbole  sous  lequel  nous  avons  d'abord  goute  1'ideal. 
Car  la  foi  ne  reside  pas  pour  nous  en  d'obscures  propositions  meta- 
physiques,  elle  est  dans  les  affirmations  du  coeur.  J'ai  done  choisi 
pour  m'entretenir  avec  vous,  non  quelqu'une  de  ces  subtilites  qui 
divisent,  mais  un  de  ces  sujets  chers  a  Tame,  qui  rapprochent  et 
reunissent.  Je  vous  parlerai  de  ce  livre  tout  resplendissant  de  1'esprit 
divin,  de  ce  manuel  de  la  vie  resignee  que  nous  a  laisse  le  plus  pieux 
des  hommes,  le  cesar  Marc-Aurele-Antonin.  II  y  a  des  hommes  qui 
©nt  exerce  une  influence  plus  profonde  et  plus  durable  ;  mais  nul  n'a 
ete  aussi  parfait  que  celui-ci.  C'est  la  gloire  des  souverains  que  le 
plus  irreprochable  modele  de  vertu  se  soit  trouve  dans  leurs  rangs,  et 
que  les  plus  belles  lefons  de  patience  et  de  detachement  soient  venues 
d'une  condition  qu'on  suppose  volontiers  livree  a  toutes  les  seductions 
du  plaisir  et  de  la  vanite. 

I. 

L'heredite  de  la  sagesse  sur  le  trone  est  chose  toujours  rare  ;  je 
n'en  vois  dans  1'histoire  que  deux  exemples  eclatants  :  dans  1'Inde,  la 
succession  de  ces  trois  empereurs  mongols,  Baber,  Humaioun  et 
Akbar ;  a  Rome,  a  la  tete  du  plus  vaste  empire  qui  flit  jamais,  les 
deux  regnes  admirables  d'Antonin  le  Pieux  et  de  Marc-Aurele. 
De  ces  deux  derniers,  Antonin  fut,  selon  moi,  le  plus  grand.  Sa 
bonte  ne  lui  fit  pas  commettre  de  fautes  ;  il  ne  fut  pas  tourmente 
du  mal  interieur  qui  rongea  sans  relache  le  coeur  de  son  fils  adoptif. 
Ce  mal  etrange,  cette  etude  inquiete  de  soi-meme,  ce  demon  du 
scrupule,  cette  fievre  de  perfection  sont  des  signes  d'une  nature  moins 
forte  que  distinguee.  Comme  les  plus  belles  pensees  sont  celles  qu'on 
n'ecrit  pas,  Antonin  eut  encore  a  cet  egard  une  superiorite  sur  Marc- 

1  A  lecture  delivered  at  the  Eoyal  Institution  on  the  16th  of  April,  1880. 


1880.  MARC-AURELE.  743 

Aurele  ;  mais  ajoutons  que  nous  ignorerions  Antonin,  si  Marc-Aurele 
ne  nous  avait  transmis  de  son  pere  adoptif  ce  portrait  exquis,  ou  il 
semble  s'etre  applique  par  humilite  a  peindre  i'image  d'un  liomme 
encore  meilleur  que  lui-meme. 

C'est  lui  aussi  qui  nous  a  trace,  dans  le  premier  livre  de  ses 
Pensees,  cet  arriere-plan  admirable,  ou  se  meuvent  dans  une  lumiere 
toute  celeste  les  nobles  et  pures  figures  de  son  pere,  de  sa  mere,  de  son 
aieul,  de  ses  maitres.  Grace  a  Marc-Aurele,  nous  pouvons  comprendre 
ce  que  ces  vieilles  families  romaines,  qui  avaient  vu  le  regne  des 
mauvais  empereurs,  gardaient  encore  d'honnetete,  de  dignite,  de 
droiture,  d'esprit  civil  et,  si  j'ose  le  dire,  republican!.  On  y  vivait 
dans  1'admiration  de  Caton,  de  Brutus,  de  Thraseas  et  des  grands 
stoiciens  dont  1'ame  n'avait  pas  plie  sous  la  tyrannic.  Le  regne  de 
Domitien  y  etait  abhorre.  Les  sages  qui  1'avaient  traverse  sans 
flechir  y  etaient  honores  comme  des  heros.  L'avenement  des  Antonins 
ne  fut  au  fond  que  1'arrivee  au  pouvoir  de  la  societe  des  sages  dont 
Tacite  nous  a  transmis  les  justes  coleres,  societe  de  sages  formee  par 
la  ligue  de  tous  ceux  qu'avait  revoltes  le  despotisme  des  premiers 
Cesars. 

Le  salutaire  principe  de  1'adoption  avait  fait  de  la  cour  imperiale, 
au  deuxieme  siecle,  une  vraie  pepiniere  de  vertu.  Le  noble  et  habile 
Nerva,  en  posant  ce  principe,  assura  le  bonheur  du  genre  humain 
pendant  pres  de  cent  ans,  et  donna  au  monde  le  plus  beau  siecle  de 
progres  dont  la  memoire  ait  ete  conservee.  La  souverainete  ainsi 
possedee  en  commun  par  un  groupe  d'hommes  d'elite,  lesquels  se  la 
leguaient  ou  se  la  partageaient  selon  les  besoins  du  moment,  perdit 
une  partie  de  cet  attrait  qui  la  rend  si  dangereuse.  On  arriva  au 
trone  sans  1'avoir  brigue,  mais  aussi  sans  le  devoir  a  sa  naissance  ni 
;\  une  sorte  de  droit  divin ;  on  y  arriva  desabuse,  ennuye  des  hommes, 
prepare  de  longue  main.  L'empire  fut  un  fardeau  civil,  qu'on  accepta 
a  son  heure,  sans  que  nul  songeat  a  avancer  cette  heure.  Marc-Aurele 
y  fut  design  e  si  jeune  que  1'idee  de  regner  n'eut  guere  chez  lui  de 
commencement  et  n'exerca  pas  sur  son  esprit  un  moment  de  seduction. 
A  huit  ans,  quand  il  etait  deja  prcesul  des  pretres  Saliens,  Adrien 
remarqua  ce  doux  enfant  triste,  et  1'aima  pour  son  bon  naturel,  sa 
docilite,  son  incapacite  de  mentir.  A  dix-huit  ans,  1'empire  lui  etait 
assure.  II  1'attendit  patiemment  durant  vingt-deux  annees.  Le  soir 
ou  Antonin  se  sentant  mourir,  apres  avoir  donne  pour  mot  d'ordre  au 
tribun  de  service,  ^Equanimitas,  fit  porter  dans  la  chambre  de  son 
fils  adoptif  la  statue  d'or  de  la  Fortune,  qui  devait  toujours  se 
trouver  dans  1'appartement  de  1'empereur,  il  n'y  eut  pour  celui-ci  ni 
surprise  ni  joie.  II  etait  depuis  longtemps  blase  sur  toutes  lesjoies 
sans  les  avoir  goiitees ;  il  en  avait  vu  par  la  profondeur  de  sa  philo- 
sophic 1'absolue  vanite. 

Le  grand  inconvenient  de  la  vie  pratique  et  ce  qui  la  rend  insup- 
portable a  1'homme  superieur,  c'est  que,  si  Ton  y  transports  les 


744  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  May 

principes  de  1'ideal,  les  qualites  deviennent  des  defauts,  si  bien  que 
fort  souvent  1'homme  accompli  y  reussit  moins  bien  que  celui  qui  a 
pour  mobile  I'egoisme  ou  la  routine  vulgaire.  Trois  ou  quatre  fois 
la  vertu  de  Marc-Aurele  faillit  le  perdre.  Elle  lui  fit  faire  une- 
premiere  faute  en  lui  persuadant  d'associer  a  1'empire  Lucius-Verus, 
envers  qui  il  n'avait  aucune  obligation.  Verus  etait  un  homme  frivole 
et  sans  valeur.  II  fallut  des  prodiges  de  bonte  et  de  delicatesse  pour 
1'empecher  de  faire  des  folies  desastreuses.  Le  sage  empereur,  serieux 
et  applique,  trainait  avec  lui  dans  sa  litiere  le  sot  collegue  qu'il  -s'etait 
donne.  II  le  prit  toujours  obstinement  au  serieux  ;  il  ne  se  revolta 
pas  une  fois  contre  cet  assommant  compagnonnage.  Comme  les  gens- 
qui  ont  ete  tres  bien  eleves,  Marc-Aurele  se  genait  sans  cesse ;  ses 
facons  venaient  d'un  parti-pris  general  de  tenue  et  de  dignite.  Les 
ames  de  cette  sorte,  soit  pour  rie  pas  faire  de  peine  aux  autres,  soit 
par  respect  pour  la  nature  humaine,  ne  se  resignent  pas  a  avouer 
qu'elles  voient  le  mal.  Leur  vie  est  une  perpetuelle  dissimulation. 

Selon  quelques-uns,  il  aurait  ete  dissimule  envers  lui-meme,  puis- 
que  dans  son  entretien  intime  avec  les  dieux  sur  les  bords  du  Gran, 
parlant  d'une  epouse  indigne  de  lui,  il  les  aurait  remercies  de  lui  avoir 
donne  '  une  femme  si  complaisante,  si  affectueuse,  si  simple.'  J'ai 
montre  ailleurs  qu'on  s'est  quelque  peu  exagere  sur  ce  point  la  patience 
ou,  si  1'on  veut,  la  faiblesse  de  Marc-Aurele.  Faustine  eut  des  torts ; 
le  plus  grand  fut  d'avoir  pris  en  aversion  les  amis  de  son  mari ; 
comme  ce  furerit  ses  amis  qui  ecrivirent  I'histoire,  elle  en  porte  la 
peine  devant  la  posterite.  Mais  une  critique  attentive  n'a  pas  de 
peine  a  montrer  ici  les  exagerations  de  la  legende.  Tout  porte  a 
croire  que  Faustine  trouva  d'abord  le  bonheur  et  1'amour  dans  cette 
villa  de  Lorium  ou  dans  cette  belle  retraite  de  Lanuvium,  sur  les 
dernieres  pentes  du  mont  Albain,  que  Marc-Aurele  decrit  a  Fronton 
comme  un  sejour  plein  des  joies  les  plus  pures.  Puis  elle  se  fatigua 
de  tant  de  sagesse.  Disons  tout :  les  belles  sentences  de  Marc-Aureler 
sa  vertu  austere,  sa  perpetuelle  melancolie,  purent  sembler  ennuyeuses 
a  une  femme  jeune,  capricieuse,  d'un  temperament  ardent  et  d'une 
merveilleuse  beaute.  II  le  comprit,  en  souffrit  et  se  tut.  Faustine 
resta  toujours  '  sa  tres  bonne  et  tres  fidele  epouse.'  On  ne  reussifc 
jamais,  merne  apres  qu'elle  fut  morte,  a  lui  faire  abandonner  ce  pieux 
mensonge.  Dans  un  bas-relief  qui  se  voit  encore  aujourd'hui  a  Kome 
au  musee  du  Capitole,  pendant  que  Faustine  est  enlevee  au  ciel  par 
une  Renommee,  1'excellent  empereur  la  suit  de  terre  avec  un  regard 
plein  d'amour.  II  etait  arrive,  ce  semble,  dans  les  derniers  temps,  a 
se  faire  illusion  a  lui-meme  et  a  tout  oublier.  Mais  quelle  lutte  il  dut 
traverser  pour  en  arriver  la  !  Durant  de  longues  annees,  une  maladie 
de  cceur  le  consuma  lentement.  L'effort  desespere  qui  fait  1'essence 
de  sa  philosophie,  cette  frenesie  de  renoncement,  poussee  parfois- 
jusqu'au  sophisme,  dissimulent  au  fond  une  immense  blessure.  Qu'il 
faut  avoir  dit  adieu  au  bonheur  pour  arriver  a  de  tels  exces  !  On  ne- 


1880.  MARC-AURELE.  t  745 

comprendra  jamais  tout  ce  que  souffrit  ce  pauvre  coeur  fletri,  ce  qu'il 
y  eut  d'amertume  dissimulee  par  ce  front  pale,  toujours  calme  et 
presque  toujours  souriant.  II  est  vrai  que  1'adieu  au  bonheur  est  le 
commencement  de  la  sagesse  et  le  moyen  le  plus  sur  pour  trouver 
le  bonheur.  II  n'y  a  rien  de  doux  comma  le  retour  de  joie  qui  suit  le 
renoncement  a  la  joie;  rien  de  vif,  de  profond,  de  charmant  comme 
1'enchantement  du  desenchante. 

Des  historiens  plus  ou  moins  imbus  de  cette  politique  qui  se  croit 
superieure  parce  qu'elle  n'est  suspecte  d'aucune  philosophie,  ont 
naturellement  cherche  a  prouver  qu'un  homme  si  accompli  fiit  un 
mauvais  administrateur  et  un  mediocre  souverain.  II  parait  en  effet 
que  Marc-Aurele  pecha  plus  d'une  fois  par  trop  d'indulgence.  Mais 
jamais  regne  ne  fut  plus  fecond  en  reformes  et  en  progres.  L'assistance 
publique,  fondee  par  Nerva  et  Trajan,  refut  de  lui  d'admirables 
developpements.  Des  colleges  nouveaux  pour  1'education  gratuite 
furent  etablis  ;  les  procurateurs  alimentaires  devinrent  des  fonction- 
naires  de  premier  ordre  et  furent  choisis  avec  un  soin  extreme ;  on 
pourvut  a  1'edu.cation  des  femmes  pauvres  par  Tinstitut  des  Jeunes 
Faustiniennes.  Le  principe  que  1'Etat  a  des  devoirs  en  quelque  sorte 
paternels  envers  ses  membres  (principe  dont  il  faudra  se  souvenir 
avec  gratitude,  meme  quand  on  1'aura  depasse),  ce  principe,  dis-je,  a 
ete  proclame  pour  la  premiere  fois  dans  le  monde  par  les  Antonins. 
Ni  le  faste  pueril  des  royautes  orientales,  fondees  sur  la  bassesse  et 
la  stupidite  des  hommes,  ni  1'orgueil  pedantesque  des  royautes  du 
moyen- age,  fondees  sur  un  sentiment  exagere  de  1'heredite  et  sur  une 
foi  naive  dans  les  droits  du  sang,  ne  peuvent  nous  donner  une  idee  de 
cette  souverainete  toute  republicaine  de  Nerva,  de  Trajan,  d'Adrien, 
d'Antonin,  de  Marc-Aurele.  Rien  du  prince  hereditaire  ou  par  droit 
divin  ;  rien  non  plus  du  chef  militaire  ;  c'etait  une  sorte  de  grande 
magistrature  civile,  sans  rien  qui  ressemblat  a  une  cour  ni  qui  enlevat 
a  1'empereur  son  caractere  tout  prive.  Marc-Aureie,  en  particulier, 
ne  fut  ni  peu  ni  beaucoup  un  roi  dans  le  sens  propre  du  mot ;  sa 
fortune  etait  industrielle,  elle  consistait  surtout  en  briqueteries ;  son 
aversion  pour  '  les  cesars,'  qu'il  envisage  comme  des  especes  de 
Sardanapales,  magnifiques,  debauches  et  cruel s,  eclate  a  chaque 
instant.  La  civilite  de  ses  moeurs  etait  extreme ;  il  rendit  au  senat 
toute  son  ancienne  importance  ;  quand  il  etait  a  Rome,  il  ne  manqur.it 
jamais  une  seance,  et  ne  quittait  sa  place  que  quand  le  consul  avait 
prononce  la  formule  :  Nikil  vos  moramur,patres  conscripti.  Presque 
toutes  les  annees  de  son  regne  il  fit  la  guerre,  et  il  la  fit  bien, 
quoiqu'il  n'y  trouvat  que  de  1'ennui.  Ses  insipides  campagnes  contre 
les  Quades  et  les  Marcomans  furent  tres  bien  conduites ;  le  degout 
qu'il  en  eprouvait  ne  I'empechait  pas  d'y  mettre  1'application  la  plus 
consciencieuse. 

Ce  fut  dans  le  cours  d'une  de  ces  expeditions  que,  campe  sur  les 
bords  du  Gran,  au  milieu  des  plaines  monotones  de  la  Hongrie,  il 


746  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  May 

• 
ecrivit  les  plus  belles  pages  du  livre  exquis  qui  nous  a  revele  son 

ame  tout  entiere.  II  est  probable  que,  de  bonne  heure,  il  tint  un 
journal  intime  de  ses  pensees.  II  y  inscrivait  les  maximes  auxquelles 
il  reoourait  pour  se  fortifier,  les  reminiscences  de  ses  auteurs  favoris, 
les  passages  des  moralistes  qui  lui  parlaient  le  plus,  les  principes  qui 
dans  la  journee  1'avaient  soutenu,  parfois  les  reproches  que  sa  con- 
science scrupuleuse  croyait  avoir  a  s'adresser.  '  On  se  cherche  des 
retraites  solitaires,  chaumieres  rustiques,  rivages  des  mers,  montagnes  ; 
comrae  les  autres,  tu  aimes  a  rever  ces  biens.  A  quoi  bon,  puisqu'il 
t'est  permis  a  chaque  heure  de  te  retirer  en  ton  ame  ?  Nulle  part 
1'homme  n'a  de  retraite  plus  tranquille,  surtout  s'il  a  en  lui-meme  de 
ces  choses  dont  la  contemplation  suffit  pour  le  rendre  calme.  Sache 
done  jouir  de  cette  retraite,  et  la  renouvelle  tes  forces.  Qu'il  y  ait 
la  de  ces  maximes  courtes  fondamentales,  qui  tout  d'abord  rendront 
la  serenite  a  ton  ame  et  te  remettront  en  etat  de  supporter  avec 
resignation  le  monde  ou  tu  dois  revenir.'  Pendant  les  tristes  hivers 
du  Nord,  cette  consolation  lui  devint  encore  plus  necessaire.  II  avait 
pres  de  soixante  ans  ;  la  vieillesse  etait  chez  lui  prematuree.  Un 
soir,  toutes  les  images  de  sa  pieuse  jeunesse  remonterent  en  son  sou- 
venir, et  il  passa  quelques  heures  delicieuses  a  supputer  ce  qu'il  devait 
a  chacun  des  etres  bons  qui  1'avaient  entoure. 

6  Exemples  de  mon  ai'eul  Verus :  Douceur  de  mceurs,  patience  in- 
alterable.' 

1  Qualites  qu'on  prisait  dans  mon  pere,  souvenir  qu'il  m'a  laisse  : 
Modestie,  caractere  male.' 

'  Imiter  de  ma  mere  sa  piete,  sa  bienfaisance ;  m'abstenir,  comme 
elle,  non-seulement  de  faire  le  mal,  mais  meme  d'en  concevoir  la 
pensee ;  mener  sa  vie  frugale,  et  qui  ressemblait  si  peu  an  luxe  habituel 
des  riches.' 

Puis  lui  apparaissent  tour  a  tour  Diogenete,  qui  lui  inspira  le  gout 
de  la  philosophic  et  rendit  agreables  a  ses  yeux  le  grabat,  la  couver- 
ture  composee  d'une  simple  peau  et  tout  1'appareil  de  la  discipline 
hellenique  ;  Junius  Rusticus,  qui  lui  apprit  a  eviter  toute  affectation 
d'elegance  dans  le  style  et  lui  preta  le  volume  d'Epictete  ;  Apollonius 
de  Chalcis,  qui  realisait  1'ideal  stoicien  de  1'extreme  fermete  et  de  la 
parfaite  douceur ;  Sextus  de  Cheronee,  si  grave  et  si  bon  ;  Alexandre 
le  grammairien,  qui  reprenait  avec  une  politesse  si  raffinee ;  Fronton, 
'  qui  lui  apprit  ce  qu'il  y  a,  dans  un  tyran,  d'envie,  de  duplicite, 
d'hypocrisie,  et  ce  qu'il  peut  y  avoir  de  durete  dans  le  coeur  d'un 
patricien  ; '  son  frere  Severus,  '  qui  lui  fit  connaitre  Thraseas,  Hel- 
vidius,  Caton,  Brutus,  qui  lui  donna  1'idee  de  ce  qu'est  un  Etat  libre, 
ou  la  regie  est  1'egalite  naturelle  des  citoyens  et  Tegalite  de  leurs 
droits  ;  d'une  royaute  qui  place  avant  tout  le  respect  delaliberte  des 
citoyens,'  et,  dominant  tous  les  autres  de  sa  grandeur  immaculee, 
Antonin,  son  pere  par  adoption,  dont  il  nous  trace  1'image  avec  un 
redoublement  de  reconnaissance  et  d'amour.  *  Je  remercie  les  dieux, 


1880.  MARC-AURELE.  747 

dit-il  en  terminant,  de  m'avoir  donne  de  bons  aieuls,  de  bons  parents, 
une  bonne  soeur,  de  bons  maitres,  et,  dans  mon  entourage,  dans  mes 
proch.es,  dans  mes  amis,  des  gens  presque  tons  remplis  de  bonte. 
Jamais  je  ne  me  suis  laisse  aller  a  aucun  manque  d'egards  envers  eux; 
par  ma  disposition  naturelle,  j'aurais  pu,  dans  1'occasion,  commettre 
quelque  irreverence  ;  mais  la  bienfaisance  des  dieux  n'a  pas  permis  que 
la  circonstance  s'en  soit  presentee.  Je  dois  encore  aux  dieux  d'avoir 
conserve  pure  la  fleur  de  ma  jeunesse;  de  ne  m'etre  pas  fait  homme 
avant  1'age,  d'avoir  meme  differe  au  dela  ;  d'avoir  ete  eleve  sous  la  loi 
d'un  prince  et  d'un  pere  qui  devait  degager  mon  ame  de  toute  fumee 
d'orgueil,  me  faire  comprendre  qu'il  est  possible,  tout  en  vivant  dans 
un  palais,  de  se  passer  de  gardes,  d'habits  resplendissants,  de  torches, 
de  statues,  m'apprendre  enfin  qu'un  prince  peut  presque  resserrer  sa  vie 
dans  les  limites  de  celles  d'un  simple  citoyen,  sans  montrer  pour  cela 
moins  de  noblesse  et  moins  de  vigueur,  quand  il  s'agit  d'etre  empereur 
et  de  traiter  les  affaires  de  1'Etat.  Us  m'ont  donne  de  rencontrer  un 
frere  dont  les  moeurs  etaient  une  continuelle  exhortation  a  veiller  sur 
moi-meme,  en  meme  temps  que  sa  deference  et  son  attachement 
devaient  faire  la  joie  de  mon  coeur.  Grace  aux  dieux  encore,  je  me 
suis  hate  d'elever  ceux  qui  avaient  soigne  mon  education  aux  hon- 
neurs  qu'ils  semblaient  desirer.  Ce  sont  eux  qui  m'ont  fait  connaitre 
Apollonius,  Kusticus,  Maximus,  et  qui  m'ont  offert,  entouree  de  tant 
de  lumiere,  1'image  d'une  vie  conforme  a  la  nature.  Je  suis  reste  en 
deca  du  but,  il  est  vrai  ;  mais  c'est  ma  faute.  Si  mon  corps  a  resiste 
longtemps  a  la  rude  vie  que  je  mene ;  si,  malgre  mes  frequents  depits 
centre  Eusticus,  je  n'ai  jamais  passe  les  bornes  ni  rien  fait  dont  j'aie 
eu  a  me  repentir  ;  si  ma  mere,  qui  devait  mourir  jeune,  a  pu  nean- 
moins  passer  pres  de  moi  ses  dernieres  annees ;  si,  chaque  fois  que 
j'ai  voulu  venir  au  secours  de  quelque  personne  pauvre  ou  affiigee,  je 
ne  me  suis  jamais  entendu  dire  que  1 'argent  me  manquait ;  si  moi- 
meme  je  n'ai  eu  besoin  de  rien  recevoir  de  personne  ;  si  j'ai  une 
femme  d'un  tel  caractere,  si  complaisante,  si  affectueuse,  si  simple ;  si 
j'ai  trouve  tant  de  gens  capables  pour  1'education  de  mes  enfants ;  si,  a 
1'origine  de  ma  passion  pour  la  philosophie,  je  ne  suis  pas  devenu  la 
proie  de  quelque  sophiste,  c'est  aux  dieux  que  je  le  dois.  Oui,  tant 
de  bonheurs  ne  peuvent  etre  Peffet  que  de  1'assistance  des  dieux  et 
d'une  heureuse  fortune.' 

Cette  divine  candeur  respire  a  chaque  page.  Jamais  on  n'ecrivit 
plus  simplement  pour  soi,  a  seule  fin  de  decharger  son  coeur,  sans 
autre  temoin  que  Dieu.  Pas  une  ombre  de  systeme.  Marc-Aurele, 
a  proprement  parler,  n'a  pas  de  philosophie  ;  quoiqu'il  doive  presque 
tout  au  stoicisme  transforme  par  1'esprit  romain,  il  n'est  d'aucune 
ecole.  Selon  notre  gout,  il  a  trop  peu  de  curiosite  ;  car  il  ne  sait  pas 
tout  ce  que  devait  savoir  un  contemporain  de  Ptolemee  et  de  Galien  ; 
il  a  quelques  opinions  sur  le  systeme  du  monde  qui  n'etaient  pas  au 
niveau  de  la  plus  haute  science  de  son  temps.  Maissa  pen  see  morale, 


748  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  May 

ainsi  degagee  de  tout  lien  avec  uu  systeine,  y  gagne  ime  singuliere 
hauteur.  L'auteur  du  livre  de  V Imitation  lui-meme,  quoique  fort 
detache  des  querelles  d'ecole,  n'atteint  pas  jusque-la ;  car  sa  maniere 
de  sentir  est  essentiellement  chretienne  ;  otez  les  dogmes  chretiens, 
son  livre  ne  garde  plus  qu'une  partie  de  son  charme.  Le  livre  de 
Marc-Aurele,  n'ayant  aucune  base  dogmatique,  conservera  eternelle- 
ment  sa  fraicheur.  Tous,  depuis  1'athee  ou  celui  qui  se  croit  tel, 
jusqu'a  1'homme  le  plus  engage  dans  les  croyances  particulieres  de 
chaque  culte,  peuvent  y  trouver  des  fruits  d'ediBcation.  C'est  le  livre 
le  plus  purement  humain  qu'il  y  ait.  II  ne  tranche  aucune  question 
controversee.  En  theologie,  Marc-Aurele  flotte  entre  le  deisme  pur, 
le  polytheisme  interprete  dans  un  sens  physique  a  la  facon  des 
stoiciens,  et  une  sorte  de  pantheisme  cosmique.  II  ne  tient  pas 
beaucoup  plus  a  1'une  des  hypotheses  qu'a  1'autre,  et  il  se  sert  in- 
differemment  des  trois  vocabulaires,  deiste,  polytheiste,  pantbeiste. 
Ses  considerations  sont  toujours  a  deux  faces,  selon  que  Dieu  et  Fame 
ont  ou  n'ont  pas  de  realite.  C'est  le  raisonnement  que  nous  faisons  a 
chaque  heure ;  car,  si  c'est  le  materialisme  le  plus  complet  qui  a 
raison,  nous  qui  aurons  cru  au  vrai  et  au  bien,  nous  ne  serons  pas 
plus  dupes  que  les  autres.  Si  1'idealisme  a  raison,  nous  aurons  ete 
les  vrais  sages  et  nous  1'aurons  ete  de  la  seule  facon  qui  nous  con- 
vienne,  c'est-a-dire  sans  nulle  attente  interessee,  sans  avoir  compte 
sur  une  remuneration.2 

II. 

Nous  touchons  ici  au  grand  s.ecret  de  la  philosophic  morale  et  de 
la  religion.  Marc-Aurele  n'a  pas  de  philosophic  speculative ;  sa 
theologie  est  tout  a  fait  contradictoire ;  il  n'a  aucune  idee  arretee  sur 
1'ame  et  1'immortalite.  Comment  fut-il  profondement  moral  sans  les 
croyances  qu'on  regarde  aujourd'hui  comrne  les  fondements  de  la 
morale  ?  Comment  fut-il  eminemment  religieux  sans  avoir  professe 
aucun  des  dogmes  de  ce  qu'on  appelle  la  religion  naturelle  ?  C'est 
ce  qu'il  importe  de  rechercher. 

Les  doutes  qui,  au  point  de  vue  de  la  raison  speculative,  planent 
sur  les  verites  de  la  religion  naturelle,  ne  sont  pas,  comme  Kant  1'a 
admirablement  montre,  des  doutes  accidentels,  susceptibles  d'etre 
leves,  tenant,  ainsi  qu'on  se  1'imagine  parfois,  a  certains  etats  de 
1'esprit  humain.  Ces  doutes  sont  inherents  a  la  nature  meme  de  ces 
verites,  et  1'on  peut  dire  sans  paradoxe  que,  si  ces  doutes  etaient  leves, 
les  verites  auxquelles  ils  s'attaquent  disparaitraient  du  meme  coup. 
Supposons,  en  effet,  une  preuve  directe,  positive,  evidente  pour  tons, 
des  peines  et  des  recompenses  futures  :  ou  sera  le  merite  de  faire  le 

"  '  Ou  bien  le  monde  n'est  qne  chaos,  agregat ion  et  d£sagregation  successives: 
ou  bien  le  monde  est  nite,  ordre,  providence.  Dans  le  premier  cas,  comment 
dtsirer  rester  dans  un  pareil  cloaqiie  .'  II  n'y  a  rien  u  faire.  La  desagregation  saura 
bien  toute  seule  m'atteindre.  Dans  le  second  cas,  j 'adore,  je  me  repose,  j'ai  confiance 
dans  celui  qui  gouverne.' 


1880.  MARC-AURELE.  749 

bien  ?  II  n'y  aurait  que  des  fous  qui  de  gaite  de  coeur  courraient  a 
leur  damnation.  Une  foule  d'ames  basses  feraient  leur  salut  cartes 
sur  table ;  elles  forceraient  en  quelque  sorte  la  main  de  la  divinite. 
Qui  ne  voit  que,  dans  un  tel  systeme,  il  n'y  a  plus  ni  morale  ni 
religion  ?  Dans  1'ordre  moral  et  religieux,  il  est  indispensable  de 
croire  sans  demonstration ;  il  ne  s'agit  pas  de  certitude,  mais  de  foi. 
Voila  ce  qu'oublie  le  deisrne,  avec  ses  habitudes  d'affirmation  intem- 
perante.  11  oublie  que  des  croyances  trop  precises  sur  la  destinee 
humaine  enleveraient  tout  le  merite  moral.  Pour  nous,  on  nous 
annoncerait  un  argument  peremptoire  en  ce  genre,  que  nous  ferions 
comme  Saint-Louis,  quand  on  lui  parla  de  1'hostie  miraculeuse.  Nous 
refuserions  d'aller  voir.  Qu'avons-nous  besoin  de  ces  preuves  brutales, 
qui'  ri'ont  d'application  que  dans  1'ordre  grossier  des  faits,  et  qui 
generaient  notre  liberte?  Nous  craindrions  d'etre  assimiles  a  ces 
speculateurs  de  vertu  ou  a  ces  peureux  vulgaires,  qui  portent  dans  les 
choses  de  1'ame  le  grossier  egoisme  de  la  vie  pratique.  Dans  les 
premiers  jours  qui  suivirent  la  foi  a  la  resurrection  de  Jesus,  ce 
sentiment  se  fit  jour  de  la  faconlaplus  toucbante.  Les  vrais  amis  de 
coeur,  les  delicats  aimerent  mieux  croire  sans  preuve  que  de  voir. 
'  Heureux  ceux  qui  n'ont  pas  vu  et  qui  ont  cru  I '  devint  le  mot  de  la 
situation.  Mot  charmant !  Symbole  eternel  de  1'idealisme  tendre 
et  genereux,  qui  a  borreur  de  toucher  de  ses  mains  ce  qui  ne  doit 
etre  vu  qu'avec  le  cosur ! 

Notre  bon  Marc-Aurele,  sur  ce  point  comme  sur  tous  les  autres, 
devanca  les  siecles.  Jamais  il  ne  se  soucia  de  se  mettre  d'accord  avec 
lui-meme  sur  Dieu  et  sur  Fame.  Comme  s'il  avait  lu  la  Critique  de 
la  Raison  pratique,  il  vit  bien  que  lorsqti'il  s'agit  de  1'infini  aucune 
formule  n'est  absolue,  et  qu'en  pareille  matiere  on  ne  pent  avoir 
quelque  chance  d'avoir  vu  une  fois  en  sa  vie  la  verite  que  si  1'ou  s'est 
beaucoup  contredit.  II  detacha  hauternent  la  beaute  morale  de  toute 
theologie  arretee ;  il  ne  permit  au  devoir  de  dependre  d'aucune 
opinion  metaphysique  sur  la  cause  premiere.  Jamais  1'union  intime 
avec  le  dieu  cache  ne  fut  poussee  a  de  plus  inoui'es  delicatessen. 
'  Offre  au  gouvernement  du  dieu  qui  est  au  dedans  de  toi  un  etre 
viril,  muri  par  1'age,  ami  du  bien  public,  un  Eomain,  un  empereur ; 
un  soldat  a  son  poste,  attendant  le  signal  dela  trompette;  un  homme 
pret  a  quitter  sans  regret  la  vie.' — '  II  y  a  bien  des  grains  d'encens 
destines  au  meme  autel ;  Tun  tomhe  plus  tor,  1'au're  plus  tard  dans 
le  feu ;  mais  la  difference  n'est  rien/ — c  L'homme  doit  vivre  e-elon  la 
nature  pendant  le  pen  de  jours  qui  lui  sont  donnes  sur  la  terre,  et, 
quand  le  moment  de  la  retraite  est  venu,  se  soumettre  avec  douceur, 
comme  une  olive,  qui,  en  tombant,  benjt  1'arbre  qui  1'a  produite,  et  rend 
grace  au  raineau  qui  1'a  portee.' 3 — '  0  homme  !  tu  as  ete  citoyen  dans 

3  '  Tout  ce  qui  t'arrange  m'arrange,  6  Cosmos.  Rien  ne  m'cst  premature  ou  tardif 
de  ce  qui  pour  toi  vient  a  1'hcurc.  Je  fais  mon  fruit  de  ce  que  portent  tes  saisons,  o 
Nature.  De  toi  vient  tout ;  en  toi  est  toiit  ;  vers  toi  va  tout.' 


750  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY. 

la  grande  cite ;  que  t'importe  de  1'avoir  ete  pendant  cinq  on  pendant 
trois  ans  ?  Ce  qui  est  conforme  aux  lois  n'est  inique  pour  personne. 
Qu'y  a-t-il  done  de  si  facheux  a  etre  renvoye  de  la  cite  non  par  un 
tyran,  non  par  un  juge  inique,  mais  par  la  nature  meme  qui  t'y  avait 
fait  entrer  ?  C'est  comme  quand  un  comedien  est  congedie  du  theatre 
par  le  meme  preteur  qui  Fy  avait  engage.  Mais,  diras-tu,  je  n'ai  pas 
joue  les  cinq  actes ;  je  n'en  ai  joue  que  trois.  Tu  dis  bien ;  mais  dans 
la  vie,  trois  actes  suffisent  pour  faire  la  piece  entiere.  .  .  .  Pars  done 
content,  puisque  celui  qui  te  congedie  est  content.' 

Est-ce  a  dire  qu'il  ne  se  revoltat  pas  quelquefois  contre  le  sort 
etrange  qui  s'est  plu  a  laisser  seuls  face  a  face  1'homme  avec  ses 
eternels  besoins  de  devouement,  de  sacrifice,  d'heroi'sme,  et  la  nature 
avec  son  immoralite  transcendante,  son  supreme  dedain  pour  la  vertu  ? 
Non.  Une  fois  du  moins  1'absurdite,  la  colossale  iniquite  de  la  mort 
le  frappe.  Mais  bientot  son  temperament  completement  mortifie 
reprend  le  dessus,  et  il'se  calme.  '  Comment  se  fait-il  que  les  dieux, 
qui  ont  ordonne  si  bien  toutes  choses,  et  avec  tant  d'amour  pour  les 
hommes,  aient  neglige  un  seul  point,  a  savoir  que  les"  hommes  d'une 
vertu  eprouvee,  qui  ont  eu  pendant  leur  vie  une  sorte  de  commerce 
avec  la  divinite,  qui  se  sont  fait  aimer  d'elle  par  leurs  actions  pieuses 
et  leurs  sacrifices,  ne  revivent  pas  apres  la  mort,  mais  soient  eteints 
pour  jamais  ?  Puisque  la  chose  est  ainsi,  sache  bien  que,  si  elle  avait 
du  etre  autrement,  ils  n'y  eussent  pas  -manque ;  car  si  cela  cut  ete 
juste,  cela  etait  possible ;  si  cela  eut  ete  conforme  a  la  nature,  la 
nature  1'eut  comporte.  Par  consequent,  de  cela  qu'il  n'en  est  pas 
ainsi,  confirme-toi  en  cette  consideration  qu'il  ne  fallait  pas  qu'il  en 
fut  ainsi.  Tu  vois  bien  toi-meme  que  faire  une  telle  recherche,  c'est 
disputer  avec  Dieu  sur  son  droit.  Or,  nous  ne  disputerions  pas  ainsi 
contre  les  dieux,  s'ils  n'etaient  pas  souverainement  bons  et  souveraine- 
ment  justes ;  s'ils  le  sont,  ils  n'ont  rien  laisse  passer  dans  1'ordonnance 
du  monde  qui  soit  contraire  a  la  justice  et  a  la  raison.' 

Ah !  c'est  trop  de  resignation,  cher  maitre.  S'il  en  est  veritable-, 
ment  ainsi,  nous  avons  droit  de  nous  plaindre.  Dire  que  si  ce  monde 
n'a  pas  sa  contre-partie,  1'homme  qui  s'est  sacrifie  pour  le  bien  ou  le 
vrai  doit  le  quitter  content  et  absoudre  les  dieux,  cela  est  trop  naif. 
Non,  il  a  le  droit  de  les  blasphemer  !  Car  enfin  pourquoi  avoir  ainsi 
abuse  de  sa  credulite?  Pourquoi  avoir  mis  en  lui  des  instincts 
trompeurs,  dont  il  a  ete  la  dupe  honnete  ?  Pourquoi  cette  prime 
accordee  a  1'homme  frivole  ou  mediant  ?  C'est  done  celui-ci,  qui  ne 
se  trompe  pas,  qui  est  1'homme  avise  ?  .  .  .  Mais  alors  maudits  soient 
les  dieux  qui  placent  si  mal  leurs  preferences  !  Je  veux  que  1'avenir 
soit  une  enigme ;  mais  s'il  n'y  a  pas  d'avenir,  ce  monde  est  un  affreux 
guet-apens.  Remarquez  en  effet  que  notre  souhait  n'est  pas  celui 
du  vulgaire  grossier.  Ce  que  nous  voulons,  ce  n'est  pas  de  voir  le 
chatiment  du  coupable,  ni  de  toucher  les  interets  de  notre  vertu. 
Ce  que  nous  voulons  n'a  rien  d'egoi'ste  :  c'est  simplement  d'etre,  de 


1880.  MARC-AURELE.  751 

raster  en  rapport  avec  Dieu,  de  continuer  not  re  pensee  commencee, 
d'en  savoir  davantage,  de  jouir  un  jour  de  cette  verite  que  nous  cher- 
chons  avec  tant  de  travail,  de  voir  le  triomphe  du  bien  que  nous  avons 
aime.  Eien  de  plus  legitime.  Le  digne  empereur,  du  reste,  le  sentait 
bien.  '  Quoi !  la  lumiere  d'une  lampe  brille  jusqu'au  moment  ou 
elle  s'eteint,  et  ne  perd  rien  de  son  eclat ;  et  la  verite,  la  justice,  la 
temperance,  qui  sont  en  toi,  s'eteindraient  avec  toi !  '  Toute  la  vie 
se  passa  pour  lui  dans  cette  noble  hesitation.  S'il  pecha,  ce  fut  par 
trop  de  piete.  Moins  resigne,  il  cut  ete  plus  juste;  car  surement 
demander  qu'il  y  ait  un  spectateur  intime  et  sympathique  des  luttes 
que  nous  livrons  pour  le  bien  et  le  vrai,  ce  n'est  pas  trop  demander. 

II  est  possible  aussi  que  si  sa  philosophic  eut  ete  moms  exclusive- 
ment  morale,  si  elle  eilt  implique  une  etude  plus  curieuse  de  1'histoire 
et  de  1'univers,  elle  eut  evite  certains  exces  de  rigueur.  Comme  les 
ascetes  chretiens,  Marc-Aurele  pousse  quelquefois  le  renoncement 
jusqu'a  la  secheresse  et  la  subtilite.  Ce  calme  qui  ne  se  dement 
jamais,  on  sent  qu'il  est  obtenu  par  un  immense  effort.  Certes,  le 
mal  n'eut  jamais  pour  lui  aucim  attrait;  il  n'eut  a  combattre  aucune 
passion :  '  Quoi  qu'on  fasse  ou  quoi  qu'on  dise,  ecrit-il,  il  faut  que  je 
sois  homme  de  bien,  comme  1'emeraude  peut  dire :  "  Quoi  qu'on  dise 
ou  qu'on  fasse,  il  faut  bien  que  je  sois  emeraude  et  que  je  garde  ma 
couleur.'"  Mais  pour  se  tenir  toujours  sur  le  sommet  glace  du 
stoicisme,  il  lui  fallut  faire  de  cruelles  violences  a  la  nature  et  en 
retrancher  plus  d'une  noble  partie.  Cette  perpetuelle  repetition  des 
memes  raisonnements,  ces  mille  images  sous  lesquelles  il  cherche  a  se 
representer  la  vanite  de  toutes  choses,  ces  preuves  souvent  naives  de 
I'universelle  frivolite  temoignent  des  combats  qu'il  eut  a  livrer  pour 
eteindre  en  lui  tout  desir.  Parfois  il  en  resulte  pour  nous  quelque 
chose  d'apre  et  de  triste ;  la  lecture  de  Marc-Aurele  fortifie,  mais  ne 
console  pas  ;  elle  laisse  dans  1'ame  un  vide  a  la  fois  delicieux  et 
cruel,  qu'on  n'echangerait  pas  contre  la  pleine  satisfaction.  L'hu- 
milite,  le  renoncement,  la  severite  pour  soi-meme  n'ont  jamais  ete 
pousses  plus  loin.  La  gloire,  cette  derniere  illusion  des  grandes  ames, 
est  reduite  a  neant.  II  faut  faire  le  bien  sans  s'inquieter  si  personne 
le  saura.  II  voit  bien  que  1'histoire  parlera  de  lui  ;  il  songe  parfois 
aux  hommes  du  passe  auxquels  1'avenir  1'associera.  '  S'ils  n'ont  joue 
qu'un  role  d'acteurs  tragiques,  dit-il,  personne  ne  m'a  condamne  a  les 
imiter.'  L'absolue  mortification  oil  il  etait  arrive  avait  eteint  en 
lui  jusqu'a  la  derniere  fibre  de  I'amour-propre. 

La  consequence  de  cette  philosophic  austere  aurait  pu  etre  la 
roideur  et  la  durete.  C'est  ici  que  la  bonte  rare  de  la  nature  de 
Marc-Aurele  eclate  dans  tout  son  jour.  Sa  severite  n'est  que  pour  lui. 
Le  fruit  de  cette  grande  tension  d'ame,  c'est  une  bienveillance  infinie. 
Toute  sa  vie  fut  une  etude  a  rendre  le  bien  pour  le  mal.  Apres 
quelque  triste  experience  de  la  perversite  humaine,  il  ne  trouve,  le 
soir,  a  ecrire  que  cs  qui  suit :  '  Si  tu  le  peux,  corrige-les ;  dans  le  cas 


752  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  May 

contraire,  souviens-toi  que  c'est  pour  1'exercer  envers  eux  que  t'a  ete 
donnee  la  bienveillance.  Les  dieux  eux-memes  sont  Lienveillants  jrour 
ces  etres  ;  ils  les  aident,  taut  leur  bonte  est  grande  !  a  acquerir  sante, 
riehesse,  gloire.  II  t'est  permis  de  faire  comme  les  dieux.'  Un 
autre  jour,  les  hommes  furent  bien  mediants,  car  voici  ce  qu'il  ecrivait 
sur  les  tablettes  :  '  Tel  est  1'ordre  de  la  nature :  des  gens  de  cette 
sorte  doivent,  de  toute  necessite,  agir  ainsi.  Vouloir  qu'il  en  soit 
autrement,  c'est  vouloir  que  le  figuier  ne  produise  pas  de  figues. 
Souviens-toi,  en  un  mot,  de  ceci :  dans  un  temps  bien  court,  toi  et  lui 
vous  mourrez  :  bientot  apres,  vos  noms  memes  ne  survivront  plus.' 
Ces  reflexions  d'universel  pardon  reviennent  sans  cesse.  A  peine  se 
mele-t-il  parfois  a  cette  ravissante  bonte  un  imperceptible  sourire: 
'  La  meilleure  maniere  de  se  venger  des  mediants,  c'est  de  ne  pas  se 
rendre  semblable  a  eux  ; '  ou  un  leger  accent  de  fierte  :  '  C'est  chose 
royale,  quand  on  fait  le  bien,  d'entendre  dire  du  mal  de  soi.'  Un  jour, 
il  a  un  reproche  a  se  faire.  '  Tu  as  oublie,  dit-il,  quelle  parente 
sainte  unit  cbaque  homme  avec  le  genre  bumain  ;  parente  non  de  sang 
et  de  naissance,  mais  participation  a  la  meme  intelligence.  Tu  as 
oublie  que  Tame  raisonnable  de  chacun  est  un  dieu,  un  derive  de 
1'Etre  supreme.' 

Dans  le  commerce  de  la  vie,  il  devait  etre  exquis,  quoiqu'un  peu 
naif,  comme  le  sont  d'ordinaire  les  hommes  tres  bons.  Les  neuf 
motifs  d'indulgence  qu'il  se  fait  valoir  alui-meme  (livre  xi,  article  18) 
nous  montrent  sa  charmante  bonhomie  en  presence  de  difficultes  de 
famille  qui  venaient  peut-etre  de  son  indigne  fils.  '  Si  dans  1'occasion, 
se  dit-il  a  lui-meme,  tu  1'exhortais  paisiblement,  et  lui  donnais  sans 
colere,  alors  qu'il  s'efforce  de  te  faire  du  mal,  des  lecons  comme 
celle-ci :  "  Non,  mon  enfant !  nous  sommes  nes  pour  autre  chose.  Ce 
n'est  pas  moi  qui  eprouverai  le  mal,  c'est  toi  qui  t'en  fais  a  toi-meme, 
mon  enfant ! "  Montre-lui  adroitement,  par  une  consideration  generale, 
que  telle  est  la  regie,  que  ni  les  abeilles  n'agissent  comme  lui,  ni 
aucun  des  animauxqui  vivent  naturellement  en  troupe?.  N'y  mets  ni 
moquerie,  ni  insulte,  mais  1'air  d'une  affection  veritable,  d'un  cceur 
que  n'aigrit  point  la  colere ;  non  comme  un  pedant,  non  pour  te  faire 
admirer  de  ceux  qui  sont  la ;  mais  n'aie  en  vue  que  lui  seul.'  Com- 
mode (si  c'est  de  lui  qu'il  s'agit)  fut  sans  doute  peu  sensible  a  cette 
bonne  rhetorique  paternelle  ;  une  des  maximes  de  1'excellent  empereur 
etait  que  les  mediants  sont  malheureux,  qu'on  n'est  mechant  que  malgre 
soi  et  par  ignorance ;  il  plaignait  ceux  qui  n'etaient  pas  comme  lui ; 
il  ne  se  croyait  pas  le  droit  de  s'imposer  a  eux. 

II  voyait  bien  la  bassesse  des  hommes;  mais  il  ne  se  1'avouait 
pas.  Cette  fufon  de  s'aveugler  volontairement  est  le  defaut  des  ames 
d'elite.  Le  monde  n'etant  pas  du  tout  tel  qu'elles  le  voudraient, 
elles  se  mentent  a  elles-memes  pour  le  voir  autre  qu'il  n'est.  De  la 
im  peu  de  convenu  dans  leurs  jugements.  Chez  Marc-Aurele,  ce 
convenu  nous  cause  parfois  un  certain  agacement.  Si  nous  voulions 


1880.  MARC-AURELE.  753 

le  croire,  ses  maitres,  dont  plusieurs  furent  des  hommes  assez 
mediocres,  auraient  etc"  sans  exception  des  hommes  superieurs.  On 
dirait  que  tout  le  monde  autour  de  lui  a  ete  vertueux.  Cela  va  a 
un  tel  point  qu'on  a  pu  se  demander  si  ce  frere,  dont  il  fait  un  si 
grand  eloge  dans  son  action  de  graces  aux  dieux,  n'etait  pas  son  frere 
par  adoption,  Lucius- Verus.  Cela  est  peu  probable.  Mais  il  est  sur 
que  le  bon  empereur  etait  capable  de  fortes  illusions  quand  il  s'agissait 
de  preter  a  autrui  ses  propres  vertus. 

Cette  qualite,  selon  quelques  critiques  qui  se  sont  produites  d&s 
1'antiquite,  en  particulier  sous  la  plume  de  1'empereur  Julien,  lui  fit 
commettre  une  faute  enorme :  ce  fut  de  ne  pas  avoir  desherite  Commode. 
Voila  des  choses  qu'il  est  facile  de  dire  a  distance,  quand  les  obstacles 
ne  sont  plus  la,  et  qu'on  raisonne  loin  des  faits.  On  oublie  d'abord 
que  les  empereurs,  depuis  Nerva,  qui  rendirent  1'adoption  un  syst&me 
politique  si  fecond,  n'avaient  pas  de  fils.  L'adoption  avec  exheredation 
du  fils  ou  du  petit-fils  se  voit  au  premier  siecle  de  1'empire,  mais  n'a 
pas  de  bons  resultats.  Marc-Aurele,  par  principes,  etait  evidemmenfc 
pour  1'heredite  directe,  a  laquelle  il  voyait  1'avantage  de  prevenir  les, 
competitions.  Des  que  Commode  fut  ne,  en  161,  il  le  presenta  sent 
aux  legions,  quoiqu'il  cut  un  jumeau  ;  souvent  il  le  prenait  tout  petit 
entre  ses  bras  et  renouvelait  cet  acte,  qui  etait  une  sorte  de  procla- 
mation. En  166,  c'est  Lucius-Verus  lui-meme  qui  demande  que  les 
deux  fils  de  Marc,  Commode  et  Aonius-Verus,  soient  faits  cesars.  En 
172,  Commode  partage  avec  son  pere  le  titre  de  Germanique ;  en  173,. 
apres  la  repression  de  la  revolte  d'Avidius,  le  senat,  pour  reconnaitre 
eu  quelque  sorte  le  desinteressement  de  famille  qu'avait  montre  Marc- 
Aurele,  demande  par  acclamation  1'empire  et  la  puissance  tribunitienne 
pour  Commode.  Deja  le  mauvais  naturel  de  ce  dernier  s'etait  traht 
par  plus  d'un  indice  connu  de  ses  pedagogues ;  mais  comment  pre- 
juger  par  quelques  mauvaises  notes  de  1'avenir  d'un  enfant  de  douze 
ans?  En  176,  177,  son  pere  le  fait  Imperator,  consul,  Auguste.. 
Ce  fut  surement  une  imprudence ;  mais  on  etait  lie  par  les  actes 
anterieurs;  Commode,  d'ailleurs,  se  contenait  encore.  Dans  les 
dernieres  annees,  le  mal  se  decela  tout  a  fait ;  a  chaque  page  des 
derniers  livres  des  Pensees,  nous  voyons  la  trace  du  martyre  inte- 
rieur  du  pere  excellent,  de  1'empereur  accompli,  qui  voit  un  monstre 
grandir  a  cote  de  lui,  pret  a  lui  succeder  et  decide  a  prendre  en  toute 
chose,  par  antipathic,  le  contre-pied  de  ce  qu'il  avait  vu  faire  aux 
gens  de  bien.  La  pensee  de  desheriter  Commode  dut  sans  doute  alors 
venir  plus  d'une  fois  a  Marc-Aurele.  Mais  il  etait  trop  tard.  Apr&s 
1'avoir  associe  a  1'empire,  apres  1'avoir  proclame  tant  de  fois  parfait 
et  accompli  devant  les  legions,  venir  a  la  face  du  monde  le  declarer 
indigne  eut  ete  un  scandale.  Marc  fut  pris  par  ses  propres  phrases, 
par  ce  style  d'une  bienveillance  convenue  qui  lui  etait  trop  habituel. 
Et  apres  tout,  Commode  avait  dix-sept  ans :  qui  pouvait  etre  sur"qu'il 
ne  s'ameliorerait  pas  ?  Meme  apres  la  mort  de  Marc-Aurele,  on'peut 

VOL.  VII.— No.  39.  3  E 


754  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  May 

1'esperer.     Commode  montra  d'abord  1'intention  de  suivre  les  conseils 
des  personnes  de  merite  dont  son  pere  1'avait  entoure. 

Le  reproche  que  Ton  peut  faire  a  Marc-Aurele  n'est  done  pas  de 
n'avoir  point  destitue  son  fils  ;  c'est  d'avoir  eu  un  fils.     Ce  ne  fut  pas 
sa  faute  si  le  siecle  ne  fut  pas  capable  de  porter  tant  de  sagesse.     En 
philosophic,  le  grand  empereur  avait  place  si  haut  1'ideal  de  la  vertu 
que  personne  ne  devait  se  soucier  de  le  suivre ;  en  politique,  son 
optimisme  bienveillant  avait  affaibli  les  services,  surtout  1'armee.    En 
religion,  pour  avoir  ete  trop  attache  a  une  religion  d'Etat  dont  il  voyait 
Men  la  faiblesse,  il  prepara  le  triomphe  violent  du  culte  non  officiel,  et 
il  laissa  planer  sur  sa  memoire  un  reproche,  injuste  il  est  vrai,  mais 
dont  Fombre  meme  ne  devrait  pas  se  rencontrer  dans  une  vie  si  pure. 
Nous  touchons  ici  a  un  des  points  les  plus  delicats  de  la  biographic 
de  Marc-Aurele.     II  est  malheureusement  certain  que  quelques  con- 
damnations  a  mort  furent,  sous  son  r&gne,  prononcees  et  executees 
centre  des  chretiens.     La  politique  des  Antonins  avait  ete  constante 
a  cet  egard.     Us  voyaient  dans  le  christianisme  une  secte  secrete, 
anti-sociale,   revant  le  renversement  de  1'empire;  comme  tous  les 
horames  attaches  aux  vieux  principes  remains,  ils  crurent  a  la  necessite 
de  le  reprimer.     II  n'etait  pas  besoin  pour  cela  d'edits  speciaux  :  les 
lois  contre  les  ccetus  illiciti,  les  illicita  collegia,  etaient  nombreuses. 
Les  chretiens  tombaient  de  la  maniere  la  plus  formelle  sous  le  coup 
de  ces  lois.     Certes,  il  eut  ete  digne  du  sage  empereur  qui  introduisit 
tant   de   reformes   pleines   d'humanite    de   supprimer  les   edits  qui 
entrainaient   de   cruelles   et   injustes   consequences.      Mais   il   faut 
observer   d'abord   que   le   veritable   esprit   de   liberte,  comme  nous 
1'entendons,  n'etait  alors  compris  de  personne,  et  que  le  christianisme, 
quand  il  fut  maitre,  ne  le  pratiqua  pas  mieux  que  les  empereurs 
paiens ;  en  second  lieu,  que  1'abrogation  de  la  loi  des  societes  illicites 
eut  ete  la  ruine  de  1'empire,  fonde  essentiellement  sur  ce  principe  que 
1'Etat  ne  doit  admettre  en  son  sein  aucune  societe  differente  de  lui. 
Le  principe  etait  mauvais,  selon  nos  idees ;  il  est  bien  certain  du 
moins,  que  c'etait  la  pierre  angulaire  de  la  constitution  romaine. 
Marc-Aurele,  loin  de  Pexagerer,  1'attenua  de  toutes  ses  forces,  et  une 
des  gloires  de  son  regne  est  1'extension  qu'il  donna  au  droit  d'asso- 
ciation.     Cependant  il  n'alla  pas  jusqu'a  la  racine ;  il  n'abolit  pas 
completement  les  lois  contre  les  collegia  illicita,  et  il  en  resulta  dans 
les  provinces    quelques    applications   infiniment   regrettables.      Le 
reproche  qu'on  peut  lui  faire  est  le  meme  qu'on  pourrait  adresser  aux 
souverains  de  nos  jours  qui  ne  suppriment  pas  d'un  trait  de  plume 
toutes  les  lois  restrictives  des  libertes  de  reunion,  d'association,  de  la 
presse.     A  la  distance  ou  nous  sommes,  nous  voyons  bien  que  Marc- 
Aurele,  en  etant  plus  completement  liberal,  eut  ete  plus  sage.     Peut- 
etre  le  christianisme  laisse  libre  eut-il  developpe  d'une  facon  moins 
desastreuse  le  principe  theocratique  et  absolu  qui  etait  en  lui.     Mais 
on  ne  saurait  reproclier  a  un  homme  d'Etat  de  n'avoir  pas  provoque 
U  ne  revolution  radicale  en  prevision  des  evenements  qui  doivent  arriver 


1880.  MARC-AURELE.  755 

plusieurs  siecles  apres  lui.  Trajan,  Adrien,  Antonin,  Marc-Aurele 
ne  pouvaient  connaitre  des  principes  d'histoire  generale  et  d'economie 
politique  qui  n'ont  ete  aperpus  que  de  notre  temps,  et  que  nos  dernieres 
revolutions  pouvaient  seules  reveler.  En  tout  cas,  la  mansuetude  du 
bon  empereur  fut  en  ceci  a  1'abri  de  tout  reproche.  On  n'a  pas,  a  cet 
egard,  le  droit  d'etre  plus  difficile  que  Tertullien :  *  Consultez  vos 
annales,  dit-il  aux  magistrats  remains  ;  vous  y  verrez  que  les  princes 
qui  ont  sevi  contre  nous  sont  de  ceux  qu'on  tient  a  honneur  d'avoir 
eus  pour  persecuteurs.  Au  contraire,  de  tous  les  princes  qui  ont 
connu  les  lois  divines  et  humaines,  nommez-en  un  seul  qui  ait 
persecute  les  Chretiens.  Nous  pouvons  meme  en  citer  un  qui  s'est 
declare  leur  protecteur,  le  sage  Marc-Aurele.  S'il  ne  revoqua  pas 
ouvertement  les  edits  contre  nos  freres,  il  en  detruisit  1'effet  par  les 
peines  severes  qu'il  etablit  contre  leurs  accusateurs.'  II  faut  se 
rappeler  que  1'empire  remain  etait  dix  ou  douze  fois  grand  comme  la 
France,  et  que  la  responsabilite  de  1'empereur  dans  les  jugements  qui 
se  rendaient  en  province  etait  tres  faible.  II  faut  se  rappeler  surtout 
que  le  christianisme  ne  reclamait  pas  simplement  la  libertedes  cultes; 
tous  les  cultes  qui  toleraient  les  autres  etaient  fort  a  1'aise  dans 
1'empire  :  ce  qui  fit  au  christianisme  et  au  judai'sme  une  situation  a 
part,  c'etait  leur  intolerance,  leur  esprit  d'exclusion.  La  liberte  de 
penser  etait  absolue.  De  Nerva  a  Constantin,  pas  un  penseur,  pas  un 
savant  ne  fut  inquiete.  Des  homines  que  le  moyen-age  eut  brules,  tels 
que  Galien,  Lucien,  Plotin,  vecurent  tranquilles,  proteges  par  la  loi. 

Voila  pourquoi  nous  portons  tous  au  coeur  le  deuil  de  Marc- 
Aurele.  Avec  lui  la  philosophic  a  regne.  Un  moment,  grace  a  lui, 
le  monde  a  ete  gouverne  par  I'liomme  le  meilleur  et  le  plus  grand  de 
son  siecle.  D'affreuses  decadences  suivirent ;  mais  la  petite  cassette 
qui  renfermait  les  pensees  des  bords  du  Gran  et  la  philosophic  de 
Carnonte,  fut  sauvee.  II  en  sortit  ce  livre  incomparable  ou  Epictete 
etait  surpasse,  cet  Evangile  de  ceux  qui  ne  croient  pas  au  surnaturel, 
qui  n'a  pu  etre  bien  compris  que  de  nos  jours.  Veritable  Evangile 
eternel,  le  livre  des  Pensees  ne  vieillira  jamais,  car  il  n'affirme 
aucun  dogme.  La  vertu  de  Marc-Aurele,  comme  la  notre,  repose 
sur  la  raison,  sur  la  nature.  Saint-Louis  fut  un  homme  tres  vertueux, 
parce  qu'il  etait  chretien ;  Marc-Aurele  fut  le  plus  pieux  des  hommes, 
non  parce  qu'il  etait  pai'en,  mais  parce  qu'il  etait  un  homme  accom- 
pli. II  fut  1'honneur  de  la  nature  humaine  et  non  d'une  religion 
determinee.  La  science  viendrait  a  detruire  en  apparence  Dieu  et 
1'ame  immortelle  que  le  livre  des  Pensees  resterait  jeune  encore 
de  vie  et  de  verite.  La  religion  de  Marc-Aurele  est  la  religion 
absolue,  celle  qui  resulte  du  simple  fait  d'une  haute  conscience  morale 
placee  en  face  de  1'univers.  Elle  n'est  d'aucune  race,  ni  d'aucun  pays. 
Aucune  revolution,  aucun  changement,  aucune  decouverte  ne  pourront 
la  changer. 

ERNEST  KENAN. 
3  E  2 


756  1 HE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  May 


ATHEISM  AND    THE  RIGHTS  OF  MAN. 

1  Whether  we  descend  to  the  lowest  roots  of  our  own  intellectual  growth,  or 
ascend  to  the  loftiest  heights  of  modern  speculation,  everywhere  we  find  religion  as 
a  power  that  conquers,  and  conquers  even  those  who  think  they  have  conquered 
it.' — MAX  MULLER. 

THE  late  Professor  Clifford,  in  the  pages  of  this  Review,1  once  made 
the  following  statements ;  and  they  deserve  our  best  attention, 
whether  we  agree  with  his  school  or  differ  from  it.  He  was  speaking 
of  the  influence  on  human  conduct  of  a  decline  in  religious  belief.  By 
religious  belief  was  then  meant  principally  a  belief  in  Grod,  and  in 
the  immortal  soul  of  man  ;  and  with  regard  to  these,  the  Professor 
appealed  to  history.  The  matter,  he  seemed  to  think,  was  one  of 
profound  simplicity,  and  he  made  very  short  work  of  it.  History,  he 
said,  on  this  point  teaches  us  one  plain  lesson.  It  teaches  us  that  the 
beliefs  in  question  have  given  rise  to  priesthoods,  and  that  priest- 
hoods have  obtained  at  times  the  entire  control  of  life.  The  result 
of  this,  he  said,  had  in  all  cases  been  much  the  same ;  but  the  best 
example  both  of  its  nature  and  its  magnitude  was  to  be  looked  for 
in  the  ages  when  the  Christian  Church  was  dominant.  The  priest- 
hood of  that  Church  had  indeed  been  influential ;  it  had  fixed  its 
impress  at  one  time  on  the  whole  human  character,  and  in  so  doing 
what  it  had  done  was  this.  '  It  sapped,'  he  said — I  am  giving  his 
own  words — *  it  sapped  the  foundations  of  patriotism ; '  it  '  well-nigh 
eradicated  the  sense  of  intellectual  honesty  ;'  it 'seriously  weakened 
the  habit  of  truth-speaking ; '  to  put  the  matter  generally, '  it  stunted 
the  moral  sense  of  nations  ; '  and  more  astonishing  still,  *  it  lowered 
men's  reverence  for  the  marriage-bond '  by  making  marriage  a  sacra- 
ment, and  pure  affection  a  sacramental  virtue.  The  details  of  this 
singular  account  have  naturally  no  need  of  criticism ;  nor  would  it 
be  to  the  point,  anyhow,  to  examine  their  value  here.  They  were 
mentioned  only,  by  Professor  Clifford  himself,  as  examples  of  the 
influence  that  religious  belief  had  exercised  ;  and  he  dwelt  upon  this 
influence  only  that  he  might  set  the  world  right  as  to  what  it  really 
depended  on.  Religious  belief,  he  said,  was  of  course,  in  one  way, 
at  the  bottom  of  it ;  but  the  way  was  very  different  from  what  most 
men  have  imagined.  Religious  belief  has  been  powerful  indirectly ; 
1  Vide  Nineteenth  Century,  No.  2. 


1880.        ATHEISM  AND   THE  RIGHTS  OF  MAN.          757 

but  it  has  been  powerful  indirectly  only.  It  has  been  powerful  only 
because  it  has  given  rise  to  priesthoods :  except  for  that  it  might  as 
well  have  never  existed.  And  this  leads  up  to  the  Professor's  main 
thesis,  which  is  all  we  are  now  concerned  with.  Religious  belief,  as 
he  said,  as  such,  has  never,  in  any  way  worth  noticing,  influenced 
human  conduct ;  and  the  common  opinion  to  the  contrary  is  a  com- 
plete delusion.  Now  this  view  of  the  matter  is  not  Clifford's  only. 
It  is  the  opinion  generally  of  the  modern  school  of  progress.  And 
not  only  is  it  one  amongst  their  many  expressed  opinions.  It  is  far 
more  than  this ;  it  is  really  implied  in  all  of  them,  and  it  is  being 
accepted  on  all  sides  more  or  less  consciously,  and  being  repeated  on 
all  sides  with  more  or  less  of  emphasis. 

As  long  as  such  gross  confusion  on  such  a  vital  point  con- 
tinues, as  long  as  the  mind  of  the  age  is  so  blind  to  one  of  the 
primary  and,  one  would  think,  one  of  the  plainest  truths  of  things, 
for  so  long  will  a  true  estimate  be  impossible  of  the  prospects  before 
humanity.  And,  small  as  my  powers  may  be,  I  have  made  what  use 
I  can  of  them  to  direct  popular  attention  to  what  was  once  a  truism, 
to  what  is  now  set  down  as  a  lie,  and  to  what  will,  I  trust  in  a  more 
vivid  way  than  ever,  be  by-and-by  rediscovered  as  a  truth.  I  have 
done  what  I  could  to  indicate  that  religious  belief,  as  such,  so  far  from 
having  had  no  influence  on  conduct,  has  really  moulded  all  conduct 
which  is  distinctly  human  or  distinctly  civilised;  and  that  it  is 
essential  to  all  the  hopes  of  those  who  are  most  anxious  to  abolish  it. 
But  my  treatment  of  the  matter  hitherto  has  been  partial  only.  I  have 
dealt  only  with  what  are  generally  called  virtues,  with  certain  habits, 
tastes,  and  qualities  which  are  confessed  on  all  sides  to  be  of  supreme 
value  for  the  individual.  I  propose  now  to  call  attention  to  a  different 
side  of  the  question,  and  to  show  how  religious  belief  is  implied  not 
only  in  our  conceptions  of  private  character,  but  in  the  most  advanced 
and  liberal  views  of  political  and  social  progress. 

And  for  this  the  present  moment  seems  particularly  opportune. 
Change,  if  not  progress,  is  filling  the  air  with  rumours,  and  is 
forcing  itself  on  our  thoughts,  even  if  not  on  our  apprehensions. 
The  principles  and  the  demands  of  Socialism,  which  are  not  only 
heard  on  the  Continent  but  are  felt  also,  at  the  present  juncture 
have  acquired  a  new  interest  from  the  career  of  the  Russian  Nihilists ; 
and  the  most  careless  of  us  cannot  escape  the  fact,  that  at  least  in 
some  places,  and  from  some  cause  or  other,  unquiet  human  forces 
are  at  work  for  change.  To  ourselves  in  England  these  matters 
may  seem  remote ;  but  the  same  forces,  though  in  a  healthier  way, 
are  at  work  amongst  ourselves  also  ;  and  in  the  midst  though  we  now 
are  of  a  new  party  excitement,  there  are  certain  questions  that  will  be 
brought  home  to  all  of  us,  wider  than  party  politics,  although  in  their 
very  nature  connected  with  them.  I  refer  to  no  schemes  and  to  no 
measures  in  particular,  but  to  the  admitted  hopes  and  principles  of 


758  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  May 

all  modern  Liberalism — Liberalism,  I  say,  because  Liberals  are  their 
loudest  spokesmen  ;  but  in  a  different  and,  as  some  think,  in  a  safer 
way,  they  are  cherished  by  Conservatives  also. 

Now  what  these  views  and  principles  all  imply  and  depend 
upon  may  be  described,  in  useful  if  not  in  new  language,  as  a  recog- 
nition of  the  rights  of  man.  When  we  deal  with  the  matter 
practically,  these  resolve  themselves  into  various  branches — political 
rights,  social  rights,  and  the  rights  of  conscience ;  and  these  again 
are  presented  to  us  in  the  form  of  such  various  questions  as  those  of 
the  franchise,  of  Church  establishments,  of  the  relations  between 
labour  and  capital,  and,  above  all,  of  education.  But  in  all  these 
questions,  as  the  modern  world  is  dealing  with  them,  there  is  one 
belief  implied,  which  in  some  form  or  other  all  parties  hold,  and  to 
which,  consciously  or  unconsciously,  all  parties  appeal.  That  belief  is, 
that  between  man  and  man  there  is  some  kind  of  equality,  and  that 
a  debt  is  due  to  all  men  which  is  caused  by,  and  is  measured  by, 
this.  Two  examples  will  at  once  explain  my  meaning — the  modern 
condemnation  of  slavery,  and  the  modern  condemnation  of  religious 
persecution.  Both  of  these  imply,  it  is  evident,  that  man  as  man  is 
possessed  of  certain  rights  on  which  it  is  injustice  to  trespass,  and 
on  the  rendering  of  which  all  progress  depends.  How  the  rendering 
of  such  rights  is  related  to  our  views  concerning  them,  how  our  views 
concerning  them  are  related  to  religious  belief,  and  how,  should 
religious  belief  be  lost,  the  political  and  social  future  will  be  affected 
by  the.  loss  of  it,  is  what  I  now  propose  to  consider. 

And  first  let  me  state  more  distinctly  the  exact  scope  of  my 
argument,  the  exact  positions  I  desire  to  prove  and  "disprove,  and  the 
exact  schools  or  parties  at  whom  what  I  urge  is  pointed.  These 
last,  to  describe  them  comprehensively,  may  be  called  the  school  of 
Atheistic  Liberalism ;  and  the  name  will  include  more  than  it  at 
fii^t  sight  seems  to  do  :  for  a  Liberal  may  be  atheistic  in  his  public 
and  political  principles,  although  he  is  a  staunch  Christian  in  his 
own  private  convictions.  We  may  fairly,  for  instance,  call  a  man 
atheistic  in  one  sense  who,  though  he  believes  in  God  himself,  yet 
would  not  have  that  belief  taught  in  any  way  to  the  nation,  and  who- 
holds  that  no  public  measures  should  have  the  least  regard  to  it.  A 
Liberal,  in  other  words,  is  atheistic  as  a  Liberal  when  his  Liberalism 
is  not  affected  by,  and  can  stand  without,  his  theism.  What  I  shall 
have  to  say,  therefore,  will  apply  indirectly  to  many  who  are  not 
directly  touched  by  it.  Those  directly  touched  by  it  are  the  school 
of  professing  atheists,  who  not  in  public  conduct  only,  but  in  private 
also,  repudiate  any  reference  to  religious  belief  whatever  ;  and  whose 
teachings  to  so  vast  an  extent  are  changing  public  opinion.  It  is 
true  that,  considering  this  school  in  the  persons  of  its  chief  doctrinaires, 
it  can  hardly  be  called  in  England  a  political  party  at  all.  On  the 
contrary,  its  chief  exponents  are  retired  and  unpractical  men. 


1880.        ATHEISM  AND   THE  RIGHTS  OF  MAN.          759 

who  seem  to  have  had  no  contact  with  human  nature  in  general, 
and  who  certainly  know  very  little  of  its  workings.  But  none  the 
less  are  they  having  a  great  political  power,  through  the  opinions 
they  are  trying  to  systematise,  and  to  which,  beyond  doubt,  they  are 
giving  credit  and  currency.  And  they  are  powerful  for  this  reason. 
Though  neither  their  knowledge  nor  their  position  gives  them  any  im- 
mediate influence,  they  are  all  of  them  more  or  less  definitely  political 
and  social  Liberals ;  and  the  cause  of  advanced  Liberalism  is  supposed 
to  be  bound  up  with  their  teachings.  With  the  disappearance  of  the 
kingdom  of  God,  they  foretell,  in  Professor  Clifford's  language,  the 
appearance  of  '  The  Kingdom  of  Man.'  Their  teaching  thus  consists 
of  two  separate  parts,  of  which  the  substance  of  one  is  an  analysis  of 
man's  present  moral  nature,  and  of  the  other  a  prediction  of  man's 
future  social  action.  But  the  world,  with  regard  to  these,  is  under  a 
very  singular  delusion.  These  two  sets  of  teachings,  it  is  thought 
popularly,  are  in  some  way  or  other  very  closely  connected  ;  and  that, 
granting  the  truth  of  the  first,  the  second  must  be  true  likewise.  The 
apparent  exactness  of  the  psychological  analysis  is  attributed  also  to 
the  political  and  the  social  prophecy.  No  procedure,  however,  really 
can  be  more  utterly  false  than  this.  The  analysis  and  the  prophecy, 
whatever  their  respective  merits,  must  be  each  considered  separately 
— tried  in  different  courts  and  with  different  sets  of  witnesses.  The 
second  is  in  no  way  whatever  the  corollary  of  the  first ;  and  even 
should  the  analysis  prove  to  be  scientific  truth,  the  prophecy  at  the 
same  time  might  be  sentimental  nonsense. 

There  is  one  central  example  of  the  above  confusion  which,  though 
belonging  to  the  personal  and  not  the  social  problem,  will  help  to 
illustrate  this.  I  refer  to  the  case  of  conscience.  Conscience,  it  is 
admitted  on  all  sides,  is  an  imperious  voice  within  us,  which  con- 
tinually bids  us  thwart  our  personal  wills  and  passions,  and  to  obey 
which  is  the  essence  of  all  right  action.  How  shall  this  phenomenon 
be  accounted  for?  The  old  theory  was  that  it  is  the  voice  of  God, 
enforcing  its  orders  with  personal  threats  and  promises.  And  this,  it 
is  admitted,  was,  till  quite  lately,  the  only  theory  that  would  account 
for  the  facts.  At  last,  however,  we  are  told,  there  is  another  explana- 
tion possible ;  and  conscience  is  presented  to  us  as  the  inherited 
social  instinct,  developed  slowly  in  man  through  his  need  for  united 
action.  Now  for  this  account  there  is  a  great  deal  to  be  said  ;  and 
for  argument's  sake  let  us  suppose  it  completely  true.  But  what  the 
modern  school  insists  upon  by  no  means  ends  here.  They  declare 
further  that  though  conscience  be  thus  placed,  in  thought,  in  a  com- 
pletely changed  position,  it  will  yet  in  practice  suffer  no  change  in 
its  power  ;  and  they  conceive  this  second  statement  to  be  implied  in 
the  first.  It  is,  however,  on  a  completely  different  footing  ;  and  they 
have  only  failed  to  see  this  through  an  extraordinary  oversight.  They 
have  failed  to  see  that,  though  conscience  be  really  but  the  social 


760  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  May 

instinct,  this  instinct  has  gained  its  power  from  being  taken  for  some- 
thing more ;  that  it  has,  as  a  matter  of  history  and  biography,  been 
obliged  to  translate  itself  into  an  articulate  formula,  and  that  the 
religious  belief  thus  attached  to  it  has  been  evolved,  pari  passu, 
with  the  unresolving  impulse.  They  have  found  conscience  fulfilling 
a  double  function,  at  once  making  laws  and  enforcing  them ;  but  in 
explaining  how  it  has  come  to  do  the  first,  they  have  robbed  it  of  the 
means  by  which  it  has  hitherto  done  the  second.  And  thus  the  ut- 
most their  explanation  can  do  in  any  practical  direction  is  to  show  us 
that  we  should  each  desire  that  conscience  should  prevail  with  others, 
without  showing  us  any  reason  to  expect  that  it  will  prevail  with  our- 
selves. I  am  not  saying  here  that  such  reasons  are  not  producible  ;  I 
am  only  saying  that  as  yet  they  have  not  been  produced,  and  that 
the  Positive  school  will  have  to  seek  them  in  places  with  which  at 
present  they  are  entirely  unfamiliar. 

And  this  brings  me  naturally  to  the  matter  now  in  hand.     As  the 
Positive  school  have  treated  conscience,  so  have  they  treated  politics, 
and  the  prospects  of  social  progress.     They  have  talked  of  freedom, 
of  equality,  of  republicanism,  and  the  kingdom  of  man  ;  and  have 
urged  men,  for  their  best  hopes,  to  look  in  the  direction  that  such 
phrases  indicate.     Now  if  this  language  has  any  practical  meaning,  it 
must  embody  two  things,  not  only  political  and  social  principles,  but 
a  political  and  social  prophecy.     It  must  not  only  be  a  description  of 
what   we  should   desire  in  dreams,   it  must  be  also  a  trustworthy 
statement  of  what  we  may  expect  in  reality.      Is  it  this  latter  ? 
Supposing  the  world  generally  to  be  converted  to  the  creed  of  Positiv- 
ism, does  our  knowledge  of  men,  and  of  the  ways  they  have  believed 
in  hitherto,  lead  us   to   expect   seriously  that   freedom  and  sweet 
fraternity  is  the  condition  they  will  work  towards  in  the  future  ? 
This  is  the  question  with  which  I  propose  to  deal ;  it  is  the  one 
question  needful  for  the  Liberal  school  to  answer  ;  up  to  the  present 
time  they  have  taken  no  single  step  towards  answering  it :  and  in  so 
far  as  they  seem  to  have  done  so,  what  they  have  done  has  been  this. 
They,  the  scientific  school,  in  dealing  with  social  problems,  have  done 
just  what  the  theologians  did  in  dealing  with  science.     They  have 
merely  sought  to  make  a  system  that  agrees  with  itself ;  they  have 
not  tried  to  examine  how  far  it  agrees  with  facts.     Nor  must  they  in 
this  matter  deceive  us  by  their  many  appeals  to  history ;  for  the  most 
futile  of  theological  methods  has  been  also  their  model  here.     They 
have  treated  history  as  Dissenters  treat  the  Bible.     They  have  quoted 
a  passage  here  and  a  passage  there,  divorcing  each  from  its  context, 
interpreting  each  scripture  privately,  and   having  no  other  guide, 
either  in  the  choice  or  the  interpretation,  than  their  own  wishes  and 
their  own   foregone  conclusions.     Such  quotations,  it  is  true,  may 
often  at  the  time  seem  forcible ;  but  it  is  plain  that  in  reality  they 
have  no  value  whatever.     There  is  no  anticipation  that  in  this  way 


1880.        ATHEISM  AND   THE  EIGHTS  OF  MAN.          761 

cannot  be  supported  from  history,  just  as  there  is  no  heresy  that 
in  this  way  cannot  be  supported  from  the  Bible. 

Let  me  state  this  charge  more  explicitly.  What  I  wish  here 
to  insist  on  is,  not  that  our  scientific  theorists  are  ignorant  of  history 
in  the  sense  of  being  ill-read  in  historical  literature,  though  this  too, 
of  many  of  them,  I  conceive  might  be  said  with  truth.  The  want 
I  impute  to  them  is  something  much  deeper.  It  is  not  that  they 
have  not  gone  far  enough  in  one  branch  of  inquiry,  but  that  they 
have  gone  no  way  at  all  in  another.  They  may  know  much  or  they 
may  know  little  about  what  has  happened,  but  in  no  fruitful  way 
have  they  ever  demanded  why  ?  The  problem  before  them  is,  How 
will  human  beings  act  in  the  future  ?  And  naturally  they  expect 
the  past  will  throw  some  light  on  this.  But  in  what  way  can  it 
be  made  to  do  so  ?  Let  us  inquire  carefully.  The  action  of  men 
socially  is  the  product  of  their  action  individually.  All  the  large 
movements  of  which  history  is  the  record  have  been  caused  and 
made  possible  by  nothing  but  certain  desires,  aversions,  and  suscepti- 
bilities in  the  human  unit.  These  are  many  and  various,  and  their 
mode  of  action  is  extremely  complex.  Sometimes  one  or  other  of 
them  acts  singly ;  at  other  times,  several  act  in  concert ;  and  at  others, 
a  yet  greater  number  act  in  conflict.  Selfishness,  unselfishness,  love, 
hate,  envy,  ambition,  indolence,  activity,  docility,  self-will — these 
and  such  as  these  are  the  powers  and  the  potentialities  of  which  all 
events  of  history  are  the  outcome.  To  predict,  then,  future  events 
from  past,  there  are  three  things  necessary.  First,  in  the  case  of 
each  given  event  we  must  inquire  carefully  to  what  forces  it  is  attri- 
butable ;  and,  if  there  have  been  several  acting  in  the  same  direction, 
in  what  proportions  they  have  each  exerted  themselves.  Secondly,  we 
must  inquire  to  what  conditions  it  is  attributable  that  the  forces 
in  question  have  so  combined  and  acted.  And  lastly,  having  still 
to  deal  with  the  same  forces,  we  must  consider  under  what  condi- 
tions we  expect  them  to  combine  and  act  in  the  future. 

Let  us  take  an  instance :  let  us  take  the  French  Eevolution. 
No  event  has  formed  for  the  Liberal  school  such  a  favourite  theme 
as  that.  They  point  to  it  as  an  epiphany  of  the  great  being, 
Humanity,  as  a  specimen  of  its  powers,  and  as  an  earnest  of  its 
future  performances;  and  it  is  said,  roughly  speaking,  to  teach 
three  main  lessons — the  advent  of  men's  freedom,  the  fact  of  their 
equality,  and  their  sense  of  loving  brotherhood.  Now,  in  this  popu- 
lar view  of  the  matter,  what  is  it  that  is  implied  ?  Certain  state- 
ments are  implied  as  to  certain  definite  events.  It  is  implied 
that  the  events  in  question  were  the  result  of  three  special  forces — 
of  men's  longing  for  freedom,  their  love  for  one  another,  and  of  their 
perception  that  they  were  all  equal.  And  it  is  argued  further  that 
the  same  forces  in  the  future  will  act  in  the  same  direction,  and 
will  complete  the  process  which  is  at  present  only  begun. 


762  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY.  May 

Now  to  analyse  the  causes  of  the  French  Eevolution  is  not  my  con- 
cern here.  But  I  wish  to  point  out  that,  whatever  may  be  their  true 
analysis,  the  common  one  just  alluded  to  is,  at  any  rate,  quite  inade- 
quate; and  not  inadequate  only  in  the  result,  but  in  the  method  by  which 
the  result  has  been  arrived  at.  Even  had  it  been  true,  it  would 
have  been  true  only  by  chance ;  no  scientific  means  have  been  ever 
taken  to  prove  it  so.  The  event  in  question,  as  is  evident  from  the 
slightest  inspection  of  it,  was  one  of  extreme  complexity :  and 
though  the  three  humanitarian  principles  had  doubtless  much 
to  do  with  it,  yet  numerous  other  forces  were  busy  also,  which, 
though  then  accidentally  working  in  one  direction,  may,  under 
changed  conditions,  work  just  as  well  in  another.  Thus  the  passion 
of  the  masses,  that  was  at  that  time  so  powerful,  was  composed 
not  only  of  the  love  of  equals,  but  also  of  the  hatred  of  superiors. 
This  complex  passion,  again,  was  not  self-directing.  The  masses 
were  swayed  and  guided  by  individual  leaders,  whose  influence 
depended  largely  on  the  thoughts  and  theories  that  were  set  forth 
by  them.  Further,  these  leaders,  in  addition  to  their  avowed  prin- 
ciples, were  themselves  swayed  largely  by  unavowed  private  interests. 
Now  not  only  is  it  needful,  for  understanding  the  matter  rightly,  to 
recognise  the  variety  of  the  elements  with  which  we  have  to  deal. 
It  is  needful  also  to  inquire  in  what  proportion  each  of  these  has 
been  present.  We  know,  for  instance,  that  men  love  each  other, 
we  know  that  men  hate  each  other,  and  we  know  that  each  of  these 
feelings  can  produce  important  actions.  But  in  the  case  of  any 
given  event,  in  which  both  feelings  have  been  concerned,  we  want 
to  know  how  much  there  has  been  of  the  one,  how  much  of  the 
other;  what  laws  or  conditions  have  regulated  the  proportion  we 
discover,  and  by  what  powers  the  two  have  been  mixed  together. 
We  may  not  inaptly  compare  these  social  forces  to  gunpowder. 
Gunpowder  is  composed  of  three  homely  substances,  each  by  itself 
entirely  ,  inexplosive.  Its  power  depends  wholly  on  how  these  are 
mixed  and  proportioned. 

There  is  thus  suggested  to  us  an  entirely  new  branch  of  inquiry, 
to  which  the  modern  schools  at  present  are  complete  strangers.  So 
strange,  indeed,  are  they  to  the  very  conception  of  it,  that  amongst 
all  the  names  they  have  given  the  various  sciences,  there  is  not  one 
which  can  be  said  to  include]  or  even  to  hint  at  it.  Sociology  and 
political  economy  both  indeed  come  near  to  it,  but  neither  of  them 
can  be  said  to  touch  it.  Its  scope  can  be  best  indicated  by  a  men- 
tion of  some  of  the  main  questions  contained  in  it.  Beginning  with 
the  simple  inquiry  as  to  human  character  in  general — as  to  the 
power  and  proportions  of  the  individual  human  impulses — it  will  go 
on  to  consider  how,  when  men  act  in  masses,  .these  impulses  are 
modified.  It  will  treat  social  and  political  enthusiasms  as  other 
sciences  treat  heat.  It  will  ask  how  crowds  are  heated  by  them, 


1880.        ATHEISM   AND   THE  RIGHTS  OF  MAN.          763 

as  though  crowds  were  metals  or  other  specified  substances — how 
crowds  are  heated  by  them,  at  what  rate  they  cool,  and  how  the 
laws  of  individual  action  change  during  such  processes.  It  will 
inquire  into  the  rate  at  which  the  different  passions  travel,  and  into 
their  comparative  forces.  It  will  ask,  for  instance,  whether  love 
or  envy  be  the  stronger;  which  diffuses  itself  the  more  readily, 
and  under  'what  conditions ;  and  in  what  proportions  the  two  are  ' 
capable  of  combining.  It  will  ask  how  popular  distress  acts  on 
popular  aspirations,  and  how  long  and  how  far  the  latter  can  survive 
the  former.  It  will  ask  how  multitudes  are  swayed  by  leaders,  and 
by  what  laws.  It  will  ask,  with  regard  to  leaders,  by  what  motives 
they  are  actuated — by  ambition  or  public  spirit — and  how  far  these 
motives  can  be  counteracted  by  others,  such  as  avarice,  sexual  passion, 
or  indolence.  And  it  will  ask  further  how  the  emotions  are  affected 
by  the  intellect — how  feeling  acts  on  belief,  and  belief  on  feeling, 
and  how  practice  needs  to  sustain  itself  on  some  framework  of  theory. 

Such  being  a  brief  hint  of  what  the  science  we  desiderate  will 
deal  with,  let  us  next  ask  in  what  way  it  must  be  studied.  It  is 
needless,  of  course,  to  say  that  it  must  be  studied  in  history.  What 
we  have  to  remark  is  that  it  must  be  not  studied  there  only ;  and 
that,  to  make  history  of  any  help  to  us,  it  must  be  studied  elsewhere 
as  well.  To  understand  the  past,  we  must  observe  the  present. 
Would  we  know  how  men  have  behaved,  we  must  observe  how  they 
do  behave.  Would  we  understand  the  action  of  crowds  in  the  last 
century,  we  must  observe  the  action  of  crowds  in  our  own.  We  must 
study  history  as  we  have  studied  geology,  by  a  careful  observation  of 
forces  now  at  work.  We  must  look  on  past  events  as  the  strata  of 
civilisation,  whose  formation  we  still  have  to  account  for,  and  which 
we  only  can  account  for  by  a  pursuance  of  this  method.  The  labora- 
tory of  the  missing  science  must  be  the  living  world  at  large. 

Such  a  science  may  indeed  be  said  to  be  impossible,  for  two 
reasons :  first,  because  the  principles  involved  in  it  are  not  uniform  ; 
and  secondly,  because  the  details  involved  in  it  are  too  complex. 
But  from  whatever  quarters  the  first  objection  may  come,  it  certainly 
cannot  come  from  the  scientific  school ;  since  one  of  their  most  fun- 
damental doctrines  is  a  direct  protest  against  it.  Human  nature, 
they  say,  is  uniform,  and  is  therefore  a  conceivable  subject  for  exact 
scientific  study.  The  second  objection  is  far  more  to  the  point,  and 
if  urged  by  scientific  thinkers  there  would  be  little  to  say  against  it ; 
only  in  that  case  we  must  meet  them  with  the  following  unwelcome 
inference,  that  in  proportion  as  the  laws  in  question  are  too  complex 
to  systematise,  so  is  their  future  action  too  uncertain  to  predict. 

But  however  this  may  be,  there  is  one  thing  certain.  Whether 
or  no  such  predictions  can  be  ever  made  scientific,  as  Mr.  Herbert 
Spencer  and  others  assume  they  can,  they  can  at  any  rate  be  made 
more  'scientific  than  these  writers  have  yet  made  them.  As  made  at 


764  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  May 

present  by  these,  they  have  no  firm  substance  at  all.  They  are 
nothing  in  England  but  the  fancies  of  amiable  students,  as  in  Russia 
they  are  nothing  but  the  ravings  of  mad  conspirators.  They  can  at 
any  rate  be  made  something  more  reliable  than  this.  Even  should  the 
laws  of  human  action  be  not  uniform,  in  the  way  that  the  modern 
school  maintain  they  are,  it  is  admitted  on  all  sides  that  there  is 
some  uniformity  in  them  ;  and  should  the  conditions  of  human  action 
be  so  various  that  we  can  never  know  the  whole  of  them,  it  is  admitted 
on  all  sides  that  we  can  know  something  of  some.  And  thus  it  is 
that  some  quasi-science  of  the  future  is  not  only  attainable,  but  has 
been,  within  certain  limits,  very  notably  attained.  The  best  examples 
of  it,  however,  have  been  given  us  by  great  politicians  and  generals ; 
and  what  are  commonly  called  instances  of  these  great  men's  foresight 
are  instances  of  sound,  though  perhaps  unconscious,  induction.  Now, 
though  it  is  open  only  to  the  few  to  rival  such  men  in  genius,  it  may 
be  open  to  others,  by  a  pursuance  of  proper  methods,  to  arrive  at 
results  of  the  same  practical  character,  and  which,  if  far  less  definite, 
shall  be  yet  far  wider.  What  we  demand  first  of  all  is  not  genius ; 
it  is  common-sense  at  work  in  the  proper  direction.  Given  us  this, 
we  may  approach  the  future  of  civilisation  with  the  same  kind,  though 
not  with  the  same  degree,  of  confidence  as  that  with  which  politicians 
and  generals  have  approached  the  future  of  states  and  armies ;  and 
though  even  thus  our  knowledge  may  always  remain  vague  and  im- 
perfect, it  will  not  for  that  reason  be  without  definite  value.  It  will 
teach  us  the  complete  falsehood  of  many  current  predictions,  even 
though  it  may  not  enable  us  to  replace  them. 

This  is  specially  true  of  that  prediction  with  which,  as  I  have  said 
already,  I  propose  briefly  to  deal — the  common  prediction  of  Atheistic 
Liberalism  as  to  the  movement  of  humanity  towards  freedom  and 
equal  brotherhood.  Now,  that  such  a  movement  at  present  seems  an 
undoubted  fact  I  do  not  attempt  to  deny.  But  to  see  events  moving 
in  one  direction,  even  for  centuries,  can  give  us  no  assurance  that 
they  will  so  go  on  moving,  until  we  have  discovered  the  causes  to 
which  this  movement  is  due,  and  have  satisfied  ourselves  that  these 
causes  will  be  permanent.  And  I  am  about  to  point  out  that  of  these 
causes  there  is  at  least  one,  and  one  of  extreme  importance,  which,  if 
the  Liberal  school  prevail,  must  be  by-and-by  eliminated ;  and  whose 
absence  must  tend  to  reverse  or  arrest  the  process  on  whose  continu- 
ance the  Liberal  school  rely.  This,  as  I  have  said  already,  is  the  belief 
in  the  Rights  of  Man.  Let  us  now  proceed  to  examine  more 
minutely  both  the  content  of  this  belief,  and  its  practical  influence 
hitherto. 

First,  then,  as  to  its  content,  it  implies  two  things,  of  which  one  is 
epitomised  in  the  use  of  the  word  man,  and  the  other  epitomised  in  the 
use  of  the  word  right.  The  word  mem,  thus  used  as  of  common  applica- 
tion to  all  men,  implies  that  between  all  men  there  is  a  certain  kind  of 


1880.        ATHEISM  AND   THE  RIGHTS  OF  MAX,  765 

equality,  in  virtue  of  which  they  are  all  alike  capable  of  certain  equal 
wants  and  attainments.  The  word  right  implies  something  more 
complex.  It  implies  that  as  certain  things  thus  exist  in  all  men 
potentially,  so  may  the  conditions  be  demanded  which  shall  secure 
their  existence  actually  ;  it  implies  further,  since  the  case  involves 
demanding,  that  there  is  a  power  somewhere  which  shall  make  the 
demand  attended  to,  or  at  all  events  punish  those  who  refuse  to  attend 
to  it ;  and  it  implies  finally,  and  as  a  consequence  of  this,  that  rulers 
must  grant  this  demand  to  the  ruled  not  as  a  debt  to  the  ruled  only, 
but  as  the  foremost  of  all  debts  to  themselves.  Thus  Kobespierre  laid  ifc 
down  in  his  celebrated  '  Declaration  '  that  it  is  the  aim  of  every  polity 
*  to  secure  the  natural  rights  of  man,  and  the  development  of  all  his 
faculties ; '  that  '  society  is  bound  by  every  means  in  its  power  to 
secure  the  instruction  of  every  citizen ; '  and  that  '  tyrants '  in  reality 
are  nothing  but  wretched  '  slaves,'  who  have  revolted  against  '  Nature, 
the  legislator  of  the  Universe.' 

Such  being,  roughly  stated,  the  content  of  the  belief  in  question, 
what  has  been  its  practical  influence  in  the  direction  of  liberal  pro- 
gress ?  To  answer  this  with  accuracy  is  not  possible  here ;  but 
certain  broad  statements  may  be  made  with  regard  to  it,  which, 
though  often  overlooked,  will,  I  think,  be  denied  by  nobody.  Let 
us  first  observe,  then,  that  however  great  the  above  influence  may 
have  been,  it  has  been  but  one  force  at  work  amongst  many  others. 
We  must  not  assume  too  much  for  it,  as  we  shall  be  unable  to  prove 
enough  for  it.  Liberal  progress  is  not  due  only  to  liberal  principles ; 
instinct  and  appetite  are  concerned  in  it  as  well  as  belief  and  theory. 
But  though  it  may  in  the  first  place  be  got  in  motion  by  the  former, 
it  rests  solely  with  the  latter  to  direct,  to  sustain,  and  to  develop  it. 
The  former  includes  many  conflicting  elements — hate  and  envy,  as 
well  as  love  and  pity.  It  rests  with  the  latter  to  make  all  these 
rational,  and,  by  justifying  and  idealising  the  objective  end  they  tend 
towards,  to  transmute  and  hallow  and  harmonise  the  feelings  that  tend 
towards  it.  A  movement,  for  instance,  which  has  been  due  at  its 
beginning  to  the  pride  and  oppression  of  one  class,  the  envy  of  a 
second,  and  the  hate  and  hunger  of  a  third,  may  by  justifying  its 
actions  secure  to  itself  new  motives.  Blind  impulse  may  be  en- 
lightened by  theory,  and  savage  selfishness  may  tend  to  become 
philanthropy.  This  has  notably  been  the  case  with  the  French 
Revolution,  and  thus  Lamartine  truly  says  of  it  that  what  '  makes  it 
so  great  a  force  amidst  all  its  storms  and  anarchy  is  that  it  is  a 
doctrine ; '  and  *  its  theories,'  he  adds,  '  which  were  for  a  moment 
made  unpopular  by  the  pangs  which  followed  their  birth,  revive  and 
will  revive  more  and  more  in  the  aspirations  of  men.  They  have 
been  sullied,  but  they  are  divine.  Efface  the  blood,  and  the  truth 
remains.'  To  this  we  may  add  another  instance,  in  which  the  power 
of  belief  is  shown  in  a  yet  more  immediate  manner.  I  moan  the 


766  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  May 

abolition  of  slavery — a  movement  which  the  Liberal  school  so  nearly 
identify  with  progress,  that  had  the  Slave  States  in  America  only 
secured  their  victory,  the  world's  development  would,  in  the  judgment 
of  John  Stuart  Mill,  have  been  probably  thrown  back  for  a  century. 
Now  the  hatred  of  slavery  is  due  partly  to  the  physical  horrors  con- 
nected with  it ;  and  thus  one  of  the  forces  concerned  in  its  abolition 
has  been  pity,  which  is  an  instinct,  not  an  intellectual  theory.  But 
it  is  indubitable  that  the  larger  parfhere  has  been  played  by  a  theory, 
not  an  instinct.  Slavery  has  been  condemned,  hated,  and  warred 
against,  not  so  much  because  incidentally  it  has  tortured  the  bodies 
of  some,  as  because  essentially  it  violates  the  beliefs  of  all. 

Thus  we  may  safely,  I  think,  make  the  following  statement. 
The  power  for  liberal  progress  of  the  natural  human  instincts  depends 
largely  on  their  embodying  themselves  in  a  certain  intellectual  doc- 
trine, which  the  world's  knowledge  and  intellect  are  prepared  to  accept 
as  true.  It  depends  upon  this  so  largely,  that  if  the  doctrine  in 
question  be  proved  false  or  groundless  the  power  in  question  will 
perhaps  evaporate,  perhaps  reverse  its  tendency,  and  will  suffer  at  all 
events  some  very  important  change. 

And  this  brings  us  to  the  real  point  at  issue.  Let  us  take  the 
special  doctrine  that  is  so  essential  to  liberal  progress,  and  apply  the 
tests  to  it  of  that  scientific  school  by  which  ail  such  progress  for  the 
future  is,  we  are  told,  to  be  guided.  The  result  to  the  scientific 
optimist  must,  one  would  think,  be  startling.  The  belief  in  the  rights 
of  man,  as  the  world  has  held  it  hitherto,  will  be  seen  to  have  been 
essentially  a  theological  belief.  The  belief  in  men's  equality  was  a 
belief  that  men  had  souls.  The  belief  in  men's  rights  was  a  belief  in 
a  God  who  sanctioned  them.  As  tried  at  the  tribunal  of  knowledge 
and  calm  intellect,  the  social  doctrine  relies  on  the  religious,  not  only 
for  its  support,  but  for  its  meaning.  This  was  always  its  implied 
foundation,  and  continually  its  explicit  one.  It  was  on  this  that  Robes- 
pierre rested  his  Declaration  of  Rights ;  it  was  on  this  that  St.  Simon 
rested  his  hopes  and  schemes ;  while  the  English  reader  can  hardly 
need  reminding  that  it  was  on  this  that  the  whole  case  rested  against 
slavery  as  slavery.  Negroes  have  souls  to  save,  just  as  white  men 
have.  Negroes  and  white  men  have  the  same  God  to  serve.  Before 
that  God  negro  and  white  are  equal.  Such  were  the  beliefs  and  argu- 
ments which  alone  made  the  suppression  of  slavery  not  only  possible 
to  accomplish,  but  possible  even  to  conceive  or  to  wish  for;  and 
without  which  Wilberforce  would  have  been  without  power,  and 
Uncle  Tom's  Cabin  without  pathos.  Nor  is  it  too  much  to  say  of  the 
entire  fabric  of  Liberalism  that,  in  so  far  as  it  is  either  a  fact  accom- 
plished, or  a  clear  ideal  to  work  towards,  it  has  directly  sprung  from 
theism,  and  has  been  at  once  justified  and  maintained  by  it.  Theism 
and  the  Rights  of  Man  have  till  quite  lately  been  convertible  terms. 
The  latter  has  indeed  been  nothing  but  one  aspect  of  the  former. 


1880.        ATHEISM  AND   THE  RIGHTS  OF  MAN.          767 

But  now  a  change  has  come,  and  the  Liberal  school  are  in  a  com- 
pletely new  condition.  The  strange  thing  is  that  they  do  but  half 
perceive  the  fact,  and  that,  while  loudly  insisting  on  one  aspect  of  it, 
they  completely  forget  the  other.  Whilst  proclaiming  with  increas- 
ing vehemence  that  theism  is  an  illusion,  they  forget  that  the  rights 
of  man  may  prove  an  illusion  likewise,  and  that,  instead  of  their  being 
recognised  more  fully  in  the  future,  there  may  in  the  future  be 
nothing  of  them  left  to  recognise.  One  of  this  school  in  America 
has  recently  written  thus  :  '  Entire  equality  of  rights  implies  entire 
equality  of  natures  ;  and  as  the  latter  equality  does  not  really  exist, 
the  former  will  never  exist  in  the  moral  law ;  the  equality  in  civil 
law  representing  only  a  gross  approximation  to  it.  ...  The  Catholic 
Church  created  an  artificial  and  absolute  equality  in  salvation  .  .  . 
which  could  be  applied  indiscriminately  to  all.  Such  an  equality  is 
certainly  rejected  by  Positivism.'  But  though  the  writer  of  these 
words  could  see  the  matter  thus  clearly  in  theory,  he  has  been  wholly 
unable  to  see  how  theory  will  bear  on  practice.  He  admits  that  the 
theory  of  Catholicism  had  practically  a  profound  effect  in  the  direc- 
tion of  liberal  progress,  and  of  this  effect  he  is  himself  the  inheritor  and 
the  panegyrist.  But  he  fails  'to  inquire  if,  as  the  cause  ceases,  the 
effect  in  question  will  not  presently  cease  likewise.  I  say  presently, 
because  in  cases  like  these  such  cessation  is  never  immediate.  What 
I  have  before  pointed  out  in  the  moral  world  is  also  true  in  the  politi- 
cal. There  is  a  certain  momentum  possessed  by  ideas  and  sentiments 
which  makes  them  outlast  for  a  time  the  beliefs  which  justify  them; 
just  as  a  man's  credit  may  for  a  time  outlast  his  finances.  Thus  the 
liberal  tendencies  we  at  present  perceive  around  us  can  contain,  as  they 
are,  no  pledge  of  their  own  continuance ;  and  we  can  make  no 
calculations  at  all  as  to  their  future,  until  we  have  deprived  them 
carefully,  in  imagination,  of  all  those  forces  which  we  know  must  in 
time  exhaust  themselves,  and  have  considered  with  equal  care  the 
changed  condition  of  the  remainder. 

Accordingly,  for  any  practical  purpose,  the  first  inquiry  must  be 
this  :  How  are  the  conceptions  of  modern  Liberalism  affected  logically 
by  that  non-theistic  science  with  which  they  are  now  associated?  And 
to  this  the  answer  can  be  at  once  prompt  and  decisive.  For  not  only 
does  that  science  affect  them  negatively,  by  discrediting  the  old  proofs 
of  their  truth  ;  it  affects  them  positively,  by  a  detailed  demonstration 
of  their  falsehood.  And  first  of  all  let  us  take  man's  equality. 
Modern  science,  as  the  writer  just  quoted  admits,  denies  that  men 
are  equal.  This,  however,  is  but  half  the  truth ;  it  insists  that  they 
are  unequal ;  and  it  does  so  with  a  fulness  and  hardness  of  meaning 
which,  it  may  be  safely  said,  was  till  our  day  inconceivable.  The 
brutality  to  his  slaves  of  no  Eastern  despot,  the  contempt  towards 
barbarians  of  no  Attic  philosopher,  ever  implied  this  doctrine  so 
fully  as  modern  science  expresses  it.  All  its  tendency  is  to  prove 


768  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY.  May 

with  increasing  clearness  that  each  man  is  the  creature  of  his  parent- 
age and  his  education,  that  of  his  human  value  his  body  is  the  cause 
and  index,  and  that  not  only  are  men's  apparent  inequalities  real, 
but  that  in  reality  they  are  even  greater  than  in  appearance.  No 
spiritual  vision  can  pierce  through  them,  and  discover  beneath  the 
surface  some  treasure  that  is  shared  by  all,  for  no  such  treasure  exists* 
There  are  but  two  ways  in  which  a  man's  value  can  be  conceived  or 
measured — by  the  pleasure  he  is  to  himself,  and  by  the  use  he  is  to 
others.  And  this  use  and  pleasure  are  these  things  as  they  are,  not 
any  use  and  pleasure  that  we  conceive  'might  have  been.  Had  a  man 
been  in  the  least  degree  other  than  he  is,  to  the  eyes  of  modern  science 
he  would  have  been  another  man.  What  each  man  is,  is  all  that 
each  man  could  have  been.  Nothing  was  ever  possible  but  what  has 
been  or  will  be  actual.  Thus,  to  talk  of  equality  between  men  as 
men  is  as  absurd  as  to  talk  of  equality  between  dogs  as  dogs,  or 
between  horses  as  horses.  It  is  indeed  probably  more  absurd ;  for 
between  men  and  men  there  is  room  for  yet  greater  difference.  There 
are  savages  who,  placed  accurately  in  the  scale  of  animals,  are  nearer 
the  highest  monkeys  than  the  highest  of  their  own  species ;  and  if 
creatures  so  far  removed  from  each  other  can  be  called  in  any  way 
equal,  then  not  only  may  we  say  that  dogs  are  equal  to  dogs,  but 
that  a  cat  is  equal  to  an  elephant. 

Such,  then,  being  men's  equality,  as  tested  by  modern  science,  let 
us  inquire  what  becomes  of  their  rights.  And  this  inquiry  needs 
much  care  in  making,  as  there  are  certain  current  confusions  with 
regard  to  them  which  are  apt  to  mislead  all  of  us.  The  conception 
of  such  rights,  as  I  have  already  observed  briefly,  implies  a  (rod  who 
sanctions  them.  But  to  realise  this  fully  we  must  examine  the  matter 
further  ;  we  must  examine  the  meaning  of  the  word  rights  generally. 
The  definition  can  be  at  once  brief  and  accurate.  A  right  is  a  claim 
or  a  possession,  which  some  power  or  other  will  either  protect  or 
vindicate.  But  simple  as  this  statement  seems,  it  contains  more  in 
it  than  is  at  first  apparent.  It  contains  two  great  truths,  which  are 
generally  forgotten,  and  which  it  is  of  the  first  importance  to  remem- 
ber :  first,  that  the  sanctioning  power  is  as  essential  as  the  claim  or 
the  possession — a  right  unsanctioned  is  not  a  right  at  all ;  secondly, 
that  whilst  the  sanction  is  essential  to  the  right,  justice  essentially 
has  nothing  at  all  to  do  with  it.  Thus  the  legalised  privileges  of  a 
nobility,  however  oppressive,  are,  so  long  as  they  are  legalised,  the 
rights  of  that  nobility  ;  and  it  may  be  said,  without  any  violence  to 
language,  that  the  existence  of  the  most  absolute  rights  may  be  the 
existence  of  the  most  absolute  injustice. 

Rights,  then,  are  the  creations  of  the  supremest  might  that  has 
any  practical  bearing  on  the  possession  or  claims  that  may  be  in  ques- 
tion. This  is  what  they  are  essentially,  and  they  are  no  more  than 
this.  But  two  other  ideas  have  here  to  be  connected  with  them — the 


1880.        ATHEISM  AXD   THE  RIGHTS  OF   MAS.          769 

idea  of  their  self-existence,  apart  from  any  might  they  may  depend 
upon  ;  and  the  idea  of  their  parallelism  with  universal  justice.  Nor 
is  this  connection  in  any  way  arbitrary,  nor,  from  a  certain  point  of 
view,  in  any  way  unreasonable.  It  is,  on  the  contrary,  at  once  close 
and  rational.  But  there  is  one  point  about  it  we  must  bear  in  mind. 
It  is  a  connection  only,  not  an  identity ;  and  the  links  that  formed 
it  are  precisely  those  that  modern  thought  is  severing. 

It  will  need  but  little  consideration  to  convince  us  of  this  fact. 
Rights  were  vaguely  supposed  to  be  self-existing,  because  whatever 
claims  or  possessions  were  in  harmony  with  the  sense  of  justice  were 
supposed  to  be  independent  of  the  caprice  of  human  sanction.  But 
they  were  supposed  to  have  some  sanction  none  the  less,  though  the 
supposition  was  often  latent.  They  were  supposed  to  be  sanctioned 
by  a  just  and  omnipotent  God,  who  would  judge  between  man  ami 
man,  giving  all  men  some  day  their  due,  and  applying  to  each  indi- 
vidual supposed  universal  principles.  Thus  the  conception  of  rights 
as  in  any  way  self-existing  is  merely  a  loose  expression  of  the  belief 
that  a  certain  Being  existed  in  whom  absolute  justice  was  united  to 
absolute  might. 

Again,  justice  itself,  in  its  political  and  social  bearings,  depends, 
for  at  least  all  its  LHjeral  meaning,  on  the  same  belief  and  on  a 
kindred  one — on  a  belief  in  God,  and  a  belief  in  the  soul  of  man. 
Apart  from  these,  it  doubtless  means  something;  but  that  some- 
thing is  very  limited.  What  it  denotes  in  this  way  are  those 
great  fundamental  rules  without  which  no  social  life  and  no  joint 
action  would  be  possible.  It  denotes  the  principles  of  truth  and 
honesty ;  and  these,  as  we  all  know,  are  of  profound  importance.  But 
as  applied  to  social  and  political  questions,  they  are  the  foundations 
only,  and  not  the  superstructure.  They  are  the  things  we  presume  : 
they  are  not  the  things  that  we  require.  Justice  in  this  narrow  sense, 
as  was  long  ago  observed  by  Plato,  is  as  much  needed  by  the  most 
tyrannous  oligarchy  as  by  the  freest  democracy.  It  will  serve  to 
localise  strength  just  as  well  as  to  diffuse  it;  and  the  homely  proverb, 
that  there  must  be  honour  amongst  thieves,  may  show  us  how  short  a 
part  of  our  way  it  is  thus  able  to  take  us.  As  connected  with  any 
theories  of  political  and  social  progress,  as  forming  part  of  the  con- 
ception of  the  rights  of  man,  justice  includes  other  ideas  of  an  entirely 
distinct  order — not  the  idea  that  to  each  man  must  be  given  his  due, 
but  that  the  admitted  debt  is  of  a  certain  stated  amount.  The 
amount  of  the  debt,  not  the  fact  of  it,  is  the  real  question  debated 
by  progressive  Liberalism.  And  the  calculation  of  this  amount,  as  the 
Liberalism  of  our  day  makes  it,  is  either  based  on  nothing  or  is  based 
on  the  belief  in  question.  Let  us  take  for  instance  the  great  modern 
doctrine  that  the  State  owes  to  all  men  a  certain  intellectual  educa- 
tion. For  what,  in  this  doctrine,  is  the  main  conception  ?  It  is  not 
that  each  citizen  must  have  a  certain  technical  training,  so  that  as  a 
VOL.  VII.— No.  39.  3  F 


770  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  May 

workman  be  may  work  his  best  for  others  ;  but  that  each  man  must 
have  a  certain  mental  training,  so  that  as  a  man  he  may  do  his  best 
for  himself.     It  is  only  with  such  a  view  as  this  that  we  can  wish  to 
teach  Euclid  to  ploughboys.     Now  the  only  ground  on  which  such  a 
view  can  be  justified  is  the  belief  that  man  as  man  owes  a  certain 
debt  to  himself.     In  this  belief  there  is  the  further  belief  included, 
that  a  Grod  exists  who  is  concerned  in  and  will  enforce  the  debt ;  and 
it  is  because  some  debt  like  this  is  supposed  to  be  universal  that  the 
State  is  conceived  of  as  bound  to  give  all  men  the  means  of  paying  it. 
In  the  same  way  the  ideal  polity  generally,  to  which  more  or  less 
vaguely  progress  is  supposed  to  be  tending,  is  capable  of  presentation 
as  an  object  men  ought  to  strive  towards,  only  as  being  a  polity  in 
accordance  with  the  will  of  a  certain  power  who  is  above  and  will 
judge  between  all  human  politicians.     That  such  a  designing  power 
is  supposed  and  appealed  to  is  shown  plainly  in  such  common  phrases 
of  Liberalism  as  that  men  were  born  to  be  free,  men  were  not  born 
to  be  slaves,  men  were   not  born  to  be  mere  machines.     Without 
the  supposition  in  question  such  phrases  have  no  meaning ;  for  unless 
there  is  a  power,  taking  cognisance  of  what  might  have  been,  no  man 
is  born  to  be  anything  but  what  he  is,  no  matter  how  enslaved  or 
machine-like.     Thus,  without  those  religious  doctrines  which  scientific 
thought  is  denying,  the  rights  of  man  as  man  become  rights  which 
have  no  existence.     Eights  of  some  sort  are  of  course  left  existing, 
but  they  are  partial  and  inconstant,  and  they  have  no  necessary  con- 
nection with  the  current  notions  of  justice.    It  is  of  course  conceivable 
that  they  might  be  so  distributed  as  to  make  some  approach  to  the 
ideals  of  progressive  Liberalism  ;  but  none  the  more  would  they  be  the 
rights  of  man.     They  would  be — what  is  a  very  different  thing — the 
rights  of  special  men,  or  of  special  bodies  of  men,  and  their  equality 
would  mean  nothing  deeper  than  an  equal  diffusion  of  might. 

Such  is  the  change,  then,  in  their  great  central  conception,  that 
the  school  of  Atheistic  Liberals  are  themselves  preparing.  In  the  first 
place,  rights  are  for  them  nothing  but  the  creatures  of  human  might ; 
.and  they  are,  and  they  are  not,  precisely  as  that  might  is  distributed. 
Men's  claims  and  possessions  become  intrinsically  an  unordered  chaos. 
It  is  human  might  alone  that  converts  them  into  rights — and  this 
might  is  supreme.  It  is  the  agent  of  no  higher  power.  It  itself 
makes  the  only  laws  it  works  by ;  it  creates  debts  and  pays  them  by 
the  self-same  act.  And  if,  as  is  often  the  case,  retribution  seems  to 
fall  on  it,  it  is  merely  that  unperceived  it  has  changed  its  centre,  and 
its  reality  destroys  its  semblance.  In  the  second  place,  we  must  add 
further,  that  as  the  human  race  is  at  present  constituted,  might  in  its 
distribution  is  exceedingly  unequal — exceedingly  unequal  in  appear- 
ance, and  even  more  unequal  in  reality. 

Let  us  now  inquire  what  this  change  will  be  in  so  far  as  it  has 
any  practical  tendency,  and  see  what  light  it  throws  on  the  current 


1880.        ATHEISM  AND   THE  RIGHTS  OF  MAN.  771 

prophecies  of  progress.  To  begin,  then,  these  prophecies  broadly  are 
reduced  to  the  following  statement,  that  might,  as  time  goes  on,  will 
more  and  more  diffuse  itself,  and  that  the  power  or  capacities  of  all 
men  will  rise,  not  fall,  towards  a  dead  level.  Next,  by  what  means 
are  we  told  that  this  result  is  to  be  accomplished  ?  The  means  are 
•double.  One  is  the  blind  process  of  natural  selection ;  but  this,  as 
time  goes  on,  will  become  of  less  and  less  importance,  and  it  will  be 
more  and  more  superseded  by  an  ideal  end  which  men  shall  consciously 
work  towards.  *  Positivism  recognises,'  as  is  observed  by  a  recent  Posi- 
tive writer,  '  that  beyond  a  certain  stage  of  development  changes  in 
human  destiny  depend  immediately  upon  the  combined  knowledge, 
desire,  and  will  of  human  beings  ;  and  the  energies  of  Positive  thought 
are  directed  towards  modifying  these  with  so  much  the  more  intensity 
that  they  are  inspired  by  sure  hope  of  success.' 

It  is  with  this  second  means  alone,  then,  that  we  need  now  concern 
ourselves,  and  with  regard  to  this  we  have  to  ask  one  great  question.  Is 
the  equalisation  of  human  powers  and  capacities  an  ideal  that  in  any 
attainable  shape  can  be  presented  by  Positive  thought  so  that  it  shall 
«xcite  and  combine  at  once  men's  desires  and  wills,  and  so  that  with 
any  chance  of  success  men  shall  work  to  make  it  a  reality  ?  And  to 
•this  I  propose  to  demonstrate  that  the  answer  is  an  unequivocal  No. 

To  understand  the  true  nature  of  the  problem  a  complete  change 
must  be  made  in  the  way  of  stating  it,  and  for  this  change  what  I 
have  already  said  will  have  prepared  us.  We  shall  now  see,  if  we  con- 
sider the  matter  carefully,  that  the  evangel  of  modern  Liberalism  has, 
as  coming  from  atheists,  been  entirely  misstated,  and  that  when  they 
have  said  their  men's  rights  are  universal,  they  really  mean  that  such 
rights  may  be  made  universal ;  and  that  when  they  have  said  that  men 
are  equal,  they  merely  mean  that  men  may  be  made  equal.  But 
even  this  change  in  the  statement  is  not  sufficient.  There  is  still  an 
ambiguity  in  the  use  of  the  term  men.  The  term  men,  as  occurring 
in  this  connection,  is  supposed  generally  to  have  reference  to  the  men 
that  the  doctrine  is  addressed  to — to  the  living  generation  about  us, 
and  to  belong  to  some  inspiring  message  that  personally  concerns  them. 
Really,  however,  it  does  nothing  of  the  kind.  It  has  no  reference 
whatever  to  the  men  that  are,  but  to  the  men  that  by-and-by,  in  the 
remote  future,  may  be.  Let  us  take,  for  instance,  the  present  labour- 
ing classes.  The  current  prophecies  as  to  progress,  and  the  current 
doctrines  as  to  rights  and  equality,  have  no  reference  personally  to 
them.  Their  condition  practically  is  fixed.  It  is  too  late  for  any 
education  to  change  them ;  by  no  known  method  can  they  be  raised 
in  the  mental  scale.  Even  the  most  sanguine  of  Socialistic  dreamers 
have  allowed  half  a  century  before  their  scheme  for  progress  should 
have  any  fruits  that  were  perceptible,  and  the  hopes  of  more  sober 
thinkers  have  been  more  distant  still.  It  will  thus  appear  that  when 
stated  accurately  the  modern  Liberal  teachings  are  reduced  to  this — 

3r2 


772  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY.  May 

to  a  statement  not  about  men  as  they  are  and  as  we  know  them,  but 
about  a  race  altogether  different,  which  it  is  affirmed  will  in  process  of 
time  be  bred  out  of  them.  It  is  as  though  we  were  to  address  the 
race  of  dogs  generally,  and  were  to  tell  them,  not  the  unmeaning 
falsehood  that  they  themselves  were  all  alike,  but  that  by-and-by 
from  a  process  of  cross-breeding  would  result  a  race  of  mongrels  that 
would  be  so. 

The  doctrine  then,  of  the  modern  prophets  of  progress,  is  composed 
of  these  two  theses :  first,  that  a  certain  type  of  human  being  is,  if 
men  will  to  produce  it,  producible  ;  and  secondly,  that  the  type  in 
question  is  so  desirable  that  the  desire  to  produce  it  will  create  the 
will  to  do  so.  The  doctrine  being  thus  stated,  it  becomes  for  the  first 
time  possible  to  inquire  what  truth  and  what  sense  there  is  in  it. 

Now  the  first  of  these  theses  we  will  for  the  present  suppose  to  be 
true.  We  will  take  it  for  granted  that  human  nature  is  capable  of 
modifications  as  great  even  as  those  which  Mr.  H.  Spencer  dreams 
about ;  and  we  will  inquire  only  by  what  means  they  are  to  be  pro- 
duced, and  if  it  is  likely  that  men  in  general  will  combine  to  use  the 
means.  First  of  all,  then,  we  must  remember  that  the  process  in 
question  must  be  slow  and  gradual ;  nothing  can  be  done  per  saltum. 
One  step  must  follow  on  another,  and,  if  the  pathway  is  impassable 
even  in  one  place,  there  might  just  as  well  be  no  pathwa}7  at  all. 
Power  and  capacity  are  at  present  not  equally  distributed,  and  it  lies 
with  those  who  at  present  possess  them  to  arrest  or  to  promote  their 
distribution.  And  here  let  us  note  this  point.  Those  who  at  present 
possess  them  are  doubtless  at  the  present  moment  working  for  their 
distribution.  They  are  doing  so  in  many  ways;  but  it  will  be  enough 
for  our  present  purpose  if  we  confine  our  attention  to  one — the  diffu- 
sion of  education.  The  education  movement  is  a  genuine  movement 
doubtless  towards  the  ideal  of  modern  Liberalism,  and  could  a  suffi- 
cient education  be  universal  for  several  generations,  the  whole  struc- 
ture of  society  would  be  probably  profoundly  changed.  Nor  is  this  all. 
We  have  not  only  before  us  what  probably  might  be  done,  but  much 
also  that  actually  has  been  done.  The  diffusion  of  education  has 
effected  a  social  change  already.  It  has  already  gone  some  way  to- 
wards the  diffusion  of  might,  and  so  towards  the  creation  of  equalised 
and  universal  rights.  But  this  undoubted  fact  may  very  easily  mis- 
lead us,  and  the  modern  Liberal  school  have  been  altogether  misled  by 
it.  Because  education  has  done  a  certain  amount  for  men,  they 
argue  incontinently  that  it  will  do  an  indefinite  amount  more.  This 
however  by  no  means  follows.  Before  us  is  a  journey  that  is  as  yet 
quite  untried,  and  though  the  road  we  are  on  may  have  proved  good 
thus  far,  in  a  very  short  time  it  may  become  impracticable.  Rivers 
may  cross  it  over  which  there  are  no  ferry-boats,  or  mountains  which 
we  cannot  climb.  But  the  scientific  prophets  of  progress  completely 
forget  this,  and  are  arguing  to  the  present  generation,  with  a  very 


1880.        ATHEISM  AND   THE  RIGHTS  OF  MAN.          773 

singular  simplicity,  that  because  a  balloon  can  take  one  man  five 
miles  from  the  earth,  it  will  therefore  be  able  to  take  the  whole  human 
race  to  the  moon. 

In  this  parallel  to  their  reasoning  there  is  very  little  exaggera- 
tion. It  indicates  hardly  a  greater  forgetfulness  of  more  essential 
considerations.  What  the  Atheistic  Liberals  have  to  consider  is  this. 
A  certain  undoubted  movement  has  been  begun  already,  and  is 
being  still  sustained,  because  the  ideal  end  it  is  supposed  to  tend 
towards  is  powerful  over  man  with  power.  But  meanwhile  they 
have  associated  this  movement  with  another,  which  bears  directly 
on  the  ideal  end  itself,  and  which  must  produce,  at  once  theoreti- 
cally, and  by-and-by  practically,  a  momentous  change  in  it.  It  is 
with  this  change  that  the  Atheistic  school  must  reckon.  Will  the 
idea  of  Liberalism,  when  that  change  has  come  over  it,  still  remain, 
as  heretofore,  powerful  and  attractive ;  or  will  it  not,  long  before  the 
world  has  advanced  near  to  it,  fade  from  our  vision,  or  cease  to  seem 
desirable,  and  may  not  its  place  be  taken  by  an  ideal  precisely  op- 
posite ?  This  is  the  great  practical  question  for  the  class  of  thinkers 
I  am  dealing  with,  and  the  answer  to  it,  if  they  will  consider  the 
matter  dispassionately,  can  hardly  fail  to  be  one  that  will  be  fatal  to 
their  passionate  expectations.  Should  theistic  belief  ever  fade  gener- 
ally from  the  consciousness  of  the  human  race,  and  should  the  concep- 
tions of  man  that  are  derived  from  science  replace  those  that  are 
derived  from  theism,  it  seems  inevitable  that  the  social  ideal  of 
Liberalism,  with  its  freedom,  its  brotherhood,  and  its  equality,  will 
give  place  to  an  ideal  that  is  essentially  oligarchic,  and  that  rests, 
like  the  Greek  Eepublics,  not  on  freedom  but  on  slavery. 

Startling  as  this  statement  seems,  a  little  reflection  will,  I  think, 
convince  us  that  it  is  true.  The  most  sanguine  even  of  the  Liberal 
prophets  admit  that  in  the  course  of  progress  there  are  great  diffi- 
culties to  be  overcome,  and  hard  problems  to  be  solved.  The  con- 
dition of  the  world  desired  by  them  depends  very  largely  on  material 
civilisation  ;  and  material  civilisation  depends  very  largely  on  labour 
that,  at  least  by  comparison,  tends  to  degrade  the  labourer.  Thus, 
as  society  exists  at  present,  and  as  up  to  the  present  it  always  has 
existed,  the  kind  of  life  it  is  hoped  to  make  universal  has  either  not 
been  possible  at  all,  or  has  been  possible  for  the  minority  only.  Here 
is  the  fact,  which  is,  for  Liberalism,  the  central  evil  of  life,  and  which 
the  Liberal  school  assure  us  our  race  is  on  the  way  to  remedy.  But 
just  as  they  assure  us  that  the  result  is  certain,  so  they  urge  on  us 
also  that  it  must  be  achieved  by  great  exertion.  It  will  task  all  the 
energies  of  the  leaders  of  thought  and  action ;  it  will  be  possible 
only,  as  we  have  seen  before,  to  their  '  combined  knowledge,  desire, 
and  will,'  and  the  process  will,  at  the  best,  be  of  necessity  slow  and 
painful.  Meanwhile,  the  philosophy  of  scientific  atheism  will  have 
gradually  done  its  work  on  the  universal  human  consciousness  ;  and 


774  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY.  May 

the  ideal  in  question,  long  before  it  is  realised,  will  have  completely 
changed  its  character.  As  at  present  put  before  us,  it  will  cease  to- 
have  any  meaning ;  and  it  will  be  conceivable  only  in  the  profoundly 
different  form  which  I  have  already  indicated. 

The  practical  effect  of  this  change  will  be  twofold.  From  the 
ideals  of  equality  it  will  remove  their  strongest  present  attraction  ; 
from  the  ideals  of  inequality  it  will  remove  what  at  present  revolts  us 
in  them.  How  this  must  happen  is  obvious.  The  cause  of  equality, 
as  it  at  present  appeals  to  us,  appeals  to  us  as  the  cause  of  justice. 
It  appeals  to  our  consciousness  of.  a  solemn  debt  to  our  fellows,  and  a 
vast  wrong  done  them,  which  we  are  urged  to  remedy.  But  as  soon 
as  the  Liberal  problem  is  stated  with  scientific  accuracy,  all  this- 
conception  of  wrong,  of  debt,  and  of  justice  disappears  entirely.  It 
becomes  simply  a  question  of  how  we  shall  mould  the  future,  in  so- 
far  as  it  is  ours  to  mould.  Within  these  limits  the  future  is  our 
creature.  We  are  its  creator,  its  absolute  lord  and  master;  and 
we  have  no  guide  or  pattern  to  appeal  to,  beyond  our  own  dominant 
will.  In  creating  the  future,  then,  there  is  no  reason  why  we  should 
aim  at  equality  any  more  than  at  inequality.  We,  the  living,  are 
the  potters  ;  the  generations  that  are  to  be  are  the  pots ;  and  shall 
the  thing  formed  say  to  him  that  formed  it,  Why  hast  thou  made  me 
thus  ?  In  perpetuating  inequalities,  or  even  in  increasing  them, 
who  is  wronged  ?  Let  us  suppose  that  by  a  certain  course  of  political 
action  in  the  present — say  by  the  arresting  of  education  instead  of 
the  further  promotion  of  it — the  place  now  occupied  by  the  free 
labouring  classes  would  in  a  century's  time  be  again  taken  by  slaves. 
To  our  present  Atheistic  Liberals  no  idea  could  be  more-  shocking. 
But  let  us  examine  it  accurately  by  their  own  principles,  and  what 
possible  offence  is  there  in  it  ?  A  number  of  useful  animals  not  now 
in  existence  would  be  in  existence  then.  That  is  all.  Let  the  lot 
of  the  illiterate  slave  be  submitted  to  the  calm  eye  of  science  ;  and, 
apart  from  a  discontent  which  need  in  no  way  belong  to  it,  it  will  be 
impossible  to  trace  in  it  the  existence  of  any  wrong.  A  slave  is  no> 
more  wronged  because  he  is  not  a  free  man  than  a  cat  is  wronged 
because  it  is  not  a  dog,  or  than  a  horse  is  wronged  because  it  is  not 
a  cabman.  Or  should  the  semblance  of  any  wrong  exist,  it  would 
be,  not  because  the  slave  was  too  low  in  the  scale,  but  because  he  was 
not  low  enough  :  and  it  would  be  perfectly  right  and  rational  to 
attempt  to  breed  from  him  a  species  still  more  simply  organised, 
which  should  be  equally  strong  and  equally  sagacious  in  work,  but 
should  be  free  from  any  sensibilities  making  work  painful. 

Eemernbering  this,  then,  let  us  grant  the  production  possible  of  a 
lofty  race  of  thoroughbred  equals,  such  as  is  now  promised  us  by  the 
current  doctrine  of  progress,  and  let  us  grant  that  the  hope  of  such  a 
race  existing  might  really  inspire  us  to  work  towards  producing  it. 
But  there  is  no  reason  why  our  endeavours  should  stop  here.  There  is 


1880.        ATHEISM  AND   THE  RIGHTS  OF  MAN.          775 

nothing  to  hinder  our  supplementing  this  finer  breed  by  a  number  of 
lower  breeds,  \vhose  lives,  besides  being  a  positive  pleasure  to  them- 
selves, should  sustain  and  heighten  the  lives  of  those  above  them.  To 
an  addition  of  this  kind  the  modern  school  of  Liberals  can  offer  no 
objection.  The  lower  breeds  in  question  would  in  no  sense  be  k>sers 
because  they  were  not  at  the  summit  of  the  human  scale.  On  the 
contrary,  they  would  be  gainers,  because  they  were  in  the  scale  at 
all;  and  their  supposed  presence  therefore  would  brighten,  not.  mar, 
the  picture.  An  ideal  polity  thus  constructed  iff  indeed  the  very 
polity  that  the  Liberals  themselves  dream  of;  altered  only  in  such  a 
way  that  it  becomes  at  once  richer  and  more  coherent,  and,  according 
to  any  feeling  or  principle  that  they  can  themselves  justify,  infinitely 
more  satisfactory.  But  let  us  look  at  the  matter  in  another  light, 
and  what  shall  we  see  then  ?  We  shall  see  that  this  ideal  of  modern 
Liberalism,  when  once  it  is  filled  in,  and  advanced  to  its  logical  com- 
pletion, is  simply  the  old  oligarchic  ideal  which  the  world  has  known 
hitherto — this  old  ideal  with  its  class  distinctions  and  its  inequalities, 
not  removed  and  not  even  softened,  but  instead  of  this  secured,  in- 
tensified, and  justified. 

Now  the  ideal  polity  presented  in  this  way  is,  it  may  be  said,  an 
ideal  impossible  to  realise  ;  and  that  may  very  likely  be  true.  But 
be  that  as  it  may,  it  is  at  any  rate  far  more  possible  in  this  complete 
shape  than  it  is  in  the  incomplete  one  in  which  the  Liberals  now 
present  it.  The  practical  difficulty  in  the  case  just  stated  would  be 
to  make  the  gradations  in  men's  wishes  and  powers  so  nearly  equal 
to  the  gradations  in  their  social  functions,  that  the  contentment  of 
the  servile  classes  should  be  marred  by  no  further  aspirations.  And 
the  belief  that  the  human  breed  could  be  thus  far  varied,  implies  that 
the  human  nature  is  capable  of  almost  incredible  modifications.  But 
precisely  the  same  implication  is  contained  already  in  all  the  current 
doctrines  of  the  scientific  prophets  of  progress ;  only  the  special 
modification  that  they  exclusively  dwell  upon  is  the  very  modifica- 
tion that  it  must  be  most  difficult  to  produce.  And  yet  these,  modern 
science  declares  to  us,  are  demonstrably  producible.  '  What  now,' 
says  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer  at  the  close  of  his  latest  work,  and  leading 
up  to  the  statement  as  his  chief  and  most  solemn  doctrine — '  what 
now  amongst  those  of  highest  natures  is  occasional  and  feeble  may 
be  expected  with  further  evolution  to  become  habitual  and  strong ;  and 
what  now  characterises  the  exceptionally  high  may  be  expected  even- 
tually to  characterise  all.'  If,  then,  it  be  possible  to  produce  a  breed 
that  shall  be  so  far  finer  than  any  now  existing,  it  will  be  not  only  as 
possible,  but  easier,  to  produce  breeds  that  are  less  fine.  It  will  be 
easier  for  many  reasons.  It  is  an  undoubted  fact  that  with  the 
existing  commoner  classes  a  sufficiency  of  the  lower  pleasures,  which 
are  those  they  can  best  appreciate,  puts  to  sleep  their  ambition  for 
others,  which  they  only  indirectly  hear  about ;  and  thus  in  proportion 


776  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  May 

as  their  degradation  advances,  the  less  does  it  appear  to  them  to  be 
degrading.  Whilst,  further,  there  is  this  to  add — that  in  breeding 
downwards  instead  of  upwards,  the  required  physical  selections  can 
be  made  with  far  greater  freedom,  since  they  will  be  less  traversed  or 
interfered  with  by  any  delicate  affections,  or  sense  of  sentimental 
grievance. 

It  is  not,  however,  to  the  purpose  here  to  inquire  how  far  prac- 
tically either  ideal  could  be  realised — the  ideal  of  equality,  or  the 
ideal  of  inequality.  The  considerations  I  have  to  dwell  upon  stop  far 
short  of  this,  and  are  of  far  more  immediate  import.  What  I  wish 
to  point  out  is,  firstly,  the  demonstrable  fact,  that  whether  or  no 
either  of  these  rival  ideals  are  in  any  way  practically  possible,  the 
latter  is  at  all  events  more  possible  than  the  former ;  secondly,  that 
as  appealing  to  the  scientific  judgment,  the  latter  is  in  every  way 
more  attractive  than  the  former  ;  and  thirdly,  that  in  so  far  as  the 
former  has  hitherto  guided  progress  in  one  direction,  the  latter  in 
the  same  degree  will  by-and-by  desire  it  in  another. 

On  this  last  point  it  remains  to  dwell  further.  In  the  power  of 
the  democratic  ideal  over  present  democratic  movements,  the  Liberals 
are  most  firm  believers.  But  they  have  yet  to  realise  how,  as  this 
ideal  decomposes,  and  still  more  as  another  succeeds  to  it,  the  demo- 
cratic movement  will  be  effected.  This  question,  as  I  have  already 
indicated,  is  one  to  be  answered  only  by  sober  observation  of  the  past. 
Such  observation  shows  us,  as  I  have  also  already  indicated,  that  the 
past  democratic  movements,  which  are  held  to  be  so  full  of  promise  for 
the  future,  have  been  brought  about  by  very  composite  influences, 
and  that  the  causes  that  set  them  going  at  first  have  been  quite 
different  from  those  which  afterwards  sustained  and  guided  them. 
They  have  been  nothing  at  first  but  the  expression,  not  of  any  lofty 
aspiration  or  grand  intellectual  principles,  but  of  want,  of  vulgar  envy, 
and  of  selfish  personal  ambitions.  The  desire  for  the  ideal  end  has 
come  afterwards,  and  has  given  an  intellectual  justification  and  sanc- 
tion to  what  was  already  blindly  aimed  at. 

In  this  way,  and  in  this  way  alone,  those  base  and  anarchic  forces 
have  been  raised  into  something  higher.  They  have  been  reduced 
to  order,  they  have  been  strengthened  and  sustained,  and  they  have 
been  organised  into  a  rational  and  coherent  movement.  The  demo- 
cratic progress  of  the  last  hundred  years  would  have  been  altogether 
impossible  had  not  the  ideal  of  a  democratic  polity  had  so  strong  a 
hold  upon  the  human  intellect,  and  been  supposed  to  have  some 
sanction  in  the  eternal  nature  of  things.  But  for  this  the  destructive 
forces  of  change  would,  for  the  time,  have  long  since  spent  them- 
selves ;  and  though  they  might  well  have  reduced  the  existing  social 
fabric  to  ruins,  a  similar  fabric  would  be  again  rising  out  of  them. 

But  now,  as  we  have  seen  already,  this  democratic  ideal  is  being 
associated  more  and  more  with  a  philosophy  by  which  it  must  lose 


1880.        ATHEISM  AND   THE  RIGHTS  OF  MAN.          777 

completely  its  supremacy,  if  not  its  meaning.  Human  nature  and 
human  progress  are  placed  by  modern  science  in  an  entirely  new 
light ;  and  the  aims  and  principles  which  have  been  hitherto  so  im- 
portant will  stimulate  and  guide  no  longer  either  the  passions  of  the 
many  or  the  intellect  of  the  few.  We  shall  look  on  the  human 
drama  with  clearer  eyes.  We  shall  take  our  part  in  it  with  changed 
wishes  and  sympathies,  and  with  new  intellectual  weapons.  We  shall 
see  in  the  struggle  before  us  a  variety  of  unequal  forces,  which  will 
only  be  reduced  to  order  when  the  stronger  have  subdued  the  weaker, 
and  when  the  inequality  between  them  is  recognised  and  acted  on  as 
a  fundamental  social  truth.  This  state  of  things,  instead  of  being 
rebuked  by  the  intellect,  will  be  approved  by  it,  and  the  deliberate 
aim  of  all  those  in  power  will  be,  not  to  lessen  such  inequality,  but 
to  intensify  and  perpetuate  it. 

But  this  is  not  all.  Not  only  will  such  an  aim  commend  itself 
to  the  rulers :  it  must  also  more  and  more  cease  to  be  distasteful 
to  the  ruled.  With  an  enlightened  oligarchy  it  would  be  one  of  the 
first  cares  to  provide  for  the  physical  wellbeingof  the  subject  classes  ; 
for  want  and  privation,  as  they  must  well  know,  give  men  almost 
as  much  power  as  wealth  and  plenty.  The  people  being  thus  dis- 
armed of  their  two  most  formidable  weapons,  democratic  hopes  and 
promises,  when  stated  as  exact  science  would  state  them,  would  have 
but  small  general  attraction.  Demagogues  would  no  longer  be  able  td 
appeal  to  the  labouring  population,  and  tell  them  that  they  were  the 
equals  of  their  masters,  or  that  they  might  very  readily  become  so. 
It  would  be  known  that  such  language  was  a  scientific  falsehood. 
It  would  be  known  that  the  doctrine  of  equality  applied  not  to  men 
as  they  are,  but  to  unborn  generations  as  they  perhaps  might  be  ; 
nor  would  it  be  easy  to  rouse  a  contented  populace  to  exertion  for 
the  sake  of  producing  a  breed  of  men  who,  though  physically  their 
own  descendants,  would  have  less  mental  kinship  with  them  than  even 
their  present  masters. 

I  hope  by-and-by  to  pursue  this  subject  further,  and  to  inquire 
more  particularly  into  the  bearings  of  scientific  atheism  on  the 
questions  of  popular  education,  on  the  rights  of  conscience,  and  the 
rights  of  female  virtue  ;  and  to  show  more  exactly  how  singular  and 
how  complete  is  the  divorce,  at  the  close  of  the  nineteenth  century, 
between  the  political  and  social  hopes  of  the  modern  world,  and  its 
moral  and  philosophic  theories. 

W.  H.  MALLOCK. 


778  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY.  May 


MODERN 
ENGLISH  LANDSCAPE-PAINTING. 

THE  Fine  Arts  have  now  for  four  years  had  a  section  of  a  congress  all 
to  themselves.  Their  full 'dignity  and  value  were  recognized;  grave 
debates  were  held  even  about  the  propriety  of  using  china  plates  as 
ornaments  for  the  walls  of  our  drawing-rooms  ;  and  if  we  remember 
rightly,  at  nearly  the  same  time,  names  of  weight  in  literature  were 
brought  to  bear  against  the  enormity  of  the  British  householder's 
coal-scuttle.  Hardly  a  word  however  was  said  about  a  branch  of  art 
in  which  we  English  were  onoe  supposed  to  take  a  special  interest, 
and  to  have  attained  special  excellence,  namely,  landscape-painting. 
And  yet  no  branch  of  art,  I  believe,  has  within  the  last  half-century 
undergone,  and  is  now  undergoing,  greater  changes.  My  readers 
will  think  of  pre-Raphaelitism  :  can  landscape-painting  have  under- 
gone any  change  which  is  more  than  a  reflection  of  that?  The 
change  I  refer  to  was  of  an  earlier  date,  and  of  a  more  vital  kind. 
An  argument  which  the  opponents  of  the  pre-Raphaelites  were  fond 
of  using,  when  the  first  flush  of  their  triumph  was  dying  away,  that 
the  champions  of  the  movement,  in  proportion  to  their  success,  were 
apt  to  lose  the  distinguishing  qualities  or  signs  for  which  they  had 
battled  so  strongly,  however  unfair  in  its  immediate  and  reproachful 
application,  pointed  to  a  truth  nevertheless.  The  signs  and  watch- 
words were  indeed  no  longer  insisted  on,  because  the  war  was  over : 
the  original  impulse  was  only  less  clearly  traceable,  because  its 
strength  was  modifying  whatever  lay  within  its  range.  The  effect  of 
the  revolt  was  great,  but  the  ultimate  gain  of  it  was  a  change  in  the 
spirit  and  temper  of  our  artists,  rather  than  in  any  widening  of  the 
scope,  or  lasting  alteration  in  the  aims  and  methods,  of  their  art. 
Certain  antique  methods  and  conventions  were  somewhat  roughly  put 
to  the  test  as  it  were  of  re- verification.  Some  of  them  were  seen  to 
have  had  their  value  greatly  over-estimated  ;  some  had  lost  all  worth 
by  mechanical  use ;  with  respect  to  all  alike,  there  had  been  too 
great  a  disposition  to  seek  for  subjects  to  fit  them,  and  to  accept 
obedience  to  the  laws  of  elegant  composition  and  arrangement,  in 
place  of  expression,  however  imperfect,  of  true  feeling  and  imagina- 


1880.     MODERN  ENGLISH  LANDSCAPE-PAINTING.       779 

tive  power.  But  for  all  that,  the  finest  and  quaintest  and  most 
uncompromising  pre-Raphaelite  picture  no  more  revolutionized  the 
art  of  figure-painting  than  the  Lyrical  Ballads  did  that  of  poetry. 
The  world  did  not  like  lovely  arrangements  of  forms  and  colours,  if 
it  could  get  them,  in  a  figure-picture,  one  whit  the  less  because 
the  romantic  and  startling  stories  which  artists  of  the  new  school  in- 
vented for  themselves  to  put  on  canvas  were  entirely  without  a  cer- 
tain primness  of  good  composition,  characteristic  of  pictures  derived 
from  the  Vicar  of  Wakefield.  Every  one  was  delighted  with  the 
dramatic  intensity,  which  showed  itself,  wrought  out  with  abounding 
technical  power,  in  Millais's  pictures,  and  was  thankful  for  that,  even 
if  other  great  qualities  of  art  were  conspicuously  wanting.  Due 
honour  was  given  to  the  strong  feeling  and  noble  thought  which 
found  expression  in  the  colour,  symbolism,  and  exquisite  detail  of 
Holman  Hunt's  pictures,  even  if  some  critics  declared  them  wanting 
in  the  dignity  which  only  perfect  composition  could  give  ;  and  Ros- 
setti  was  recognized  as  a  colourist,  even  though  his  excellence  lay  as 
wide  as  possible  apart  from  that  of  great  artists  whose  tone  of  mind 
and  academical  training  made  it  impossible  for  them  to  imagine  any 
other  models  of  excellence  than  Rubens  or  Sir  Joshua.  After  all,  this 
violent  pre-Raphaelite  revolution,  as  at  one  time  it  seemed,  spent 
itself  within  the  old  lines  of  art,  and  ended  in  a  reconquest  of  an  old 
domain.  The  field  of  human  life  was  more  adventurously  searched 
for  subjects.  The  representation  of  the  most  intense  emotion  was 
shown  to  be  compatible,  if  the  painter  thought  fit  to  have  it  so,  with 
complete  rendering  of  the  details  of  the  surrounding  scene.  The 
differences  between  the  aim  and  methods  of  dramatic  and  realistic 
art  on  the  one  side,  and  decorative  and  harmonic  art  on  the  other, 
were  more  clearly  felt  as  they  all  passed  under  the  quickening  influence 
of  a  new  energy ;  but  with  the  single  exception  of  an  attempt  to  paint 
figure-subjects  pure  and  simple  in  unconventionalized  outdoor  sun- 
shine, no  difficulty  was  approached  which  had  not  been  approached 
before,  no  rule  of  art  attacked  which  did  not  when  fairly  understood, 
and  not  pressed  beyond  its  due  limits,  quietly  re-assert  its  authority. 
A  noted  French  critic  asserts  boldly  that  all  modern  art  together 
has  only  added  a  few  wrinkles  to  the  fair  face  of  that  of  ancient 
Greece.  It  might  be  said  in  a  similar  spirit,  and  with  more  truth,  of 
the.pre-Raphaelites,  that  they  set  themselves  to  show  that  very  fine 
art  must  be  content  to  work  with  a  good  deal  of  ugliness  for  its 
subject-matter. 

Now  the  change  which  is  taking  place  in  our  landscape-painting 
is.,  I  think,  of  a  much  more  vital  kind,  although  from  the  compar- 
atively small  interest  which  is  taken  in  that  branch  of  art  it  has 
been  much  less  noticed.  Over  and  above  the  effect  of  the  modern 
tendency  in  favour  of  realistic  treatment — of  that  wish  to  look  closely 
and  keenly  at  nature  in  the  fields  as  well  as  in  the  laboratory'or 


780  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  May 

herbarium,  which  has  wrought  confusion  and  change  in  practice  and 
criticism  and  everything  connected  with  landscape-painting — I  believe 
that,  as  a  further  consequence,  the  art  has  been  brought  face  to  face 
with  the  difficulties  of  a  new  development — that  its  students  in 
seeking  a  wider  range  of  subjects,  or  in  aiming  at  greater  accuracy 
or  fulness  of  representation  in  the  old  one,  are  striking  out  paths  in 
which  traditional  principles  will  serve  them  little  or  nothing. 

I  believe  also  that  these  difficult  problems  are  worth  the  labour 
which  they  must  cost  to  solve,  inasmuch  as  they  lie  directly  in  the 
way  of  all  landscape  work  which  sets  itself  to  give  imaginative 
pleasure,  together  with  the  close  attention  to  fact,  which  is  a  con- 
dition of  giving  pleasure  to  the  age  at  all. 

Of  course  I  speak  of  art  which  endeavours  to  be  true,  and  that 
best  part  of  our  age  which  endeavours  to  recognize  truth  of  any  kind. 
Various  aspects  and  qualities  of  nature  which  were  uninteresting  pic- 
torially  to  a  former  generation  have  become  interesting  to  this;  a 
careful  count  of  what  our  fathers  would  have  called  minor  details  is 
demanded,  and  certain  conventionalities  or  art-moulds  in  pictures  by 
which  they  obtained  unity  of  effect,  are  entirely  unsuited  for  that 
purpose  now.  To  ask  our  landscape-painters  to  invent  for  us  ways 
and  means  of  marshalling  these  troops  of  details — new,  inconvenient 
and  complicated  as  they  are — into  well-ordered  wholes,  is  only,  it 
would  seem,  to  ask  them  for  new  exertion  on  their  part  of  their  pro- 
per faculty  of  design  ;  but  if  these  details  insist,  as  they  certainly  will 
do  with  any  artist  who  feels  the  pressure  of  his  time,  upon  being 
given  with  their  manifest  light  and  their  fascinating,  nay  bewildering 
colour,  that  light  and  colour  blended  in  divinest  splendour  will  be 
found  to  constitute  a  world  of  art  which  only  one  man  has  hitherto 
attempted  to  enter. 

If  we  could  imagine  the  change  which  would  appear  in  our  ex- 
hibitions to  anyone  who  had  been  familiar  with  exhibitions,  or  with 
art  which  was  connected  with  literature,  or  bound  up  in  books  and 
keepsakes  not  so  many  years  ago,  we  should  easily  recognize  what 
these  new  tasks  are,  and  to  what  extent  they  are  different  in  kind, 
not  in  degree  only,  of  difficulty  from  all  which  with  one  exception 
have  been  undertaken  hitherto.  It  is  to  be  feared  that  such  an  ob- 
server, unless  he  were  of  a  singularly  hopeful  temperament,  would 
see  little  in  the  work  of  to-day  to  set  against  the  glories  of  the  past. 
We  have  no  Turner :  but  an  age  or  period  may  have  good  work  to 
show  without  having  such  exceptional  genius  as  his  to  be  proud  of. 
A  whole  band  of  picturesque  designers,  of  whom  Stanfield  and 
Harding  may  be  taken  as  the  type,  have  hardly  their  equals  now. 
The  long  line  of  water-colourists,  from  Varley  downwards — rich  in  such 
names  as  Cox,  Havell,  Kobson,  Prout,  to  take  only  some  of  the  most 
famous — stands,  some  critics  would  say,  to  reproach  their  successors, 
although  all  would  admit  that  in  Duncan,  Gr.  Fripp,  and  Dodgson, 


1880.    MODERN  ENGLISH  LANDSCAPE-PAINTING.       781 

•we  have  still  amongst  us  artists  well  worthy  to  be  ranked  with  the 
best  of  an  earlier  school.    '  Annual  Tours,'  '  Keepsakes,'  this  age  knows 
them  not.     Our  illustrators,  clever  as  they  are,  have  other  things  to 
do  than  to  trace  the  course  of  famous  rivers,  like  the  Seine  or  the 
Loire,  from  their  source  to  the  sea,  and  bring  back  for  us  picturesque 
views  of  grand  old  towns  decaying  in  peace,  with  their  gateways  un- 
spoiled, and  their  cathedrals  still  unfinished.     The  battle-field  with 
its  horrors  keeps  their  pencils  busy  now.     The  ends  of  the  earth  are 
not  half  so  difficult  to  get  to  to-day,  as  Nubia  was  in  Roberts's  time ; 
but  no  sacred  places,  no  temples,  even  thougli  they  saw  the  dawn  of  a 
faith  which  has  overspread  the  world,  tempt  our  best  artists  away  from 
the  nooks  and  corners  of  our  own  little  island.    Even  in  Europe  there 
are  still  left  large  veins  of  scenery  in  which  natural  beauty  is  com- 
bined with  historic  associations  and  romantic  architecture,  but  they 
are  left  unworked,  as  if  (to  anticipate  our  reasoning  from  these  facts) 
our  artists  felt  that  they  could  not  make  transcripts  or  compositions 
either  from  material  with  which  they  had  not  been  familiar  all  their 
lives,  or  which  would  oppose  too  great  an  amount  of  physical  difficulty, 
if  they  wished  to  study  it  in  the  full  and  literal  fashion  of  the  present 
day.     No,  the  admirer  of  the  old  style  would  say  that  for  him  at 
least  the  '  roll  of  mighty  poets  '  in  landscape-painting  '  was  made  up  ; ' 
that  the  enthusiasm  of  natural  beauty  which  was  once  shared  by 
poet  and  painter  alike,  when  Turner  rejoiced  in  painting  '  Childe 
Harold's'  Italy,  and  Byron  recognized   in  Turner's  vignette  illus- 
trations of  another  '  Italy'  'a  poet's  prose  and  a  painter's  poetry,' — 
that  ardour  of  sympathy  with  nature's  life,  he  would  maintain,  had 
died  away,  and  a  certain  uninspired  fidelity  to  the  letter,  not  to  the 
spirit,  was  all  that  remained  to  make  our  artists'  work  worthy  of  the 
least  regard.     We  have  put  the  case  strongly  against  ourselves  ;  but 
we  may  as  well  confess  frankly  that  the  subjects,  the  virtues,  and  the 
devices  of  the  art  which  such  a  retrospect  brings  before  us  have  some- 
thing in  them  which  is  utterly  alien  to  the  art  of  to-day.     '  Cold  and 
artificial!'  '  Manifestly  borrowed! '  'Wanting  in  freshness!'  would  be 
the  terms  of  criticism  which  a  work  executed  with  such  models  in  view 
could  not  hope  to  escape,     There  were  ways  then  of  putting  things 
within  the  four  corners  of  a  frame  which  were  as  fixed  as  the  frame 
itself:  we  hold  such  ways  still  in  high  respect,  but  do  not  venture  to 
use  them.     The  famous  '  brown  tree  '  has  long  since  been  put  in  its 
proper  place,  although  the  conventionality  of  which  it  was  the  note  is 
not,  and  never  will  be,  extinct.     But  who  does  not  feel  a  lingering 
liking   for    that    most  useful  and,    in    reality,    lovely   arrangement 
which  Turner  took  naturally  from  Claude,  and  in  one  way  or  another 
made  to  do  duty  in  all  lands  and  in  all  sweet  bowery  places  which  he 
ever  painted — namely,  the  group  of  trees,  or  sometimes  a  single  tree, 
planted  just  one  third  of  the   picture's  length  from  the  side,  with 
temple  or  tower,  or  perhaps  some  humbler  building,  set  between  it 


782  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  May 

and  the  frame  ;  or  perhaps,  as  in  the  exquisite  drawing  of  Fonthill,  a 
hint  of  a  distant  moorland  line,  a  glimpse  of  a  perfectly  quiet  sky, 
caught  between  dark  stems  and  playing  leaves,  holds  this  most 
cherished  place  in  the  picture,  while  the  complete  vista  with  hridge 
and  castle  and  winding  river  stretches  across  to  another  similar  leafy 
screen  ?  No  better  plan  could  be  devised  for  the  expression,  in  an 
orderly  way,  of  the  delight  which  we  all  feel  when  we  catch  a  fine 
prospect  through  an  opening  we  perhaps  make  for  ourselves  in  a 
tangled  glade.  How  we  brush  aside  the  leaves  or  evade  uncompro- 
mising branches  !  But  in  our  pictures  nowadays  it  is  seldom  indeed 
that  we  find  that  bold  straightforward  use  of  a  conventional  arrange- 
ment of  them  which  was  good  enough  for  Claude  and  Wilson  and 
Turner.  We  may  get  the  trees,  exact  as  a  photograph  would  give  them, 
but  without  the  prospect  or,  at  any  rate,  with  no  prospect  to  speak  of; 
or  we  may  have  the  large  distant  view,  but  without  the  lovely  setting 
of  gnarled  trunk  or  sweeping  bough.  What  a  matter  of  course  it  was, 
in  the  days  we  are  speaking  of,  that  there  should  be  a  figure,  or  a 
group  of  figures,  somewhere  in  a  landscape  composition  !  There  was 
always  a  meditative  shepherd  in  the  foreground,  let  the  scene  be  ever 
so  wild,  or  the  mountain  tarn  ever  so  gloomy,  sitting  on  his  heap  of 
stones,  just  where  the  vision  of  a  geologist  pecking  with  his  hammer 
would  vex  us  now.  What  if  figures  and  other  animals  were  sometimes, 
nay  most  frequently,  weak  in  drawing — plainly  types  of  the  sim- 
plest Noah's- Arkian  kind — they  *  came  in  '  well,  and  at  least  bore  wit- 
ness to  our  early  Ian dscapists'  grasp  of  what  they  held  to  be  a  great  truth, 
that  nature  without  human  life  and  interest,  were  it  only  the  inte- 
rest of  a  well-rutted  cart  road,  was  a  poor  thing,  hardly  fit  to  be  a  sub- 
ject of  fine  art  at  all.  They  shared  the  belief  of  a  great  poet  that  'in 
our  life  alone  doth  nature  live.'  Their  favourite  subjects  were  those  in 
which  historic,  romantic,  or  pastoral  sentiment  was  distinctly  appealed 
to.  A  castle  cased  in  the  unfeeling  armour  of  old  time  was  irresist- 
ible to  them,  but  hardly  more  so  than  the  old  water-mill,  hard  to  find 
in  its  own  leafy  glen.  We  choose  our  subjects  differently  now.  Soon 
after  the  first  outburst  of  the  pre-Kaphaelite  movement,  Mr.  Euskin 
tells  us  how  much  he  was  disappointed  by  the  ways  of  some  of  the 
younger  students  of  landscape  who  fell  under  its  influence,  as  in  truth 
they  almost  all  did — how  their  trees  had  a  tendency  to  stiffen  into 
acicular  littleness — how  they  set  their  hearts  upon  pebbles  rather 
than  on  mountains,  and  loved  to  copy  textures  and  veinings  rather 
than  contours  and  sweeping  lines.  Our  lover  of  old-fashioned  art 
would  declare  that  they  never  showed  the  least  notion  of  choosing  a 
subject  at  all.  The  grounds  of  Mr.  Ruskin's  condemnation  are 
perhaps  less  strikingly  manifest  now  than  when  it  was  written  ;  but 
there  is  still,  on  the  part  of  our  best  painters,  a  certain  timidity  in 
approaching  any  subject  which  is  in  itself  grand  or  impressive, 
a  dislike  of  one  which  is  too  plainly  picturesque,  and  a  perfect  horror 


1880.    MODERN  ENGLISH  LANDSCAPE-PAINTING.       783 

of  one  which  in  its  actual  unworked-upi  state,  reminds  them  in  the 
least  degree  of  the  time-honoured  arrangements  of  a  '  view.'  There 
are  well-known  scenes,  rich  in  historical  interest  or  in  unimprovable 
natural  fitness  for  the  sketch-book,  which  afforded  a  steady  income 
to  many  an  honest  worker  not  so  many  years  ago:  they  are  quite 
neglected  now,  «ven  though  their  appearance  in  an  exhibition  under 
severely  realistic  treatment  would  be  a  welcome  surprise.  Has  the 
Norman  St.  Michael's  Mount  been  too  well  restored,  or  has  6  Snowdon 
from  Capel  Curig '  ceased  to  exist  as  a  vision  of  beauty  ?  We  have  our 
fears,  especially  about  the  latter  subject. 

No  ;  it  must  be  admitted  that  the  old  style  in  these  things  has 
passed  away  for  the  present,  and  many  great  qualities,  some  will 
say,  have  gone  with  it.  Clearness,  simplicity,  swiftness  of  execution, 
poetical  conception,  and  unity  of  design-1 — do  these  qualities  exist  in 
our  landscapes  now  ?  If  I  admit  that  they  do  not  exist  in  the  same 
high  degree,  I  do  not  admit  that  the  change  is  one  from  which  any 
real  decline  in  the  artistic  energy  in  regard  to  landscape  can  be 
inferred  :  the  change  comes  rather  from  a  new  zeal  in  the  pursuit  of 
truth — a  new  form  of  sympathy  with  nature  which  seeks  naturally 
for  new  modes  of  expression,  and  for  the  present  leaves  on  one  side 
those  modes  which  are  felt  to  be  things  of  inheritance  merely,  and 
not  of  true  feeling.  Various  influences  of  which  the  great  men  of 
the  old  school  just  lived  to  see  the  beginning — the  inroads  of  the 
scientific  spirit,  the  invention  of  photography,  the  writings  of  Mr. 
Ruskin,  sympathy  with  the  pre-Raphaelite  movement  in  respect  of  its 
love  of  colour,  of  detail,  and  of  mystic  meaning  in  little  things  ;  and 
perhaps  an  increase  in  the  number  of  those  who,  vexed  with  great 
questionings  of  heart  beyond  the  range  of  science,  turned  for  solace 
to  the  perfectly-ordered  beauty  of  tree  and  flower — these  and  other 
causes  combined  to  give  a  new  force  and  direction  to  landscape- 
painting.  A  very  short  course  of  study  under  the  conditions  which 
these  influences  imposed,  sufficed  toVnow  to  the  most  modest  worker 
that  if  the  old  rules  of  picture-making  as  held  by  those  who  pro- 
fessed to  know  and  use  them  best,  were  really  the  rules,  and  all  the 
rules  of  art  in  that  kind,  then  splendid  and  beautiful  things  without 
number  which  the  eye  certainly  rejoiced  in  were  shut  out  of  the 
field  of  landscape  painting  altogether.  To  such  students  there 
appeared  no  help  whatever  in  any  recognized  teaching,  or  in  the 
work  of  any  noted  painter  of  that  day.  The  example  of  Turner  was 
not  understood ;  the  high  places  of  the  profession  were  not  filled  by 
men  capable  of  appreciating  and  guiding  this  new  energy  of  effort ; 
and  no  wonder  if  there  sprang  up  what  our  fathers  would  have  called 
the  frightful  heresy  of  believing  that  landscapes  could  be  painted 
without  any  composition  or  design  whatever.  Straight  away  from 
nature  !  A  copy  of  nature  !  It  can't  be  done,  and  would  be  worth- 
less, they  would  have  said,  if  it  could. 


784  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  May 

The  violence  of  this  break  with  the  past  shows  painfully  in 
contrast  with  the  slow,  cautious,  and  conservative  treading  of  the 
old  paths  to  their  last  extremity  of  usefulness,  by  Turner  and  his 
contemporaries;  but  in  truth  all  the  landscape  of  that  day  was  the 
culmination  of  a  long  course  of  traditional  study  and  practice — the 
employment,  by  men  who  loved  nature  with  all  their  hearts,  of  forms 
of  design  which  had  been  borrowed  from  or  invented  under  the 
influence  of  great  schools  of  figure-painting  in  the  best  ages  of  art. 
No  artist  was  more  strongly  imbued  with  the  spirit  of  this  learning 
than  Turner.  For  him  no  scheme  of  arrangement  was  too  elaborate ; 
no  artifice  of  light  and  shade  either  too  palpable  or  too  cunning. 
Such  compositions  as  D.  Cox's  were  '  native  wood-notes  wild '  compared 
with  his  fully  developed  symphonies.  The  strain  of  expansion,  in 
place  of  the  calm  contented  filling-in  of  the  old  forms  with  continually 
increased  knowledge,  only  begins  to  show  itself  in  the  works  of  his 
latest  period.  But  the  modern  spirit  of  Nature-worship,  in  right  of 
which  alone  landscape-painting  as  a  distinct  branch  of  the  Fine  Arts 
has  any  claim  to  exist — the  worship  of  which  Wordsworth  is  and 
always  will  be  the  High  Priest — arose  in  the  midst  of  an  age  which 
was  as  much  devoted  to  form  in  literature  and  art  as  in  Church  and 
State.  The  early  training  of  the  poets  and  artists  who  wrought  the 
change  showed  itself  to  the  last,  and  Byron's  sincere  and  hearty 
admiration  of  Pope's  poetry  may  be  set  side  by  side  with  Turner's 
undoubted  love  of  Palladian  architecture,  and  want  of  any  hearty 
abhorrence,  to  say  the  least,  of  the  Renaissance  style  altogether.  "We 
live  in  an  age  which  has  learnt,  among  other  lessons  of  toleration, 
that  of  enduring  much  incompleteness  of  form  in  our  literature  and 
art,  if  only  vivid  impressions,  weighty  thought,  or  earnest  feeling 
be  set  before  us.  As  Englishmen,  too,  we  are  supposed,  not  without 
a  show  of  reason,  to  be  regardless  of  unities,  insatiable  in  our  appetite 
for  direct  portraiture  of  men  and  things.  But  to  make  a  transcript 
of  a  big  piece  of  out-door  scenery — of  wild  mountain,  or  forest,  or 
sea — something  more  than  the  ces  triplex  of  the  first  navigator  was 
surely  required  for  such  a  feat.  Nevertheless  this  century  has  seen 
the  attempt  made,  and  may  be  thankful  for  the  measure  of  success 
of  no  mean  kind  which  has  attended  it.  The  swell  of  a  Biscayan 
wave,  the  sullen  roughness  of  a  Highland  moor,  are  realised  for  us 
nowadays  with  as  much  lightness  of  heart  and  dexterity  of  touch  as 
ever  went  to  the  rendering  of  a  piece  of  'still  life'  when  we  were 
young.  We  have  our  wave  drawn,  modelled,  and  tinted  for  us  with 
an  accuracy  which  leaves  us  little  to  desire,  and  gives  us  much  to 
delight  in.  We  can  recognize  the  moment  when  its  crest  has  just 
fallen — fallen  away  in  froth  and  foam,  which  are  faintly  veining  and 
fast  melting  into  the  green  depth — not  so  fast  but  that  a  network  of 
pale  grey  is  being  dragged  forward  in  the  rise  of  the  next  mounting 
wave.  The  perspective  and  foreshortening  of  all  this  tracery  of 


1880.    MODERN  ENGLISH  LANDSCAPE-PAINTING.       785 

bubbles  on  the  sides  of  each  dark  mounded  mass  are  given,  one  might 
almost  say,  with  as  much  correctness  as  those  of  any  other  '  pattern 
on  sea  and  land.  There  is  the  low  grey  sky  too,  and  the  thin-sailed 
ship,  labouring  and  straining  along  its  path  over  hills  and  dales  of 
bitter  sea.  Or  else  Old  Ocean  is  painted  for  us  on  one  of  those  days 
when  '  sleek  Panope  and  all  her  sisters '  might  sport  on  his  surface. 
If  they  are  not  there,  or  if  we  do  not  somehow  imagine,  on  looking  at 
the  picture,  that  they  ever  could  be  there,  it  is  certainly  from  no  want 
of  skilful  rendering  of  water  surface,  or  unflinching  setting  down  of 
its  most  vivid  colours  as  the  artist  has  seen  them.  Now  it  would  be 
absurd  to  stint  our  praise  or  our  gratitude  for  the  marvels  of  technical 
skill  and  ability  which  have  been  set  before  us  in  works  of  this  kind. 
Having  once  seen  what  '  realization '  can  do  for  us,  it  is  idle  to 
imagine  that  we  shall  not  henceforth  demand  as  much  as  this,  or  good 
reasons  why  we  are  to  be  content  with  less.  But  even  while  we  are 
most  dazzled  by  the  brilliancy  of  such  a  triumph  of  descriptive  art, 
by  the  strangeness  of  such  an  apparently  complete  inventory  of  one 
of  nature's  treasure-chambers  of  fine  things,  there  springs  up  within 
us  a  strange  sensation  of  something  wanting  still :  we  miss  a  magic 
which  should  answer  to  that  mysterious  sense,  as  it  were,  of  a  haunting 
spirit  which  is  never  wanting  to  the  reality  of  a  very  grand  or  very 
lovely  scene.  Our  hearts  are  not  touched  :  we  admire  the  artist's 
extraordinary  skill,  we  are  thoroughly  grateful  to  him  for  reminding  us 
of  what  he  has  copied  so  well ;  but  the  admiration  and  the  gratitude 
and  the  intellectual  joy  of  examining  bit  by  bit  such  a  picture,  make 
up  altogether  a  pleasure  different  in  kind  from  that  which  we  derive 
from  a  great  imaginative  work  of  art.  A  picture  which  could  rightly 
be  so  called  would  show  us  at  once  that  its  author  had  seen  and  felt 
so  intensely,  had  been  so  possessed  with  the  loveliness,  the  simple 
calm,  the  abiding  grandeur,  or  other  special  quality  of  some  natural 
scene,  had  so  hung  upon  the  march  of  the  cloud  or  the  swing  of  the 
wave,  that  while  seeing  all  the  more  keenly  and  truly  for  his  great 
love's  sake,  he  yet  saw  nothing  which  did  not  somehow  tend  to  the 
expression  of  his  sympathy,  could  forget  to  see  nothing  which  did  ; 
we  should  feel  at  once  that  the  shaping  power  of  an  active  intellect 
had  been  at  the  bidding  of  a  strong  and  noble  emotion,  that  it  had 
seized  and  put  to  use  every  hint  of  qualities  inherent  in  combinations 
of  form  and  colour,  simply  as  form  and  colour,  which  was  given  by  the 
lines  and  colours  of  nature,  in  other  words  that  the  painter  had  seen 
truly,  but  at  the  same  time  in  a  certain  order  or  shape — an  order  which 
may  strike  us  in  pictorial  use  as  beautiful  or  quaint  or  grand,  or  in  a 
thousand  different  ways  according  to  the  artist's  sentiment  and  pur- 
pose, but  which  we  recognize,  if  we  have  an  eye  for  pictorial  music  at 
all,  by  the  laws  of  our  minds  in  relation  to  the  pleasures  of  the  eye,  as 
having  been  stamped  upon  his  mind  by  sympathy  with  some  quality, 
which  for  a  moment  made  nature  a  living  thing  to  him — an  order 
VOL.  VII.— No.  3(J.  3  O 


786  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  May 

which  he  could  not  but  use  to  give  that  sympathy  expression.  We 
should  feel  that  a  beauty  born  of  many  murmuring  sounds  and  many 
patchings  in  lonely  places  had  passed  into  his  work,  that  the  music 
of  form  and  colour  had  been  called  to  the  aid  of  the  imitative  faculty, 
and  that  we  had  had  lent  to  us,  not  the  painter's  eyes  only,  but  his 
whole  soul. 

Unfortunately,  if  great  examples  of  this  power  of  translating  the 
sentiment  of  nature  into  harmonies  of  form  and  colour  are  rare,  they 
are  sadly  too  easily  imitated.  In  each  of  the  fine  arts,  a  master  sets 
the  style  of  his  day,  or  may  be  of  many  days,  but  in  none  of  them,  I 
think,  is  the  form  or  frame  of  expression  which  has  once  been  invented 
by  true  feeling,  more  shamelessly  pirated  or  made  to  wear  so  long,  as 
in  painting.  It  has  been  said,  and  I  believe  rightly,  that  the  art  of 
landscape-painting  as*  a  subordinate  separate  branch  of  art  was  born 
before  the  conditions  existed  which  were  necessary  for  its  healthy 
development,  and  that  the  deep  and  reverent  love  of  nature  which  we 
take  to  be  the  chief  condition  now,  was  wanting  in  Claude  and  in  the 
patrons  for  whom  he  painted ;  but  for  all  that,  Claude's  gracefulness 
of  composition  was  the  expression  of  true  feeling — and  what  a  long- 
lived  framework  that  scheme  of  composition  has  been  !  Those  who 
are  acquainted  with  Blake's  Life  and  writings  will  remember  the 
singular  phraseology  which  he  employs  in  his  criticism  on  the  style 
and  influence  of  some  of  his  most  distinguished  forerunners  in  art. 
Titian,  Rubens,  Correggio  were  all — '  devils,'  of  different  shades  of 
power  and  different  modes  of  beguilement.  If  Blake  had  been  in- 
terested in  pure  landscape,  we  wonder  what  place  he  would  have 
given  Claude  Lorraine  in  his  demonology.  There  were  others,  besides 
poor  Claude,  of  more  recent  date,  whom  in  the  first  fervour  of  the 
Pre-Raphaelite  revolt,  our  young  students  of  nature  would  have  been 
inclined  to  classify  much  in  Blake's  fashion.  The  world  had  been  too 
long  seen  with  a  pre-conceived  idea  how  it  ought  to  look  on  canvas — 
it  was  time,  they  thought,  to  try  how  it  would  look  when  viewed  with 
recovered  innocence  of  eye.  Little  do  artists  and  critics  who  talk  of 
innocence  of  that  kind  know  what  a  strange  and  bewildering  thing 
it  would  be  to  them.  None  but  very  determined  seekers  of  the 
truth  know  how  difficult  it  is  to  be  entirely  free  from  a  conventional 
or  derivative  mode,  not  only  of  painting,  but  of  seeing  the  simple 
facts  of  nature,  and  how  many  a  startling  and  inconvenient  discovery 
breaks  in  on  them  when  once  the  effort  is  made.  Such  energy  of 
mental  sight  is  given  to  few,  and  to  them  only,  as  a  rule,  for  a  short 
period  of  their  lives.  Such  discoveries  are  apt  to  be  costly  in  labour, 
thought,  and  experiment.  A  very  few  years  of  successful  practice  are 
enough  to  make  even  a  true  artist  see  nature  for  the  rest  of  his  life 
according  to  the  scheme  or  general  disposition  of  lines  and  colours 
(the  'pattern'  it  has  been  cruelly  called)  in  which  his  peculiar  feeling 
first  found  easy  and  adequate  expression.  With  a  merely  ingenious 


1880.    MODERN  ENGLISH  LANDSCAPE-PAINTING.      787 

or  clever  artist,  the  scheme,  cleverly  chosen  from  the  inventions  of 
greater  men,  is  all  in  all  from  first  to  last.  If  the  world,  as  the  say- 
ing is,  knows  not  how  small  an  amount  of  wisdom  goes  to  its  govern- 
ance (and  the  saying,  although  trite,  is  not  accepted  everywhere  as 
absolutely  true),  it  certainly  does  not  know  how  little  knowledge  of 
nature  goes  to  the  making  of  many  a  lucky  picture.  The  public 
will  applaud  anything  if  only  the  usual  materials  of  a  landscape,  re- 
presented in  the  usual  way  so  as  to  be  easily  recognizable,  are  cleverly 
put  together.  The  merest  semblance  of  imaginative  power — the 
play  of  the  constructive  faculty  dealing  only  with  ingenuities  of 
adaptation — is  enough  to  hide  a  plentiful  lack  of  knowledge  as  well 
as  of  true  feeling.  With  all  this  kind  of  art  the  realists  set  them- 
selves to  wage  healthy  invigorating  war,  scornfully  rejecting  all 
conventions,  compromises  and  expedients  which  fell  below  their 
disdainful  belief  (if  we  are  not  unfair  in  attributing  such  a  belief  to 
them),  that  whatever  the  eye  could  see,  the  brush  could  imitate.  To 
see  what  they  have  done  and  what  they  have  failed,  and  always  must 
fail  to  do,  we  may  as  well  turn  to  the  consideration  of  the  great 
difficulty  of  all,  which,  as  I  said  at  the  beginning  of  my  sketch,  their 
direct  and  undirected  study  in  nature's  outdoor  schools  brought 
them  face  to  face  with.  I  have  stated  my  belief  that,  with  all  our 
stumblings,  we  are  nevertheless  advancing  in  the  right  road,  so  far 
as  we  set  ourselves  to  invent  means  for  the  fuller  expression  of 
nature's  true  colour  together  with  her  all-pervading  light.  This 
endeavour  has  already  proved  itself  inconsistent  with  many  good  and 
useful  conventionalities ;  it  will  be  seen  to  be  no  less  inconsistent, 
regard  being  had  to  the  full  scope  of  landscape-painting  as  a  form  of 
poetical  expression,  with  that  fashion  of  clear,  trenchant,  and  unhar- 
monized  transcript  which  has  taken  their  place.  I  may  be  excused  if 
I  pass  over  many  reasons  why  this  is  so,  and  hasten  to  a  consideration, 
as  little  technical  as  possible,  of  the  difficulty  into  which,  as  I  believe, 
all  lesser  difficulties  of  landscape  painting  merge  themselves,  which  is 
this  :  the  light  and  life  of  nature — that  which  answers  in  a  landscape 
to  the  kindling  of  the  eye,  and  the  play  of  expression,  which  it  is  a 
figure-painter's  crowning  triumph  to  make  us  feel  in  his  work — are 
incapable  of  realization  in  the  way  in  which  most  things  are  capable 
of  realization,  the  actual  play  of  life  excepted,  when  they  are  enclosed 
in  the  four  walls  of  a  dull  room ;  and  yet  this  light  and  life  are  inter- 
woven with  every  touch,  tone,  and  needle's  point  of  every  landscape 
subject,  and  must  be  suggested  as  so  interwoven  in -any  picture  which 
has  sympathy  with  the  life  of  nature  for  its  motive. 

And  here  I  must  distinguish  a  landscape-picture  properly,  and 
with  regard  to  its  highest  form,  so  called,  from  either  a  study  of 
landscape-material,  or  from  a  figure-picture  with  a  landscape  setting 
or  background,  as  a  picture  which  seeks  to  give  expression  by  means 
of  representation  of  certain  aspects  of  external  nature  to  the.  feelings 

3  G  2 


788  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  May 

which  those  aspects  have  excited  in  our  minds,  especially  and  most 
commonly  to  the  feelings  which  are  excited  when  we  are  led  to  con- 
template nature  as  possessed  of  a  life  which  in  a  sense  comprehends, 
or  is  in  close  parallelism  with,  our  own.  The  most  elaborate  tran- 
script of  the  forms  and  colours  of  nature,  without  the  expression 
by  design  of  the  sympathy  or  poetical  feeling  excited  by  them,  is 
rightly  to  be  called  a  study,  not  a  picture  of  a  landscape.  Again,  a 
picture  in  which  the  materials  of  landscape  are  used  ever  so  largely, 
in  conjunction  with  figures,  to  excite  our  interest,  is  a  figure  and  not 
a  landscape  picture,  if  our  interest  is  not  excited,  and  our  attention 
held,  by  the  emotion  shown  by  the  painter  in  his  mode  of  dealing 
with  those  materials  of  landscape  themselves — if  the  figures,  on  what- 
ever scale  they  may  be,  are  not,  so  to  speak,  swept  into  the  lines 
which  express  the  artist's  sympathy  with  the  forms  and  forces  of 
nature — if,  in  fine,  it  is  not  upon  these  last  that  the  burden  of  the 
story  is  made  to  rest.  The  landscape-painter's  business  is  to  show  us 
the  beauty  of  our  earthly  dwelling-place,  and  as  that  beauty  in  its 
highest  forms  is  linked  with  shapes  of  fear  and  trembling  as  often  as 
with  those  of  perfect  loveliness,  there  is  surely  range  enough  in  the 
moods  of  feeling  which  he  can  address,  or  the  lessons  which  he  can 
gather  for  us — lessons  of  simple  cheerfulness,  of  solemn  comfort, 
of  noblest  hope.  It  is  his  business,  at  whatever  cost  of  sacrifice  or 
limitation,  to  make  us  .feel  the  hold  which  this  deep  mysterious 
beauty  of  nature  has  taken  of  his  heart  and  soul.  The  story  of  our 
human  life  may  or  may  not  be  visibly  interwoven  with  the  rocks  and 
trees  and  stones  which  we  are  whirled  round  with — rocks,  trees,  and 
stones  themselves  may  be  the  objects  of  a  love  so  keen,  may  seem  at 
times  to  be  possessed  of  a  life  which  so  mocks  our  own,  may  be  so 
transfigured  by  the  light  which  enkindles, — so  servile  to  the  skyey 
influences  which  overshade,  that  the  painter  may  well  find  in  them 
alone  sufficient  grounds  of  noble  emotion.  His  sensibility  to  their 
phantasmal  life  will  be  the  reflection  (and  this  is  the  human  element 
in  landscape  best  worth  caring  for)  of  his  sensibility  to  our  own.  '  If 
he  has  to  paint  the  desert,'  it  has  been  well  said,  '  its  awfulness — if 
the  garden,  its  gladsomeness — will  arise  simply  and  solely  from  his 
sensibility  to  the  story  of  human  life.' 

It  follows  from  this  conception  of  landscape-painting,  that  it  is  by 
no  means  the  easiest  and  most  manageable  '  bits  '  of  nature,  or  the 
very  few  with  which  his  art  might  almoit  seem  able  to  deal  on  equal 
terms,  that  the  landscape-painter  of  the  purest  type  will  set  himself  to 
seek,  or  be  content  to  use  as  means  of  expression,  but  rather  those 
aspects  which  are  the  most  characteristic,  the  most  beautiful,  the 
most  expressive  of  this  parallel  life  of  nature.  The  mere  desire  to 
paint  the  whole  sweet  round  of  change  cf  one  summer's  day,  with 
eyes  set  to  watch  it  passionately  and  unreser  edly,  would  be  enough 
to  show  once  for  all  to  such  a  one  with  Low  1'ttL*  use  of  such  lovelv 


1880.     MODERN  ENGLISH  LANDSCAPE-PAINTING.      789 

means  of  expression  we  were  content,  and  with  how  little  devotion 
we  had  tried  to  extend  it.  That  this  world  of  ours  was  a  splendidly 
coloured,  and  for  the  most  part  a  very  bright  world — that  even  its 
gloom  could  only  be  painted  rightly  by  an  artist  who  was  sensitive 
to  its  abounding  light,  would  be  amongst  his  earliest  discoveries  ;  but 
how  far  from  being  discovered  was  the  art  by  which  more  than 
a  very  faint  suggestion  of  its  beauty  could  be  set  forth  on  canvas  ! 

We  may  as  well  confess  at  once  that  there  are  many  signs  that 
our  sovereign  lady  nature  never  intended  anything  more  than  this  to  be 
done.  Not  to  speak  of  the  impossibility  of  copying  her  mere  gleams 
of  unspeakable  beauty — creations  which  she  builds  up  in  one  moment 
to  wave  away  the  next — it  has  been  so  ordered  that  the  living  unity 
which  holds  between  her  form,  her  light  and  shade,  or  chief  denning 
power,  and  her  fairest  and  most  spirit-stirring  colours  cannot  be  given 
by  art ;  in  which  a  certain  scale  of  colours,  ranging  from  gold  down  to 
deepest  blue  and  brown  with  many  inter  mediate  notes  of  other  colours 
sufficiently  deepened  or  subdued,  agrees  fairly  well  with  the  scale  of 
nature's  light  and  shade,  but  is  utterly  at  variance  with  the  full 
power  of  certain  colours,  such  as  red  and  green,  which  must  have 
things  all  their  own  way,  each  of  them,  if  they  are  admitted  into  our 
landscape  concert  in  any  strength  at  all.  Their  intensity  carries 
light  in  nature — in  art  that  intensity  verges  upon  shade.  The 
crimson  of  the  setting  sun  burns  through  the  belts  of  faint  ashen  grey 
which  lie  along  the  horizon — the  faint  grey  in  nature  '  relieves '  the 
intense  crimson  ;  but  it  would  be  hard  indeed  to  make  it  do  so  in  our 
picture.  A  mass  of  summer  leaves  in  sunshine,  even  with  the  help  of 
its  shimmer  of  reflected  grey,  could  not  have  its  true  force  of  colour 
given  to  it  as  well  as  its  true  relation  of  light,  without  a  dangerous 
approach  to  ebony  in  the  shadows  of  the  picture,  and  the  shaft  of  sun- 
light which  is  caught  in  the  cool  perfect  green  of  translucent  sycamore 
leaves  is  emerald  flame.  Even  in  England,  the  blue  sky  of  a  fine  day 
is  dark  enough  to  '  relieve '  roofs,  chimney  stacks,  or  any  other  earthly 
thing  which  has  the  sunshine  upon  it,  so  as  to  turn  them  all  into 
glorious  things  ;  but  the  blue  sky  is  quivering  with  light — that  too, 
as  Kuskin  says,  '  is  blue  fire,  and  cannot  be  painted.'  But  if  the  colour 
of  things  infinitely  removed  from  earth,  or  of  earthly  things  so  far 
removed  from  us  as  to  have  an  appreciable  portion  of  heaven's  light 
and  atmosphere  between  us  and  them,  is  incapable  of  full  expression 
in  respect  of  its  strength,  without  contradicting  or  jarring  with  our 
sense  of  distance  and  harmony  of  relation,  the  colour,  on  the  other 
hand,  of  objects  near  at  hand,  whose  force  in  shadow  sends  back  sun 
and  sky  and  everything  else,  however  bright  and  richly  coloured,  into 
what  we  feel  to  be  its  proper  place,  will  be  found,  when  carefully 
studied  as  colour  only,  to  be  provokingly  pale — quite  unequal  to  the 
duty  of  keeping  order  in  our  picture,  if  set  in  its  foreground  as  the 
delicately  coloured  mystery  of  darkness  it  really  is.  We  cannot 


790  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  May 

have  it  so,  and  have  our  picture  intelligible  as  regards  atmospheric 
effect,  without  merging  the  colours  of  all  distant  objects  into  a  faint 
blush  of  still  paler  tints.  In  other  words,  we  can  either  give  a  certain 
amount  of  force  and  truth  of  colour  in  the  distance  by  foregoing  truth 
of  colour  in  the  nearer  objects,  and  strengthening  these  nearer  objects 
for  their  work  by  exaggeration  of  their  true  colours  or  translation  of 
them  into  dusky  brown  and  black  ;  or  otherwise,  we  can  keep  these 
foreground  colours  true  in  their  strange  hardly-recognizable  tender- 
ness, and  weaken  all  the  distant  ones  into  due  subordination.  It  must 
be  a  very  '  close '  landscape  subject  indeed,  a  most  circumscribed 
and  sunless  '  bit,'  which  in  fair  ordinary  daylight  does  not  confront  the 
sketcher  with  some  problems  of  this  kind ;  but  in  a  subject  where 
many  grades  of  distance  occur,  or  many  vari-coloured  things  with  the 
least  sparkle  of  sunshine  breaking  in — wherever  Nature  is  doing  any- 
thing, suffering  anything,  rejoicing  in  anything — such  problems  are 
innumerable  and  overwhelming.  Consciously  or  unconsciously  every 
artist  takes  to  himself  some  one  set  of  appearances,  gives  to  it  all 
the  power  of  rendering  which  he  has  at  his  command,  and  leaves  many 
another  which  nature  has  made  a  co-equal  and  co-existent  splendour, 
to  be  a  thing  of  hints  and  conventional  signs.  No  large  scene  fairly 
representative  of  the  beauty  of  the  world  can  be  copied,  touch  for 
touch,  tint  for  tint,  without  demonstrable  error  somewhere.  We  may 
as  well  enjoy  our  conventionalism  after  all,  only  taking  care  that 
imagination  mend  it :  imagination  which  is  born  of  love  for  the  thing 
seen,  and  energy  of  intellectual  power  set  to  find  or  to  use  well  all 
possible  means  of  depicting  it. 

Now  it  is  not  denied  that  there  are  many  landscape  subjects  in 
which  these  difficulties  occur  in  only  a  minor  degree,  and  that 
great  and  worthy  pleasure  may  be  got  out  of  a  system  of  land- 
scape-painting which  evades  them  altogether.  Better  a  thousand 
times  simple  monochrome,  or  such  lowness  of  tone  as  is  hardly  one 
degree  removed  from  it,  than  a  Babel  of  colours  in  which  the  lan- 
guage of  form  is  lost,  or  disgracefully  confused.  But  it  cannot  be 
denied  that  if  colour  is  once  admitted,  as  colour,  it  claims  supremacy 
at  once.  The  artist  may  refuse  to  admit  it — he  may  make  a  well 
harmonized  and  accurately  proportioned  system  of  undertones,  or  of 
mere  tinting,  do  duty  for  it — but  one  lapse  of  forgetfulness,  in  which 
he  allows  himself  the  unconventional  blue  of  a  sky,  or  the  true  inter- 
weaving of  form  and  colour  in  a  foreground  '  texture,'  will  bring  the 
claims  of  colour  upon  him  instantly.  If  he  is  a  colourist  born,  he 
will  rejoice  in  them  ;  if,  as  will  probably  be  the  case,  he  is  a  designer 
also,  with  the  soul  of  a  poet  in  him,  he  will  think  and  feel  in  such 
modes  as  to  harmonize  them  beautifully  with  those  of  form ;  but  in 
so  doing  he  will  pass  beyond  the  traditions  of  the  schools  ;  his  recog- 
nition of  Nature's  true  colour  as  well  as  light,  and  the  music  into 
which  he  will  blend  them,  will  be  foolishness  to  all  who  do  not  re- 


1880.     MODERN  ENGLISH  LANDSCAPE-PAINTING.      791 

semble  him  at  least  in  his  love  of  Nature.  Have  any  of  my  readers 
ever  been  at  Christie's  when  a  large  and  notable  collection  of  Turners 
has  drawn  together  a  crowd,  and  heard  the  guesses  which  float  about 
the  rooms  as  to  the  meaning  of  most  of  them  ? — guesses  not  only  about 
a  stray  picture  in  which  the  public  might  fairly  think  that  the  artist, 
after  having  exhausted  one  world,  had.  imagined  some  totally  new 
one,  but  about  those  in  which  trees,  hills,  cows,  buildings,  and  the 
ordinary  sights  of  the  world  we  are  accustomed  to,  play  the  chief 
part.  Are  they  not  mere  dreams,  faded  wrecks,  proofs  of  failing 
power,  anything  but  likenesses  of  Nature?  On  two  points  only 
everybody  would  be  found  to  agree — their  unlikeness  to  any  other 
pictures,  and  their  singular  property  of  'engraving  well.'  The 
degree  of  their  approach  to  being  like  nature  could  be  only  accurately 
measured  by  those  whose  eyes  had  been  opened  to  the  real  strange- 
ness of  nature  herself.  A  drawing  of  '  Powis  Castle,'  lately  exhibited 
in  the  Grosvenor  Gallery,  though  not  one  of  the  artist's  best  works, 
will  serve  as  an  example  of  this  unreal  appearance  in  his  treatment 
of  sunlighted  foliage.  The  drawing  looks,  I  imagine,  to  most  people 
too  pallid,  too  ethereal,  too  vague,  for  anything  but  fairy-land  ;  yet  I 
doubt  if  with  Turner  it  was  not  rather  a  matter-of-fact  prosaic 
drawing  than  otherwise.  The  introduction  of  the  sportsman  and  the 
unlucky  heron  looks  like  it.  The  all-pervading  brightness  of  a  misty 
summer  afternoon  is  the  true  subject,  or  at  all  events  supplies  the 
poetical  medium  through  which  the  formal  and  ungainly  castle,  the 
low-lying  copse,  and  the  sluggish  stream  are  set  before  us.  We  have 
the  colour  of  the  tree  on  the  left,  as  a  whole,  given  as  truly  as  art  can 
give  it,  and  the  true  relief  of  its  light  sprays  of  leaves  (the  sun 
is  shining  on,  and  not  through  it)  against  the  blue  sky ;  but  the  green 
of  the  leaves  has  been  cunningly  kept  for  the  shadows ;  the  white 
paper  has  been  left  or  scratched  out  for  the  full  light — hence  a  look 
of  complete  unreality  to  those  who  do  not  feel  that  full  colour  on  the 
light  leaves,  and  fuller  colour  on  the  dark  ones,  would  have  made  the 
whole  mass  dark  against  the  blue  sky.  That  blue  could  not  have 
been  darker  without  making  the  gradation  from  the  zenith  to  the 
horizon  a  good  deal  more  sudden  than  the  artist  has  been  obliged  to 
make  it  as  it  is.  Again,  the  foreground  from  which  this  tree  springs 
has  been  given  with  its  true  delicacy  of  tint ;  the  distance  therefore, 
including  the  castle  (against  which  I  can  imagine  the  charge  being 
not  unfairly  brought  of  looking  too  much  like  a  Gibraltar  in  the 
midst  of  an  English  fen),  is  just  touched  in  with  tints  fainter  still. 
Now  many  of  these  facts  could  have  been  given  more  truly  with  a 
stronger  or  deeper  scheme  of  colour,  but  assuredly  not  the  look  of  all- 
pervading  light ;  and  the  tree  which  lifts  itself  gracefully  against  the 
clear  sky  on  the  left  (the  other  tree  on  the  right  is,  it  seems  to  me, 
slightly  under  the  influence  of  the  passing  shadow  and  shows  the 
light  through,  not  on  it)  looks  both  richly  green  and  vividly  light. 


792  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY.  Mav 

But  Turner's  red  and  scarlet  drawings  vex  the  public  most.  Of 
all  the  impossible  things  which  a  landscape-painter  is  pledged  to  try 
to  paint,  not  to  indicate  merely,  or  '  give  up  '  with  a  frank  use  of  con- 
ventional symbols  such  as  *  the  daring  black  sunbeams  of  Titian ' 
which  Ruskin  quotes  approvingly,  surely  the  scarlet  of  a  sunset  which 
has  chosen  for  itself  a  rift  of  sky  crystal-clear,  and  sends  its  last  shaft 
through  it  just  at  the  horizon's  edge,  is  the  most  impossible.  No 
splendour  but  that  of  sunrise  can  equal  it,  and  we  sympathize  so  much 
more  with  the  moment  when  one  more  day '  sinks  in  the  shadowy  gulf 
of  bygone  things.'  Let  us  imagine  ourselves  looking  at  a  cliff  or 
hill-side  thickly  set  with  buildings  and  houses,  red-roofed  and  many- 
gabled,  with  perhaps  some  tower  or  thin-worn  ruined  abbey  whose 
grey  walls  have  been  turned  to  gold  by  the  blaze  of  sunset  behind  us. 
Let  us  imagine  ourselves  trying  to  copy  such  a  scene,  the  colour  being 
what  has  fascinated  us  as  the  divine  expression  of  one  of  Nature's 
grandest  moments.  We  see  that  the  whole  hill  or  cliff  is  bathed  in 
scarlet — scarlet  which  for  a  moment  is  startling  in  its  victorious 
intensity.  We  see  that  there  is  no  light  which  is  not  scarlet  or  rose- 
red,  except  perhaps  the  flash  of  the  sun  caught  by  a  window,  or  the 
reflection  of  the  grey  eastern  sky  on  some  wet  ledge  of  rock  or  roof 
perversely  set  awry.  Now  if  we  give  the  scarlet  in  its  true  vehemence 
of  colour  in  the  lights,  i.e.  in  the  red  roofs  and  warm-coloured  gables 
and  the  broad  surface  of  the  sandstone  cliff  (and  we  shall  find  that 
only  a  very  strong  tint  of  vermilion  will  match  that),  not  only  will 
the  scarlet  colour  so  put  on  look  heavy,  lightless  and  opaque  in  itself, 
but  it  will  drive  us  to  use  very  dark  colours  indeed  to  make  it  tell  as 
light  at  all,  in  contrast  with  the  shadowed  sides  of  things ;  and  if  there 
is  much  detail  or  complexity  of  surface-markings  to  be  given  too, 
we  shall  soon  find  our  whole  mass  of  cliff  and  tower  anything  but 
rose-red  or  scarlet  as  a  whole.  But  we  also  find  that  the  shadows 
themselves  in  nature  are  not  dark  and  colourless  ;  they  are  scarlet  some- 
times, or  pearly  grey  or  lovely  purple,  anything  but  brown  or  dingy 
grey.  The  colotir  of  the  lights  cannot  be  matched :  can  the  colour  of  the 
shadows  be  matched  instead  ?  May  we  not  make  the  shadows  on  the 
deepest  coloured  portions  of  our  rock  surface  the  bearers  of  our  flame- 
colours,  and  leave,  as  in  the  foliage  quoted  above,  the  white  paper 
for  our  most  highly-lighted  portions  ?  In  this  way  we  may  perhaps 
approach  most  nearly  to  the  fulfilment  of  our  desire ;  we  can  make 
the  cliff  and  the  rose-red  tower  look  light  as  a  whole — crimson  with 
sunset  as  a  whole,  and  yet  tell  our  tale  of  facts  about  the  structure  of 
the  cliff,  and  the  drifting  smoke-wreaths  and  huddling  roofs  of  the 
town  below,  at  the  cost  no  doubt  of  an  apparent,  not  real,  lack  of  force, 
of  solidity,  of  earthiness,  so  to  speak,  which  would  deprive  our  work 
of  all  value  in  the  eyes  of  those  who  sought  for  those  qualities  alone, 
in  a  work  of  art.  An  example  of  Turner's  method  of  dealing  with  an 
effect  of  this  kind  is  afforded  by  a  very  small  drawing — an  illustration. 


1880.     MODERN  ENGLISH  LANDSCAPE-PAINTING.      793 

of  the  scene  in  the  Antiquary  when  Isabella  Wardour  and  her 
father  are  caught  by  the  tide  at  the  foot  of  Bally  burgh  Xess.  The 
rock  which  bars  them  in  to  death  (if  no  power  intervenes  to  save 
them  from  the  white  flashing  wave  which  leaps  so  wildly  close  at  hand) 
is  all  scarlet,  although  from  the  position  of  the  sun  it  is  plain  that  the 
scarlet  is  due  to  the  reflection  on  the  wet  rock  of  the  burning  clouds 
above.  The  brightness  of  colour  which  I  have  seen  wet  rocks  show 
in  that  way  is  wonderful.  Of  course,  in  fact,  such  rocks  would  be 
dark  compared  with  the  last  glitter  of  the  setting  sun,  but  not  the 
less  splendid  in  their  crimson  glow.  Turner  wishes,  for  poetical 
purposes,  or  guided,  let  us  say,  by  poetical  instinct  (for  I  doubt  if  he 
reasoned  much  about  these  things,  but  lather  got  his  mind  saturated 
with  truths  of  landscape  effect  as  much  as  possible,  and  then  let  his 
instinct  guide  him),  to  show  their  cruel  splendour.  Accordingly,  he 
gives  all  their  modelling,  all  their  groovings,  all  their  treacherous 
curves  which  descend  into  the  sea  with  just  enough  straightness  at  their 
last  plunge  to  make  escape  by  climbing  hopeless,  in  touches  of  the 
brightest  scarlet,  crimson  and  gold.  The  whole  looks  real  enough 
in  the  engraving,  and  would  no  doubt  have  looked  more  real  in  the 
drawing,  if  Turner  had  coloured  it  in  greys  and  purples  with  a  base  of 
Indian  ink  and  a  suggestion  of  dusky  red — or,  in  other  words,  had 
merely  tinted  his  light  and  shade  drawing.  He  has  chosen  rather 
to  use  the  real  and  true  vividness  of  nature's  colour  as  a  means  of 
poetical  impressiveness. 

There  are  few  of  Turner's  drawings,  after  he  grew  out  of  the  early 
stage  of  simple  greys  and  browns,  which  are  not  capable  of  analysis 
of  the  kind  I  have  attempted ;  but  it  would  need  something  like  his 
own  knowledge  of  nature  and  of  colour-science  to  perform  such  a 
task.  They  might  be  fairly  described  as  a  series  of  experiments  to 
discover  with  what  system  of  colours  it  is  possible  to  give  the  greatest 
amount  of  colour-truth  consistently  with  truth  of  light  and  shade, 
and  will  always  remain  more  or  less  unintelligible  to  those  who  do 
not  love  landscape-colour  passionately,  and  see  in  its  strength,  variety 
and  infinite  subtlety,  means  of  representing  distinct  moods  of  thought 
and  feeling.  The  subject  has  been  elaborately  worked  out  by  Mr. 
Kuskin  in  Modern  Painters,  but  it  is  strange  how  little  even  his 
eloquence  has  availed  to  open  the  eyes  of  artists  and  critics  to  the 
few  facts  of  this  kind  which  lie  at  the  base  of  all  knowledge  of  land- 
scape art.  A  certain  sense  of  open  daylight  and  of  out-of-door  colour 
seems  to  be  wanting :  or  is  it  that  most  people,  without  owning  it, 
positively  dislike  the  worry  of  the  two  enjoyments  at  once,  however 
skilfully  combined,  of  colour  and  form  in  a  landscape  ?  Many  would 
enjoy  nature  just  as  well  if  she  were  dressed  in  a  garb  of  comfortable 
sable  or  well-toned  brown,  and  most  certainly  prefer  to  see  her  so 
treated  in  pictures.  I  do  not  venture  to  say  that  Turner's  system  is 
entirely  right.  I  only  know  that  a  certain  amount  of  truth  (to  use 


794  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  May 

the  first  line  of  Mr.  Buskin's  defence  of  him)  is  given  by  it  which 
I  can  imagine  given  in  no  other  way.  It  is  possible  that  the  form 
in  which  landscape-painting  will  ultimately  attain  to  its  highest 
development  will  be  very  different  from  his ;  but  it  is  certain  that 
Turner's  art  will  be  one  of  the  most  important  stages  in  its  advance. 
To  sum  up  the  points  of  my  sketch.  I  have  endeavoured  to  show 
the  change  which  has  taken  place  in  the  style  and  in  the  subjects  of 
our  landscapists'  work — the  breaking  away  from  traditional  methods 
of  arrangement,  the  effort  to  make  a  little  less  abstraction  and 
generalization  do  for  us,  and  to  deal  with  a  few  more  complexities  of 
beautiful  fact,  until  we  have  arrived  at  the  notion  that  we  can  almost 
give  all  the  truth  of  any  given  scene.  Of  the  many  reasons  why  this 
is  impossible  I  have  dwelt  upon  one  alone:  the  impossibility  of 
reproducing  in  art,  the  union  which  subsists  in  nature  between  colour 
and  light.  I  have  pointed  out  that  this  impossibility  shows  itself  at 
once  when  an  artist  seeks  not  so  much  for  subjects  which  will  bear 
witness  to  his  dexterity  in  evading  it,  as  for  those  which  will  express 
his  sympathy  with  nature  at  the  cost  of  technical  imperfection,  or 
rather  of  evident  defeat:  that  such  an  artist's  sympathy  will  lead 
him  to  invent  for  himself  forms  of  artistic  expression — such  expression 
by  means  of  design  answering  in  his  work  to  the  story  or  incident  in 
the  figure-painter's ;  but  differing,  so  far  as  it  demands  the  re- casting 
in  harmonised  form  of  the  whole  subject.  I  have  maintained  that  our 
landscapists  are  feeling  their  way  through  unflinching  study  to  the 
expression  of  new  truths ;  and  that  as  nature  is  a  brightly  and  richly- 
coloured  thing,  their  wider  study  has  forced  them  to  wrestle  with  more 
and  more  difficult  truths.  That  there  should  be  defeat,  confusion, 
and  apparent  retrocession  is  inevitable.  It  is  only  recently  that  a 
glimpse  of  the  full  scope  of  landscape  art  which  was  gained  by  the 
genius  of  one  man,  has  become  the  common  property  of  all.  We 
hardly  yet  perceive  how  great  an  equipment  of  gifts  is  required  to 
enable  any  one  to  follow  in  his  footsteps,  and  possess  himself  of  any 
portion  of  the  fair  land  which  his  eyes  discerned.  The  gifts  which 
would  enable  their  fortunate  possessor  to  make  a  name,  and  that  no 
mean  one,  as  a  painter  of  the  human  form,  and  the  Spirit  which 
dwells  therein,  must  in  a  landscape-painter  be  combined  with  a 
temper  which  will  make  Nature,  and  the  Spirit  which  dwells  in 
Nature,  the  love,  and  the  imaging  of  her  beauty,  the  labour,  of  his  life. 

A.  W.  HUNT. 


1880.  795 


PENAL   SERVITUDE. 


THE  report  which  lately  emanated  from  the  Eoyal  Commission  on 
Penal  Servitude  invites  some  reconsideration  of  our  present  system 
of  secondary  punishment.  Keconsideration,  indeed,  is  due  from 
time  to  time  to  any  system  of  public  administration  which  consigns 
many  thousands  of  the  people  to  official  custody  out  of  our  sight. 
Executive  bodies  are  prone  to  ruthless  routine,  bound  to  forms, 
sequent  on  precedent,  enamoured  of  their  own  work,  and  naturally 
blind  to  its  defects  or  possible  improvement.  The  Legislature,  also, 
is  prone  to'  take  the  readiest  relief  from  perplexing  problems,  which, 
in  the  treatment  of  criminals,  means  riddance  of  them  for  the  longest 
time  out  of  the  way. 

There  are,  at  this  moment,  in  Great  Britain  and  Ireland,  25,000 
criminals  in  local  prisons,  and  10,000  more  undergoing  as  convicts 
penal  servitude.  If  to  these  numbers  we  add  the  multitude  of 
wives  and  children  coincidently  thrown  into  workhouses  as  paupers, 
it  would  be  no  over-estimate  to  conclude  that  our  present  penal 
system  throws  50,000  of  the  population  always  on  public  charge. 

Putting  aside,  for  a  moment,  considerations  of  moral  responsi- 
bility, this  is  a  very  serious  calculation  of  public  cost  and  loss. 
Maintaining  so  many  thousands  of  able-bodied  people,  during  the 
best  part  of  their  lives,  at  a  dead  loss  of  their  keep  and  earnings, 
and  in  artificial  treatment  which,  in  spite  of  the  best  intentions, 
must  more  or  less  physically  and  morally  incapacitate  for  indepen- 
dent industry,  is  an  enormous  national  sacrifice  for  the  insurance  of 
order,  and  safety  of  life  and  property.  National  defence  requires  a 
large  deduction  from  industrial  power.  The  permanent  mainte- 
nance of  so  many  offenders  as  well  as  defenders,  as  a  non-productive 
mass  of  the  community  out  of  all  proportion  to  the  productive  re- 
mainder, is  an  unnatural  drag  on  our  prosperity  which  we  may 
reasonably  hope  to  find  capable  of  some  alleviation.  There  is  some- 
thing Irish  in  the  idea  of  punishing  plunderers  by  making  them 
plunder  us,  to  such  an  enormous  extent,  still  more.  Compare  the 
value  of  property  stolen  in  this  country  with  the  cost  of  feeding, 
lodging,  clothing,  and  a  prolonged  education  of  the  thieves,  main- 


796  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  May 

taming  their  families,  and  foregoing  all  the  profit  that  might  be 
made  of  them  ;  and  the  remedy  seems  worse  than  the  injury. 

Mr.  Cross  has,  on  several  late  occasions,  expressed  for  himself 
what  is  a  very  general  feeling,  that  we  have  too  many  in  prison. 
The  late  Summary  Jurisdiction  Act  had  for  its  chief  object  to  reduce 
the  number. 

It  would  be  the  height  of  folly  to  rush  towards  this  end  by 
simply  diminishing  punishments.  The  question  is,  how  far  their 
length  and  number  designate  their  strength — whether  a  more  effec- 
tual system  would  not  concur  with  fewer  and  shorter  imprisonments. 
One  tells  a  workman  out  of  health  not  to  potter  with  a  long  course 
of  palliatives,  but  that  his  best  economy  is  to  get  well ;  so  with  the 
diseases  of  the  commonwealth,  our  best  economy  is  not  to  nurse  them, 
but  effectually  to  grapple  with  their  motive  springs. 

In  the  first  place  penal  servitude  would  seem  condemned  as  a 
scheme  of  punishment  by  its  very  origin  and  its  first  idea.  Its 
lengthened  process  would  render  it,  taken  on  its  own  merits,  very 
questionable  as  an  effective  correction  for  any  specific  offence — its 
triple  stages  of  separate  confinement,  public  works,  and  gradual  libera- 
tion under  surveillance  of  police,  would  seem  over-refined.  If  ab- 
stractedly proposed  as  on  original  device  for  a  penal  code  it  would 
be  condemned  as  wanting  the  most  requisite  qualities  of  punishment. 
One  has  to  seek  back  to  its  origin  for  any  defence ;  and  certainly 
in  its  origin  we  find  no  defence  at  all.  It  was  a  senseless  imi- 
tation of  transportation,  when,  the  colonial  outlet  failing,  we  could 
only  think  of  punishing  our  criminals  similarly  at  home.  '  So  much,' 
wrote  Colonel  Du  Cane  in  a  pamphlet,  1872,  'is  our  present  system 
the  result  of,  and  founded  on,  the  transportation  system,  that  those  who 
wish  to  acquire  a  full  acquaintance  with  it  must  not  fail  to  study  the 
history  and  phases  of  that  system.'  He  also  described,  in  the  last 
November  number  of  this  Eeview,  the  present  system  as  *  deriving  its 
character  immediately  from  the  transportation  system  on  which  it 
was  founded,  and  which  may  almost  be  said  to  have  been  brought 
to  perfection  at  the  time  it  became  necessary  to  abandon  it.'  In 
his  evidence  before  the  Commissioners  he  sketched  the  series  of 
experiments,  shifts,  and  devices  through  which  transportation  arrived 
at  this  *  perfection.'  Some  things,  in  moral  as  well  as  natural  life, 
fall  ripe  in  a  perfection  of  rottenness.  Transportation  began  in  the 
simple  form  of  banishment  from  the  kingdom,  as  Germany  still 
attempts  it.  Criminals  were  afterwards  sent  to  distant  specified 
settlements  ;  where  settlers  contracted  for  their  service  as  slaves,  at 
so  much  a  head.  Some  wholly  penal  settlements  were  established  in 
the  Southern  Hemisphere,  which  became  scenes  of  the  most  horrible 
immorality,  disease,  hunger,  and  mortality.  Costly  systems  of  assign- 
ment to  emigrant  employers  followed,  which  soon  lost  all  character 
of  regular  penal  treatment  whatever,  and  held  out,  by  way  of  punish- 


1880.  PENAL   SERVITUDE.  797 

ment,  to  the  criminals  of  this  country  a  speculative  chance  of  kindly 
or  tyrannical  service,  or  entire  escape,  in  a  distant  colony.  Lastly 
came  the  *  probation  system,'  intended  to  make  transportation  a 
course  of  progressive  reformation  under  moral  influences  in  a  new 
scene.  This  was  the  final  model  on  which  penal  servitude  became  the 
travesty  of  transportation  at  home.  The  colonies  had  refused  to  take 
our  criminals  altogether,  in  any  form — not  even,  as  Lord  Grey  tried  to 
persuade  them  to  take  them,  coupled  always  with  an  equal  number  of 
free  emigrants.  It  had  become  necessary  to  dispose  of  our  criminals  at 
home,  and  our  Legislature  could  only  think  of  the  way  in  which  we  had 
disposed  of  them  abroad.  No  matter  the  repeated  break-down  of  trans- 
portation— no  matter  the  utter  want  of  any  parallel  between  such  a 
system  at  home  and  abroad — there  was  the  system,  brought  at  last  to 
its  '  perfection,'  and  ready  to  our  hand.  Of  this  home-transportation 
Colonel  Du  Cane  himself  says,  '  Hardly  had  it  been  founded  before 
it  broke  down.'  Such  was  the  ill-starred  origin  of  penal  servitude. 
The  Act  of  16,  17  Vic.  in  1853  was  the  first  to  propose  *  to  substi- 
tute other  punishment  in  lieu  of  transportation,'  and  it  adopted  the 
main  features  of  transportation  under  the  new  name  of  penal  servi- 
tude. The  old  colonial  '  ticket-of-leave '  was  turned  into  a  '  license 
to  be  at  large '  at  home,  and  hulks  represented  faithfully  the  horrors 
of  Norfolk  Island.  In  1857  the  terms  of  penal  servitude  were  made 
identical  with  the  old  terms  of  transportation.  In  1863  a  Commission 
under  Lord  Grey,  the  staunchest  advocate  of  transportation,  reported 
that  the  substituted  penal  servitude  was  not  sufficiently  dreaded  either 
by  those  who  had  undergone  it,  or  by  the  criminal  classes  generally  ; 
some  having  even  sought  for  it,  and  expressed  disappointment  when 
otherwise  sentenced.  But  his  inveterate  love  of  the  old  system  led 
him  to  the  conclusion  that  all  penal  servitude  wanted  was  to  be  made 
longer.  The  fact  is  that  the  idea  of  riddance  of  criminals  was  upper- 
most in  all  our  penal  schemes.  'Depend  upon  it/  said  Henry 
Drummond,  only  half  in  joke,  'tlicre  are  Hit  two  ways  of  disposing 
of  criminals  ;  you  must  send  half  of  them  out  of  the  country,  and  the 
other  half  out  of  the  world.'  In  the  same  view  Romilly  had  been 
met,  in  his  introduction  of  penal  reform,  by  men  rushing  in  from 
dinner  to  divisions  against  him,  crying  out,  '  Oh,  Sir.  I'm  for  hanging 
'em  all.'  So  now  the  lost  means  of  riddance  of  criminals  by  transpor- 
tation was  sought  to  be  recovered  by  shutting  them  up  for  as  long 
a  time  as  possible  at  home. 

So  much  for  the  original  conception  of  penal  servitude,  which 
alone  is  enough  to  condemn  it. 

But  let  us  try  it  on  its  own  merits  abstractedly  from  it?  birth 
pin?.  The  fii>t  feature  that  strikes  on  '  i-s  its  inordinate  length  and 
intricacy.  What  its  advocates  would  plead,  in  excuse,  would  be  its 
reformatory  intention  requiring  time.  A  long  curriculum,  no  doubt, 
would  be  necessary,  in  most  cases,  for  the  reformation  of  a  criminal 


798  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  May 

character.  But  I  altogether  protest  against  the  idea  of  undertaking 
in  punishment  a  course  of  education.  Punishment  is  a  corrective 
sometimes  needed  in  the  process  of  education,  but  it  has  no  more  to 
do  with  it  than  medicine  has  with  dietary.  There  are  some  quacks 
who  feed  their  patients  upon  medicines,  and  wretched  is  the  result. 
Just  such  are  the  doctrinaires  who  have  led  us  so  far  wrong  of  late 
that  we  try  to  use  our  prisons  for  schools  ;  and  our  reformatorv 
schools,  where  convicted  children  are  sent  for  the  whole  of  their 
childhood,  are  actually  named  on  the  draft  Criminal  Code  as  places 
of  punishment. 

Certainly  there  should  be  nothing  in  any  penal  treatment  adverse 
to  reformation,  and  its  incidental  influence  should  be  always  conducive 
to  improvement.  That  a  process  of  correction  should  have  any  ten- 
dency to  corrupt  still  further  would  indeed  be  its  absolute  condemna- 
tion ;  and  we  shall  find  at  least  part  of  the  process  of  penal  servitude, 
while  reformation  is  its  pretext,  brings  it  under  this  very  condemnation. 
There  must  be  a  fallacy  at  the  basis  of  any  theory  of  criminal 
law  which  takes  reformation  as  contained  within  the  scope  of  punish- 
ment. The  excellent  late  Eecorder  Hill,  in  a  very  elaborate  dis- 
quisition, reduced  the  principles  of  secondary  punishment  to  three — 
the  deterrent,  the  incapacitating,  and  the  reforming — and  argued 
that  in  good  punishment  the  three  are  combined.  Eeformation,  he 
said,  required  a  considerable  length  of  time,  during  which  the 
criminal  is  incapacitated  for  doing  further  wrong,  and  this  long 
confinement  inspires  the  greatest  dread  of  again  being  punished  with 
loss  of  liberty.  The  thorough  theorists  of  this  school  propose  to  detain 
every  convict  till  he  shows  proof  (quo  judice  ?)  of  thorough  reformation. 
But  human  laws  cannot  adjust  punishment  at  all  to  moral  guilt. 
They  have  no  cognisance  of  inward  springs  of  action.  They  deal  with 
such  overt  acts  as  they  can  prove  against  a  criminal,  at  the  utmost 
forming  a  very  imperfect  judgment  of  the  immediate  intention 
characterising  the  act.  Convictions  under  such  jurisdiction  are  no 
sure  indicators  of  the  moral  condition  or  want  of  education  of  the 
criminal.  Any  attempt,  therefore,  to  apportion  or  suit  punishment 
to  moral  guilt,  or  to  use  it  in  way  of  moral  training,  must  be 
fallacious  in  principle.  The  criminal  law  measures  crime  by  its 
practical  amount  of  mischief  to  society.  It  prohibits  actual  offences 
.against  the  State's  authority,  or  against  that  security  of  life  and 
property  which  civilised  society  requires.  It  takes  what  means  it 
can  to  prevent  the  repetition  by  the  criminal  of  any  such  offences, 
or  their  imitation  by  others  ;  but  it  cannot  generally  undertake  the 
reformation  of  the  offenders.  Its  purpose  is  that  of  counteracting 
temptations  to  such  offence,  so  that  the  punishment  must,  indeed, 
often  be  in  inverse  ratio  to  the  moral  guilt,  for  that  is  less  the 
greater  the  temptation. 

The  most  important  recommendation  of  the  Royal  Commissioners 


1880.  PENAL  SERVITUDE.  799 

is  a  better  classification  of  prisoners,  to  avoid  mutual  contamination. 
The  very  limited  extent  to  which  this  improvement  can  be  carried 
out,  is  a  striking  proof  of  the  incompetency  of  human  laws  to 
measure  moral  guilt.  It  is  possible  and  right  to  separate  young 
prisoners  from  old — none  very  young  should  be  in  prison  at  all — 
but  at  the  next  step  in  the  way  of  separation  one  is  at  once  at  fault. 
In  the  seventieth  paragraph  of  the  Report  it  is  proposed  that  '  pri- 
soners of  whom  no  former  conviction  is  recorded  shall  be  classed 
together.'  Many  in  such  a  separate  class  would  be  as  contaminating 
as  the  worst  in  prison,  having  only  by  good  luck  or  cunning  passed 
years  of  villany  without  conviction.  The  same  cunning  would 
work  terrible  harm  among  the  weaker  brethren  placed  for  safety 
within  its  closest  influence.  Again,  crimes  of  violence  often  spring 
from  an  impulse  of  the  least  degraded  nature,  and  the  crimes  most 
on  the  increase  now  are  such  as  require  educated  and  intelligent 
minds  for  their  commission.  Distress,  more  bitterly  felt  by  those 
accustomed  to  better  circumstances,  has  lately  driven  many  persons 
in  trust  to  embezzlement,  with  vain  intention  to  restore.  "What 
test  is  there  by  which  human  laws  could  classify,  in  order  to  avoid 
mutual  contamination,  convicts  of  such  various  quality  ?  There  are 
certainly  some  crimes  which  may  be  taken  as  clear  proofs  of  ingrained 
and  deliberate  criminality ;  such  as  receiving  stolen  goods,  coining, 
training  thieves,  &c.  Grovernors,  with  the  concurrence  of  some  such 
independent  visitors  as  I  hope  are  intended  to  be  connected  with 
them,  might  be  allowed  a  discretion  in  separating  notorious  villains 
by  themselves  without  altering  the  punishment  as  sentenced  to  all. 
The  Commissioners  can  also  safely  recommend  keeping  apart  convicts 
of  treason-felony,  and  imbeciles.  Isolation  of  the  worst  conducted 
is  already  practised  by  Governors  through  what  they  call  '  Second 
Probation.'  But  any  further  attempt  at  discrimination  betrays  the 
inapplicability  of  pathological  theories  to  methods  of  human  punish- 
ments. 

We  are  apt  to  think  of  criminals  against  human  laws  as  a  class  all 
alike  degraded  and  uneducated,  simply  because  the  lowest  social 
stratum  inevitably  includes  the  greatest  number  of  depredators  on 
the  property  of  the  richer,  and  thefts  form  the  largest  category  of 
crimes.  But  we  know  on  higher  authority  that  the  upper  social 
ranks  include  the  chief  defaulters  under  the  moral  code.  '  How 
hardly  shall  they  that  have  riches '  escape  its  judgments.  Even  of 
mala  in  se,  which  come  under  both  codes,  if  we  take  for  instance  the 
crime  of  theft,  how  many  more  rich  men  break  the  Eighth  Com- 
mandment, in  its  moral  sense  of  stinting  what  is  due  to  others,  than 
the  poor  .infringe  the  criminal  law  by  sheer  violence,  fraud,  or 
vagabondage.  A  judge  may  be  inflicting  justest  penalties  of  human 
law,  while  himself  more  criminal  even  of  cognate  offences  in  the 
higher  meaning  of  the  moral  law,  and  incurring  its  ultimate  judgment. 


800  THE  NINETEENTH    CENTURY.  May 

Besides,  then,  its  faults  of  origin,  penal  servitude  is  faulty  in  its 
principle,  and  in  the  assumption  of  the  task  of  moral  reformation 
in  its  lengthened  and  complicated  penal  processes. 

But  its  effects  are  even  worse  than  its  false  principle  would  threa- 
ten. It  is  a  remarkable  nemesis  of  a  false  principle,  that  the  practice 
attempted  upon  it  reacts  in  the  contrary  to  the  intended  direction. 
It  would  be  quite  enough  to  disabuse  an  unprejudiced  mind  of  an 
educational  theory  in  punishment  to  witness  the  latest  regulations 
made  by  the  prison  directors  for  schooling  in  prison,  allowing  a  flying 
visit  from  a  schoolmaster  for  five  or  six  minutes  once  a  week  to  each 
prisoner.  But  the  moral  education  during  the  longest  period  of  penal 
servitude  is,  by  all  accounts,  much  worse  than  a  farce,  and  rather 
tending  in  the  way  of  corruption  than  of  reformation.  The  liability 
of  associated  punishment  to  demoralising  influences  is  admitted  by 
all  witnesses  to  attach  to  the  second  portion  of  this  system.  There  is 
probably  much  exaggeration  in  the  accusations  made,  especially  in  a 
new  class  of  literature  derived  from  the  educated  leisure  of  prison 
authorship,  which  alleviates  the  tedium  of  punishment  in  prepara- 
tion for  revenge  after  discharge.  The  Commissioners  themselves, 
after  coming  to  a  general  '  conclusion  that  the  system  of  penal  servi- 
tude as  at  present  administered  is,  on  the  whole,  satisfactory,  and 
effective  as  a  punishment,  and  free  from  serious  abuse,'  totally 
neutralise  this  commendation  in  a  following  sentence  by  their  '  first 
and  most  important  objection,  that  it  not  only  fails  to  reform  offenders, 
but,  in  the  case  of  the  less  hardened  criminals,  it  produces  a  dete- 
riorating effect  from  the  association  in  public  works.' 

This  third  indictment  against  penal  servitude  surely  completes  its 
condemnation.  It  is  bad  in  origin,  principle^  and  effects.  But  let 
us  see  if  it  has  any  redeeming  quality  in  the  way  of  deterring  from 
any  kind  of  crime  ;  I  mean,  of  course,  taking  specially  in  view  its  main 
constituent  of  several  years  spent  in  association  on  public  works. 

Two  eminent  judges  give  evidence  before  the  Commissioners  of 
their  own  impression  that  the  sentence  to  penal  servitude  causes  a 
greater  sensation  in  the  court  than  one  to  simple  imprisonment.  The 
chief  constable  of  Liverpool  agrees  in  the  opinion  that  penal  servi- 
tude is  most  dreaded.  When  transportation  was  a  penal  sentence 
j  udges  said  as  much  for  its  terrors,  till  it  was  discovered  to  be  only  a 
mongrel  sort  of  emigration.  There  was  evidence  then  of  the  disap- 
pointment of  criminals  at  its  abolition,  and  Colonel  Du  Cane  quali- 
fies his  evidence  in  favour  of  penal  servitude  by  an  admission  that 
some  criminal?,  on  receiving  the  sentence,  expreised  their  relief  from 
the  dread  of  imprisonment  by  hearty  thanks  to  the  judge.  The  exe- 
cutive of  any  system  naturally  praise  their  own  work.  Performers 
are  pleased  with  the  instruments  they  handle  skilfully,  and  would 
unconsciously  dislike  their  being  improved  for  their  successors.  Rarely 
help  comes  from  any  profession  to  reform  its  own  procedure,  and  official 


1880.  PENAL  SERVITUDE.  801 

praise  of  penal  servitude  may  pair  off  with  its  abuse  by  sufferers. 
The  country  may  judge  better  of  its  institutions  by  their  working, 
and  the  growing  lists  of  re-convictions  at  assizes  and  sessions  speak  ill 
for  present  penalties,  whatever  concurrent  causes  may  partly  account 
for  the  increase.  To  be  deterrent  from  a  crime  the  punishment  must 
at  least  be  associated  with  it.  But  what  association  can  there  be, 
either  in  the  culprit's  or  the  public  mind,  between  any  crime  and  a 
long  series  of  experiments  for  the  convict's  moral  training,  which 
may  moreover  be  wholly  unsuited  to  any  particular  case,  and  must  be 
unequally  suited  to  every  case  ?  Can  such  a  penal  treatment  be  de- 
terrent, either  in  prospect  or  in  retrospect,  from  any  specific  infraction 
of  the  law  ?  Long  sentences,  says  the  evidence,  produce  depression 
but  not  fear. 

The  only  strictly  penal  part  of  penal  servitude  is  the  first  and 
shortest.  The  second  and  longest  part  occupies  too  much  of  the  rest 
of  a  man's  life  to  be  specially  connected  in  his  mind  with  any  one 
event  in  it,  or  with  the  circumstances,  long  gone  by,  which  led  to  it. 
This  period  may  be  either  wholly  passed  on  such  public  works  as  in 
the  quarries  of  Portland ;  or  partly,  at  its  close — the  likeliest  part  to 
be  remembered  afterwards — in  workshops  again  at  Pentonville ;  with 
better  apparatus,  clothing,  and  rations,  than  will  be  shared  with  a 
dependent  family,  when  they  turn  out  from  the  workhouse  and  the 
criminal  from  prison.  There  is  an  incidental  defect  in  any  plan  of  pun- 
ishment to  be  passed  on  public  works,  pointed  out  by  several  witnesses, 
namely,  the  impossibility  of  having  public  works  always  available  for 
the  purpose.  For  a  preliminary  step  to  transportation  a  sufficiency  of 
such  work  might  be  relied  on ;  but  for  the  second  and  longest  stage 
of  penal  servitude  the  Government  must  find  suitable  employment 
for  ever  for  increasing  hosts  of  profitless  labourers.  This  feature  of 
unprofitableness  also  makes  the  matter  worse.  We  are  still  under  the 
delusion  that  prison  labour  should  not  compete  with  outside  in- 
dustry, though  from  such  possible  competition  it  has,  by  imprisonment, 
been  taken.  There  is,  at  this  moment,  a  mountain  of  quarried  stone 
at  Portland,  the  sale  of  which  might  a  little  reduce  the  75  per  cent, 
dead  loss  to  the  public  in  the  penal  service  of  their  thieves ;  but  it 
is  thought  that  a  neighbouring  quarry  owner  should  be  benefited 
by  the  withdrawal  of  such  competition,  which,  but  for  the  present 
occupants,  some  one  else  would  be  carrying  on. 

It  is  worth  considering  whether  some  penal  work  might  not  be 
better  conducted  in  what  may  be  called  aggregate  solitude — that  is, 
by  several  convicts  so  far  separated  by  distance  or  by  partition  as,  with 
sufficient  superintendence,  to  be  unable  to  converse,  and  yet  relieved 
of  the  depression  of  absolute  solitude.  I  have  the  opinions  of  some 
good  authorities,  that  agriculture  and  a  variety  of  work  might  so  be 
made  available  both  for  penal  discipline,  alleviation  of  depression,  and 
for  utility  and  profit  in  way  of  recompense  to  the  public. 
VOL.  VII.— No.  39.  3  H 


802  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  May 

Cannot  we  then  get  rid  of  the  objectionable  features  of  penal 
servitude  and  yet  more  effectually  diminish  crime,  and  reduce  the 
enormous  numbers  who  are  constantly  under  punishment  in  this  coun- 
try ?  Before  any  such  consideration  there  is  of  course  a  previous 
question,  whether  every  means  has  been  fully  taken  for  preventing  the 
occurrence  of  crime.  Punishment  is  tyranny  when  inflicted  on  those  who 
have  had  no  chance  of  knowing  or  meeting  their  obligations.  The  per- 
mitted neglect  or  non-provision  of  education  in  former  times  was  tanta- 
mount to  a  national  education  in  crime.  Bad  laws  may  themselves 
create  crime,  so  as  to  deprive  their  sanction  of  all  sound  basis  of 
justice.  How  can  the  same  authority  justly  correct  the  crime  which 
it  has  caused  ?  Are  not  all  persons  who  have  influence  in  so  happily 
self-administered  a  country  as  ours  responsible  for  the  crime  which 
springs  from  the  negligence  or  actual  evil  of  their  influence  ?  The 
old  Saxon  suretyship  for  good  behaviour  had  much  strict  principle 
of  justice  in  it. 

Supposing,  however,  removable  causes  of  crime  reduced  to  the 
utmost,  much  crime  will  still  remain  of  serious  character  enough  to 
need  most  stringent  checks  for  the  security  of  life  and  property  and 
the  maintenance  of  social  order.  Every  one  will  allow  that  the  fewer 
and  shorter  the  punishments  in  any  sort  of  administration,  if  effec- 
tual to  stop  transgression,  the  better. 

There  was  an  admirable  paper  read  at  a  meeting  of  the  Social 
Science  Association,  January  1875,  and  since  published  by  Mr.  Eupert 
Kettle,  Q.C.,  Deputy-Chairman  of  the  Staffordshire  Quarter  Sessions, 
entitled  l  Suggestions  for  diminishing  the  Number  of  Imprison- 
ments.' He  argues  that — 

We  make  imprisonment  too  common,  so  that  by  familiarity  its  terrors  are  lost. 
As  all  sense  of  degradation  in  pauperism  was  lost  under  the  old  Poor  Law,  and  no 
disgrace  attached  to  bankruptcy  by  frequent '  going  through  the  Court,'  so  a  laxity 
of  feeling  as  to  gaol  arises  when  imprisonments  are  too  numerous;  and  an  excessive 
number  of  persons  being  incarcerated  weakens  the  external  moral  influence  of  that 
form  of  punishment. 

He  adds : 

We  have  increased  imprisonment  in  almost  eveiy  direction.  There  is  scarcely  an  act 
of  misconduct  or  a  breach  of  social  order  that  is  not  directly  or  indirectly  punishable 
by  imprisonment.  Debtors  are  still  imprisoned  for  contempt  of  court.  I  Besides, 
every  local  authority  or  company  can  enforce  bye-laws  byjthe  ultimatum  of  gaol. 

He  would  diminish  the  number  of  imprisonments,  first  by  making 
punishment  by  fines  effective  : 

(a)  Giving  justices  power  to  order  payment  by  instalments. 
(6)  Providing  a  simple  and  cheap  means  of  levying "in^case  of 
•wilful  default. 

(c)  Taking  sureties  for  payment. 


1880.  PENAL  SERVITUDE.  803 

This  has  been  adopted  in  the  Summary  Jurisdiction  Act  of  last 
session. 

Secondly,  on  the  old  principle  of  frank-pledge,  enabling  friends  of 
the  delinquent  to  bind  themselves  in  penalties  for  his  future  good 
conduct ;  by  giving  Petty  Sessions  power  to  enforce  their  own  recog- 
nisances instead  of  re  turn  ing  them  to  Quarter  Sessions  to  be  estreated. 
This  important  suggestion  has  been  carried  out  in  the  Summary  Juris- 
diction Act. 

Thirdly,  enabling  justices  to  refrain  from  ordering  defendants  to 
pay  costs  for  trivial  cases,  so  that  children  and  any  poor  persons 
should  not  be  imprisoned  for  non-payment  of  what  is  really  a  law 
bill.  This  also  the  same  Act  (sec.  8)  now  adopted. 

Fourthly,  enabling  justices  to  put  offenders,  on  first  convictions, 
under  adequate  police  supervision  without  previous  imprisonment. 

Provisions  such  as  these  would  probably  relieve  our  prisons  of  one- 
half  of  their  usual  occupants,  and  make  them  proportionately  more 
available,  not  only  in  way  of  room,  but  for  effective  punishment  in 
graver  cases. 

The  last  suggestion  in  this  able  little  pamphlet  is  that  children 
let  to  run  into  crime  should  not  require  castellated  buildings,  dreary 
cells  and  corridors,  and  warders  in  military  uniforms  for  their  punish- 
ment, except  in  the  rarer  cases  of  precocious  criminality ;  but  that 
the  State,  instead  of  relieving  parents  of  their  duty,  should  make 
them  more  vigilant  by  pecuniary  guarantees,  and  see  that  their 
culprit  children,  after  suitable  castigation,  are  properly  occupied  in 
school  or  industry.  On  this  point  there  is  an  excellent  South 
Australian  legislative  provision.1 

I  proceed  to  consider  whether,  on  the  other  side  of  the  question, 
that  is,  of  all  the  more  brutal  crimes  we  have  to  deal  with,  there 
is  not  a  much  more  appropriate  and  effective  treatment  than  impri- 
sonment and  lengthened  discipline  in  custody. 

The  draft  criminal  code  now  before  Parliament  classifies  all  crimes 
under  five  heads.  Those  against  (1)  public  order,  as  treason,  mutiny, 
riot,  &c. ;  (2)  public  officers,  as  bribery,  escape,  &c. ;  (3)  the  public 
generally,  as  blasphemy,  indecency,  &c. ;  (4)  persons,  as  murder, 

1  SOUTH  AUSTRALIA. — ACT  No.  8  OP  1869-70. 

Minor  Offences  Procedure  Act. 

Clause  8. — If  any  person  charged  before  any  Special  Magistrate,  or  Justices,  or 
a  Justice  under  the  provisions  of  this  Act,  shall  be  under  the  age  of  fourteen  years, 
and  it  shall  appear  to  such  Special  Magistrate,  Justices,  or  Justice  that  chastisement 
inflicted  by  the  parent  or  guardian  of  such  person  would  be  the  most  suitable  punish- 
ment under  the  circumstances,  such  Special  Magistrate,  Justices,  or  Justice  may  allow 
such  chastisement  to  be  inflicted  by  such  parent  or  guardian,  or  by  some  person  at 
the  request  of  such  parent  or  guardian,  and  for  such  purpose  may,  if  necessary,  ad- 
journ the  hearing,  and  on  its  being  shown  to  the  satisfaction  of  such  Special  Magis- 
trate, Justices,  or  Justice  that  suitable  chastisement  has  been  inflicted  as  aforesaid, 
such  Special  Magistrate,  Justices,  or  Justice  may  dismiss  the  charge,  and  give  a  cer- 
tificate of  dismissal  accordingly  in  the  form  of  Schedule  B. 

3  H  2 


804  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY.  May 

assault,  rape,  abduction,  defamation,  &c. ;  (5)  property,  as  theft,  fraud, 
burglary,  forgery,  breach  of  contract,  &c. 

The  more  violent  perpetrators  of  crimes  coming  under  the  fourth 
and  fifth  of  these  heads,  and  criminals  of  morbid  degradation,  of  the 
third  class,  or  men  led  by  vanity  and  vicious  pruriency  for  notoriety 
to  crimes  under  the  first  head,  may,  as  we  have  found  by  experience, 
be  most  effectually  stopped  in  their  career  by  the  simple  dread  of 
painful  and  humiliating  chastisement.  Such  subjects  of  criminal 
law  can  be  turned  out  at  once  cured  of  their  vicious  propensities,  and 
prevented  from  throwing  the  support  of  themselves  and  their  families, 
for  half  their  lives,  on  honest  men.  In  cases  of  such  criminals  in 
higher  social  position,  the  additional  degradation  of  the  man  would 
be  the  fit  counterpart  of  his  punishment.  A  maudlin  sentiment  in- 
creases in  Parliament,  as  it  represents  a  wider  and  shallower  elec- 
torate, which  is  scandalised  at  any  treatment  of  criminals  that,  in 
its  philosophy,  is  inconsistent  with  the  dignity  of  human  nature. 
But  the  indignity  of  the  treatment  may  be  the  very  measure  of  its 
consistency  with  the  nature  to  which  it  is  applied,  and  the  counter 
motive  of  fear  of  pain  may  be  on  the  exact  level  of  the  motive 
to  crime,  and  then  such  reasoning  refutes  itself  on  its  own  ground. 
The  best  authorities  I  have  consulted  assure  me  that  corporal 
punishment  (of  course  properly  inflicted)  is  the  sole  penal  treat- 
ment which  a  certain  brutal  class  of  criminals  will  take  care  not  to 
come  in  the  way  of  again.  This,  on  all  sound  principles  of  punish- 
ment, is  conclusive  testimony  in  favour  of  whipping  instead  of  im- 
prisoning convicts  of  the  kinds  above  referred  to. 

Having  so  far  relieved  our  prisons,  at  both  extremes,  of  the  lighter 
and  grosser  kinds  of  secondary  criminals,  let  us  consider  whether  the 
remainder,  who  must  be  dealt  with  by  some  form  of  penal  detention, 
could  not  be  more  effectively  punished,  and  without  the  present  danger 
of  still  further  corruption,  in  prisons  so  relieved  of  numbers,  and  thereby 
made  so  much  more  formidable.  May  not  imprisonment,  strictly 
so  called,  (1)  be  made  more  practically  penal,  and  proportionately 
shorter  in  duration  ;  and  (2)  being  now  only  the  first  stage  of  penal  ser- 
vitude, may  it  not  so  be  made  the  whole  punishment,  and  thereby  more 
effective  ?  Penal  servitude  would  then  be  abolished,  except  perhaps 
for  some  capital  cases,  requiring  permanent  incapacitation  in  substitu- 
tion for  death.  As  to  the  first  of  these  two  questions,  I  regret  to  see 
that,  among  many  doubtful  regulations  just  issued  by  the  new  Prison 
Directory,  strictly  penal  treatment  in  ordinary  prisons  is  restricted  in 
'  duration  to  one  month,  after  which  the  option  of  training  in  some  in- 
dustry is  always  to  be  offered  to  the  prisoner.  As  to  the  second  ques- 
tion, the  Eoyal  Commissioners  report  as  their  opinion  that  any  less 
period  of  imprisonment  than  three  years  could  not  be  regarded  as  an 
equivalent  for  even  the  minimum  term  of  penal  servitude,  which  is  five 
years.  They  refer,  however,  to  the  example  of  Belgium,  where  cellular 


1880.  PENAL  SERVITUDE.  805 

imprisonment,  with  modified  solitude,  is  extended  without  any  mischief 
to  a  maximum  term  of  ten  years  ;  and  to  that  of  the  United  States, 
where  it  has  no  limit  assigned  to  it.  They  admit  that '  substituting 
imprisonment  for  penal  servitude  would  have  the  great  advantage  of 
withdrawing  a  considerable  number  of  criminals,  especially  the  less 
hardened,  from  the  danger  of  contamination  by  association ; '  yet, 
with  no  further  reason  given,  they  negative  the  proposition.  They, 
indeed,  point  out  that  if  such  substitution  should  be  considered 
advisable,  the  means  of  carrying  it  out  with  uniformity  are  greatly 
increased  now  that  Government  has  the  control  of  all  prisons. 

There  is  a  pretty  general  consensus  of  witnesses  before  the  Com- 
mission that  two  or  three  years'  imprisonment  might  be  made  an  avail- 
able equivalent  for  seven  years'  penal  servitude,  and  that  even  five 
years'  imprisonment  might  be  substituted  for  its  longest  term ;  and 
Lord  Grey,  in  his  Eeport  of  1863,  virtually  recommended  that  penal 
servitude  should  be  reserved  for  only  extreme  cases.  Several  ways 
of  modifying  cellular  imprisonment,  so  as  to  render  it  innocuous  for 
three  or  even  five  years'  duration,  are  obvious.  Solitude  might  be 
greatly  diminished  without  allowing  mutual  association.  At  this 
very  moment  I  hear  the  Government  have  relaxed  the  strictness  of 
their  rule  of  cellular  instruction,  and  permitted  the  schoolmaster  to 
conduct  instruction  in  classes,  considering  that  he  is  able  to  keep 
at  least  twenty  together,  giving  each  so  much  longer  instruction,  and 
much  alleviation  of  solitude,  without  any  possible  communication  with 
each  other.  I  have  already  suggested  that  many  industrial  employ- 
ments, and  certainly  agriculture,  might  be  carried  on  in  what  I  have 
called  aggregate  separation.  Shoemaking  and  tailoring  (and  the 
more  the  better  of  profitable  work)  might  be  done  by  each  working  in 
stalls,  so  as  to  relieve  the  depressing  feeling  of  solitude  without  any 
evil  of  communication.  All  penal  employment,  however,  though 
skilled  and  industrial,  should  be  really  penal  in  character,  and  the 
treadmill  (now  needlessly  restricted  to  a  month  in  duration)  should  be 
mixed  at  intervals  with  more  interesting  labour.  The  newly  regu- 
lated dietary,  also,  is  needlessly  fanciful,  and  anything  but  penal  in 
character. 

Mr.  Tallack,  in  the  name  of  the  Howard  Association,  implored 
the  Commissioners  to  recommend  as  far  as  possible  the  substitution  of 
some  form  of  imprisonment  only,  for  penal  servitude. 

It  is  remarkable  that  while  doubt  is  expressed  as  to  the  possibility 
of  imposing  longer  terms  of  imprisonment  for  the  worst  crimes,  con- 
victs of  less  crimes  are  imprisoned  for  terms  three  times  as  long  as 
the  prison  stage  of  penal  servitude.  It  is,  therefore,  so  far  clear  that 
to  this  extent  the  first  stage  of  penal  servitude  might  be  made  to 
supersede  the  second  objectionable  stage. 

While,  however,  '  developing  and  working  on  the  higher  feelings 
of  prisoners,  directly  by  moral,  religious,  and  secular  instruction,  and 


806  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  May 

indirectly  by  industry,  and  further  training  in  gradual  discharge  under 
supervision,'  is  the  idea  of  punishment  in  the  mind  of  such  leading 
authorities  as  Colonel  Du  Cane  (see  his  article,  November,  p.  892), 
there  are  others  who,  from  exactly  opposite  views,  agree  in  advocating 
penal  processes  of  long  duration.  They  despair  of  ever  restoring  to 
honest  life  any  one  who  has  once  fallen  into  crime.  In  the  old 
simple  idea  of  ridding  the  country  of  criminals,  they  say,  as  now  says 
Major  Griffiths,  Deputy-Governor  of  Millbank,  in  the  Commissioners' 
Evidence  (3196),  'the  only  idea  of  punishment  is  to  keep  criminals 
out  of  the  way.' 

But  though  the  State  cannot  undertake  the  education  of  adult 
criminals,  and,  if  it  could,  the  time  and  place  of  punishment  would 
not  offer  its  opportunity,  yet,  on  the  other  hand,  the  State  cannot  ab- 
solve itself  from  a  prior  responsibility  to  do  all  in  its  power  to  avert 
from  crime  and  afterwards  to  check  its  recurrence.  That  habitual 
crime  may  be  to  a  great  extent  prevented  can  only  be  despaired  of 
by  those  who  are  ignorant  of  the  great  and  cheap  success  of  Dis- 
charged Prisoners'  Aid  Societies.  The  Government  has  shown  little 
wisdom  in  its  slowness  to  support  these  societies,  and  to  take  up  the 
;assistance  which  the  prison  authorities  superseded  by  them  gave,  and 
a  recent  rule  has  been  issued  from  the  Prison  Directors  which  may 
even  be  fatal  to  some  of  them.  Chaplains  and  officers  of  prisons  are 
forbidden  to  take  office  in  these  societies,  having  hitherto  shown  them- 
.selves  by  their  experience,  interest,  and  active  management,  essential 
to  their  success.  I  suspect  there  is  an  official  antipathy  on  the  part 
of  the  police  to  copartnership  with  such  volunteer  philanthropy. 
They  look  with  a  jealous  eye  on  interference  with  their  business. 
They  prefer  watching  criminals  themselves,  which  they  do  as  a  cat 
watches  a  mouse,  more  for  prolonged  custody  than  to  facilitate  final 
escape.  Preventing  criminals  from  falling  back  into  old  associations 
at  the  end  of  punishment,  and  finding  them  new,  is  the  great  and 
successful  work  of  these  societies  ;  and  if  the  Government  think  to 
economise  by  letting  this  work  fall  through,  it  will  be,  besides  a  gross 
immorality,  an  unprecedented  instance  of  penny  wisdom  and  pound 
folly. 

What,  then,  I  offer  for  consideration  are  the  following  questions  : 

1.  Whether  children  should  ever  be  put  in  prisons,  except  in  ex- 
traordinary cases  of  precocious  criminality. 

2.  Whether   many  brutal   crimes  may  not  be  more  effectually 
stopped  by  corporal  punishment  than  by  imprisonment. 

3.  Whether  imprisonment,  being  generally  used  more  sparingly, 
might  not  be  made  more  effective,  and  terms  of  imprisonment  up 
to  a  maximum  of  five  years  spent  in  modified  solitude  might  not 
supersede  penal   servitude    for    all   the  more  serious    crimes,    only 
excepting  those  requiring  permanent  incapacitation  in  substitution 
for  death. 


1880.  PENAL  SERVITUDE.  807 

The  thread  of  my  argument  is  that  moral  training  should  be  in- 
cidental but  is  not  the  primary  object  of  punishment,  and  that  any 
corrupting  influence  is  damnatory  of  any  form  of  punishment ;  and  that 
fewer  and  shorter  real  punishments  would  be  more  effectual  in  stop- 
ping crime  than  the  endless  consignments  to  long  penal  training, 
which,  under  recklessly  multiplied  sentences  to '  P.S.,'  throw  thousands 
of  men,  women,  and  children  in  a  constant  and  mischievous  charge 
upon  the  country. 

NORTON. 


808  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY.  May 


THE   CEREMONIAL    USE   OF  FLOWERS: 
A   SEQUEL.1 

THE  most  cursory  glance  at  the  ceremonial  or  ritual  observances  of 
primitive  Christianity  and  of  paganism  is  sufficient  to  discover  a 
marked  resemblance  between  them.  Indeed,  broadly  speaking,  there 
is  scarcely  one,  even  of  the  least  of  the  former,  that,  if  not  strictly  of 
heathen  origin,  was  not  in  a  measure  derived  from  a  heathen  practice. 
The  reason  is  obvious.  The  early  Church  did  not  seek  conquest  by 
the  sword,  nor  did  it  win  victory  by  uncompromising  destruction. 
Like  a  mighty  enchanter,  it  subdued  by  a  touch ;  it  transformed,  it 
did  not  annihilate.  '  Confiding  in  the  power  of  Christianity  to  resist 
the  infection  of  evil  and  to  transmute  the  very  instruments  and 
appendages  of  demon-worship  to  an  evangelical  use,  and  feeling  also 
that  these  usages  had  originally  come  from  primitive  revelations,  and 
from  the  instinct  of  nature,  though  they  had  been  corrupted ;  and 
that  they  must  invent  what  they  needed  if  they  did  not  use  what 
they  found ;  and  that  they  were  moreover  possessed  of  the  very  arche- 
types of  which  paganism  attempted  the  shadows ;  the  rulers  of  the 
Church  from  early  times  were  prepared,  should  occasion  arise,  to- 
adopt  or  imitate  or  sanction  the  existing  rites  and  customs  of  the 
populace,  as  well  as  the  philosophy  of  the  educated  class/  2  If, 
therefore,  we  bear  in  mind  the  prominence  given  to  flowers  in  the 
multitudinous  rites  of  idolatry,  it  will  be  no  matter  of  surprise  that 
the  use  of  them  was  at  a  very  early  date  incorporated  with  the  cere- 
monial of  Christian  worship.  It  no  more  than  other  usages  escaped 
the  assimilative  poiver  of  Christianity.  The  old  festivals  of  gods 
and  goddesses  gave  way  to  the  solemnities  of  saints  and  martyrs ; 
and  thenceforth  it  could  not  but  be  fitting  that  the  altars  and 
temples  of  the  new  patrons  of  the  people  should  be  made  glorious 
with  the  garlands  and  blossoms  hitherto  dedicated  to  the  false 
worship  of  idols. 

1  A  paper  of  mine  on  the  '  Ceremonial  Use  of  Flowers,'  in  ancient  and  heathen 
societies,  appeared  in  a  former  number  of  this  Review,  and  there  I  thought  the 
subject  would  end  ;  but  a  wish  for  examples  of  analogous  Christian  customs  has  been 
expressed  in  so  many  quarters  that  I  gladly  avail  myself  of  the  kind  indulgence  of 
the  Editor  to  give  this  '  Sequel '  to  the  readers  of  the  Nineteenth  Century. 

2  Card.  Newman,  Development  of  Christian  Doctrine. 


1880.         THE  CEREMONIAL    USE  OF  FLOWERS.  809 

Purple  violets  strew  them  wide  ; 
Strew  the  crocus  sanguine-dyed : 
Genial  airs  such  grace  concede 

To  all  that  ask  it, 

And  the  slowly  softening  mead  : — 
Crop  the  flower  and  brim  the  basket ! 

Maids  and  youths  your  tribute  bring, 
Spoils  of  winter  nigh  to  spring ; 
I  iny  garlands  weave  in  metre — 

Yours  are  sweeter ! 
Worthless  mine ;  but  festive  still : 
No  good  in  them  save  good-will. 

O'er  the  saintly  and  the  chaste 
Rise  pure  altar  blossom-graced ; 
From  the  footstep  of  God's  Throne 
She  sees  this  hour  the  blossom  strewn  ; 
Hears  our  song,  and  helps  her  own.3 

So  sang  Prudentius  on  St.  Eulalia's  day.  Earlier  still,  St.  Jerome, 
writing  to  Heliodorus  on  the  death  of  their  beloved  Nepotianus,  after 
comparing  him  to  the  distinguished  men  of  sacred  and  profane 
history  renowned  for  their  care  in  little  things  as  in  great,  draws  con- 
solation from  the  fact  that  during  his  lifetime  Nepotianus  had  been 
wont  to  decorate  both  the  basilicas  and  memorial  churches  of  martyrs 
— 'basilicas  ecclesise,  et  martyrum  conciliabula '— with  divers  flowers 
and  foliage  and  vine  leaves,  '  ut  quidquid  placebat  in  ecclesia,  tarn 
dispositione  quam  visu,  presbyteri  laborem  et  studium  testaretur. 
Macte  virtute  : '  he  exclaims, '  cujus  talia  principia  qualis  finis  erit ! ' 4 
And  St.  Gregory  of  Tours  dwells  with  delight  on  St.  Severinus's 
practice  of  gathering  lilies  and  decorating  the  walls  of  his  basilica 
with  them.5  But  the  best-known  early  example  of  the  adoption  of 
the  old  pagan  custom — Cardinal  Bon  a  and  many  others  cite  it — occurs 
in  the  twenty-second  book  De  Civitate  Dei.  St.  Augustine  there, 
describing  the  conversion  of  Martial,  a  man  of  high  rank  and  bitterly 
opposed  to  Christianity,  relates  that  when  he  lay  dangerously  ill  his 
son-in-law  went  to  the  memorial  church  of  St.  Stephen  to  pray  for 
his  conversion.  After  long  and  earnest  supplication  he  took  flowers 
from  the  altar  (de  altari)  and  carried  them  home.  And  when  it  was 
night  he  placed  them  on  the  head  of  the  dying  man  whilst  he  slept. 
And  lo !  before  morning  dawned  Martial  awoke  and  cried  out  to 
them  that  they  should  run  to  fetch  the  bishop,  who,  St.  Augustine 
adds,  was  then  staying  with  him  at  Hippo.  In  the  same  book  St. 
Augustine  mentions  the  miraculous  recovery  of  her  sight  by  a  blind 
woman  who  was  bearing  flowers  to  the  church  on  the  translation  of 
the  relics  of  St.  Stephen. 

8  Prudentii  Carmina,  In  honorem  Eulaliee  Virg.  Peristeph.  iii.     I  am  indebted 
for  this  translation  to  the  kindness  of  Mr.  Axibrey  de  Vere. 

4  Hier.  Ad  Hclwdorum,  Epist.  iii. 

5  De  Glo.  Mart,  et  Confess,  c.  50. 


810  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  May 

For  a  vivid  picture  showing  the  growth  and  extension  of  the 
custom  at  a  later  period,  we  cannot  do  better  than  turn  to  the 
poems  of  Fortunatus,  Bishop  of  Poitiers,  in  the  sixth  century. 
'When  winter  binds  the  earth  with  ice,'  he  says,  addressing  St. 
Radegund  and  the  Abbess  Agnes  of  Poitiers, '  all  the  glory  of  the  field 
perishes  with  its  flowers.  But  in  the  spring-time,  when  the  Lord 
overcame  Hell,  bright  grass  shoots  up  and  buds  come  forth.  Then, 
do  men  decorate  their  doors  and  houses  with  flowers,  and  women 
adorn  themselves  with  sweet  roses.  But  you,  not  for  yourselves,  but  for 
Christ,  gather  these  first  fruits  ;  and  you  bear  them  to  the  churches, 
and  wreathe  the  altars  with  them  till  they  glow  with  colour.  The 
golden  crocus  is  mingled  with  the  purple  violet ;  dazzling  scarlet  is 
relieved  by  gleaming  white ;  deep  blue  blends  with  green.  It  is 
truly  a  battle  amongst  flowers.  One  triumphs  in  its  radiant  beauty ; 
another  conquers  by  its  sweet  perfume  ;  gems  and  incense  bow  before 
them.' 6  Fortunatus  was  evidently  very  fond  of  flowers,  and  more 
than  one  of  his  poems  was*  the  graceful  accompaniment  of  a  floral 
gift  to  Queen  Eadegund. 

The  great  feast  of  Pentecost,  the  very  metropolis  of  feasts  (avrrjv 
rrjv  ^rpoTToXiv  eopTwv 7),  as  St.  Chrysostom  calls  it,  gave  rise  to  a 
highly  significant  observance.  A  profusion  of  flowers  was  in  many  places 
showered  down  from  an  elevated  spot  of  the  church  to  symbolise  the 
descent  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  Martene  describes  the  ceremony  minutely 
in  his  celebrated  work,  according  to  the  various  rites  of  Avranches, 
Rouen,  Senlis,  Bayeux,  Soissons.8  Sometimes  it  took  place  at  Tierce 
after  the  Dens  in  adjutorium  and  during  the  chanting  of  the  hymn. 
The  Ordinary  of  Lucas,  Archbishop  of  Cosenza,  prescribed  that  at  Mass 
whilst  the  Sequence  was  sung  by  the  celebrant,  deacon,  and  sub- 
deacon,  roses,  lilies,  and  other  flowers  should  be  scattered  from  on  high 
into  the  sanctuary,  choir,  and  nave  of  the  church,  and  at  the  end  tiny 
pieces  of  lighted  tow.  In  some  places  live  pigeons  were  let  fly  at 
the  same  time.  Red  roses  were,  however,  generally  used  on  such 
occasions,  especially  in  Italy :  hence  Pasqua  Rosata,  the  ordinary 
Italian  name  for  Whitsuntide.  But  by  degrees  all  these  figurative 
usages,  which  Martene  thought  more  potent  aids  to  the  devotion  and 
religious  instruction  of  the  people  than  any  preaching  whatsoever 
(quibusvis  prcedicationibus],  fell  into  desuetude  ;  the  abuses  which 
they  gave  rise  to,  and  which  occasionally  converted  the  religious 
solemnity  into  a  mere  popular  entertainment — the  Processional  of 
Bamberg  was  obliged  to  forbid  showers  of  water  being  rained  upon 
the  congregation  —  compelled  the  Church  to  abolish  them.9  At 
Messina  alone  the  immissio  florum  held  its  ground  and  is  still  main- 

6  Venantii  Fortunati  Op.  Hb.  viii.  cap.  11. 

7  DC  Sane.  Pent.  horn.  ii. 

8  Mart&ne,   De  Bit.  Ant.  lib.  iv.  cap.  28. 

9  Wctzcr  et  Welte,  Die.  Eric;/,  de  In  Theol.  Cat. 


1880.        THE  CEREMONIAL    USE  OF  FLOWERS.  811 

tained  with  red  rose  leaves.10  In  Eome  it  quite  died  out,  and  is  only 
recalled  there  by  the  lovely  rain  of  white  jessamine  sprinkled  every 
year  from  the  roof  of  Santa  Maria  Maggiore  during  the  first  vespers 
and  the  High  Mass  of  the  5th  of  August  in  commemoration  of  the  tra- 
ditional origin  of  the  Basilica.  The  use  of  the  rose,  once  Maia's  flower, 
during  the  month  of  May,  the  Madonna's  month,  is  quite  national  in 
Italy.  Every  one  has  roses  in  the  oratory  or  on  the  toilet-table  all 
the  month  through.  '  Our  servants,'  a  friend  of  mine,  referring  to 
the  practice,  writes  to  me  from  Florence,  'conscientiously  spend 
their  soldi  to  keep  their  rooms  supplied  with  roses.'  In  Germany 
the  poeony,  despoiled  of  its  ancient  Greek  name,  still  preserves  a 
trace  of  the  medieval  Whitsuntide  observance :  it  is  to  this  day 
popularly  called  the  Kose  of  Pentecost  (Pfingstrose),  after  the  fashion 
of  our  country  folk  who  named  the  Polygala  gang-flower,  cross-flower, 
rogation-flower, '  bicause,'  as  old  Gerard  says, '  it  doth  specially  flourish 
in  the  Crosse  or  Gangvveeke,  or  Rogation  weeke  ;  of  which  flowers  the 
maidens  which  use  in  the  countries  to  walke  the  procession  do  make 
themselves  garlands  and  nosegays.'  u  But  I  must  not  enter  into  the 
popular  nomenclature  of  flowers ;  that  marvellous  shrine  of  the  impul- 
sive, instinctive  faith  of  mankind,  now  lavished,  wasted,  gone  astray  on 
Freja,  Thor,  and  Odin,  or  their  classic  rivals,  Juno,  Venus,  Jove,  Adonis; 
now  bent  in  reverent  wonder  before  the  mystic  passion-flower  as  it  un- 
folds its  awful  tale,  or  giving  to  St.  John  the  Baptist  blossoms  wrested 
from  the  sun- god  Baldur,  and  laying  at  Mary's  feet  the  keys  that  unlock 
spring.12  The  subject  would  lead  me  too  far  astray,  and  has,  moreover, 
been  treated  at  great  length,  if  not  exhaustively,  elsewhere.13 

How  soon  flowers  were  used  for  ecclesiastical  purposes  in  England 
it  is  difficult,  nay  impossible,  to  say.  We  know  that  gardens  (gardina 
sacristce)  14  were  devoted  to  the  special  cultivation  of  flowers  for  the 
churches.  There  was  one,  for  instance,  adjoining  the  Lady  Chapel  at 
Winchester ;  and  the  spot,  for  a  long  time  after  the  destruction  of  the 
sacristy,  went  by  the  name  of  Paradise.  And  in  his  will  Henry  the  Sixth 
left  particular  directions  concerning  a  garden  for  the  church  of  Eton 
College,  '  which  is  left  for  to  sett  in  certain  trees  and  flowers,  behov- 
able  and  convenient  for  the  service  of  the  same  church. ' 15  But  the 
date  of  the  foundation  of  the  Winchester  garden  is  unknown,  whilst 
that  of  Henry  the  Sixth  is,  comparatively  speaking,  of  recent  date.  No 
doubt  the  monasteries  of  the  middle  ages  and  the  castles  of  feudal 
times  had  gardens  attached  to  them  ;  but  their  gardens  must  have 
been  something  very  different  from  ours,  and  could  have  contained 

0  Migne,  Ency.  Tlteol.  vol.  viii.  "  Gerard's  Herbal,  p.  450. 

-  In  Germany  the  primrose  is  called  Our  Lady's  Key  (Fra/ttentohHi&tet). 

3  See  Prior,   Popular  Names  of  British  Plants.     Quarterly  Review,  cxiv.  1863. 
Canon  Oakeley,  Catlwlic  Florist. 

4  Wharton,  Anglia  Sacra,  p.  209. 

5  Nichols,  Wills  of  the  Rings  and  Queens  of  England. 


812  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  May 

but  few  flowers,  and  those  wild  ones,  such  as  the  single  rose,  borage, 
violets  (the  Anglo-Saxon  Appel-leaf),  Solomon's  seal,  lilies  of  the 
valley,  daffodils,  and  snowdrops  ;  for  scarcely  any  of  even  our  common 
garden-flowers  —  marigolds,  carnations,  pinks,  sweet-williams,  paeonies, 
sunflowers,  the  large  white  lily,  Canterbury  bells,  Christmas  roses,  and 
such  like  —  were  introduced  into  England  before  the  sixteenth  century. 
So  that  when  we  read  that  William,  Abbot  of  St.  Albans  (1214-1235) 
appointed  that  *  the  wax  taper,  which  we  are  accustomed  to  wreathe 
about  with  flowers,  should  be  burnt  before  the  beautiful  image  of 
Mary  (nobilem  Mariolam\  carved  by  Walter  of  Colchester,  both  day 
and  night  on  the  principal  feasts  and  during  the  procession  which  is 
held  in  honour  of  the  Blessed  Virgin,'  16  if  we  picture  to  ourselves  a 
candle  garlanded  with  choice,  brilliant  blossoms  such  as  we  enjoy  at 
the  present  day,  we  shall  be  very  far  from  realising  the  true  state  of 
things  ;  though  no  doubt  the  monks  got  the  best  flowers  they  could, 
fair  and  lovely  of  their  kind.  Then,  again,  the  mode  of  disposing 
flowers  must  have  been  very  different  from  modern  ways.  I  very  much 
doubt  if  they  were  arranged  in  vases  till  quite  recent  times,  for  the 
old  churchwardens'  accounts,  generally  minute  to  a  degree  in  their 
items,  do  not  contain  any  mention  whatsoever  of  vases  for  flowers  ; 
nor  do  the  invoices  of  church  plate  and  furniture  that  have  come 
down  to  us,  as  far  as  I  can  find.  But  notices  of  wreathing  candles 
are  plentiful.  Thus  Machyn,  describing  the  celebration  of  Corpus 
Christi  in  the  first  year  of  Mary's  reign,  says  :  —  '  Ther  wher  mony  *', 
goodly  pr[oss]essyons  in  mony  parryches.  ...  for  mony  had  long 
torchys,  garnyshyd  [in  the]  old  fassyouns.  .  .  .  17  ;  'and  the  parochial 
accounts  of  St.  Margaret's,  Westminster,  for  the  same  period,  given  at 
the  end  of  the  diary,  both  corroborate  Machyn's  assertion  and  explain 
what  he  meant  by  '  garnyshyd  in  the  old  fassyouns  :  '  — 

(In  1  Marise)  Item,  payde  for  garnysshyng  the  iiij  torches  for  Corpus 

Christye  Day,  and  the  cariage  of  them  from  Londone  .  .  .  ijs. 

Item,  flowres  to  the  same  torches    ........  vjd. 

(In  2  Mariae)  Item,  payde  for  flowres  for  the  torches  on  Corpus 

Christie  Day  ...........  vijrf. 

Item,  payde  for  v  staf  torches  .....  .  xs.  xrf. 

Item,  payde  for  the  garnyshyng  of  them  ......  xxc?. 

(In  3  Mariae)  Item,  payde  for  iiij  newe  torchis  wayeng  Ixxxxij  li.  di.  at 

yd.  the  li.  .........  xxxviijs.  viijd. 

Item,  payde  for  the  bote-hyre  and  for  the  carriage  of  thame  torchis  .        .  vj<£ 

Item,  payde  for  garnysshyng  of  the  sayde  torchis       .....  xxrf. 

Item,  paid  for  flowres  the  same  day          ....... 


Again,  the  highly  privileged  Tailors'  Guild,  under  the  patronage  of 
St.  John  the  Baptist,  at  Salisbury,  which  owed  its  charter  of  incorpo- 

16  Chron.  Monas.  S.  Albani.     Gesta  Abbat.  Nonaxtcrii  S.  Alb.     Mat.  Par.  et  Thorn. 
Walsingham,  vol.  i.  p.  286  (Rolls  Series). 

17  Diary  of  Henry  Machyn,  Camd.  Soc.  p.  63. 

18  Ibid.  p.  400. 


1880.         THE  CEREMONIAL    USE  OF  FLOWERS.  813 

ration  to  Edward  the  Fourth,  by  its  statutes  decreed,  '  That  the  too 
stewardis,  for  the  time  being,  every  yere,  shall  make  and  sette  afore 
Seynt  John  ye  Baptist,  upon  the  awter  [in  the  chapel  dedicated  to 
the  saint  in  St.  Thomas's  Church,  and  set  apart  for  the  special  use  of 
the  Guild],  two  tapers  of  one  Ib.  of  wex,  and  a  garlond  of  roses,  to  be 
sette  upon  Seint  John's  hed,  and  that  the  chaple  be  strewed  with 
green  rushes.'19  St.  John's  day,  coming  at  the  height  of  summer 
and  supplanting  the  great  festival  of  solar  worship,  was  always  and 
everywhere  in  Europe  commemorated  with  a  symbolic  and  abundant  use 
of  flowers  ;  and  the  custom  was  such  a  matter  of  course  in  England 
that  we  find  Bishop  Pecock  availing  himself  of  it  to  illustrate  in  his 
quaint,  picturesque,  vigorous  language,  one  of  his  thirteen  conclusions 
against  the  first  of  the  three  famous  errors : — 

'  Seie  to  me  good  Sire,  and  answere  herto,  whanne  men  of  the  cuntre  vplond 
bringen  into  Londoun  in  Mydsomer  eue  braunchis  of  trees  fro  Bischopis  wode  and 
flouris  fro  the  feeld,  and  bitaken  tho  to  citeseins  of  Londoun  forto  therwith  araie 
her  housis,  schulden  men  of  Londoun  receyuying  and  taking  braunchis  and  flouris, 
seie  and  holde  that  the  braunchis  grewen  out  of  the  cards  whiche  broujtan  hem  to 
Londoun,  and  that  tho  cartis  or  the  hondis  of  the  bringers  weren  groundis  and 
fundamentis  of  tho  braunchis  and  flouris  ?  Goddis  forbode  so  litil  witt  be  in 
her  hedis.  Certis,  thouj  Crist  and  his  Apostlis  weren  now  lyuyng  at  Londoun, 
and  wolden  bringe  so  as  is  now  seid  braunchis  fro  Bischopis  wode  and  flouris  fro 
the  feeld  into  Londoun,  and  wolden  delyuere  to  men  that  thei  make  there  with 
her  housis  gay,  into  remembraunce  of  Seint  Johun  Baptist,  and  of  this  that  it  was 
prophecied  of  him  that  manye  schulden  ioie  in  his  birthe,  jit  tho  men  of  Londoun 
receyuying  so  tho  braunchis  and  flouris  oujten  not  seie  and  feele  that  tho 
braunchis  and  flouris  grewen  out  of  Cristis  hondis,  and  out  of  the  Apostolis 
hondis.  .  .  .'20 

Crowning  statues  of  the  saints  with  wreaths  of  flowers  was  a  com- 
mon usage  in  France  in  the  thirteenth  century.21  And  in  Picardy 
St.  Barbara  received  a  nosegay  in  her  right  hand,  as  well  as  a  crown 
of  flowers  on  her  head.  But  the  time  came  when  the  church  of  Eton 
College  no  longer  needed  the  garden  King  Henry  had  thoughtfully 
and  piously  provided  for  it.  Flowers  were  banished  from  the 
cathedrals  and  churches  of  our  forefathers  throughout  the  land,  and 
for  a  long  time  they  had  no  place  there.  And  when  it  was  sought  to 
bring  them  back,  rigorous  Protestantism  stoutly  resisted  the  super- 
stitious innovation.  So  the  matter  was  carried  before  Ecclesiastical 
Courts ;  and  the  case  is  so  curious,  it  bears  so  directly  on  our  sub- 
ject, yet  is  so  much  out  of  the  way  of  the  ordinary  reader,  that  I  do 
not  hesitate  to  quote  largely  from  it.  In  Elphinstone  v.  Purchas  the 
ninth  article  charges — 

That  you,  the  said  Rev.  John  Purchas,  in  the  said  Church  or  Chapel  of  St. 
James's,  Brighton  aforesaid,  on  divers  occasions  (to  wit,  en  Sunday,  November  3, 
1868 ;  on  Sunday,  November  8,  18G8 ;  on  the  day  of  the  Purification  of  the 

19  Hoare,  History  of  Modern  ~\ViltxlArc. 

20  Bishop  Pecock,  The  llepressor  of  over  much  llaihing  of  the  Clergy.     Rolls  Series. 
81  Annal.  Arch.  vol.  i. 


814  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  May 

Virgin  Mary,  February  2,  1869 ;  on  Sunday,  February  7,  1869 ;  and  on  Whit 
Sunday,  May  16,  1869),  caused  vases  of  flowers  to  be  placed  on  the  holy  table,  or 
on  a  narrow  ledge  resting  thereon,  or  fixed  immediately  above  the  same,  so  as  to 
appear  to  the  congregation  to  be  in  contact  or  connection  with  the  holy  table,  and 
allowed  them  to  remain  so  placed  on  each  of  the  said  occasions  during  the 
performance  of  Divine  service.  That  you  also  during  Lent,  1869,  caused  the 
said  vases  of  flowers  to  be  removed  and  taken  away  ;  and  again  afterwards,  more 
especially  on  Easter  Sunday,  March  28,  1869,  and  on  Whit  Sunday,  May  16, 1869, 
replaced,  or  caused  to  be  replaced,  the  said  vases  with  the  same  or  other  flowers ; 
and  that  you  also  profusely  decorated,  or  caused  to  be  profusely  decorated,  the 
said  holy  table  with  flowers,  the  circumstance  of  such  vases  and  flowers  being  so 
placed  and  kept  on  the  holy  table,  or  removed  therefrom,  being  intended  by  you  as 
and  constituting  a  ceremonial  and  symbolical  observance. 

Now  mark  Sir  Robert  Phillimore's  judgment : — 

With  regard  to  this  charge  (he  said),  there  is  no  evidence  that  the  flowers 
were  used  as  an  additional  rite  or  ceremony,  or  as  an  ornament  in  the  sense 
affixed  to  that  word  in  the  judgment  of  the  Privy  Council  in  Liddell  v.  Westerton. 
They  appear  to  me  an  innocent  and  not  unseemly  decoration,  and  one  not  minis- 
tering or  subsidiary  to  any  usage  or  doctrine  which  the  Church  has  rejected  or 
abrogated,  and  to  be  in  the  same  category  with  the  branches  of  holly  at  Christ- 
mas, and  the  willow-blossoms  on  Palm  Sunday,  with  which  our  churches  have 
very  generally  been  adorned.  I  have  the  Bishop  of  Exeter's  judgment  on  this  point, 
to  which  I  was  referred,  of  which  I  think  it  is  enough  to  say  that  it  was  given 
nearly  ten  years  before  the  decision  in  Liddell  v.  Westerton  had  settled  the  law,  and 
drawn  the  distinction  between  ornaments  (ornamenta)  and  decorations.  And  here 
I  must  draw  attention  to  the  language  o  f  the  Privy  Council  in  Martin  v.  Mackono- 
chie : — '  There  is  a  clear  and  obvious  distinction  between  the  presence  in  the 
church  of  things  inert  and  unused,  and  the  active  use  of  the  things  as  a  part  of  the 
administration  of  a  sacrament  or  of  a  ceremony.  Incense,  water,  a  banner,  a 
torch,  a  candle,  and  a  candlestick  may  be  parts  of  the  furniture  or  ornaments  of  a 
church ;  but  the  censing  of  persons  and  things,  or,  as  was  said  by  the  Dean  of 
Arches,  the  bringing  in  incense  at  the  beginning  or  during  the  celebration,  and 
removing  it  at  the  close  of  the  celebration  of  the  Eucharist ;  the  symbolic  use  of 
water  in  baptism,  or  its  ceremonial  mixing  with  the  sacramental  wine ;  the 
waving  or  carrying ;  the  lighting,  cremation,  and  symbolical  use  of  the  torch  or 
candle :  these  acts  give  a  life  and  a  meaning  to  what  is  otherwise  inexpressive, 
and  the  act  must  be  justified,  if  at  all,  as  part  of  a  ceremonial  law.' 

I  do  not  pronounce  that  Mr.  Purchas  has  been  guilty  of  an  ecclesiastical  offence 
in  this  matter.22 

Legal  distinctions  are  proverbially  fine,  so  fine,  indeed,  that  some- 
times not  even  acute  minds  trained  in  the  science  of  law  can  seize  them. 
Is  it  on  this  account,  or  is  it  due  to  particular  dulness  of  intellect, 
that  some  perceive  a  mere  quibble,  a  subtlety  of  the  doctrine  of  inten- 
tions, in  the  decision  of  Sir  Eobert  Phillimore  that  has  suffered  flowers 
to  creep  into  the  ceremonial  of  the  Church  of  England  ?  Be  it  as  it 
may,  to  not  a  few  the  decision  is  utterly  distasteful ;  and  one  oppo- 
nent, far  from  thinking  flowers  an  innocent  and  not  unseemly 
decoration,  and  one  not  ministering  or  subsidiary  to  any  usage  or 

52  3  Lam  R  ports,  Admiralty  and  Eccles.  Cases,  66. 


1880.         THE  CEREMONIAL    USE  OF  FLOWERS.  815 

doctrine  which  the  Church  has  abrogated,  has  with  bitter  reprobation 
pointed  out  that  the  use  of  them  has  risen  into  importance  in  the 
Anglican  Church  concurrently  with  the  teaching  of  the  Eeal  Pre- 
sence.23 That  many  of  every  rank  and  profession,  on  the  other  hand, 
welcomed  it  with  enthusiasm,  cannot  be  more  forcibly  shown  than  by 
recalling  the  account  given  in  the  Pall  Mall  Gazette  two  years  ago  of 
the  scene  at  Covent  Garden  the  day  before  Easter  Sunday : — 

Oovent  Garden  Market  this  morning  presented  an  extraordinary  spectacle, 
illustrating  in  a  remarkable  manner  the  general  adoption  of  floral  decorations  at 
Easter  in  the  churches.  Although  many  cf  the  choicest  flowers,  to  the  dismay  of 
gardeners,  are  cut  in  the  gardens  of  the  country  gentry  for  the  London  churches 
they  attend,  the  amount  of  money  spent  in  decking  the  more  favoured  shrines  for 
the  '  Queen  of  Feasts '  is  very  great,  and  competition  is  very  strong.  As  early  as 
4  -A.H.  well-known  Churchmen  and  delicate  ladies  were  standing  outside  the 
entrance  anxious  to  have  the  first  bid  ;  for  so  great  a  profit  do  the  growers  as  well 
as  the  shopkeepers  make  of  the  decoration  of  churches  that  of  late  years  they  have 
refused  to  book  orders  in  advance.  Clergy  mingled  with  the  throng,  but  not  in 
such  numbers  as  in  previous  years,  as  it  has  been  found  better  to  allow  ladies  from 
the  suburbs  to  be  accompanied  by  some  local  florist  to  bargain  for  them.  Many 
Sisters  of  Mercy  were  present,  bearing  away  with  them  in  triumph  floral  spoils. 
A  well-known  barrister,  a  West  End  churchwarden,  a  medical  man  of  great 
repute,  a  countess,  and  at  least  one  member  of  the  Legislature  were  among  the 
throng  who  braved  the  elements.  Geraniums,  it  may  be  mentioned,  fetched  from 
eighteen  to  twenty-four  shillings  a  dozen.  Arum  lilies  were  in  great  request,  but, 
owing  to  the  late  period  at  which  Easter  falls,  there  was  an  unusual  supply  of 
colours  of  every  shade  and  hue,  but  no  diminution  in  price ;  '  for,'  said  a  shop- 
keeper, when  told  the  charges  should  be  proportionably  less, '  the  demand  con- 
tinually increases.'  In  all  the  adjacent  streets  four-wheel  cabs  were  to  be  seen 
laden  inside  and  outside  with  every  kind  of  flower,  from  the  rare  exotic  to  those  of 
the  humblest  kind.24 

Is  it  credible  that  not  only  Churchmen  of  note,  and  Sisters  of 
Mercy,  and  ladies  of  rank,  but  professional  men,  men  in  the  law,  in 
the  legislature,  should  face  the  discomforts  of  an  early,  inclement 
morning  at  Covent  Garden,  the  annoyance  of  bargaining,  the  vexa- 
tion, I  had  almost  said,  of  being  fleeced,  merely  to  indulge  a  simple 
taste  for  floral  decoration  ? 


II. 

Long  before  the  Gardina  Sacristcv  were  done  away  with,  the 
Corona  Sacerdotalis  reappeared :  under  altered  circumstances,  it  is 
true,  still  it  did  reappear ;  and  the  canons  and  clergy  of  the  cathe- 
drals and  churches  of  England  walked  in  procession  crowned  with 
blooming  flowers — roses,  honeysuckles,  or  the  sweet  woodruff.  Among 
the  valuable  but  irregular  churchwardens'  accounts  of  St.  Mary  Hill 

23  '  The  Degradation  of  Theology,'  Pall  Mall  Gazette,  Jan.  2,  1875. 

24  Pall  Mall  Gazette,  April  20,  1878. 


816  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  May 

given  in  Nichols's  Extracts  we  have  the  clearest  testimony  of  the  pre- 
valence of  it  during  the  years  ranging  from  1483  to  1489,  which 
carry  us  through  the  brief  reigns  of  Edward  the  Fifth  and  Richard 
the  Third  down  into  the  first  part  of  that  of  Henry  the  Seventh  : — 

A  dozen  and  |  rose  Garlondes  on  St.  Barnebes'  day  [June  17]         .         .  0  0  8£ 
Item,  for  two  doss'  di.  bocse  [box]  garlonds  for  prests  and  clerkes  on  St. 

Barnebe  daye .  Is.  I0d. 

Garlondes  on  Corpus  Christi-day    ........  10<?. 

For  rose  garlondis  and  wodrove  garlondis  on  St.  Barnebes  day       .        .  lid. 

Again,  for  the  years  1524-5  the  churchwardens'  accounts  of  St. 
Martin  Outwich  furnish  the  following : — 

1524.  Item,  for  rose  garlands  on  Corpus  Xti  day vjrf. 

Item,  for  byrche  at  Midsummer         . ijd. 

Item,  for  rose  garlands,  brede,  wyne,  ale  on  ij  Sent  Marten's  days     .'  xvrf. 

Item,  for  holly  and  ivy  at  Chrystmas ij«?. 

1525.  Paid  for  kaks,  flowers  and  yow        ...        .        .        .        .        .  ijrf. 

Paid  for  brome  ageynst  Ester jd. 

Paid  for  rosse  garlonds  on  Corpus  Christi  daye         ....  vjd. 

Payd  for  byrcbe  and  bromys  at  Mydsom' iijrf. 

Payd  for  brede,  ale  and  wyne  and  garlonds,  on  Seyut  Marten's  day 

[July  4]  ye  fnslacyon  25 xvj d. 

But  the  garlands  were  not  confined  to  priests  and  canons ; 
bishops  wore  them.  Eoger  de  Walden,  when  he  went  in  solemn  pro- 
cession on  the  feast  of  the  Commemoration  of  St.  Paul,  1405,  to  be 
enthroned  in  his  episcopal  chair  at  St.  Paul's,  had  a  wreath  of  red 
roses  on  his  head  :  '  tarn  ipsemet  Episcopus,  quam  omnes  Canonici 
ejusdem  EcclesiaB  usi  sunt  in  Processione  solenni  garlandis  de  Rosis 
rubris ;  et  qui  vidit  ista  mterfuit,  testimonium  perhibet  de  his,  et 
scripsit  haec.' 26  Nor  is  this  the  sole  mention  we  have  in  history  of 
the  custom  in  connection  with  St.  Paul's.  'Polydore  Vergil,  who 
was  sent  on  a  mission  to  England  at  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth 
century  by  Alexander  the  Sixth,  was  struck  by  it  and  notes  it  in 
his  De  Rerum  Inventoribus.  '  At  the  present  time,'  he  observes, 
4  with  the  English  as  elsewhere,  the  priests  on  stated  and  solemn 
occasions  appear  at  the  public  services  of  the  Church  with  wreaths  on 
their  heads,  and  especially  the  priests  of  St.  Paul's  at  London,  who, 
on  the  feast  of  St.  Paul  in  the  month  of  June,  are  crowned  for  the 
celebration  of  all  the  sacred  offices  proper  to  the  day.' 27  •  Stow's  refer- 
ence to  it  in  his  narrative  of  the  procession  with  the  famous  buck's- 
head borne  before  the  cross,  when  'the  Dean  and  Chapter  apparelled  in 
coapes  and  vestments  with  garlands  of  roses  on  their  heads  issued  out 
at  the  west  door,'  is  so  well  known  that  it  scarcely  needs  to  be  cited. 
Some  of  the  notices  of  it  in  foreign  countries,  however,  are  less  familiar. 

M  Nichols,  Extracts  from  Cliurclwarde.ns'  Accomjrfs,  etc.,  1797. 

26  Wharton,  Historia  de  Epii.  ct  Dec.  Londincnsibus. 

27  Lib.  ii.  c.  17. 


1880.         THE  CEREMONIAL    USE  OF  FLOWERS.          817 

They  occur  chiefly  in  connection  with  the  regulations  for  the  observance 
of  Corpus  Christi.  The  Diocesan  Synod  of  Worms,  for  example,  held 
in  1610,  amongst  other  decrees  relating  to  the  celebration  of  Corpus 
Christi,  enacted  that  boys  wearing  wreaths  on  their  heads  should 
walk  in  the  processions  appointed  for  the  day. 28  And  Serarius  in  his 
elaborate  treatise  is  at  great  pains  not  only  to  lay  down  the  rules  for 
the  due  solemnisation  of  the  Corpus  Christi  processions  in  the  diocese 
of  Mayence,  with  clergy  and  laymen,  girls  and  boys,  all  wearing 
wreaths  and  garlands  composed  of  roses  and  various  other  flowers, 
and  oak  and  ivy  ;  but  he  also  defends  the  use  of  wreaths  against  the 
mockery  of  some  and  the  condemnation  of  others  who,  far  from  con- 
sidering it  a  festive  and  joyful  rite  giving  glory  and  honour  to  God 
— which  he  maintained  it  was — cried  it  down  on  account  of  its  long- 
standing connection  with  the  licentious  and  idolatrous  usages  of 
paganism ;  and  he  naively  concludes  his  lengthy  argument  with  the 
somewhat  utilitarian  plea  that  '  the  wreaths  serve  another  purpose 
than  the  honour  and  glory  of  Grod :  they  protect  the  head  from  the 
rays  of  the  sun,  which  at  the  time  is  scorching  hot ;  but  even  this,  he 
exultingly  adds,  '  may  be  referred  to  the  end  set  forth  above,  for  as 
all  walk  bareheaded  in  honour  of  Christ,  so  likewise  for  His  glory 
they  ought  in  a  measure  to  consult  the  interests  of  their  bodily 
health.  Where  is  the  harm  ?  Is  it  not  rather  a  praiseworthy  act 
thus  to  combine  prudence  with  religion  and  piety?29  The  whole 
city  of  Mayence  on  this  occasion,  he  says,  was  made  one  single 
temple :  the  walls,  the  houses,  every  place  available  for  decoration 
was  ornamented  with  flowers  and  foliage;  and  all  the  road- ways  were 
strewed  with  them.  Even  the  Emperor  wore  a  floral  crown  at  such 
times ;  for  we  learn  from  Samelli's  letters  that  Ferdinand  the  Second 
used  to  take  part  in  the  solemnity  '  sola  florea  redirnitus  corolla.' 

The  same  practice  was,  moreover,  general  in  France  and  Italy. 
Indeed,  wherever  the  festival  of  Corpus  Christi  was  kept  flowers  were 
in  great  request.  In  the  Koman  Kitual  edited  by  Catalani  at  the 
command  of  Benedict  the  Fourteenth  it  is  strictly  enjoined  that  each 
of  the  laymen  bearing  the  baldacchino  on  Corpus  Christi  day  should 
be  crowned  with  wreaths  of  flowers  ;  that  boys  walking  two  and  two 
with  garlands  on  their  heads  should  scatter  rose  leaves  before  the 
Blessed  Sacrament ;  that  men  carrying  lamps  should  likewise  wear 
roses  twined  round  their  heads ;  and  that  the  other  boys  and  girls  of 
the  procession  should  also  have  wreaths. 

At  Nola  a  peculiar  custom,  undoubtedly  of  heathen  origin  and 
probably  connected  with  the  worship  of  Jupiter,  prevailed,  by  which 
every  priest  of  the  diocese  was  obliged  to  go  to  the  cathedral  once  a 
year  to  do  homage  to  his  bishop.  But  the  clergy  were  not  allowed 
to  enter  the  city  for  the  purpose  unless  crowned  with  roses  or  other 
flowers,  the  most  beautiful  of  the  season,  and  carrying  in  their  hands 
28  Concilia  Germ.  t.  ix.  M  Scrarii  Opus  Theol,  t.  iii. 

VOL.  VII.— No.  39.  3  I 


818  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY.  May 

bunches  of  roses  skilfully  and  artistically  arranged.  All  the  people 
of  the  neighbourhood  assembled  in  the  cathedral  to  witness  the  cere- 
mony. Each  priest  approached  the  episcopal  throne  in  turn,  knelt 
down,  took  off  his  wreath,  and  having  kissed  the  prelate's  hand,  pre- 
sented him  with  both  wreath  and  nosegay.  When  all  had  rendered 
obeisance,  the  bishop  sent  the  wreaths  to  the  first  matrons  of  the  city 
who  were  present.30 

In  Italy,  too,  when  a  priest  said  his  first  mass  he  wore  a  crown  of 
flowers  up  to  the  offertory,  after  which  he  sent  it  to  his  nearest  re- 
lative who  wore  it  for  the  remainder  of  the  day.  I  am  told  that  this 
custom  is,  with  a  slight  difference,  to  be  met  with  in  some  parts  of 
Germany  at  the  present  day  :  the  priest  keeps  the  crown  on  during 
the  whole  of  mass  ;  and  for  a  long  while  after  it  may  be  seen  carefully 
preserved  in  his  room. 


III. 

In  the  early  days  of  Christianity  the  use  of  bridal  wreaths  was 
repudiated  because  it  was  so  intimately  connected  with  the  excesses 
of  heathen  feasts  ;  and  Tertullian  chiefly  rested  his  contention  against 
all  manner  of  crowns  on  the  ground  that  they  owed  their  origin  to 
falsehood  and  idolatrous  worship.     But  by  far  the  most  interesting, 
curious  part  of  the  famous  De  Corona  derived  its  rugged  force  from 
the   argument  of  congruity :  the  use  of  wreaths  was  manifestly   a 
violation  of  the  intentions  of  nature,  because  the  organs  provided  to 
convey  to  the  soul  of  man  the  special  enjoyment  attached  to  the 
divine  gift  of  flowers,  which  were  the  peculiar  or  at  least  principal 
material  of  wreaths,  are  the  organs  of  sight  and  smell.     With  sight 
and  smell,  then,  he  says,  make  use  of  flowers,  for  these  are  the  senses 
by  which  they  are  to  be  enjoyed  ;  use  them  by  means  of  the  eyes  and 
nose,  which  are  the  members  to  which  these  senses  belong.    You  have 
got  the  thing  from  Grod,  the  mode  of  it  from  the  world  ;  but  an  ex- 
traordinary mode  does  not  prevent  the  use  of  the  thing  in  the  common 
way.     Let  flowers,  then,  both  when  fastened  into  each  other  and  tied 
together  with  thread  and  rush,  be  what  they  are  when  free,  when  loose 
— things  to  be  looked  at  and  smelt.     You  count  it  a  crown,  let  us  say, 
when  you  have  a  bunch  of  them  bound  together  in  a  series,  that  you 
may  carry  many  at  one  time,  that  you  may  enjoy  them  all  at  once. 
Well  then,  lay  them  in  your  bosom  if  they  are  so  singularly  pure ;  and 
strew  them  on  your  couch  if  they  are  so  exquisitely  soft ;  and  consign 
them  to  your  cup  if  they  are  so  perfectly  harmless.   Have  the  pleasure 
of  them  in  as  many  ways  as  they  appeal  to  your  senses.     But  what 
taste  for  a  flower,  what  sense  for  anything  belonging  to  a  crown  but 
its  band,  have  you  in  the  head,  which  is  able  neither  to  distinguish 

30  Ughelli,  Italia  Sacra.     Edit.  Sec. 


1880.         THE  CEREMONIAL    USE  OF  FLOWERS.  819 

colour,  nor  to  inhale  sweet  perfumes,  nor  to  appreciate  softness  ?  It 
is  as  much  against  nature  to  long  after  a  flower  with  the  head  as  it 
is  to  crave  food  with  the  ear,  or  sound  with  the  nostril.  But  every- 
thing which  is  against  nature  deserves  to  be  branded  as  monstrous 
among  all  men ;  but  with  us  it  is  to  be  condemned  also  as  a  sacrilege 
against  God  the  Lord  and  Creator  of  nature.31  He  did  not  object  to 
flowers  being  placed  in  the  bosom,  scattered  on  the  couch,  dropped  in 
the  cup,  though  all  these  uses  more  than  trod  upon  the  heels  of 
heathen  luxury,  because,  judging  between  things  agreeable  to  reason 
and  things  opposed  to  it,  they  came  under  the  former  category.  Singu- 
larly enough,  he  quite  overlooks  the  reference  in  Wisdom  and  Isaiah 
to  festal  wreaths,  and  concludes  that  the  people  of  God  never  indulged 
in  the  use  of  them,  either  on  the  occasion  of  public  rejoicing,  or  to 
gratify  criminal  luxury :  *  So  they  returned  from  the  Babylonish 
captivity  with  timbrels,  and  flutes,  and  psalteries  more  suitably  than 
with  crowns  ;  and  after  eating  and  drinking  uncrowned,  they  rose  up 
to  play.  For  neither  would  the  account  of  the  rejoicing  nor  the  ex- 
posure of  the  luxury  have  been  silent  touching  the  honour  or  dis- 
honour of  the  crown.'  But  when  '  uncrowned  they  rose  up  to  play,' 
the  people  were  in  the  desert.  '  Thus,  too,  Isaiah,'  he  continues,  4  with 
timbrels,  and  psalteries,  and  flutes,  they  drink  wine,'  would  have  added 
with  crowns,  if  this  practice  had  ever  had  place  in  the  things  of  God.32 
Clement  of  Alexandria  likewise  declaimed  against  the  unfitness  of 
setting  crowns  of  flowers  above  the  organs  of  sight  and  smell : — 

Do  not  encircle  my  head  with  a  crown,  for  in  spring-time  it  is  delightful  to 
while  away  the  time  on  the  dewy  meads,  while  soft  and  many-coloured  flowers 
are  in  bloom,  and,  like  the  bees,  enjoy  a  natural  and  pure  fragrance.  But  to  adorn 
one's  self  with  a  '  crown  woven  from  the  fresh  mead '  and  wear  it  at  home,  were 
unfit  for  a  man  of  temperance.  For  it  is  not  suitable  to  fill  the  wanton  hair  with 
rose  leaves,  or  violets,  or  lilies,  or  other  such  flowers,  stripping  the  sward  of  its 
flowers.  .  .  .  Besides  those  who  crown  themselves  destroy  the  pleasure  there  is  in 
flowers ;  for  they  enjoy  neither  the  sight  of  them,  since  they  wear  the  crown  above 
their  eyes ;  nor  their  fragrance,  since  they  put  the  flowers  away  above  the  organs 
of  respiration.  *  .  .  As  beauty,  so  also  the  flower  delights  when  looked  at ;  and 
it  is  meet  to  glorify  the  Creator  by  the  enjoyment  of  the  sight  of  beautiful 
objects.33 

But  he  condemned  the  wreath  not  so  much  on  this  account,  not  so 
much  on  account  of  its  being  a  symbol  of  recklessness  and  an  incite- 
ment to  rioting  and  drunkenness,  as  because  it  had  been  dedicated  to 
idols.  Tertullian's  notion,  however,  predominates  in  Minutius  Felix, 
so  that  when  Caacilius  charges  Christians  that  they  do  not  wreathe 
their  heads  with  flowers,  Octavius  is  made  to  answer : — 

Who  is  he  who  doubts  of  our  indulging  ourselves  in  'spring  flowers,  when  we 
gather  both  the  rose  of  spring  and  the  lily,  and  whatever  else  is  of  agreeable  colour 
and  odour  among  flowers  ?  For  these  we  both  uss  scattered  loose  and  free,  we 
twine  our  necks  with  them  in  garlands.  Pardon  us  forsooth,  that  we  do  not 

81  Ante-Nicene  Chrhtian  Library,  vol.  xi.    '        K  Hi  I.  w  Ibid.  vol.  ir. 

3i2 


820  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  May 

crown  our  heads ;   we  are  accustomed  to  receive  the  scent  of  a  sweet  flower 
in  our  nostrils,  not  to  inhale  it  with  the  back  of  our  head  or  with  our  hair.34 

Still,  whatever  other  motive  prevailed  in  the  written  denuncia- 
tions by  the  primitive  Christians  of  wreaths,  hatred,  on  account  of  the 
luxury  almost  invariably  associated  with  the  heathen  use  of  them, 
was  never  altogether  absent.  It  stands  out  in  strong  relief  in  the 
Syriac  version  that  has  come  down  to  us  of  the  Memorial  of  the 
Greek  senator  Ambrose,  addressed  to  his  fellow- senators  when  they 
raised  an  outcry  against  him  for  embracing  Christianity :  '  Your 
festivals,  too,  I  hate ;  for  there  is  no  moderation  where  they  are  ;  the 
sweet  flutes  also,  dispellers  of  care,  which  play  with  a  tremulous 
motion;  and  the  preparation  of  ointments  wherewith  ye  anoint 
yourselves ;  and  the  chaplets  which  ye  put  on.' 35  But  in  spite  of 
Tertullian ;  in  spite  of  Clement  of  Alexandria  and  Minutius  Felix  ; 
in  spite  of  the  rigour  that  would  interdict  even  the  crown  of  the 
bride  and  bridegroom,  the  graceful  practice  was  revived  with  a  high 
significance  it  had  never  had  before,  and,  freed  from  old  associations, 
the  nuptial  crown  became  the  prerogative  of  the  virtuous  alone. 
Some  think  that  objections  to  it  were  never  very  widely  entertained  ; 
but  whether  they  were  or  riot,  in  the  fourth  century  it  was  again  a 
common  observance  and  an  honoured  one.  St.  Chrysostom  is  our  first 
authority  on  this  point :  *  Garlands  are  wont  to  be  worn  on  the  heads 
of  bridegrooms,  as  a  symbol  of  victory,  betokening  that  they  approach 
the  marriage  bed  unconquered  by  pleasure.  But  if  captivated  by 
pleasure  he  has  already  given  himself  up  to  harlots,  why  does  he  wear 
the  garland,  since  he  has  been  subdued  ?  ' 3G  Then  in  both  the  Latin 
and  Arabic  Lives  of  St.  Alexius — Alexius  was  the  only  son  of  the 
senator  Euphemian,  one  of  the  first  nobles  of  the  court  of  the 
Emperor  Theodosius — mention  is  made  of  the  wreaths  placed  on  the 
heads  of  Alexius  and  his  bride,  a  member  of  the  imperial  family,  by 
the  chief  priest,  at  their  marriage  in  one  of  the  churches  of  Rome :  a 
marriage  celebrated  with  truly  royal  magnificence,  if  we  may  believe 
the  accounts  of  the  feast  served  on  the  occasion  at  six  hundred  tables 
to  the  strangers  and  poor  people  who  flocked  to  witness  it.37  And  in 
his  History  of  the  Franks  St.  Gregory  of  Tours  relates  how  the  bride 
of  Injuriosus,  the  richest  senator  of  Auvergne,  who  had  resolved  to 
consecrate  herself  to  the  service  of  God  by  a  vow  of  virginity,  lamented 
to  her  husband  on  the  first  day  of  their  marriage  that  she  had  lost 
her  crown  of  incorruptible  roses  for  the  fleeting  roses  that  disfigured 
rather  than  embellished  her.38  Furthermore  we  gather  from  Claudian 
that  Honorius  was  satisfied  with  a  crown  of  flowers  at  his  marriage : 

Tu  festas,  Hymenaee,  faces,  tu,  Gratia,  flores 
Elige,  tu  gammas,  Concordia,  necte  coronas. 

31  Ante-Nic.  Christ.  Lib.  vol.  xiii.  8i  Ibid.  vol.  xxiv. 

ss  Horn.  ix.  1  Tim.    (Trans.  J.  Tweed.)  i7  Bollandi  Acta  Sanct.  torn.  iv. 

3S  Hut.  des  Francx.     Edit.  Fr.  r.  41.    (1836.) 


1880.         THE  CEREMONIAL    USE  OF  FLOWERS.  821 

And  the  same  poet,  exhorting  the  great  Eoman  general  Stilicho  to 
marry,  says: 

Solitas  galea  fulgere  comas, 

Stilico,  molli  necte  corona. 

The  observance  is  also  more  than  once  alluded  to  by  the  brilliant 
many-sided  Sidonius  Apollinaris.  In  a  letter  to  his  friend  Heronius 
describing  the  pomp  of  Eicimer's  marriage,  he  says,  '  Jam  quidem 
virgo  tradita  est,  jam  corona  sponsus  honoratur  ;  '  and  in  his  pane- 
gyric to  the  Emperor  Anthemius,  referring  to  the  same  marriage,  he, 
by  a  delicate  allusion  to  the  valour  of  Kicimer,  has  memorized  the 
contemporaneous  use  of  the  laurel  crown  for  warriors  and  the  bride- 
groom's wreath  of  myrtle  :  — 

Hos  thalamos,  Ricimer,  virtus  tibi  pronuba  poscit, 
Atque  Dionaeam  dat  Martia  laurea  myrtum. 

Eicimer  —  the  Eoman  king-maker  —  it  will  be  remembered,  married 
the  daughter  of  Anthemius. 

The  marriage  service  of  the  Eastern  Church  is  literally  called  in 
the  Ei^oAoYioi/  the  ceremony  of  the  wreath  (^A.Ko\ovdia  rov 
crT£</>ai/&>/iaTos),  because  of  the  solemn  rite  of  the  nuptial  crown 
observed  in  it.  And  to  be  crowned  (a-rs<f>avova-6ai}  and  to  be 
married  (ayafjt,ei<rdai)  are  synonymous.  Hence,  too,  the  prohibition 
of  secret  marriage  stands  :  No  one  must  be  crowned  secretly  (  M^Ssts 
fjLvcrTiKws  <TT£(f)avovo-0a>}.  In  fact,  the  coronation  of  the  bridegroom 
and  bride  constitutes  a  most  important  part  of  the  ceremony  of 
marriage.  It  is  performed  by  the  chief  officiating  priest  with  wreaths 
or  chaplets  composed  for  the  most  part  of  olive  sprays  mixed  with 
white  and  purple  bands  or  flowers.  When  placing  the  wreath  on  the 
head  of  the  bridegroom  the  priest  says,  '  The  servant  of  God  N.  is 
crowned  for  [i.e.  marries]  the  servant  of  God  N.  in  the  Name  of  the 
Father  and  of  the  Son  and  of  the  Holy  Ghost.'39  Having  gone 
through  a  like  ceremony  with  the  bride,  he  crosses  both  their  hands 
and  blesses  them  thrice  in  this  form  :  '  0  Lord,  our  God,  crown  them 
with  glory  and  honour  (Kvpis  6  ®sbs  rjfjiwv,  Bogy  KCU  ripy  a-Tsfydvaxrov 
avrovs}.'1  The  rite  of  the  cup,  which  follows  next,  having  been  ful- 
filled, the  priest  leads  the  newly  married  pair  round  in  the  form  of  a 
circle,  whilst  the  wreaths  are  borne  behind  by  the  best  man  ;  and 
finally  both  bridegroom  and  bride  are  crowned  afresh  with  a  solemn 
blessing. 

Up  to  the  ninth  century  the  rite  of  coronation  was  forbidden  at 
second  nuptials.  Later,  however,  it  was  tolerated  ;  though,  as  a 
general  rule,  wherever  the  custom  of  marriage  wreaths  prevailed 
outside  the  Greek  Church  the  use  of  "them  was  limited  to  first 
nuptials.  And  in  Switzerland  so  much  importance  was  attached  to 


i  6  Sov\os  rov   ®eov   6  5e?j/a  TTJP  Suv\i]v  rov  &eov   rr)v5e,  els  rb  uvop.a  rov 
{larpbs,  Kal  TOV  flov,  KOI  rov  aylov  ny(vfj.aros. 


822  THE  NINETEENTH    CENTURY.  May 

their  symbolical  significance  that  a  very  strict  law  was  in  force  pro- 
hibiting brides  from  wearing  chaplets  or  garlands  in  the  church,  or  at 
any  time  during  the  wedding  feast,  if  they  had  previously  in  any  way 
forfeited  their  right  to  the  privileges  of  maidenhood/0 


IV. 

As  at  the  dawn  of  Christianity  the  nuptial  wreath  was  repudiated 
because  it  was  contaminated  by  its  contact  with  paganism,  so  on  like 
grounds  the  heathen  customs  of  crowning  the  dead  and  strewing 
their  graves  with  flowers  were  at  first  rejected  by  the  early  Christians; 
and  in  so  marked  a  way  that  Csecilius,  in  the  Octavius  of  Minutius 
Felix,  upbraided  them  for  refusing  garlands  even  to  their  sepulchres. 
Very  soon  after  it  was  made,  however,  Octavius's  defence  was  no 
longer  required.  The  dead  body,  which  under  the  Old  Law  was 
decreed  an  unclean  thing,  became  '  honourable  in  the  dishonour  of 
corruption.'  The  Jew  abhorred  it:  to  touch  it,  nay  its  very  presence, 
was  pollution  to  him.  To  honour  and  reverence  it  was  a  sacred  duty 
of  the  Christian  bound  up  with  fundamental  doctrines  of  his  faith  ; 
and  he  claimed  it  as  a  privilege.  Naturally  enough,  the  tombs  of  the 
martyrs  were  the  first  objects  of  the  particular  phase  of  the  new-born 
obligation  that  belongs  to  the  subject  we  are  pursuing.  And 
perhaps  the  earliest  illustration  of  its  fulfilment  is  to  be  met  with  in 
the  decoration  of  the  outer  chamber  of  the  cemetery  of  St.  Agnes : 
little  winged  genii  are  represented  bearing  on  their  shoulders,  to  the 
graves  of  the  saints  within,  baskets  filled  with  flowers.41  St.  Ambrose 
himself  certainly  refrained  from  the  pious  office  at  the  tomb  of 
Valentinus,  but  he  suffered  others  to  bring  their  baskets  full  of  lilies  : 
'  Non  ego  floribus  tumulum  adspergam,  sed  spiritum  ejus  Christi 
odore  perfundam.  Spargant  alii  plenis  lilia  calathis :  nobis  lilium  est 
Christus.'42  St.  Jerome  likewise  speaks  without  condemnation  of 
how  husbands  softened  their  grief  by  covering  the  tombs  of  their 
wives  with  violets,  roses,  lilies,  and  purple  flowers,  though  at  the 
same  time  he  thought  almsgiving  the  more  profitable  act :  '  Ceteri 
mariti  super  tumulos  conjugum  spargunt  violas,  rosas,  lilia,  floresque 
purpureos,  et  dolorem  pectoris  his  officiis  consolantur.  Parnmachius 
noster  sanctam  favillarn,  ossaque  veneranda,  eleemosynse  balsamis 
rigat :  his  pigmentis  atque  odoribus  fovet  cineres  quiescentes :  sciens 
scriptum,  sicut  aqua  extinguit  ignem,  ita  eleemosyna  peccatum.'43 
And  furthermore,  Prudentius  not  only  enjoins  the  custom  on  others, 
but  practises  it  himself: 

48  Werndley,  Trigurinc  Liturgy. 

41  Bottari,  Sculturc  c  Pitturc,  tav.  cxxxix. 

42  De  Obitu  Valentin.  Consolatio. 

43  Epist.  ad  Pain. :  Consolatio  sup.  ol.  Paulinxe  ux. 


1880.         THE  CEREMONIAL    USE  OF  FLOWERS.  823 

Nos  tecta  fovebimus  ossa 
Violis  et  fronde  frequente.44 

Thus  step  by  step  it  gained  ground,  till  at  last  the  ceremony  of 
crowning  the  dead  found  a  place  in  the  Eoman  Kitual.  '  The  rite 
instituted  by  the  Catholic  Church  for  the  burial  of  children  is  a  joyful 
rather  than  a  sad  one  ....  the  body  of  the  child  must  be  clothed 
in  white  and  strewed  with  fresh  flowers  and  sweet  herbs;  and  a 
wreath  of  flowers  placed  on  its  head  in  token  of  virginal  chastity.' 45 

In  due  observance  of  an  ancient  rite, 
The  rude  Biscayans,  when  their  children  lie 
Dead  in  the  sinless  time  of  infancy, 
Attire  the  peaceful  corse  in  vestments  white ; 
And,  in  like  sign  of  cloudless  triumph  bright, 
They  bind  the  unoffending  creature's  brows 
With  happy  garlands  of  the  pure  white  rose  : 
This  done,  a  festal  company  unite 
In  choral  song ;  and,  while  the  uplifted  cross 
Of  Jesus  goes  before,  the  child  is  borne 
Uncover'd  to  the  grave.     Her  piteous  loss 
The  lonesome  mother  cannot  choose  but  mourn ; 
Yet  soon  by  Christian  faith  is  grief  subdued, 
And  joy  attends  upon  her  fortitude.46 

But  the  limits  first  set  by  ecclesiastical  authority  were  too  narrow  : 
the  rite  could  not  be  confined  to  children. 

In  many  places  it  is  customary  to  put  a  wreath  on  the  bier  of  unmarried  per- 
sons in  token  of  virginal  chastity  ;  this  is  going  beyond  the  Rubrics,  which 
prescribe  such  a  mark  of  honour  for  children  only  who  have  died  before  attaining 
the  use  of  reason ;  nevertheless  it  is  approved  of  by  Barussaldi  (Tit.  40,  n.  8)  and 
Catalan!  (Tit.  vi.  c.  7,  §  1,  n,  2)  in  the  case  of  persons  of  any  age,  no  matter  how 
advanced,  provided  they  have  never  been  married,  but  have  remained  single  up  to 
the  time  of  their  death  ;  for  such  persons,  of  whichever  sex,  are  presumed  to  be 
virgins ;  and  are  therefore  entitled  to  the  crown  of  virginity  .  .  .  however,  accord- 
ing to  Cavalieri  (Tom.  iii.  c.  16,  v.  vi.  vii.)  this  custom  was  open  to  many  incon- 
veniences, and  certainly  could  not  be  followed  in  the  case  of  those  who  by  notorious 
sin  had  forfeited  their  good  reputation.47 

No  one  has  handled  the  observance  in  its  purely  natural  form, 
which  knew  no  bounds,  more  exquisitely  than  Shakespeare  : — 

With  fairest  flowers, 

Whilst  summer  lasts,  and  I  live  here,  Fidele, 
I'll  sweeten  thy  sad  grave  ;  thou  shalt  not  lack 
The  flower  that's  like  thy  face,  pale  primrose  ;  nor 
The  azured  hare-bell,  like  thy  veins ;  no,  nor 
The  leaf  of  eglantine,  whom  not  to  slander, 
Out-sweeten'd  not  thy  breath  ;  the  ruddock  would 
With  charitable  bill,  (0  bill,  sore  shaming 

44  Prudcntii  Ccv}-min,a,  Cathemerinon  x. 

45  Pius  Martinucci,  Manuale  Sacr.  Cerem.  v.  4,  p.  60. 
48  Wordsworth,  Sonnets  to  Liberty. 

47  De  Herdt,  Sacra;  Liturgice  Praxis,  t.  iii. 


824  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  May 

Those  rich-left  heirs  that  let  their  fathers  lie 
Without  a  monument !)  bring  thee  all  this  ; 
Yea,  and  furr'd  moss  besides,  when  flowers  are  none, 
To  winter-ground  thy  corse.48 

And  the  pitiful,  tender  service  it  was  thought  no  shame  for  a  soldier 
to  lender,  it  was  thought  no  weakness  for  a  soldier  to  claim  : — 

Albeit  that  here  in  London  town 
It  is  my  fate  to  die, 
O  carry  me  to  Northumberland 
In  my  father's  grave  to  lie. 
There  chaunt  my  solemn  requiem 
In  Hexham's  holy  towers  ; 
And  let  six  maids  of  fair  Tynedale 
Scatter  my  grave  with  flowers.49 

By  our  rural  population  in  out-of-the-way  hamlets,  especially  in 
Wales,  the  tradition  of  strewing  graves  with  flowers  was  never  lost ; 
the  village  churchyard  ever  remained  a  faithful  witness  to  the  past, 
no  matter  what  went  on  to  tell  of  changed  rites  in  the  church  within 
it.  And  now  in  England  generally,  as  well  as  in  France,  in  Germany, 
and  in  other  places  on  the  Continent,  the  custom  flourishes  to  an  ex- 
tent unsurpassed  by  the  Greek  %oat  or  the  Eoman  Parentalia,  Feralia, 
Violares  Dies.  Sceptics  and  believers  uphold  it,  and  statesmen,  and 
soldiers,  and  princes,  and  scholars  equally  with  children  and  maidens 
are  the  objects  of  it.  The  tomb  of  Michelet  is  heaped  up  with  flowers 
no  less  than  that  of  Baroche  or  the  veteran  statesman  Thiers,  whilst 
the  late  sovereign  of  them  all,  though  buried  in  a  foreign  land,  does 
not-  lie  forgotten  and  unhonoured  by  tributes  of  affectionate  loyalty 
composed  of  the  favourite  badge  of  the  supporters  of  his  dynasty, 
sent  from  across  the  sea.  One  of  the  most  pathetic  incidents  con- 
nected with  the  funeral  of  Princess  Alice  was  that  of  the  poor  old 
peasant  woman  from  the  Odenwald,  who  timidly  laid  her  little  wreath 
of  rosemary  with  its  two  small  white  blossoms  beside  the  rare  and 
costly  flowers  that  wellnigh  hid  the  pall  from  view ;  and  no  one 
could  have  thought  that  the  Queen  complied  with  a  bare  form  of 
etiquette  when  they  read  of  the  wreath  of  white  roses,  white  camel- 
lias and  passion-flowers  placed  at  her  express  command  on  the  coffin 
of  the  young  Prince  Waldemar. 

A  very  touching  instance  of  the  intense  craving  of  the  human 
heart  to  force  its  way  into  the  unseen  world,  to  give  sensible,  outward 
proofs  of  affection  to  those  who  to  all  appearance  have  gone  beyond 
the  reach  of  them,  came  under  my  own  immediate  observation  only  a 
year  or  two  ago.  The  mother  of  a  friend  of  mine  died,  and  whilst 
she  yet  lay  in  her  room,  an  old  servant,  who  had  been  much  attached 

48  Cymbcline,  act  iv.  sc.  2. 

49  Mackay,  Jacobite  Songs  and  Ballads  of  Scotland  from  1C88  to  1746  :  '  Derwent- 
water's  Farewell.' 


1880-         THE  CEREMONIAL    USE  OF  FLOWERS.          825 

to  her,  went  a  long  distance  to  call  and  ask  leave  to  look  for  a  last 
time  on  the  countenance  of  his  former  mistress.  The  boon  was 
readily  granted.  Just  as  he  was  about  to  leave  the  room  he  took  from 
under  his  coat  some  fresh  snowdrops  that  he  had  carefully  guarded 
there,  and  reverently  laid  them  on  her  bosom.  Then  in  a  broken, 
pleading  voice,  as  if  fearful  that  he  had  taken  too  great  a  liberty,  he 
said  to  her  daughter,  the  sole  witness  of  the  act,  c  She  was  so  fond  of 
them,'  and  hurried  out  of  the  house.  His  simple  devotion  was  so 
spontaneous,  so  unstudied  and  reverent  that  it  was  impossible  not  to 
be  moved  by  it.  And  yet  it  all  lay  under  a  rough  exterior,  and  sprang 
from  the  impulse  of  a  rude,  uncultivated  nature.  '  Le  coaur  a  ses 
raisons,  que  la  raison  ne  connait  point. 

In  some  parts  of  Italy,  notably  in  Tuscany,  the  periwinkle — the 
identical  flower  with  which  they  crowned  poor  Simon  Fraser  in 
mockery,  on  his  way  to  execution  50 — from  a  custom  dating  from  re- 
mote antiquity,  of  weaving  it  into  garlands  for  the  dead,  especially 
children,  is  even  now  called  Fior  da  morte ;  though  the  once  familiar 
homely  name  is,  I  hear,  gradually  disappearing,  passing  out  of  the 
broad  sunlight  of  the  people's  vocabulary  into  the  comparative  obscurity 
of  botanical  dictionaries.  But  this  must  not  be  taken  as  evidence  that 
in  the  very  cradle  of  the  Feralia  care  for  the  dead  has  really  waxed 
faint  and  cold  with  the  lapse  of  time,  though  perhaps  the  Violares 
Dies  are  not  kept  up  in  all  their  pristine  outward  loveliness.  During 
the  trasporto,  or  carrying  of  the  dead  from  the  house,  flowers  are 
used  in  abundance,  and  beautiful  garlands  are  placed  on  the  bier. 
So  that  the  spirit  which  moved  ^Eneas  at  his  father's  grave — '  pur- 
pureosque  flores  jacet ' — yet  lives  in  his  descendants,  if  it  be  dwarfed 
in  some  respects ;  and  Italians  still  urge,  with  the  noblest  poet  of 
their  land — 

Manibus  date  lilia  plenis  : 

Purpureos  spargam  flores,  animamque  nepotis 

His  saltern  accuraulem  donis. 


V. 

I  cannot  well  end  my  paper  without  a  reference  to  Land  Tenures, 
for  in  England  we  have  had  instances  of  them  quite  as  curious  as  those 
by  which  the  nobles  of  Mexico  became  tenants  in  chief.  For  instance, 
lands  and  tenements  in  Ham,  in  Surrey,  were  formerly  held  by  John 

50  '  He  was  the  eldest  son  of  Simon  Fraser,  the  ancestor  of  the  baronial  houses  of 
Saltoun  and  Lovat ;  and  a  faithful  adherent  of  Sir  William  Wallace.  His  death  [in 
1306]  was  as  ignominious  as  his  valour  and  patriotism  had  been  great.  He  was 
carried  to  London  heavily  ironed,  and  his  legs  tied  under  his  horse's  belly,  and  as 
he  passed  through  the  city  a  garland  of  periwinkle  was  in  mockery  placed  on  his 
head.'  Aungier,  Chroniques  de  London.  See  also  Political  Songs  of  the  Reign  of 
Edward  I. 


826  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  May 

of  Handloo  of  the  men  of  Kingston  on  condition  of  rendering  to  the 
said  men  three  clove  gillyflowers  at  the  king's  coronation.51  Again, 
in  his  letter  to  Cromwell  on  the  dissolution  of  the  monastery  of  St. 
Andrew  at  Northampton,  Eobert  Southwell  wrote,  '  There  have 
growne  no  decay  by  this  priour  that  we  can  lerne,  but  surely  his  pre- 
decessours  pleasured  moche  in  odoryferous  savours,  as  it  shulde  seme 
by  their  converting  the  rentes  of  their  monastery,  that  were  wonte 
to  be  paide  in  coyne  and  grayne,  into  gelofer  flowers  and  roses.'52  And 
more  remarkable  still  are  the  terms  of  Sir  Christopher  Hatton's  lease 
of  the  greater  part  of  Ely  Place,  viz.  a  red  rose,  ten  loads  of  hay  and 
ten  pounds  per  annum.  In  addition  to  which  Bishop  Cox,  Queen 
Elizabeth's  victim  in  the  hard  bargain,  reserved  to  himself  and  his 
successors  the  right  of  walking  in  the  gardens  and  gathering  twenty 
bushels  of  roses  yearly. 

The  Baillee  des  Roses,  which  existed  in  France  up  to  the  end  of 
the  sixteenth  century,  consisted  of  a  tribute  of  roses  due  from  the  peers 
of  France  to  Parliament,  and  was  rendered  in  the  months  of  April, 
May  and  June  on  a  day  when  the  sitting  was  held  in  the  great  hall. 
The  peer  whose  turn  it  was  to  pay  the  tribute  had  to  see  that  on  the 
appointed  day  all  the  rooms  of  the  palace  were  strewed  with  roses, 
flowers  and  sweet  herbs :  before  the  sitting  commenced  he  was  bound 
to  enter  every  chamber  with  a  large  bowl  of  silver  borne  before  him 
containing  as  many  crowns  of  roses  and  bouquets  as  there  were  members 
of  Parliament  and  officers  attached  to  its  service  ;  and  when  the 
roses  had  been  distributed  to  the  various  claimants  of  the  homage 
and  the  audience  was  ended,  he  gave  a  great  feast  to  the  presidents, 
councillors,  clerks  and  ushers  of  the  court.  The  origin  of  this  custom 
is  quite  unknown.  It  existed  not  only  at  the  Parliament  of  Paris,  but 
was  maintained  at  all  the  other  Parliaments  of  the  kingdom,  especially 
that  of  Toulouse ;  and  the  tribute  was  obligatory  on  the  children  of 
the  king,  princes  of  the  blood,  dukes,  cardinals  and  other  peers.  There 
is  said  to  have  been  an  edict  of  Henry  the  Third  relating  to  it ;  but 
of  this  I  have  not  been  able  to  find  any  trace. 

The  part  that  flowers  played  in  the  Wars  of  the  Eoses  needs  but 
a  passing  allusion  ;  their  use,  however,  in  the  Gruelph  and  Grhibelline 
disturbances  that  long  distracted  Italy  is  less  known.  Then  party 
spirit  ran  so  high  in  Bergamo,  and  factions  were  so  keen  about  their 
floral  badges  that  they  even  introduced  them  into  the  churches  and 
stamped  them  on  the  chalices  and  sacred  vestments  and  altars.  Those 
were  the  days  when  men  attached  a  party  meaning  to  the  very  forms 
of  drinking-glasses,  to  apples  and  peaches  and  other  fruits.  After 
this  we  cannot  but  acknowledge  that  Imperialists,  Legitimists,  Ee- 
publicans,  one  and  all,  have  exhibited  a  laudable  restraint  in  their  use 
of  the  violet,  white  blossoms  and  immortelles. 

51  Excerpta  Historica,  p.  21. 

52  Wright,  Letters  relating  to  the  Suppression  of  Monasteries. 


1880.         THE  CEREMONIAL    USE  OF  FLOWERS.  827 

And  now  I  must  end.  We  have  seen  the  savages  of  Florida 
offering  gifts  of  fair  flowers  to  their  divinity,  the  sun  ;  we  have  seen 
the  broken-hearted  Tonga  chief  wreathe  the  head  of  his  dead  child 
with  the  brightest  flowers,  and,  unselfish  in  his  sorrow,  bid  his  people 
deck  themselves  gaily  with  blossoms  and  rejoice  because  her  spirit  was 
at  rest ;  we  have  seen  the  barbarous  Mexicans,  discriminating  between 
their  various  beauties,  make — amidst  the  most  revolting  sacrifices  of 
human  life — oblations  of  flowers  to  the  god  or  goddess  to  whose 
special  worship  appropriate  kinds  were  dedicated ;  we  have  seen  the 
followers  of  Bouddha  and  Brahma  outstripping  both  the  far-away 
savage  and  the  bloodthirsty  barbarian  in  the  lavishness  of  similar 
gifts  ;  we  have  seen,  too,  that  the  Egyptians  were  little,  if  they  were 
at  all,  behind  Brahmin  and  Buddhist ;  and  in  the  ceremonial  of  the 
chosen  people  we  have  at  least  caught  a  glimpse  of  like  practices ; 
then,  turning  to  the  cultured  Greeks  and  warlike  Romans,  we  have 
seen  the  same  rites  upheld  with  all  the  intensity  of  which  the  keen 
sense  of  beauty  of  the  one  and  the  strong  nature  of  the  other  made 
them  capable,  so  that  the  very  life  of  the  people,  in  the  temple,  in  the 
field,  in  the  home,  was  bound  up  and  interwoven  with  flowers  ; 53  and 
finally,  coming  to  the  Christian  era  after  the  first  shrinking  from 
everything  suggestive  of  idolatry,  we  have  seen  the  rulers  of  the  early 
Church  boldly  incorporate  these  observances,  stripped  of  their  heathen 
attributes,  with  its  ritual.  There  are  those  by  whom  the  strange 
sequence,  the  long  roll  of  Credos  and  Glorias  lying  before  us  in  almost 
unbroken  historical  continuity,  will  be  simply  put  aside  as  affording 
but  a  fresh  proof  of  the  unexhausted  and  inexhaustible  superstition  of 
our  race.  But,  treat  them  as  we  may,  these  time-honoured,  hoary 
customs — as  sentimental  fancies,  antiquarian  curiosities,  aberrations 
of  the  human  mind,  the  fact  remains — stultify  it  if  we  can — that 
from  the  earliest  and  most  archaic  times,  in  all  countries  and  places, 
throughout  the  ups  and  downs  of  civilisation,  even  in  this  great 
century  of  scientific  enlightenment,  young  and  old,  rich  and  poor,  the 
simple  and  the  lettered,  the  sovereign  and  the  subject,  have  ever 
sought  to  give  expression  to  the  deep-rooted  and  most  cherished  beliefs 
and  aspirations  of  mankind,  as  well  as  to  the  joys  and  sorrows  that 
stir  our  daily  life,  through  the  frailest  yet  most  fair  of  all  the 
things  of  earth.  '  They  labour  not,  neither  do  they  spin,  but  I  say  to 
you  that  not  even  Solomon  in  all  his  glory  was  arrayed  as  one  of 
these.' 

AGNES  LAMBEKT. 

53  Nineteenth  Century,  Sept.  1878. 


828  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY.  May 


THE  POUND   OF  FLESH. 


THE  scholars  who,  in  a  recent  Westminster  Play,  evoked  four  ghosts 
from  ancient  Greece  to  decide  on  the  reliques  exhumed  by  Dr. 
Schliemann,  might  well  try  their  mediumship  upon  the  equally 
mysterious  past  of  their  own  country.  They  would  confer  a  large 
benefit  if  they  could  evoke  the  ghost  of  William  Shakespeare, 
and  bring  him  before  the  footlights  just  now,  in  order  that  we 
might  pelt  him  with  questions  which  have  long  been  accumulating. 
For  one,  I  should  like  to  put  to  him  the  question, — What  do  you 
think  of  Mr.  Irving's  Shylock  ? 

We  know  that  no  such  figure  appeared  on  Shakespeare's  own  stage 
at  the  Globe.  Shylock,  as  acted  by  Shakespeare's  friend  'Burbage,  was 
a  comic  figure.  His  make-up  consisted  of  exceedingly  red  hair  and 
beard,  a  false  nose  preternaturally  long  and  hooked,  and  a  tawny 
petticoat.  Such  a  figure  must  have  been  largely  meant  to  make  fun 
for  the  pit  and  gallery,  of  which  Shakespeare  was  rarely  oblivious,  and 
Burbage  never. 

But  a  conventional  stage  figure  is  generally  an  evolution,  and  this 
farcical  Shylock  was  no  exception.  The  famous  Isaac  of  Norwich  was 
a  typical  Jew  in  his  time.  A  thirteenth  century  caricature,  pre- 
served in  the  Pell  Office,  shows  us  the  popular  notion  of  him.  He  is 
pictured  as  a  three-faced  idol  surrounded  by  devils.  The  three  faces 
are  not  specially  ugly  or  comical,  but  repulsive  enough  ;  and  we  may 
detect  in  the  figure  the  reflection  of  a  period  when  the  diabolical 
theory  of  the  Jew  was  serious,  and  no  laughing  matter.  Similarly,  in 
the  old  Miracle  Plays,  Satan  was  a  serious  figure,  though  he  gradu- 
ally became  a  mere  laughing-stock  like  Pantaloon  in  the  pantomimes. 
The  stage-Jew  shared  the  same  decline  as  the  stage-devil — his 
supposed  inspirer.  In  his  malignant  and  formidable  aspect  he  was, 
indeed,  in  Shakespeare's  day,  the  main  figure  of  a  popular  play — 
Marlowe's  *  Jew  of  Malta ; '  but  even  he  had  the  long  nose  and  sun- 
dry grotesque  features ;  and  it  can  hardly  be  doubted  that  in  the 
still  more  ludicrous  make-up  of  Shylock,  who  succeeded  Marlowe's 
Barabas  in  public  interest,  the  Globe  Theatre  followed  the  popular 
feeling. 

Mr.  Swinburne,  in  his  graphic  and  subtle  'Study  of  Shakespeare,' 


1880.  THE  POUND   OF  FLESH.  829 

seems  to  regard  Marlowe's  Jew  as  the  real  man,  and  Shakespeare's 
a  mouthpiece  for  the  finest  poetry.  To  this  I  can  only  half 
subscribe.  Marlowe's  Barabas,  the  Jew  of  Malta,  is  closely 
related  to  the  figure  of  Isaac  of  Norwich  surrounded  by  devils.  He 
is  no  man  at  all,  but  an  impossible  fiend.  He  kills  and  poisons 
Christians  without  any  motive.  As  Charles  Lamb  wrote :  '  He  is 
just  such  an  exhibition  as,  a  century  or  two  earlier,  might  have  been 
played  before  the  Londoners,  by  the  royal  command,  when  a  general 
pillage  and  massacre  of  the  Hebrews  had  been  previously  resolved  on 
in  the  cabinet.'  The  average  Christian  murdered  the  Jew  because 
he  did  not  look  upon  him  as  a  man,  actuated  by  human  feelings 
and  motives,  but  as  a  miscreant — the  word  means  '  misbeliever  ' — 
which  then  meant  an  agent  of  Antichrist,  instigated  by  his  paternal 
devil. 

In  the  character  of  Shylock  Shakespeare  retained  the  grotesquerie 
which  might  please  the  rabble,  at  the  same  time  turning  their  scowl 
to  laughter.  Even  now,  while  Mr.  Irving  is  giving  his  powerful  and 
pathetic  impersonation,  the  occasional  laugh  reminds  us  how  easily 
some  parts  of  the  text  would  lend  themselves  to  a  farcical  interpreta- 
tion, if  the  painted  nose  and  comic  gestures  were  present.  But  it  is 
much  more  remarkable  to  observe  how  rare  and  superficial  are  these 
ludicrous  incidents.  The  farcical  Shylock  has  passed  away  from  the 
English  stage  through  force  of  the  more  real  character  which  Shake- 
speare drew,  and  as  I  believe  meant  to  draw  ;  and  if  that  grotesque 
figure  of  the  old  Globe  should  be  acted  now,  he  would  be  hissed  in 
any  theatre ;  and  the  ghost  of  Shakespeare,  were  he  present,  would 
probably  join  in  the  sibilant  chorus.  Shakespeare  may  not  have 
intended  all  the  far-reaching  moral  belonging  to  the  ancient  legend 
of  the  pound  of  flesh,  but  surely  no  one  can  carefully  compare  his 
Shylock  with  the  Barabas  of  his  contemporary  without  recognising  a 
purpose  to  modify  and  soften  the  popular  feeling  towards  the  Jew,  to 
picture  a  man  where  Marlowe  had  painted  a  monster,  if  not  indeed  to 
mirror  for  Christians  their  own  injustice  and  cruelty. 

Let  us  take  our  stand  beside  Portia  when  she  summons  the 
Merchant  and  Shylock  to  stand  forth.  The  two  men  have  long 
legendary  antecedents,  and  have  met  many  times  before.  Five  years 
ago  Miss  Toulmin  Smith  made  the  discovery  that  the  story  of  the 
Bond  was  contained  in  the  thirteenth-century  English  poem,  Cursor 
Mundi,  there  interwoven  with  the  legend  of  the  Finding  of  the 
Holy  Cross. 

In  a  valuable  paper  read  to  the  New  Shakespeare  Society,  April 
9,  1875,  that  lady  quotes  the  story.  A  Christian  goldsmith,  in  the 
service  of  Queen  Eline  (mother  of  Constantine),  owes  a  sum  of  money 
to  a  Jew ;  if  he  cannot  pay  it  at  a  certain  time  he  is  to  render  the 
weight  of  the  wanting  money  in  his  own  flesh.  The  bond  is  forfeit ; 
the  Jew  prepares  to  cut  the  flesh  ;  but  the  judges  decide  that  no 


830  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  May 

drop  of  blood  must  be  shed.  The  Jew  being  thus  defeated,  Queen 
Eline  declares  he  must  give  up  all  his  goods  to  the  State  and  lose  his 
tongue.  But  he  is  forgiven  on  agreeing  to  tell  her  where  the  Holy 
Cross  is  hidden. 

There  are  eleven  versions  of  the  Bond  story  in  the  early  literature 
of  Europe.  In  four  of  these  versions  no  Jew  appears.  Karl  Simrock 
believes  that  it  is  an  ancient  law-anecdote — an  illustration  of  the  law 
of  retaliation  pressed  to  an  extreme.  The  evidences  he  gives  of  its  use 
for  this  purpose  are  interesting  ;  and  it  appears  to  me  probable  that 
it  might  have  been  in  this  way  that  the  Jew  was  first  introduced  into 
the  story.  Where  a  Jew  and  a  Christian  confronted  each  other  in 
any  issue  it  might  be  assumed  that  all  mitigations  of  the  summum 
jus  were  removed  from  the  question  ;  only  the  naked  technical  terms 
of  the  law  could  then  be  conceived  as  restraining  either  from  doing 

o  o 

the  utmost  injury  he  could  to  the  other.  There  is  an  old  Persian 
version  of  the  tale  in  which,  perhaps  for  a  similar  reason,  a  Moslem 
and  an  Armenian  confront  each  other  ;  and  in  this  case  the  failure  of 
the  bond  is  not  because  of  the  blood,  but  because  of  the  extreme 
exactness  of  weight  demanded  by  the  court.  An  Egyptian  form  of 
the  story  has  a  similar  end. 

It  is  not  proposed  here  to  discuss  and  compare  these  versions  or 
their  dates,  important  as  they  are,  but  to  pass  beyond  them  to  the 
principles  involved  and  the  ideas  in  which  they  are  rooted. 

Side  by  side,  in  all  ages  and  races,  have  struggled  with  each 
other  the  principle  of  retaliation  and  that  of  forgiveness.  In  religion 
the  vindictive  principle  has  euphemistic  names  :  it  is  called  law  and 
justice.  The  other  principle,  that  of  remission,  has  had  to  exist  by 
sufferance,  and  in  nearly  all  religions  has  been  recognised  only  in 
subordinate  alliance  with  its  antagonist.  An  eye  for  an  eye,  a  tooth 
for  a  tooth,  blood  for  blood,  is  primitive  law.  Projected  into  heaven, 
magnified  in  the  divine  majesty,  it  becomes  the  principle  that  a  deity 
cannot  be  just  and  yet  a  justifier  of  offenders.  '  Without  the  shedding 
of  blood  there  is  no  remission  of  sins.'  Since  finite  mail  is  naturally 
assumed  to  be  incapable  of  directly  satisfying  an  infinite  law,  all 
religions,  based  on  the  idea  of  a  divine  lawgiver,  are  employed  in 
devising  schemes  by  which  commutations  may  be  secured,  and 
vicarious  satisfactions  of  divine  law  obtained.  No  deity  inferred 
from  the  always  relentless  forces  of  nature  has  ever  been  supposed 
able  to  forgive  the  smallest  sin  until  it  was  exactly  atoned  for.  For 
this  reason  the  divine  mercifulness  has  generally  become  a  separate 
personification.  The  story  of  the  '  pound  of  flesh '  is  one  of  the 
earliest  fables  concerning  these  conflicting  principles. 

The  following  legend  was  related  to  me  by  a  Hindu,  as  one  he 
had  been  told  in  his  childhood.  The  chief  of  the  Indian  triad  Indra, 
pursued  the  god  Agni.  Agni  changed  himself  to  a  dove  in  order, 
to  escape ;  but  Indra  changed  himself  to  a  hawk,  to  continue  the 


1880.  THE  POUND   OF  FLESH.  831 

pursuit.  The  dove  took  refuge  with  Vishnu,  second  person  of  the 
triad,  the  Hindu  Saviour.  Indra  flying  up  demanded  the  dove  ; 
Vishnu  concealing  it  in  his  bosom,  refused  to  give  up  the  dove. 
Indra  then  took  an  oath  that  if  the  dove  were  not  surrendered  he 
would  tear  from  Vishnu's  breast  an  amount  of  flesh  equal  to  the  body 
of  the  dove.  Vishnu  still  refused  to  surrender  the  bird,  but  bared 
his  breast.  The  divine  hawk  tore  from  it  the  exact  quantity,  and 
the  drops  of  blood — the  blood  of  a  Saviour — as  they  fell  to  the  ground 
wrote  the  scriptures  of  the  Vedas. 

Among  the  various  versions  of  this  story  in  India,  I  have  not 
been  able  to  find  any  in  accepted  sacred  books  which  preserves  with 
the  simplicity  of  this  folk-tale  the  ancient  moral  antagonism  between 
the  deities  now  found  in  alliance  as  a  Triad.  Hindu  orthodoxy  has 
outgrown  the  phase  of  faith  which  could  sanction  that  probably  pro- 
vincial legend.  Its  spirit  survives  in  one  of  Vishnu's  titles,  Yadjna 
Varaha,  '  the  boar  of  sacrifice.'  derived  from  Vishnu's  third  incarnation 
by  which  he  saved  the  world  from  demons  by  becoming  himself  a 
victim.  We  may  see  in  the  fable  reflection  of  a  sacrificial  age ;  an 
age  in  which  the  will  and  word  of  a  god  became  inexorable  fate, 
but  also  the  dawning  conception  of  a  divineness  in  the  mitigation 
of  the  law,  which  ultimately  adds  saving  deities  to  those  which 
cannot  be  appeased. 

The  earliest  version,  probably  B.C.  300,  is  the  story  in  the  Mahabha- 
rata  (Vana  parva),  of  the  trial  of  the  best  of  mankind,  King 
Usinara.  Indra  and  Agni,  wishing  to  test  his  fidelity  to  the  laws  of 
righteousness,  assume  the  forms  of  falcon  and  pigeon.  The  latter 
(Agni)  pursued  by  the  former  (Indra)  seeks  and  receives  the  king's 
protection.  The  falcon  demands  the  pigeon,  and  is  refused  on  the 
ground  that  it  is  written  that  to  kill  a  twice-born  man,  to  kill  a  cow, 
and  to  abandon  a  being  that  has  taken  refuge  with  one,  are  equal  sins. 
This  is  a  quotation  from  the  Laws  of  Manu.  The  falcon  argues  that 
it  is  the  law  of  nature  that  it  shall  feed  on  pigeons,  and  a  law  against 
nature  is  no  law.  He  (the  falcon)  will  be  starved,  consequently  his 
mate  and  little  ones  must  perish,  and  thus  in  preserving  one  the  king 
will  slay  many.  The  falcon  is  offered  by  Usinara  other  food — a  boar, 
bull,  gazelle, — but  the  falcon,  declares  that  it  is  not  the  law  of  its  nature 
to  eat  such  things.  The  king  then  declares  that  he  will  not  give  up 
the  pigeon,  but  he  will  give  anything  else  in  his  power  which  the 
falcon  may  demand.  The  falcon  replies  that  he  can  only  accept  a 
quantity  of  the  king's  own  flesh  equal  in  weight  to  the  pigeon's  body. 
Usinara  gladly  accedes  to  this  substitution.  Balances  are  produced, 
and  the  pigeon  is  placed  in  one  scale.  The  king  cuts  off  a  piece  of 
his  flesh  that  appears  large  enough,  but  is  insufficient ;  he  cuts  again 
and  again,  but  still  the  pigeon  outweighs  his  piled-up  flesh.  Finally, 
all  his  flesh  gone,  the  king  gets  into  the  scale  himself.  The  two 
gods  then  resume  their  divine  shape,  announce  to  Usinara  that  for 


832  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  May 

the  sacrifice  he  has  made  he  will  be  glorified  in  all  worlds  throughout 
eternity,  and  the  king  ascends  transfigured  into  heaven. 

This  legend  is  repeated  under  the  title  Syena-Kapotiyam  (Dove 
and  Hawk)  in  the  Purana  Sarvasvan  in  the  Bodleian  Library, 
where  it  is  in  Bengali  characters.  There  is  another  version  in  the 
Markandeyd  Purdna  (ch.  iii.)  in  which  Indra  appears  to  the  sage 
Vipulasvan  in  the  form  of  a  large  famished  bird.  Finding  that  this  bird 
can  only  be  nourished  by  human  flesh,  the  sage  appeals  to  his  sons  to 
give  it  some  of  their  flesh ;  and  on  their  refusal  he  curses  them,  and 
tells  the  bird  that  after  he  has  performed  certain  funeral  ceremonies 
his  body  shall  be  for  its  nourishment.  Whereupon  Indra  bids  the 
sage  abandon  his  body  only  by  the  power  of  contemplation,  reveals 
his  divine  nature,  and  offers  Vipulasvan  whatever  he  may  ask. 

Indra  here  says,  '  I  eat  no  living  creature,'  which  shows  a  moral 
advance.  Perhaps  his  conversion  may  have  been  in  some  measure 
due  to  the  teaching  of  Buddha.  It  is  instructive  to  compare  the 
Mahabharata  legend  with  an  early  Buddhist  version  cited  by  M. 
Foucaux  from  the  Dsang-loung,1  a  version  all  the  more  significant 
because  the  hero  of  it,  Sivi,  was  traditionally  the  son  of  Usinara  and 
had  already  appeared  in  the  fourth  book  of  Mahabharata  as  tried  in 
the  same  way  with  his  father,  and  with  the  same  results.  Sivi  had 
become  a  popular  type  of  self-sacrifice.  According  to  the  Buddhist 
legend,  Indra,  perceiving  that  his  divine  existence  was  drawing  to  a 
close,  confided  to  Visvakarman 2  his  grief  at  not  seeing  in  the  world 
any  man  who  would  become  a  Buddha.  Visvakarman  declared  King 
Sivi  such  a  man.  The  falcon  and  pigeon  test  is  then  applied.  But  the 
Buddhist  Sivi  does  not,  like  his  Brahman  prototype,  offer  to  compensate 
the  falcon  with  the  flesh  of  other  animals.  He  agrees  to  give  his 
own  flesh.  The  gods  descend  and  weep  tears  of  emotion  at  seeing 
the  king  as  a  skeleton  outweighing  the  dove  which  his  flesh  could 
not  equal.  Nor  is  the  Buddhist  saint  caught  up  to  heaven.  He  is 
offered  the  empire  and  throne  of  Indra  himself  but  refuses  it ;  he 
desires  only  to  be  a  Buddha.  Sivi's  body  is  restored  to  greater 
beauty  than  before,  and  he  becomes  Buddha  amid  the  joy  of  gods  and 
men. 

Other  versions  show  the  legend  further  detached  from  brahmanic 
ideas,  and  resting  more  completely  upon  Buddha's  compassionateness 
to  all  creatures.  Of  this  description  is  one  in  the  'Sermons'  by 
Asphagosha,  for  the  translation  of  which  I  am  indebted  to  Professor 
Beal.  Sakra  (a  name  of  Indra)  tempted  by  a  heretic  to  believe  that 
the  teaching  of  Buddha  was  false,  and  that  men  followed  it  from 
motives  of  self-interest,  sought  for  a  perfect  man  who  was  practising 
austerities  solely  for  the  sake  of  becoming  a  Buddha.  Finding  one, 

1  Le  Mahabharata,  p.  241. 

2  The  '  omnificent,'  who  offered  up  all  worlds  in  a  general  sacrifice,  and  ended  by 
sacrificing  himself. 


1880.  THE  POUND   OF  FLESH.  833 

Sivaka  Eaja,  he  agreed  with  Visvakarman  to  tempt  him.  All  happens 
as  in  the  old  legend,  except  that  Sivaka  rests  his  refusal  not  upon 
the  law  of  Manu,  nor  upon  the  sanctity  of  asylum,  but  upon  his  love 
of  all  living  things.  To  this  his  mercifulness  the  falcon  appeals,  re- 
minding him  of  its  own  young,  and  Sivaka  calls  for  a  knife  and  cuts 
off  a  piece  of  his  flesh,  not  caring  whether  it  is  more  or  less  than 
the  body  of  the  dove.  He  then  faints.  All  living  creatures  raise 
lamentations,  and  the  deities,  much  affected,  heal  the  wound. 

The  influence  of  Buddhism  is  traceable  in  the  modifications  of 
the  original  legend,  which  show  the  sacrifice  not  accepted  as  it  was  in 
the  case  of  Vishnu  and  to  some  extent  in  that  of  Usinara,  whose 
earthly  life  terminates.  With  Buddha  the  principle  of  remission 
supersedes  that  of  sacrifice.  His  argument  against  the  brah- 
manic  sacrifice  of  life  was  strong.  When  they  pointed  to  these 
predatory  laws  of  nature  in  proof  of  their  faith  that  the  gods 
approved  the  infliction  of  pain  and  death,  he  asked  them  why  they 
did  not  sacrifice  their  own  children ;  why  they  did  not  offer  to  the 
gods  the  most  valuable  lives.  The  fact  was  that  they  were  out- 
growing direct  human  sacrifices  —  preserving  self-mortifications — 
and  animals  were  slain  in  commutation  of  costlier  offerings.  This 
moral  revolution  is  traceable  in  the  gradual  constitution  of  Vishnu 
as  a  Saviour.  There  is  a  later  legend  that  Vishnu  approached 
Sivi  in  the  form  of  a  Brahman  in  want  of  food,  but  would  accept 
none  except  the  flesh  of  Sivi's  son  Vrihad-Grarbha.  The  king 
killed  and  cooked  his  son  and  placed  the  food  before  the  Brahman, 
who  then  bade  him  eat  it  himself.  Sivi  prepared  to  do  so,  when 
Vishnu  stayed  his  hand,  revealed  himself,  restored  the  son  to  life,  and 
vanished.  This  legend  belongs  to  a  transitional  period.  Its  out- 
come is  found  in  several  Hindu  folk- tales,  one  of  which  has  been  told 
by  the  charming  story-teller,  Mr.  W.  E.  S.  Ealston.  The  king  of  a 
country  is  dying,  and  a  poor  man  is  informed  of  the  fact  by  a  dis- 
guised '  fate.'  He  asks  if  there  is  no  way  to  save  the  king's  life, 
and  is  told  there  is  but  one  way  ;  if  a  child  should  be  sacrificed,  with 
its  own  consent,  that  would  save  the  king.  The  man  returns  home 
and  proposes  to  his  wife  to  slay  their  beautiful  little  boy.  She  con- 
sents ;  the  boy  having  also  consented,  the  knife  is  about  to  descend 
on  the  child,  when  the  fates  appear,  announcing  that  they  only  wished 
to  try  his  loyalty  to  his  king,  who  had  already  recovered. 

We  may  feel  pretty  certain  that  originally  that  king  was  a  deity, 
though  not  so  certain  that  the  knife  was  arrested  without  killing 
anything  at  all.  In  several  popular  fables  we  find  the  story  preserved 
essentially  in  the  old  sacrificial  form  to  teach  the  rewards  of  self- 
sacrifice,  though,  in  order  to  escape  the  scandal  of  a  human  sacrifice, 
the  self-devotion  is  ascribed  to  animals.  Thus  in  the  Panchatantra, 
a  pigeon  roasts  itself  to  save  a  famished  bird-catcher,  who  had  just 
captured  his  mate  ;  and  the  bird-catcher  presently  seeing  its  radiant 
VOL.  VII.— No.  39.  3  K 


834  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY.  May 

form  rising  to  heaven,  spends  his  life  consuming  his  flesh  in  the  fire  of 
devotion,  in  order  that  he  also  may  ascend  there. 

In  the  Semitic  story  corresponding  to  that  of  Vishnu  and  Sivi,  the 
Hindu  Abraham,  we  may  see  that  where  a  god  is  concerned  the  actual 
sacrifice  cannot  be  omitted.  That  may  do  in  the  case  of  a  dying  king 
or  hungry  hawk,  but  not  for  a  deity.  In  the  case  of  Abraham  and 
Isaac  the  demand  is  not  remitted  but  commuted.  The  ram  is 
accepted  instead  of  Isaac.  But  even  so  much  concession  could 
hardly  be  recognised  by  the  Hebrew  priesthood  as  an  allowable 
variation  from  a  direct  demand  of  Jahve,  and  so  the  command 
is  said  to  have  been  given  by  Elohim,  its  modification  by  Jahve. 
The  cautious  transformation  is  somewhat  in  the  spirit  of  the  dis- 
guises of  the  Aryan  deities,  who  may  partially  revoke  as  gods  the 
orders  they  gave  as  hawks.  It  would  indicate  a  more  advanced 
idea  if  we  found  Jahve  remitting  a  claim  of  his  own  instead  of  one 
made  by  the  Elohim. 

It  is  worthy  of  a  remark  that  in  some  regions  where  this  change 
of  names  in  the  story  of  Abraham's  sacrifice  is  overlooked  or  unknown 
by  Semitic  religionists,  there  has  sprung  up  a  tradition  that  the 
sacrifice  was  completed  and  the  patriarch's  son  miraculously  restored 
to  life.  Thus,  in  another  branch  of  the  Jewish  religion  we  find 
Mohammed  flinching  at  the  biblical  story.  He  does  not  like  to 
admit  that  Allah  altered  his  word  and  purpose  except  for  a  serious 
consideration,  so  he  says,  '  We  ransomed  him  with  a  noble  victim.' 
The  moslems  believe  that  Isaac  was  not  then  born,  and  that  it  was 
Ismael  across  whose  throat  Abraham  actually  drew  the  knife,  which 
was  miraculously  kept  from  killing  the  lad,  according  to  some,  but 
others  say  resulted  in  a  death  and  resurrection. 

Last  year  the  highly  educated  State  of  Massachusetts  was 
thrilled  with  horror  by  the  tidings  that  a  man  named  Freeman  had 
offered  up  his  beautiful  and  only  child,  Edith  Freeman,  as  a  sacrifice 
to  God.  It  occurred  in  the  historical  town  of  Pocasset.  A  thousand 
years  ago  the  Northmen  who  first  discovered  America  wintered 
there,  'and  possibly  they  there  offered  human  sacrifices  to  their 
god  Odin,— that  is,  if  they  got  hold  of  one  or  two  red  men  : 
for  there  has  been  a  notable  tendency  among  men  in  such  cases 
to  prefer  other  victims  than  themselves  for  their  gods.  Sinee 
that  first  landing  of  white  men  in  America  the  religion  of  Odin  had 
yielded  to  that  of  Christ ;  Pocasset  and  all  New  England  had  been 
converted  to  Christianity;  the  Bible  had  found  its  way  into  every 
home.  Yet  this  well-to-do  citizen,  Mr.  Freeman,  and  his  wife, 
had  learned  in  Sunday  School  about  Abraham's  touching  proof  of  his 
faith.  They  had  pondered  the  lesson  until  they  heard  the  voice  of 
Israel's  God  summoning  them  to  a  similar  sacrifice,  and  they  com- 
mitted a  deed  which  probably  would  have  shocked  even  those  rude 
Vikings  who  wintered  at  Pocasset  a  thousand  years  before.  So 


1880.  THE  POUND   OF  FLESH.  835 

much  might  the  worship  of  a  pitiless  primitive  deity  arrest  the 
civilisation  of  a  household  in  the  land  of  Channing  and  Parker. 
They  prayed  over  the  little  girl,  then  the  knife  was  plunged  into  her 
heart.  Little  Edith  is  now  in  her  grave.  The  Grod  of  Abraham  and 
Isaac  got  his  pound  of  flesh  this  time.  The  devout  priest  of  that 
horrible  altar  has  just  passed  from  his  prison  to  an  asylum. 
To  the  many  who  have  visited  him  he  puts  questions  hard  to  be 
answered.  '  Do  you  believe  the  Bible  or  not  ?  '  he  says.  '  If  you  do, 
and  have  read  the  account  of  Abraham,  why  should  you  deny  that 
God  could  require  a  man  to  sacrifice  his  child  ?  He  so  required  of 
me.  I  did  hope  and  believe  that  he  would  stay  my  hand  before  the 
blow  fell.  When  he  did  not  I  still  believed  he  would  raise  my  child 
to  life.  But  that  is  his  own  affair.  I  have  given  that  which  I  loved 
most  to  God  because  he  commanded  me.'  The  American  people 
waited  to  see  whether  a  Christian  community  which  trains  up 
children  to  admire  the  faith  of  Abraham  would  hang  them  when 
they  grow  up  to  imitate  that  faith  so  impressed  upon  them.  The 
embarrassing  dilemma  was  escaped  after  eight  months,  by  getting 
Freeman  into  an  asylum  for  the  insane,  without  trial. 

I  observed  last  year,  soon  after  the  occurrence  of  this  tragedy,  a 
rude  picture  of  it  in  the  Police  Gazette,  or  some  such  paper,  ex- 
posed in  the  shop  windows  of  London.  The  designer  had  placed 
a  crucifix  near  the  little  victim's  head.  It  is  probable  that  Freeman 
and  his  wife  never  saw  a  crucifix  in  their  lives  ;  they  belong  to  the 
hardest,  baldest  dogmatic  Protestantism.  The  rude  artist  perhaps 
placed  the  crucifix  in  his  picture  because  the  Abrahamic  sacrifice  was 
supposed  to  be  typical  of  a  holier  one, — a  sacrifice  in  which  a  son  was 
offered  up  to  satisfy  the  fatal  law  of  a  father.  In  the  human  sacrifice 
symbolised  by  that  crucifix  culminated  all  these  sacrifices  of  which 
mention  lias  been  made ;  and  there  was  embodied  that  principle  which 
has  maintained  through  the  ages  that  though  to  forgive  may  be  human, 
to  avenge  is  divine. 

Let  us  return  now  to  Shylock  and  the  Merchant  whose  life  is 
forfeit.  Shylock  represents  the  law,  the  letter  and  rigour  of  it. 
He  is  Indra  tearing  Vishnu's  breast;  Elohim  demanding  Isaac's 
death ;  the  First  Person  exacting  the  Second  Person's  atoning  blood. 
His  bond,  his  oath  registered  in  heaven,  its  sanction  by  Venetian 
law,  are  by  him  identified  with  eternal  justice.  It  is  the  irrevocable 
'thing-  spoken,'  fat um,  weird,  or  word.  Portia  is  exact  in  telling 
him  that  he  represents  that  'justice'  in  whose  course,  'none  of  us 
should  see  salvation.'  The  Jew  personates  his  god  precisely.  Nor 
is  there  wanting  a  certain  majesty  in  his  position.  There  is  nothing 
mean  about  Shylock  now,  whatever  there  may  have  been  at  first. 
He  has  been  called  avaricious.  It  must  be  remembered,  however, 
that,  during  those  ages,  the  wealth  of  the  Jews  was  the  main  factor 
in  their  survival.  There  is,  indeed,  an  illustration  of  this  in  the 

3  K  2 


836  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  May 

only  version  of  the  Bond  legend  which  has  any  pretension  to  be  con- 
sidered historical.  A  Jew  named  Ceneda  forfeited  a  pound  of  his 
flesh  to  a  Christian  merchant,  on  a  wager ;  the  case  was  brought 
before  the  Pope,  Sixtus  V.,  who  decided  that  the  Christian  must 
pay  2,000  scudi  to  his  treasury  for  attempting  manslaughter,  and 
the  Jew  pay  in  an  equal  sum  for  having  hazarded  his  life,  that  being 
a  taxable  property  belonging  to  the  Pope. 

The  Jews,  suspected  for  ages  of  obtaining  their  wealth  from 
Beelzebub,  really  accumulated  it  because  they  had  no  desire  to  spend 
it  on  gentile  baubles  and  Christian  worldliness,  having  no  country 
of  their  own.  They  kept  it — or  tried  to  keep  it — religiously,  to  lay 
at  their  Messiah's  feet  when  he  should  come ;  and  if  they  had  not 
possessed  it  they  would  long  ago  have  been  exterminated.  Balzac 
tells  us  of  a  mediaeval  seneschal  in  France  who  declared  the  Jews  to 
be  the  best  taxgatherers  in  his  region.  It  was  his  custom  to  let 
them  gain  money  as  bees  collect  honey ;  then  he  would  swoop  down 
on  their  hive  and  take  it  all  away.  The  Jews  were  also  restricted 
in  their  relations  to  various  kinds  of  property,  and  almost  driven  by 
oppressive  statutes  to  the  dealings  in  money  which  brought  oppro- 
brium upon  them.  In  hating  Antonio  because  he  lent  money 
without  interest,  and  so  lowered  the  rate  of  usance  in  Venice, 
Shylock  was  hating  him  for  undermining  the  existence  of  his  tribe. 
That  it  was  not  personal  avarice  is  presently  proved,  when  Shy- 
lock  scorns  thrice  his  principal  proffered  to  cancel  his  bond. 
For  now  he  has  been  summoned  by  his  own  woes,  the  taking  away  of 
his  daughter  and  his  property,  including  that  ring  mourned  because 
given  by  his  lost  Leah — artfully  contrasted  with  the  surrender  by 
the  Christian  lovers  of  the  rings  they  had  vowed  never  to  part  with 
— to  stand  forth  as  an  avenger  of  the  ages  of  wrong  heaped  upon  his 
race.  That  is  a  messianic  moment  for  Shylock,  and  ducats  become 
dross  in  its  presence.  When  the  full  tidings  of  his  woes  and  wrongs 
are  told  him  he  cries,  '  The  curse  never  fell  upon  our  nation  till  now : 
/  never  felt  it  till  now.'  Thenceforth  we  may  see  in  Shylock  the 
impersonation  of  the  divine  avenger  of  a  divinely  chosen  people,  and 
the  majesty  of  his  law  confronting  an  opposing  world. 

On  the  other  hand  stands  Antonio,  representing  rather  feebly, 
until  he  too  is  summoned  from  being  a  mere  rich  merchant  to 
become  a  shorn  victim,  the  opposite  principle.  He  stands  for  the 
Christ,  the  forgiver,  the  sufferer.  In  the  course  of  its  travels  the 
legend  had  combined  with  one  told  by  Hyginus.  The  patriot  Moros 
having  conspired  to  rid  his  country  of  its  tyrant,  falls  into  the  hands  of 
that  tyrant,  Dionysius  of  Sicily,  who  orders  him  to  be  crucified.  But 
Moros  is  allowed  a  respite  and  absence  of  three  days  to  visit  his 
sister,  his  friend  Selenuntius  having  agreed  to  become  his  hostage. 
On  his  way  back,  Moros  is  impeded  by  a  swollen  river,  and  when  he 
reaches  the  place  of  execution  finds  his  friend  on  the  point  of  being 


1880.  THE  POUND   OF  FLESH.  837 

nailed  to  the  cross.  The  two  friends  now  insist  each  on  being  cruci- 
fied for  the  other,  at  which  sight  Dionysius  is  so  affected  that  he 
releases  both,  resolves  to  be  a  more  humane  king,  and  asks  the  friends 
to  take  him  as  '  the  third  in  their  bond  of  friendship.'  It  is  remark- 
able that  this  legend  (which  suggested  to  Schiller  his  ballad  Die 
Burgschaft,  the  Suretyship)  should  have  been  a  popular  one  at  the 
beginning  of  the  Christian  era,  introducing  as  it  does  an  exactor  of 
vicarious  suffering — that  too  by  a  cross — and  ending  with  the  tyrant 
becoming  one  in  a  trinity  of  friendship. 

Shakespeare  has  brought  this  vicarious  feature  into  a  prominence 
it  never  had  in  any  version  he  could  ever  have  seen,  and  his  art, 
creating  as  it  must  in  organic  consistency,  has  dramatised  the  psycho- 
logical history  of  mankind. 

Antonio,  the  merchant  called  on  to  suffer,  is  the  man  who  gained 
nothing  at  all  from  the  bond.  He  has  incurred  the  danger  and  penalty 
in  order  that  his  rather  worthless  friend  Bassanio  may  get  the  money 
necessary  to  secure  a  rich  marriage  which  shall  free  him  from  his 
debts.  It  is  the  just  suffering  for  the  unjust.  Antonio  is  the  man 
who  gives,  hoping  for  nothing  again  ;  in  low  simplicity  he  lends  out 
money  gratis ;  and,  when  Shylock  agrees  to  lend  the  three  thousand 
ducats,  the  merchant  says,  '  This  Hebrew  will  turn  Christian ;  he 
grows  kind.'  At  the  trial,  Antonio  speaks  like  the  predestined 
victim : 

I  am  a  tainted  wether  of  the  flock, 

Meetest  for  death. 

And,  when  the  trial  is  over,  Antonio  is  the  only  man  who  offers  to 
relax  his  hold  on  the  Jew's  property.  He  gives  up  his  own  half,  and 
takes  the  other  only  to  give  it  away  to  Shylock's  daughter  and  her 
husband. 

To  be  kind  Antonio  calls  Christian  ;  but  it  was  not  that  spirit 
which  finally  brought  him  into  the  same  fold  with  his  judges.  His 
life  is  spared  on  condition  of  his  becoming  a  Christian.  Professor 
Morley  and  other  critics  say  that  was  harsh.  But  Shylock  is  no 
longer  a  genuine  Jew,  and  Shakespeare  properly  relieves  that  race  of 
his  connection.  The  Jews  had  indeed,  in  primitive  ages,  begun  with 
the  eye-for-an-eye  principle,  but  fiery  trials  had  long  taught  them 
patience  under  injury.  Shylock,  reminding  Antonio,  when  he  asks 
help,  of  his  outrages,  says  : 

Still  have  I  borne  it  with  a  patient  shrug, 
For  sufferance  is  the  badge  of  all  our  tribe. 

So  had  it  been  for  many  ages,  and  the  Jew  had  relegated  the  prin- 
ciple of  vengeance  to  his  fossil  theology,  practically  becoming  the 
patient  victim  ;  while,  on  the  other  hand,  Christianity,  reaching  the 
throne,  had  antiquated  Christ's  principle  of  mercy,  and  was  dealing 
out  the  rigours  of  the  Judaic  law  which  Israel  had  outgrown  by 


838  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  May 

suffering.  But  when  Shylock  repairs  back  to  the  old  eye-for-an-eye 
spirit,  when  he  draws  from  the  armoury  of  the  ancient  law  the  old 
weapon  of  retaliation,  it  is  only  to  find  that  the  sacrificial  knife 
grown  rusty  for  a  Jew  is  bright  and  keen  enough  in  Christian  hands. 
In  pressing  to  practise  the  blood-atonement  and  vicarious  principle  he 
enters  upon  Christian  ground,  and  Shakespeare  rightly  baptizes  him 
a  Christian. 

We  may  naturally  question  whether  Shakespeare  meant  this 
irony.  Did  he  intend  any  subtle  hit  when  he  made  these  Christians 
claim  as  a  co-religionist,  ripe  for  baptism,  a  man  who  had  just  at- 
tempted to  take  a  fellow-man's  life  ?  That  cannot  be  affirmed ;  but 
it  is  notable  that  there  should  be  in  the  play  another  passage  liable 
to  that  construction.  Shylock's  enemies  have  just  converted  his 
daughter  Jessica  into  a  good  Christian  ;  and  the  first  sign  of  the  work 
of  grace  in  her  heart  is  the  facility  with  which  she  steals  and  squan- 
ders her  father's  money.  Shakespeare  does  not  fail  to  connect  with 
this  pious  robbery  the  Christian  customs  of  the  time  towards  Jews. 
When  the  robbery  and  elopement  have  been  planned,  the  Jew's  Chris- 
tian servant,  Lancelot,  says  to  Jessica : 

There  will  come  a  Christian  by 
Will  be  worth  a  Jewess'  eye. 

That  seems  to  be  a  play  upon  the  then  familiar  phrase  '  worth  a  Jew's 
eye ' — a  Jew  having  often  to  pay  an  enormous  sum  in  order  to  avoid 
having  his  eye  put  out.  With  that  Christian  usage  the  poet  appa- 
rently connects  the  robbery  of  Shylock's  treasure.  So  by  adopting-  the 
Christian  usage  of  the  time,  by  saying  to  Antonio  what  King  John  said 
to  the  Jews, — '  Your  money  or  your  flesh,' — Shylock  had  given  evidence 
of  a  change  of  heart,  and  his  right  place  was  in  the  Christian  fold. 

But  among  all  these  representative  figures  of  the  Venetian  court- 
room, transformations  from  the  flying  doves  and  pursuing  hawks, 
bound  victims  and  exacting  deities,  of  ancient  mythology,  there  is 
one  who  possesses  a  significance  yet  to  be  considered.  That  is  Portia. 
Who  is  this  gentle  woman  in  judicial  costume  ?  She  is  that  human 
heart  which  in  every  age,  amid  hard  dogmatic  systems  and  priestly 
intolerance,  has  steadily  appealed  against  the  whole  vindictive  system 
— whether  Jewish  or  Christian — and,  even  while  outwardly  conform- 
ing, managed  to  rescue  human  love  and  virtue  from  it.  With  his 
wonted  yet  ever-marvellous  felicity,  Shakespeare  has  made  the 
genius  of  this  human  sentiment  slipping  through  the  technicalities  of 
priest-made  law,  a  woman.  It  is,  indeed,  the  woman  soul  which  has 
silently  veiled  the  rude  hereditary  gods  and  laws  of  barbarism — the 
pitiless  ones — with  a  host  of  gentle  saints  and  intercessors,  until  the 
heartless  systems  have  been  left  to  theologians.  Inside  the  frown- 
ing buttresses  of  dogmatic  Theology  the  heart  of  woman  has  built  up 
for  the  home  a  religion  of  sympathy  and  charity. 


1880.  THE  POUND   OF  FLESH.  839 

Portia  does  not  argue  against  the  technique  of  the  law.  She 
agrees  to  call  the  old  system  justice — so  much  the  worse  for  justice. 
In  the  outcome  she  shows  that  this  so-called  justice  is  no  justice  at 
all.  And  when  she  has  shown  that  the  letter  of  'justice  '  killeth,  and 
warned  Shy  lock  that  he  can  be  saved  from  the  fatal  principle  he  has 
raised  only  by  invoking  the  spirit  which  giveth  life,  she  is  out  of 
the  case.  Shylock  now  sues  for  mercy  before  a  Christian  Shylock. 
And  Portia — like  Mary,  and  all  sweet  interceding  spirits  that  ever 
softened  stern  gods  in  human  hope — turns  from  the  judicial  Jahves 
of  the  bench  to  the  one  forgiving  spirit  there.  '  What  mercy  can 
you  render  him,  Antonio  ? '  The  Christian  Gratiano  interposes — *  A 
halter  gratis  :  nothing  else,  for  God's  sake.'  But  Christ  is  heard, 
however  faintly,  above  him,  and  Antonio  forgives  his  part  of  Shy- 
lock's  penalty. 

Forgiveness  is  the  attribute  of  man.  "We  may  reverse  Portia's 
statement  and  say  that,  instead  of  Mercy  dropping  as  the  gentle  rain 
from  heaven,  it  is  projected  into  heaven  from  compassionate  human 
hearts  beneath.  And  heavenly  power  doth  then  show  likest  man's 
when  mercy  seasons  the  vengeance  of  nature.  From  the  wild  forces 
above  not  only  droppeth  gentle  rain,  but  thunder  and  lightning, 
famine  and  pestilence ;  it  is  man  with  his  lightning-rod,  his  sym- 
pathy, his  healing  art,  who  turns  them  from  their  path  and  inter- 
poses a  shield  from  their  fury.  Consequently  all  religions,  beginning 
with  trembling  sacrifices  to  elemental  powers  personified — powers 
that  never  forgive — end  with  the  worship  of  an  ideal  man,  the 
human  lover  and  Saviour.  That  evolution  is  invariable.  Criticism 
may  find  this  or  that  particular  deified  man  limited  and  imperfect, 
and  may  discard  him.  It  may  take  refuge  in  pure  theism,  as  it  is 
called.  But  it  amounts  to  the  same  thing.  What  it  worships  is  still 
a  man, — an  invisible,  vast  man,  but  still  a  man.  To  worship  eternal 
love,  supreme  wisdom,  ideal  moral  perfection,  is  still  to  worship  man, 
for  we  know  such  attributes  only  in  man.  Therefore  the  Shylock  - 
principle  is  non-human  nature,  hard  natural  law  moving  remorselessly 
on  its  path  from  cause  to  effect;  the  Portia-principle,  the  quality  of 
Mercy,  means  the  purely  human  religion,  which,  albeit  for  a  time 
using  the  terms  of  ancient  nature-worship  and  alloyed  with  its  spirit, 
must  be  steadily  detached  from  those,  and  on  the  ruins  of  every  sacri- 
ficial altar  and  dogma  build  the  temple  whose  only  services  shall  be 
man's  service  to  man. 

MONCURE  D.  CON  WAY. 


840  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY.  May 


AGNOSTICISM  AND    WOMEN : 
A   REPLY. 


I  AM  one  of  those  to  whom  an  appeal  is  made  by  Mrs.  Lathbury  at 
the  end  of  an  article  bearing  the  above  title  in  the  April  number  of 
this  Review.  I  hold  Agnosticism  through  '  an  earnest  conviction  that 
it  is  the  only  true  standpoint,'  and  '  honesty  of  thought  has  obliged 
me  to  cast  away  my  ancient  landmarks.'  To  me,  then,  a  warning  is 
addressed :  she  bids  me  consider  if  it  would  be  all  gain  to  others  that 
they  should  be  led  to  do  likewise,  and  she  asks  the  question :  c  What 
has  the  Agnostic  to  offer  in  compensation  ? ' — for  Christianity  is 
the  premiss  (we  presume)  to  be  here  understood  ;  but  Christianity  is 
an  ambiguous  term,  and  Mrs.  Lathbury  gives  it  no  clear  definition. 
If  she  assumes  it  to  be  a  supernatural  religion  with  a  certain  prospect 
of  immortality,  she  may  reasonably  disparage  the  compensations 
Agnosticism  has  to  offer.  But  if,  on  the  other  hand,  Christianity  is 
to  her  a  natural  religion,  human  in  its  origin  like  Buddhism  and 
Mohammedanism,  and,  however  useful  in  the  past,  destined  to  pass 
more  or  less  slowly  away,  then  to  her  question  I  reply,  Agnosticism 
offers  truth  for  delusion,  it  affords  a  standpoint  from  which  clearness 
of  thought  and  stability  of  feeling  increase,  and  the  women  who  adopt 
it  grow  in  intellectual  courage,  which  I  agree  with  her  is  not  at  pre- 
sent a  universal  virtue  of  the  sex. 

These  compensations  are  not  to  be  despised  in  the  present  position 
of  this  country,  where  (as  Mrs.  Lathbury  truly  says)  Agnosticism  is 
gaining  ground  among  men.  Scientific  culture  is  too  far  advanced 
for  us  to  close  our  eyes  entirely  to  its  light.  We  may  avoid  all  the 
solid  literature  that  treats  of  the  world  as  it  is,  and  shows  how  it  has 
become  so  by  aid  of  existent  forces  irrespective  of  miracle ;  but  we 
cannot  help  seeing  in  popular  periodicals  constant  allusions  to  the 
religious  questions  of  the  day,  attempts  to  harmonise  science  and 
Christianity,  &c.,  and  even  in  novels  heroines  are  now  frequently  of 
the  rationalistic  type,  whose  opinions  are  either  scoffed  at,  or  made 
attractive,  according  to  the  bias  of  the  author. 

I  submit  that  it  is  no  longer  possible  for  women  to  escape  the 
shock  to  their  feelings  entailed  by  the  discovery  that  they  are  living 
in  an  age  when  Christianity  is  undergoing  critical  examination  and 
crucial  test. 


1880.        AGNOSTICISM  AND    WOMEN:  A   REPLY.          841 

Love  of  truth,  and  earnest  desire  to  follow  it,  have  led  many  of 
the  sex  to  cultivate  their  minds,  and  with  the  growth  of  logical 
faculty  has  come  a  consciousness  of  the  utter  confusion  of  ideas 
involved  in  their  early  and  much-cherished  beliefs. 

Timid  shrinking,  with  a  very  agony  of  doubt  as  to  what  further 
path  it  would  be  right  to  pursue,  is  the  first  result  of  this  awakening ; 
then  follows  a  passionate  struggle  to  bring  contradictories  into  agree- 
ment ;  and  I  do  not  seek  to  deny  that  to  a  woman,  with  her  strongly 
emotional  nature,  these  intellectual  heavings  are  intensely  painful, 
and  may  end  in  the  overthrow  of  reason  itself,  or  in  a  deliberate 
attempt  (which  Mrs.  Lathbury  would  approve)  to  shut  eyes  and  ears, 
and  cling,  with  such  blind  and  tottering  faith  as  is  still  possible,  to 
dogmas  she  dares  not  too  closely  scrutinise. 

This  course,  however,  is  unwise  ;  settled  peace  and  comfort  are  not 
likely  to  be  the  result  if  there  is  any  earnestness  of  nature  and 
intelligent  spirit  of  inquiry.  To  women  of  that  calibre,  Agnosticism 
is  sure  to  prove  a  much  more  blessed  haven  of  refuge.  The  conflict 
between  reason  and  feeling  there  comes  to  an  end.  Fresh  knowledge 
ceases  to  clash  with  one's  accepted  theory  of  the  universe.  The  inner 
and  outer  life  becomes  harmonious  and  consistent.  Love  of  the  indi- 
vidual no  longer  forms  the  one  predominant  interest  of  life ;  for  as 
the  mind  becomes  stronger,  one  learns  to  take  wider  and  broader 
views,  and  to  find,  especially  in  the  history  of  the  past,  a  new  world 
for  the  imagination,  with  the  constant  calling  forth  of  wonder  and 
admiration,  intellectual  emotions  which  are  always  pleasurable  and 
soothing.  And  in  time  the  personal  feelings  themselves  become 
slowly  but  surely  adapted  to  the  conditions.  The  standpoint  which 
was  reached  in  a  spirit  of  pure  self-negation — an  inward  bowing  to 
the  inevitable — is  discovered  to  have  proved  a  fresh  starting-point 
in  a  renovated  life,  calmer  perhaps  and  more  sober,  less  liable  to  hopes 
and  fears  than  the  old,  but  a  life  not  less  rich  in  all  enjoyments  that 
rational  beings  value. 

I  propose  now  to  point  out  some  dangers  Mrs.  Lathbury  ignores, 
and  which  the  silence  she  inculcates  is  sure  to  increase. 

Agnosticism,  she  says,  is  gaining  ground  among  men,  and  women 
frequently  see  those  of  the  other  sex,  whom  most  they  reverence  and 
admire,  drawn  away  from  the  beliefs  of  the  past.  Drawn  seems  to 
imply  that,  notwithstanding  the  more  powerful  intellect  she^ascribes 
to  man,  he  is  yet  supposed  to  be  moved  by  some  malignant  influence 
— some  force  other  than  his  own  unbiased  judgment.  But  to  this 
I  need  not  further  refer.  If  the  propulsion  indicated  is  Agnostic^I 
presume  the  Mephistopheles  is  of  his  own  sex. 

The  fact  we  have  to  deal  with  is,  that  many  men  now-a-days 
regard  the  fundamental  doctrines  of  Christianity  as  superstition,  and 
occupy  themselves  wholly  with  phenomena,  believing  that  humanity 
has  no  faculty  by  which  to  transcend  it  and  unveil  what  may  lie 


842  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  May 

beyond.  The  negative  position  of  knoiving  nothing  but  phenomena 
is  the  only  logical  one  to  their  masculine  intellects  ;  but  as  they  con- 
sider women  too  weak  and  timid  to  endure  the  shock  of  unwelcome 
truth,  there  is  amongst  them  a  '  semi-cynical  winking '  all  round,  a 
readiness  to  prevaricate,  and  to  speak  and  act  before  women  in  a  dis- 
honest and  deceptive  manner. 

This  state  of  things  is  degrading  to  both  sexes,  and  in  its  tendency 
to  thrust  men  and  women  apart  there  lies  a  very  great  social  evil. 
Sympathy,  and  all  the  tender  feelings  that  unite  and  bind  together, 
creating  a  healthy  social  solidarity,  are  less  likely  to  spring  and 
flourish  where  there  is  a  wide  intellectual  breach ;  and  the  instinctive 
perception  of  right  and  wrong  (which  Mrs.  Lathbury  regards  as 
woman's  special  characteristic)  will  do  little  to  influence  men,  when 
based  on  principles  they  have  abjured  for  themselves  as  false  and 
misleading. 

Again,  morals  are  taught  only  on  the  basis  of  Christianity. 
Children  are  shown  no  other  justification  of  duty  than  the  arbitrary 
command  of  Grod.  It  is  right  to  honour  father  and  mother,  and 
wrong  to  covet  and  steal,  because  God  said  so  to  the  Hebrews  more 
than  3,000  years  ago,  and  wrote  it  with  his  finger  on  tables  of  stone. 

But  when  a  boy  leaves  school  he  hears  his  father  talk  of  the 
Hebrews  as  a  barbarous  uncivilised  race,  and  he  may  see  him  smile  at 
their  anthropomorphic  conceptions  of  Deity.  His  mother  meanwhile 
reads  the  finger  passage  with  devout  and  reverent  air.  How  is  the 
boy  to  reconcile  these  facts  ?  Either  his  father  must  be  wicked,  or 
his  mother  foolish,  and,  whichever  alternative  he  accepts,  there  is 
injury  done  to  his  young  moral  nature.  He  ceases  to  look  up  equally 
to  both  parents.  He  rejects  the  one  or  the  other  as  a  trustworthy 
guide  in  the  conduct  of  life,  and  very  probably  he  throws  off  all 
authoritative  restraint  in  consequence  of  the  conflicting  influences 
around  him. 

It  appears,  then,  that  woman's  highest,  most  sacred  human 
interests  require  of  her  to  enter  into  the  struggle,  and  acquaint  her- 
self with  the  reasons  why  so  many  men  are  no  longer  Christians  at 
heart.  For  if  they  are  wrong  she  must  defend  her  Christian  position 
logically  before  them  ;  if  they  are  right,  an  all-important  work  has  to 
be  done,  in  laying  a  secure  foundation  for  moral  teaching,  and  sweep- 
ing away  the  cobwebs  and  dust  that  are  sure  to  dim  the  eye  of  con- 
science in  the  young. 

A  mother  must  expect  her  boys  to  be  logical,  even  if  her  girls  are 
not  so ;  and  it  is  difficult  to  see  how  conscience  can  be  maintained, 
far  less  strengthened  and  further  developed,  in  homes  where  the 
intellectual  atmosphere  is  full  of  antagonistic  ideas. 

This  is  no  age  for  the  exhibition  of  woman's  loving  nature  in  the 
closet  alone.  Mrs.  Lathbury  says  :  '  Prayer,  in  one  form  or  other,  makes 
up  the  life  of  every  loving  nature.'  We  trust  she  is  greatly  mistaken. 


1880.        AGNOSTICISM  AND    WOMEN:  A   REPLY.          843 

The  picture  of  such  waste  of  energy,  in  view  of  what  it  might  accom- 
plish in  a  wider  sphere  than  the  closet,  is  appalling,  and  makes  one 
wish  that  a  cataclysm,  and  not  the  slow  work  of  mental  evolution, 
might  take  us  suddenly  beyond  this  transition  period. 

Mrs.  Lathbury  describes  women  as  emotional  in  temperament 
and  timid  in  intellect.  Their  nature  and  pursuits  are  different  from 
those  of  men,  and  therefore  Agnosticism,  if  embraced,  will  affect  them 
differently.  The  occupations  they  at  present  are  devoted  to — viz., 
tending  the  sick  and  aged,  educating  the  ignorant,  and  praying  for 
the  erring — will  necessarily  become  distasteful.  They  will  turn 
away  from  these,  and  either  sit  still  and  see  their  best  hopes  fade  away, 
or  throw  themselves  eagerly  into  the  more  active  lines  of  employment 
in  order  to  drown  thought  and  fill  the  void  that  loss  of  belief  will 
entail. 

The  inference  throughout  this  reasoning  is  that  women  will  always 
remain  exactly  what  she  sees  them  to  be  now — that,  although  the  out- 
ward conditions  alter,  the  essential  nature  of  the  sex  is  unchangeable. 

But  herein  agnostics  "take  a  different  and  much  more  hopeful 
view.  Human  nature  is  to  them  infinitely  modifiable,  and  while 
admitting  that  woman  has  suffered,  and  is  likely  to  suffer,  in  passing 
from  old  creeds  to  new,  still  adaptation  goes  on,  and  even  for  the 
individual  they  anticipate  reconcilement  and  not  despair. 

It  is  precisely  to  Agnosticism  they  look  to  aid  and  hasten  this 
reconcilement.  Were  the  women  of  the  present  day  bravely  to  adopt 
the  negative  standpoint,  and  insist  on  education  being  freed  from 
all  theological  assumptions,  and  above  all  were  they  to  see  to  it  that 
moral  precepts  were  inculcated  without  reference  to  supernatural 
agency,  then  assuredly  the  next  generation  would  be  spared  much 
suffering  which  they  themselves  have  passed  through. 

Mrs.  Lathbury's  view  of  education  appears  singularly  contracted. 
She  anticipates  that  agnostic  women  would  cease  to  care  about 
educating  the  poor,  since,  without  belief  in  a  future  life,  '  education 
will  only  tend  practically  to  heighten  and  intensify  unhappiness.' 
'  Let  us  place  ourselves,'  she  says,  *  in  the  condition  of  a  man  with 
education  enough  to  know  that  the  whole  of  his  surroundings  are 
wretched,  and  it  is  only  a  question  of  money  that  makes  the  difference 
between  his  working  all  day  on  his  back  in  a  coal-mine  and  his 
master  working  in  a  comfortable  room.  How  much  happiness  will 
his  education  bring  him  ?  ' 

Any  one  who  has  read  the  lives  of  Edwards  and  Dick,  the  lowly 
and  obscure  naturalists,  needs  no  answer  to  this  question.  What 
self- education  may  do,  in  the  way  of  giving  pure  enjoyment  amidst 
grinding  poverty,  is  too  plainly  set  forth  in  the  history  of  these  men's 
lives.  There  are  not  perhaps  very  many  natures  to  whom  the  riches 
of  culture  are  sufficient  for  happiness  independent  of  material  comfort ; 
but  education,  in  the  wide  sense,  gives  positive  pleasures  and  benefits, 


844  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  May 

and  it  is  absurd  to  represent  it  as  likely  to  breed  only  discontent 
unless  accompanied  by  hopes  of  heaven. 

That  the  logical  education  of  agnostics  of  the  present  day  requires 
improvement  Mrs.  Lathbury  points  out.  She  says  :  '  Enthusiastic  for 
all  progress,  he  forgets  that  a  progress  that  comes  to  an  end  with 
death  is  no  true  progress  at  all,  and  that  which  is  untrue  for  the 
individual  cannot  be  true  for  the  human  race.'  It  seems  hard  to 
accuse  all  agnostics  of  this  strange  confusion  of  ideas.  The  real 
proposition  they  put  forth  is,  that  while  individual  life  is  short,  the 
life  of  humanity,  composed  of  myriads  of  individuals,  generation 
after  generation,  through  countless  ages,  still  goes  on,  and  may 
progress  with  steady  step  towards  an  ideal  perfection  scarcely  now 
conceived  of.  Each  individual  must  necessarily  assist  or  retard  this 
movement  to  the  higher  goal,  according  as  he  progresses  or  deteriorates 
within  the  narrow  limits  of  his  own  individual  existence. 

And  now  to  touch  upon  the  question  of  immortality.  c  Will  the 
agnostic  promise,'  we  are  asked,  '  that  the  human  heart  will  have  no 
longing  after  something  higher  than  our  own  poor  human  perfection  ? ' 

The  aspiration  and  attempt  of  the  fabled  frog  to  become  the 
nobler  bull  would  call  for  admiration  had  the  thing  been  only 
possible ;  nevertheless,  the  lesson  taught  by  the  disaster  seems  :  How 
much  more  admirable,  had  the  lowly  frog  been  satisfied  with  its  own 
position  in  the  economy  of  nature  ! 

To  summarise — Mrs.  Lathbury's  warning  to  agnostics  should  be 
disregarded :  (1)  because,  by  speaking  out,  they  may  prove  most 
helpful  to  timid  women  who  are  now  in  a  transition  stage ;  (2)  because 
men  and  women  are  already  too  much  divided,  and  by  the  reticence 
of  the  former  the  intellectual  breach  may  become  wider,  and  it  is  an 
evil  morally  injurious  to  society ;  (3)  because  children  suffer  from 
this  breach,  for  without  parental  harmony  home  influence  cannot  be 
wholly  beneficial ;  (4)  because,  were  they  to  carry  out  Mrs.  Lathbury's 
counsel  and  be  as  silent  as  the  grave,  the  movement  would  still  go  on, 
whereas,  if  agnostics  act  truthfully  and  speak  out  calmly,  it  will  not 
bring  the  disastrous  consequences  she  depicts  and  deplores. 

There  is  already  a  considerable  band  of  female  agnostics  in  this 
country.  They  have  no  mind  to  whine  over  the  inevitable  or  to  be 
obstructive  in  the  universal  onward  march ;  still  less  are  they  aggressive. 
They  neither  push  nor  draw  into  their  supposed  pit  of  despondency 
fellow-creatures  who  are  unwilling ;  but  whenever  occasion  offers 
they  express  their  opinions  freely  and  fearlessly.  They  have  not  lost 
relish  for  life  ;  their  former  employments  are  not  gone  ;  they  are  not 
eager  for  professional  work  in  order  to  drown  thought ;  they  are  not 
plunged  into  suffering  through  hopelessness,  and  sitting  supine  in 
bitterness  of  soul.  And  in  the  light  thrown  upon  the  subject  by  the 
lives  and  characters  of  these  women  Mrs.  Lathbury's  picture  of  the 
effects  of  Agnosticism  appears  a  caricature. 

J.  H.  CLAPPERTON. 


1880.  845 


JOHN  DONNE. 

THOSE  whom  taste  or  accident  leads  to  old  books  often  find  occasion 
to  pause  and  meditate  over  high  tributes  of  praise  paid  to  men 
whose  names  have  long  since  become  unsuggestive  sounds,  except  to 
the  studious  few.  The  man  whose  name  stands  at  the  head  of  this 
article  lived  in  the  greatest  age  of  our  literature,  and  was  affirmed 
by  contemporary  judgment  to  be  one  of  its  greatest  writers.  Carew 
proposed  as  an  epitaph  for  him  the  lines : — 

Here  lies  a  king  who  ruled  as  he  thought  fit 
The  universal  monarchy  of  wit. 

Ben  Jonson,  whose  critical  temper  always  moved^him  to  be  precise  and 
discriminating  in  his  eulogies,  apostrophised  Donne  as  '  the  delight 
of  Phoebus  and  each  Muse,' 

Whose  every  work  of  thy  most  early  wit 
Came  forth  example,  and  remains  so  yet. 

No  doubt,  in  estimating  the  value  of  such  testimonies,  we  must 
make  a  certain  allowance  for  the  circumstances.  It  was  the  custom 
for  authors  in  those  days  to  certify  one  another's  merits  in  glowing 
language.  Authors  now  know  a  more  excellent  way ;  mutual  admira- 
tion is  expressed  anonymously.  But  at  the  beginning  of  the  seven- 
teenth century  there  were  no  influential  Reviews  to  be  '  got  at ' ;  and 
friends  showed  their  goodwill  by  sending  the  author  of  a  new  book 
copies  of  commendatory  verses,  which  were  printed  and  issued  with 
it  as  a  sort  of  guarantee  or  introduction.  We  should  do  wrong,  of 
course,  to  attach  much  critical  value  to  such  panegyrics ;  they  ob- 
viously cannot  be  accepted  as  the  verdict  of  contemporary  opinion  on 
an  author's  worth.  A  collection  of  all  the  commendatory  verses  pub- 
lished during  the  reigns  of  Elizabeth  and  James  the  First,  would  not 
be  a  faithful  mirror  of  the  estimation  in  which  the  writers  of  that  time 
were  held  by  their  contemporaries.  But  these  verses  furnish  a  certain 
clue  to  contemporary  opinion  if  we  have  regard  to  the  character  of 
the  panegyrists.  The  commendation  of  a  foolish  person  by  another 
person  only  a  trifle  less  foolish  than  himself  does  not  carry  much 
weight.  But  the  enthusiastic  admiration  of  such  men  as  Jonson  and 
Carew,  and  the  host  of  eminent  writers  who  paid  tribute  to  Donne's 
memory  when  his  works  were  published  after  his  death,  was  not  to 


846  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY.  May 

be  so  cheaply  purchased,  and  it  is  strange  that  a  man  who  in  such 
an  age  was  numbered  among  the  masters  of  literature  should  have 
received  so  little  honour  from  posterity. 

Neglect,  indeed,  is  not  the  only  indignity  that  the  poetry  of  Dr. 
Donne  has  suffered.  It  was  stamped  with  emphatic  condemnation 
by  the  great  critical  authority  of  the  eighteenth  century.  Dr.  John- 
son recognised  Donne  as  a  master  and  the  founder  of  a  school,  but  it 
was  a  school  with  which  he  had  no  sympathy.  He  nicknamed  Donne 
and  his  followers  '  the  metaphysical  poets,'  and  he  culled  from  their 
works  a  variety  of  specimens  to  prove  that  the  characteristics  of  the 
school  were  unnatural  and  far-fetched  conceits,  '  enormous  and 
disgusting  hyperboles,'  c  violent  and  unnatural  fictions,'  '  slight  and 
trifling  sentiments.'  At  the  same  time  he  did  not  deny  that  there 
was  something  to  be  said  in  their  favour. 

Great  labour,  directed  by  great  ability,  is  never  wholly  lost ;  if  they  frequently 
threw  away  their  wit  upon  false  conceits,  they  likewise  sometimes  struck  out  un- 
expected truth ;  if  their  conceits  were  far-fetched,  they  were  often  worth  the 
carriage.  ...  If  their  greatness  seldom  elevates,  their  acuteness  often  surprises ; 
if  the  imagination  is  not  always  gratified,  at  least  the  powers  of  reflection  and 
comparison  are  employed ;  and  in  the  mass  of  materials  which  ingenious  absurdity 
has  thrown  together,  genuine  wit  and  useful  knowledge  may  be  sometimes  found 
buried  perhaps  in  grossness  of  expression,  but  useful  to  those  who  know  their 
value  ;  and  such  as,  when  they  are  expanded  to  perspicuity  and  polished  to  elegance, 
may  give  lustre  to  works  which  have  more  propriety,  though  less  copiousness,  of 
sentiment. 

Such  was  Dr.  Johnson's  opinion  of  the  works  which  his  great 
namesake  in  the  Elizabethan  time  pronounced  to  be  '  examples,'  and 
did  his  best  to  rival ;  they  were  worth  digging  into  as  mines,  but  their 
art  was  detestable.  A  very  different  opinion  was  formed  by  the  great 
critics  at  the  beginning  of  this  century ;  but,  unhappily  for  Donne's 
general  reputation,  for  one  person  that  reads  De  Quincey's  essay 
on  Rhetoric  or  Coleridge's  priceless  fragments  of  criticism,  twenty 
read  Johnson's  Lives  of  the  Poets.  M.  Taine,  in  his  rapid  survey 
of  English  literature,  has  unhesitatingly  adopted  Johnson's  con- 
demnation, and  developed  it  into  an  historical  theory.  The  poetry  of 
Donne  and  his  imitators  M.  Taine  marks  as  a  sign  of  the  decadence 
of  the  grand  inspiration  that  produced  the  literature  of  the  Elizabe- 
than period.  The  flood  of  great  thoughts  and  great  passions  had 
spent  itself ;  the  mighty  men  of  genius,  through  whom  the  heroic 
spirit  had  spoken,  were  succeeded  by  a  feebler  race,  who,  instead  of 
giving  free  vent  to  fire  that  was  burning  in  their  hearts,  strained  and 
tortured  their  intellects  in  the  devising  of  pretty  compliments,  and 
sought  to  outdo  the  natural  language  of  overpowering  passion  by 
cold  and  artificial  hyperbole.  M.  Taine  admits  that  there  is  some- 
thing of  the  energy  and  thrill  of  the  original  inspiration  in  Donne, 
but  he  does  not  admit  that  there  is  enough  to  exempt  him  from  the 


.1880.  JOHN  DONNE.  847 

sweeping   censure   passed   by   Johnson   upon  the   school   which  he 
founded. 

Critics,  like  travellers,  too  often  see  only  what  they  look  for. 
The  truth  is  that  the  prettiness  and  pedantic  affectation  which  M. 
Taine  assumed  to  be  marks  of  decadence  were  as  common  in  Elizabe- 
than literature  before  it  reached  its  grand  period  as  they  were  after. 
.The  poetry  of  the  Elizabethan  time  may  be  divided  roughly  into 
two  kinds,  the  poetry  of  the  Court  and  the  poetry  of  the  stage.  The 
poets  cannot  be  so  classified,  because  most  of  them  attempted  both 
kinds ;  but  there  were  two  classes  of  audience  who  had  to  be  moved 
and  delighted  by  essentially  different  means.  It  is  in  the  poetry  of 
the  stage  that  we  find  the  rushing  abundance  of  impassioned  feeling 
and  sublime  thought,  divine  and  demoniac  emotion,  simple  freshness 
of  sentiment.  The  poetry  of  the  Court  demanded  more  veiled  and 
intricate  forms  of  utterance.  But  it  is  a  mistake  to  represent  the 
one  style  as  a  degradation  of  the  other,  the  prettiness  and  affectation 
.of  the  courtly  poetry  as  a  sign  of  the  exhaustion  of  the  inspiration 
which  produced  the  grand  style  of  the  stage.  Literature  must  always  be 
conditioned  by  its  readers,  and  if  we  take  prettiness  and  affectation  as 
marks  of  decadence,  we  must  be  driven  to  the  conclusion  that  the  grand 
style  of  the  Elizabethan  period  decayed  before  it  came  into  existence. 
The  works  of  the  most  earnest  of  the  love  poets  before  Shakespeare 
reached  his  meridian  were  saturated  with  violent  and  unnatural  fic- 
tions, trifling  and  far-fetched  conceits.  Sir  Philip  Sidney,  in  common 
with  the  more  robust  intellects  of  the  time,  rebelled  against  the  pre- 
vailing foppery,  and  exhorted  himself  to  *  look  in  his  heart  and 
write.'  But  he  could  not  escape  the  infection  of  what  he  despised, 
and  to  a  later  generation  his  sonnets  bear  as  much  evidence  of  ambi- 
tion to  show  his  wit  as  of  urgent  necessity  to  pour  out  the  feelings 
of  his  heart.  We  know  from  Love's  Labour  Lost  what  Shakespeare 
thought  of  the  reigning  mode.  The  King  of  Navarre  and  his  lords 
make  love  at  first  in  the  very  height  of  the  fashion,  and  bandy  wit 
with  their  mistresses  ;  but  when  they  get  the  worst  of  the  gay  en- 
counter, they  abjure — 

Taffeta  phrases,  silken  terms  precise, 
Three-piled  hyperboles,  spruce  .affectation, 
Figures  pedantical, 

i 

and  vow  henceforth  to  conduct  their  wooing  '  in  russet  yeas  and  honest 
kersey  noes.'  But  Shakespeare,  the  universal,  was  not  entirely 
wrapt  up  in  the  grand  passions  ;  and  there  was  plenty  of  three-piled 
hyperbole  and  pedantical  figures  in  his  '  sugared  sonnets  among  his 
private  friends.' 

In  love,  as  in  religion,  there  are  three  Churches,  the  High 
Church,  the  Low  Church,  and  the  Broad  Church.  Love  was  wor- 
shipped in  the  Elizabethan  age  with  elaborate  rites  and  ceremonies. 


848  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  May 

The  poets  were  all  extreme  Eitualists.  Here  and  there  we  come  across 
notes  of  impatience  under  the  burden  of  minute  formalities,  vows  to 
have  done  with  them  as  tedious  fopperies,  and  to  revert  to  '  the  russet 
yeas  and  honest  kersey  noes.'  But  the  tide  of  fashion  was  too  strong, 
and  the  rebels  who  had  solemnly  repudiated  one  ritual,  soon  found 
themselves  racking  their  brains  to  devise  another.  There  was  no 
keener  satirist  of  the  erotic  commonplaces  of  his  youth  than  John 
Donne ;  but  his  indignation  was  not  against  the  style,  but  against  the 
commonplace  abuse  of  it,  against  the  barren  versifier 

who  beggarly  doth  chaw 
Others'  wits'  fruits,  and  in  his  ravenous  maw 
Rankly  digested,  doth  those  things  outspue 
As  his  own  things. 

Donne's  own  love  poems  were  written  in  a  fashionable  style.  He  threw, 
however,  so  much  wit  and  learning  and  ingenuity  into  them  that  he 
was  looked  up  to  in  his  own  age  and  held  up  to  ridicule  in  a  succeed- 
ing age  as  the  founder  of  a  new  school.  His  poetry  was  not  a  sign  of 
the  decadence  of  the  grand  style,  the  exhaustion  of  the  grand  inspira- 
tion. The  simple  fact  that  he  began  to  write,  as  he  continued  to 
write,  before  the  dramatic  masterpieces  of  Shakespeare  were  produced 
is  sufficient  to  refute  this  notion.  His  poetry  was  really  a  sort  of 
new  departure  in  the  trifling  style.  And  before  we  condemn  the 
style  of  the  Court,  with  its  absurd  ingenuities,  its  far-fetched  conceits, 
its  passion  for  saying  only  what  had  never  been  said  before,  as  mere 
trifling  and  waste  of  brains,  we  must  remember  what  the  great  poetry 
of  the  stage  owed  to  it.  The  ransacking  of  heaven  and  earth  for 
occult  images,  the  elaborate  torture  with  which  those  images  were 
twisted  and  turned  and  broken  into  fragments,  the  indefatigable 
manipulation  of  words  and  ideas — all  this  belonged  to  the  intense  oc- 
cupation of  the  best  intellect  of  the  time  with  the  materials  of  poetry. 
The  labour  was  not  thrown  away.  The  great  masters  of  the  dramatic 
art  were  gainers  by  it.  Dr.  Johnson  admits  that  the  rubbish  heaps 
of  the  metaphysical  poets  contained  many  things  that  *  might  be 
useful  to  those  who  know  their  value.1  But  they  were  useful  also 
in  their  own  generation  to  poets  who  possibly  did  not  know  their 
value,  but  owed  to  them  unconsciously  much  stimulation  and  sug- 
gestion. The  fantastic  love  poetry  of  the  Elizabethan  period  was  the 
soil  from  which  the  great  works  drew  their  sap,  the  atmosphere  in 
which  they  put  forth  leaf  and  branch.  The  dramatic  literature  might 
have  been  still  nobler  without  it ;  but  without  it  this  literature  might 
never  have  existed,  and  the  stage  might  have  remained  what  it  was 
before  Marlowe  descended  to  rescue  it  from  clownish  horseplay, 
bustling  spectacle,  and  the  crude  representation  of  sensational  inci- 
dents. 

The  admiration  which  Donne's  contemporaries  expressed  for  him 


1880.  JOHN  DONNE.  849 

as  a  writer  was  doubtless  largely  influenced  by  the  impression  which 
he  made  upon  them  as  a  man.     A  writer's  personality  cannot  be 
separated  from  his  works  in  his  own  time.     Posterity  judges  him  by 
what  he  has  done,  what  he  has  finished  and  left  behind  him ;  the 
judgment  of  contemporaries  is  insensibly  influenced  by  what  they 
believe   him   to  be   capable   of  doing.     The  knowledge  of  Donne's 
immense  learning,  the  subtlety  and   capacity  of  his  intellect,  the 
intense  depth  and  wide  scope  of  his  thought,  the  charm  of  his  con- 
versation, the  sadness  of  his  life,  gave  a  vivid  meaning  and  interest  to 
his  poems — not  published,  it  must  be  remembered,  but  circulated 
among  his  acquaintances — which  at  this  distance  of  time  we  cannot 
reach  without  a  certain  effort   of  imagination.     The  effort  is  quite 
worth  making.     Dr.  Donne  is  one  of  the  most  interesting  personalities 
among  our  men  of  letters.     The  superficial  facts  of  his  life  are  so 
incongruous  as  to  be  an  irresistible  provocation  to  inquiry.     What 
are  we  to  make  of  the  fact  that  the  founder  of  a  licentious  school  of 
erotic  poetry,  a  man  acknowledged  to  be  the  greatest  wit  in  a  licen- 
tious Court,  with  an  early  bias  in  matters  of  religion  towards  Eoman 
Catholicism,   entered   the    Church   of   England  when   he  was   past 
middle  age  and  is  now  numbered  among  its  greatest  divines  ?     Was 
he  a  convert  like  St.  Augustine,  or  an   indifferent  worldling  like 
Talleyrand  ?      Superficial  appearances  are  rather    in  favour  of  the 
latter  supposition.     He  took  holy  orders  at  the  command  of  King 
James,  after  long  waiting  in  vain  for  a  political  appointment.     He 
would  much  have  preferred  some  such  post  as  that  of  Clerk  of  the 
Council,  but  the  king  had  made  up  his  mind  that  he  was  eminently 
fitted  for  the  Church,  and  persistently  refused  to  give  him  any  of  the 
offices  which  were  solicited  for  him.     He  was  thus  starved  into  sub- 
mission to  the  king's  will.     His  most  influential  friend  and  patron 
was  the  infamous  favourite,  Sir  Robert  Carr.     He  remained  on  inti- 
mate terms  with  Carr  after  his  admission  to  holy  orders,  and  letters 
are  extant  in  which  he  implored  the  favourite's  mediation  when  one 
of  his  sermons  had  given  offence  to  the  king.     He  sent  Carr  the 
manuscript  of  his  Biathanatos,  an  elaborate  inquiry  into  the  lawful- 
ness of  suicide,  begging  him  to  note  that  it  was  '  a  work  written  by 
Jack  Donne,  and  not  by  Dr.  Donne.'     Carr  was  godfather  to  one  of 
his  children.     His  son  has  been  blamed  for  the  indecency  of  publish- 
ing the  effusions  of  his  irregular  youth  after  his  death.     But  it  has 
not  been  observed  that  he  printed,  *  at  his  own  cost,  a  few  copies '  of 
these  licentious  poems  for  private  circulation.     '  I  must  do  this,'  he 
wrote  to  his  friend  Goodyere,  '  as  a  valediction  to  the  world  before  I 
take  orders.'     These  things  cannot  easily  be  reconciled  with  the  suppo- 
sition that  he  looked  back  with  bitter  mortification  to  the  irregular 
sallies  of  his  3routh.     And  yet  his  behaviour  after  he  took  orders  was 
eminently  decorous.     His  life  as  well  as  his  muse  was  above  reproach. 
He  never  forfeited  the  respect  of  pious  m?n.     The  most  suspicious 
VOL.  VII.— No.  39.  3  L 


850  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  May 

scoffer  could  not  call  in  question  the  sincerity  of  his  attachment  to 
the  faith  which  he  preached  with  such  impassioned  ingenuity,  and 
illustrated  with  such  a  plethora  of  learning. 

The  incongruities  which  are  so  perplexing  when  we  look  at  the 
superficial  facts  of  Donne's  life  disappear  when  we  look  more  closely 
into  his  complex  character.  He  was  very  far  from  having  the  moral 
flexibility  of  Talleyrand,  and  on  the  other  hand  he  had  not  the 
passionate  vehemence  of  nature  which  is  subject  to  sudden  revulsions, 
and  streams  impetuously  in  one  direction  or  another  in  long  clearly 
defined  reaches.  He  was  a  man  of  many  sides  and  many  moods,  a 
student  and  a  dreamer,  not  a  man  of  action,  even  in  the  pursuit  of 
his  studies  and  his  dreams.  With  all  his  splendid  gifts  he  drifted 
along  aimlessly,  without  rudder  or  compass,  till  a  career  was  found 
for  him  in  the  Church.  The  students  of  this  century,  projecting 
their  inner  consciousness  upon  the  Elizabethan  age,  have  sought  in 
Hamlet  a  type  of  gentle  and  irresolute  humanity.  They  have  done 
their  utmost  thereby  to  obscure  the  import  of  the  tragedy  of  the 
high-minded  high-spirited  youth,  who,  putting  his  foot  across  the 
threshold  of  the  world,  was  confronted  by  horrors  that  dimmed  the 
brightness  of  the  sun  for  him,  and  disordered  the  foundations  of  his 
being.  They  might  have  found  in  Donne  in  real  life  the  type  that 
they  sought  in  the  hero  of  Shakespeare's  tragedy.  Donne  did  not 
need  the  heavy  blow  of  a  monstrous  experience  to  force  him  out  of 
harmony  with  the  world ;  the  music  of  his  soul  was  not  jangled  by 
any  thunderbolt  of  fate.  He  drifted  gradually,  from  sheer  weakness 
of  will,  from  contemplative  indecision,  into  a  slough  of  despond. 
At  the  age  of  fourteen  he  was  a  linguistic  prodigy.  His  mother, 
who  was  descended  from  the  family  of  Sir  Thomas  More,  cherished 
an  attachment  to  the  Koman  Catholic  faith,  and  while  she  was 
anxious  to  develop  her  son's  genius,  chose  tutors  for  him  who 
should  incline  his  mind  towards  the  doctrine  of  that  Church.  Hence, 
before  he  was  twenty,  Donne  was  deeply  read  in  early  divines  and 
mediaeval  casuists.  Casting  about  for  a  profession,  he  '  undertook,' 
as  he  says  in  one  of  his  letters,  '  the  study  of  our  laws  ;  but  was 
diverted  therefrom  by  the  worst  voluptuousness,  which  is  an  hydrop- 
tic  immoderate  desire  of  human  learning  and  languages ; '  '  beauti- 
ful ornaments,'  he  adds,  '  to  great  fortunes,  but  mine  needed  an 
occupation.'  Things  went  well  with  him  for  some  years  without  an 
occupation.  He  had  the  good  or  ill  fortune  to  find  favour  in  the 
eyes  of  great  men  at  Court.  He  accompanied  the  Earl  of  Essex  on 
his  expedition  to  Cadiz.  The  Lord  Chancellor  Ellesmere  appointed 
him  one  of  his  secretaries. 

In  so  far  as  Donne  had  any  plans  in  life,  he  probably  looked  for- 
ward for  a  livelihood  to  the  pickings  with  which  great  men  in  those 
days  enriched  their  dependants.  But  even  then,  when  he  was  in  the 
prime  of  youth  and  was  sailing  along  with  a  fair  breeze,  he  was  not 


1880.  JOHN  DONNE.  851 

greatly  in  love  with  existence.  He  was  impatient,  as  he  says,  for  '  the 
next  life,'  and  took  a  gloomy  pleasure  in  meditating  on  the  lawfulness 
of  suicide,  and  searching  his  books  to  discover  whether  in  the  opinion 
of  the  gravest  and  most  learned  thinkers,  the  Almighty  had  '  fixed 
his  canon  'gainst  self-slaughter.'  Presently  this  life-weariness  was 
quickened  by  misfortune.  Donne  did  not  make  that  use  of  his 
connection  with  the  Court  which  a  sharp  man  of  the  world  would 
have  made.  He  did  not  play  his  cards  well.  He  fell  in  love  with 
Lady  Ellesmere's  niece,  who  was  staying  in  the  Lord  Chancellor's 
house.  When  the  girl's  father  heard  of  this,  he  was  furious,  and  re- 
called his  daughter  at  once  to  the  country.  But  it  was  too  late. 
The  pair  were  already  secretly  married.  The  angry  father  in  his 
passion  insisted  that  Donne  should  be  dismissed  from  Lord  Ellesmere's 
service.  Subsequently  he  relented,  became  reconciled  to  the  inevit- 
able, and  begged  that  Donne  might  be  taken  back  to  his  secretary- 
ship ;  but  the  Lord  Chancellor  said  that  he  could  not  dismiss  and 
reinstate  his  servants  to  gratify  any  man's  whims,  and  so  Donne  and 
his  wife  were  thrown  out  upon  the  world,  he  being  then  at  the  age  of 
thirty.  For  the  next  ten  or  twelve  years  he  led  a  very  sad  and  un- 
settled life,  mainly  dependent  upon  the  favours  of  rich  and  powerful 
friends,  who  used  their  influence  in  vain  to  get  him  some  permanent 
office.  He  was  profoundly  dissatisfied  with  his  purposeless  drifting 
existence. 

Every  Tuesday  [he  wrote  to  a  friend,  in  a  letter  from  which  I  have  already 
quoted]  I  make  account  that  I  turn  a  great  hour-glass,  and  consider  that  a  week's 
life  is  run  out  since  I  writ.  But  if  I  ask  myself  what  I  have  done  in  the  last 
watch,  or  would  do  in  the  next,  I  can  say  nothing ;  if  I  say  that  I  have  passed  it 
without  hurting  any,  so  may  the  spider  in  my  window.  The  primitive  monks 
were  excusable  iu  their  retirings  and  enclosures  of  themselves,  for  even  of  them 
every  one  cultivated  his  own  garden  and  orchard,  that  is,  his  soul  and  body,  by 
meditation  and  manufactures ;  and  they  sought  the  world  no  more,  since  they 
consumed  none  of  her  sweetness,  nor  begot  others  to  burden  her.  But  for  me,  if  I 
were  able  to  husband  all  my  time  so  thriftily,  as  not  only  not  to  wound  my  soul 
in  a  minute  by  actual  sin,  but  not  to  rob  and  cozen  her  by  giving  any  part  to 
pleasure  or  business,  but  bestow  it  all  upon  her  in  meditation,  yet  even  in  that  I 
should  wound  her  more,  and  contract  another  guiltiness ;  as  the  eagle  were  very 
unnatural  if,  because  she  is  able  to  do  it,  she  should  perch  a  whole  day  upon  a 
tree,  staring  in  contemplation  of  the  majesty  and  glory  of  the  sun,  and  let  her 
young  eaglets  starve  in  the  nest.  ...  I  would  not  that  death  should  take  me 
asleep.  I  would  not  have  him  merely  seize  me  and  only  declare  me  to  be  dead, 
but  win  me,  and  overcome  me.  When  I  must  shipwreck,  I  would  do  it  in  a  sea 
where  mine  impoteucy  might  have  some  excuse,  not  in  a  sullen,  weedy  lake,  where 
I  could  not  have  so  much  as  exercise  for  my  swimming.  Therefore  I  would  fain 
do  something ;  but  that  I  cannot  tell  what  is  no  wonder.  For  to  choose  is  to  do, 
but  to  be  no  part  of  anybody  is  to  be  nothing.  At  most,  the  greatest  persons  are 
but  great  wens  and  excrescences  ;  men  of  wit  and  delightful  conversation,  but  as 
moles  for  ornament,  except  they  be  so  incorporated  into  the  body  of  the  world  that 
they  contribute  something  to  the  sustentatiou  of  the  whole. 

To  be  incorporated  into  the  body  of  the  world,  to  be  a  wheel  in 

3  L  2 


852  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  May 

the  great  machine  and  share  in  the  glory  of  its  motion,  and  not  to 
lie  unprofitably  on  the  ground,  cast  aside  to  inertness  and  rust,  was 
for  many  years — the  best  years  of  his  life — the  unfulfilled  longing 
of  the  unhappy  student.  He  doubted  his  fitress  to  'contribute  some- 
thing to  the  sustentation  of  the  whole,'  in  the  capacity  in  which  his 
Majesty  the  King  was  bent  upon  employing  him. 

Donne's  consecration  of  the  last  third  of  his  life  to  the  service  of 
the  Church  was  a  real  and  not  merely  a  professed  consecration,  and 
it  was  not  the  result  of  a  sudden  impulse.  It  was  a  deliberate  act, 
the  act  of  a  man  who  had  from  his  youth  up  thought  much  about 
the  mysteries  of  religion,  searching  with  an  intellect  which  was  not 
easily  satisfied,  with  a  confidence  which  would  not  acknowledge 
defeat,  and  finding  assurance  and  rest  at  last.  The  youthful  irre- 
gularities which  he  pleaded  as  an  excuse  for  declining  sacred  office 
were  no  part  of  the  deep  and  massive  current  of  his  life  ;  they  were 
only  waves  raised  upon  the  surface  by  the  winds  that  blew  over  it. 
The  first  poems  that  Donne  wrote  were  satires,  very  different  pro- 
ductions from  the  dashing,  smirking,  fluent  imitations  of  the  ancients 
which  Joseph  Hall  put  forth  with  a  claim  to  be  the  first  of  English 
satirists.  They  are  not  scholarly  exercises  or  artistic  displays  ;  they 
have  their  root  in  the  individual  feelings  and  thoughts  of  the  writer; 
they  reveal  the  genuine  workings  of  his  mind  upon  the  facts  that  life 
presented  to  it.  The  high  spirits  and  unworldly  mind  of  generous 
youth  shine  through  them.  In  one  he  ridicules  with  mirthful 
mockery  the  light  grounds  on  which  men  take  up  with  religious 
creeds,  and  vindicates  the  right  of  inquiry  in  a  strain  which  shows 
that  he  reserved  his  own  judgment  under  the  persuasions  of  his 
Koman  Catholic  tutors. 

In  strange  way 

To  stand  inquiring  right  is  not  to  stray ; 
To  sleep  or  run  wrong  is ;  on  a  huge  hill, 
Rugged  and  steep,  Truth  dwells  ;  and  he  that  will 
Reach  her,  about  must  and  about  it  go. 

He  confessed  later  in  life  that  he  had  to  '  blot  out  certain  im- 
pressions of  the  Koman  religion,  and  to  wrestle  both  against  the 
example  and  against  the  reasons  by  which  some  hold  was  taken  and 
some  anticipations  early  laid  upon  his  conscience,  both  by  persons 
who  by  nature  had  a  power  and  superiority  over  his  will,  and  others 
who  by  their  learning  and  good  life  seemed  to  him  justly  to  claim 
an  interest  for  the  guiding  and  rectifying  of  his  understanding  in 
these  matters ; '  but  in  this  youthful  satire  he  is  as  severe  against 
'  Mireus,'  who  seeks  true  religion  at  Rome, 

because  he  doth  know 
That  she  was  there  a  thousand  years  ago, 

as  upon  Grayus,  who 


1880.  JOHN  DONNE.  853 

stays  still  at  home  here,  and  because 
Some  preachers,  vile  ambitious  bawds,  and  laws 
Still  new,  like  fashions,  bid  him  think  that  she 
Which  dwells  with  us,  is  only  perfect,  he 
Embraceth  her  whom  his  godfathers  will 
Tender  to  him,  being  tender  ;  as  wards  still 
Take  such  wives  as  their  guardians  offer,  or 
Pay  values. 

4  Fool  and  wretch,'  he  cries,  to  all  who  follow  mere  authority, 

Fool  and  wretch,  wilt  thou  let  thy  Soul  be  tied 

To  men's  laws,  by  which  she  shall  not  be  tried 

At  the  last  day  ?     Oh,  will  it  then  serve  thee 

To  say  a  Philip  or  a  Gregory, 

A  Harry  or  a  Martin,  taught  thee  this  ? 

Is  not  this  excuse  for  mere  contraries, 

Equally  strong  ?     Cannot  both  sides  say  so  ? 

That  thou  may'st  rightly  obey  Power,  her  bounds  know. 

That  so  earnest  and  thoughtful  a  boy — Donne  was  not  twenty 
when  he  wrote  this — an  ardent  bookworm,  with  l  an  hydroptic  im- 
moderate desire  for  human  learning  and  languages,'  should  have 
entered  the  lists  with  the  erotic  poets  of  the  Court,  and  by  the 
ascendancy  of  his  wit  have  founded  a  new  school,  is  a  greater  paradox 
than  that  in  the  evening  of  his  life  he  should  have  become  or  rather 
been  made  one  of  the  pillars  of  the  English  Church.  His  companions 
of  his  own  age  would  seem  to  have  had  almost  as  much  difficulty  in 
dragging  the  boy  from  his  study,  as  King  James  had  in  persuading 
the  mature  man  to  take  holy  orders.  Not  that  he  was  a  gloomy 
youth,  a  precociously  sour  and  rabid  satirist.  The  terrible  crudeness 
and  power  which  some  critics  have  seen  in  his  satires  is  not  a  churlish 
crudeness ;  it  is  nothing  but  the  boisterous  extravagance  of  youth, 
the  delight  of  a  fresh  untamed  intellect  in  its  own  strength.  He 
loved  his  books  and  exulted  with  buoyant  pride  in  the  consciousness  of 
power  which  communion  with  great  minds  gave  him.  '  Away,'  he 
cries,  in  the  first  of  his  satires,  to  a  foppish  youth  who  had  called 
upon  him  and  entreated  his  company  for  a  walk  abroad — 

Away,  thou  changeling  motley  humourist,1  . 

Leave  me,  a,nd  in  this  standing  wooden  chest, 

Consoled  with  these  few  books,  let  me  lie 

In  prison,  and  here  be  coffined  when  I  die. 

Here  are  God's  conduits,  grave  Divines  ;  and  here 

Nature's  Secretary,  the  philosopher  ; 

And  jolly  Statesmen,  which  teach  how  to  tie 

The  sinews  of  a  City's  mystic  body  ; 

Here  gathering  Chronicles,  and  by  them  stand 

Giddy  fantastic  Poets  of  each  land. 

Shall  I  leave  all  this  constant  company, 

And  follow  headlong,  wild,  uncertain,  thee  ? 

1  An  affected  person,  a  fop,  such  as  Stephen  in  Ben  Jonson's  Erery  Man  in  hut 
Humour. 


854  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  May 

When  he  was  introduced  to  the  Court,  his  conscience  smote  him  for 
having  gone  there.  '  At  home,  in  wholesome  solitariness,'  he  medi- 
tated on  the  wretchedness  of  suitors  at  Court.  i  A  trance,'  he  says, 
with  humorous  suggestion — 

-    A  trance 

Like  his  who  dreamt  he  saw  hell,  did  advance 
Itself  o'er  me.     Such  men  as  he  saw  there 
I  saw  at  Court,  and  worse,  and  more. 

'  Then,'  he  breaks  out, 

Shall  I,  none's  slave,  of  high-born  or  raised  men, 

Fear  frowns,  and  thee,  my  Mistress,  Truth,  betray 

To  the  huffing  braggart,  puft  Nobility  ? 

No,  no ;  thou,  which  since  yesterday  hast  been 

Almost  about  the  whole  world,  hast  thou  seen, 

O  Sun,  in  all  thy  journey,  Vanity 

Such  as  swells  the  bladder  of  our  Court  ? 

Yet  soon  after  this  Donne  joined  the  gay  throng  at  Court,  and  set 
a  fashion  to  its  poetasters.  He  hated  the  practice  of  the  bar ;  he 
scoffed  at  its  indifferent  championship  of  any  side  as  a  kind  of  prosti- 
tution ;  but  his  fortune  required  that  he  should  have  some  remunera- 
tive occupation. 

There's  nothing  simply  good  nor  ill  alone ; 

Of  every  quality  Comparison 

The  only  measure  is,  and  judge  Opinion, 

he  wrote  in  1 602.  He  may  have  said  to  himself  that  he  would  have 
to  tell  fewer  lies  as  a  courtier  than  as  a  barrister.  It  is  more  than 
probable,  too,  that  the  uncompromising  ardour  of  his  youthful  worship 
of  truth  was  considerably  shaken  by  his  speculative  inquiries  into 
the  foundations  of  moralit}^.  He  questioned  and  canvassed  everything 
with  all  the  daring  of  an  intellectual  athlete,  till  he  was  ready  to 
believe  nothing,  ready  at  least  to  maintain  with  brilliant  rhetoric 
the  converse  of  any  proposition  that  was  generally  accepted  in  the 
world. 

Among  the  things  published,  after  his  death  was  a  little  volume  of 
the  paradoxes  with  which  he  dazzled  and  amused  his  gay  companions 
in  this  frolicsome  period  of  his  life.  '  That  a  wise  man  is  known  by 
much  laughing,'  '  that  old  men  are  more  fantastic  than  young,'  '  that 
good  is  more  common  than  evil,'  '  a  defence  of  woman's  inconstancy,' 
'  that  women  ought  to  paint,'  '  that  it  is  possible  to  find  some  virtue 
in  some  women,'  are  some  of  his  theses.  The  youthful  paradoxist 
particularly  delighted  in  making  women  the  butts  of  his  boisterous 
mirth,  partly  perhaps  from  a  spirit  of  antagonism  to  the  love-lorn 
sonneteers  of  the  period.  '  Why  hath  the  common  opinion  afforded 
women  souls  ? '  he  propounds.  After  various  ingenious  and  witty 
attempts  at  the  solution  of  the  problem,  he  comes  to  the  rude  con- 


1880.  JOHN  DONNE.  855 

elusion  that  i  we  have  given  them  souls  only  to  make  them  capable 
of  damnation.'  The  virtue  of  inconstancy  in  women  was  the  burden 
of  many  of  his  verses.  '  Everything  as  it  is  one  thing  better  than 
another,  so  is  it  fuller  of  change,'  he  said  in  prose.  Constancy  is  a 
'  sluttish  virtue.'  And  he  embodied  this  notion  with  equal  spirit  in 
verse. 

I  can  love  both  fair  and  brown ; 

Her  whom  abundance  melts  and  her  whom  want  betrays ; 


and  so  forth — 


I  can  love  her,  and  her,  and  you,  and  you, 
I  can  love  any,  so  she  be  not  true. 


His  reading  in  the  casuists  furnished  him  with  admirable  fuel  for  his 
graceless  wit. 

Now  thou  hast  loved  me  one  whole  day  ; 
To-morrow,  when  thou  leavest,  what  wilt  thou  say; 
Wilt  thou  then  antedate  some  new-made  vow  ? 

Or  say  that  now 

We  are  not  just  those  persons  which  we  were  ? 
Or  that  oaths  made  in  reverential  fear 
Of  Love  and  his  wrath,  any  may  foreswear  ? 
Or  as  true  deaths  true  marriages  untie, 
So  lovers'  contracts,  images  of  those, 
Bind  but  till  sleep,  Death's  image,  them  unloose  ? 

Or  your  own  end  to  justify 
For  having  purposed  change  and  falsehood,  yo» 
Can  have  no  way  but  falsehood  to  be  true  ? 
Vain  lunatic,  against  these  'scapes  I  could 
Dispute  and  conquer,  if  I  would ; 
Which  I  abstain  to  do, 
For  by  to-morrow  I  may  think  so  too. 

Dr.  Johnson  admits  that  '  no  man  could  be  born  a  metaphysical  poet,' 
and  that  '  to  write  on  their  plan  it  was  at  least  necessary  to  read  and 
think.'  It  certainly  required  learning  as  well  as  wit  to  embody  as 
in  the  above  poern  the  quintessence  of  the  casuistical  sophistry  which 
Pascal  ridiculed.  Donne  also  turned  to  great  account  in  these 
humorous  sallies  his  intimate  knowledge  of  the  speculations  with 
which  the  mind  of  '  Nature's  Secretary,  the  philosopher,'  was  busied 
in  the  middle  ages.  He  had  been  fascinated  in  real  earnest  by  the 
ingenious  philosophy  which  tortured  itself  in  hunting  through  never- 
ending  mazes  the  mysterious  problems  of  being.  What  was  the 
connexion  between  soul  and  body?  Why  was  it  that  the  bodily 
fabric  ceased  to  perform  its  functions  and  decayed  when  the  soul  was 
removed  from  it  ?  Could  any  principle  be  discovered  which  would 
bind  the  soul  to  perpetual  tenancy  of  its  house  of  clay  ?  Where  did 
the  soul  reside  ?  Donne  had  been  an  earnest  student  of  the  theories 
of  the  learned  on  these  knotty  problems,  but  in  the  flush  of  youthful 
spirits  he  did  not  scruple  to  turn  his  learning  to  brilliant  and  profane 


856  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  May 

uses.  For  example,  in  The  Funeral  he  plays  ingeniously  with  the 
fantastic  notion  that  a  lock  of  his  mistress's  hair  tied  round  his  arm 
might  keep  his  body  from  decay,  binding  its  members  together  as 
the  nerves  do  which  are  let  fall  from  the  seat  of  the  soul  in  the  brain. 
If  the  threads  that  are  let  fall  from  his  brain  can  perform  this  office, 
the  hairs  which  are  sent  upwards  from  a  better  brain  must  be  much 
more  efficacious. 

Whoever  comes  to  shroud  me,  do  not  harm 

Nor  question  much 
That  subtle  wreath  of  hair  about  mine  arm ; 

The  mystery,  the  sign  you  must  not  touch. 

For  'tis  my  outward  soul 
Viceroy  to  that  which,  then  to  heaven  being  gone, 

Will  leave  this  to  control 
And  keep  these  limbs,  her  provinces,  from  dissolution. 

For  if  the  sinewy  thread  my  brain  lets  fall 

Through  every  part, 

Can  tie  those  parts,  and  make  me  one  of  all ; 
The  hairs  which  upward  grew,  and  strength  and  art 

Have  from  a  better  brain, 
Can  better  do't:  except  she  meant  that  I 

By  this  should  know  my  pain, 
As  prisoners  then  are  manacled,  when  they're  condemned  to  die. 

Whate'er  she  meant  by't,  bury  it  with  me  ; 

For  since  I  am 

Love's  martyr,  it  might  breed  idolatry 
If  into  other  hands  these  relics  came. 

As  'twas  humility 
To  afford  to  it  all  that  a  soul  can  do, 

So  'tis  some  bravery 
That  since  you  would  have  Lone  of  me,  I  bury  seme  of  you. 

The  last  lines  give  the  key  to  the  sentiment  of  the  poem.  Donne 
was  still  in  his  mocking  vein  when  he  wrote  these  stanzas.  They 
are  a  sort  of  trap  for  the  object  of  his  addresses  ;  he  begins  all 
seriousness,  sweet  fantastic  seriousness,  but  he  turns  round  at  the 
end  and  laughs  at  his  own  sentiment.  Yet  the  sentiment,  with  all 
the  far-fetched  ingenuity  of  its  clothing,  is  so  deep  and  tender  that 
his  mistress  might  have  been  pardoned  if  she  did  not  know  what  to 
make  of  it.  Donne  has  suffered  not  a  little  from  the  perversity  of 
critics  who  have  insisted  upon  giving  too  serious  a  meaning  to  his 
fantasies.  This  misfortune  is  perhaps  partly  the  fault  of  his  imitators, 
who  have  copied  his  extravagant  fancies  without  being  able  to  master 
the  quick  shifting  between  jest  and  earnest  which  is  as  it  were  the 
salt  with  which  they  are  seasoned.  There  is  all  the  difference  in 
the  world,  it  need  hardly  be  said,  between  absurdity  that  is  deliberate 
and  playful,  and  absurdity  that  is  unconscious  and  sincere. 

But   Donne's   love-poetry   is   not   all   playful   and  humorous  in 
intention.     The  brilliant  scoffer  at  constancy,  the  gay  advocate  of 


1880.  JOHN  DONNE.  857 

licentious  paradoxes,  underwent  a  change  when  he  fell  seriously  in 
love  himself.  The  distinction  which  he  drew  between  '  Jack '  Donne 
and  '  Dr.'  Donne  is  not  more  marked  than  the  difference  between 
Jack  Donne  the  sprightly  '  indifferent,'  and  John  Donne  the  married 
man.  There  is,  no  doubt,  much  in  the  serious  poetry  of  his  mature 
life  which  must  appear  as  grossly  absurd  and  unnatural  to  those  who 
have  no  sympathy  with  it  as  anything  that  is  to  be  found  in  the 
productions  of  his  early  wit.  It  is,  in  fact,  from  the  later  poems  that 
Dr.  Johnson  draws  most  of  his  examples  of  what  he  condemns  in 
Donne  and  his  school.  Johnson  had  no  sympathy  with  impassioned 
mysticism  and  the  subtle  fancies  born  of  it.  There  is  no  poet  who 
can  be  more  easily  misrepresented  than  Donne  by  fragments  torn 
from  their  context,  because  there  is  no  poet  whose  images  are  more 
closely  interwoven  with  some  central  thought.  They  cannot  be 
understood  without  some  knowledge  of  this  thought,  and  some 
sympathy  with  it.  They  are  meaningless  when  divorced  from  it. 
The  very  fact  that  these  images  are  charged  with  intense  feeling 
makes  them  appear  forced  and  unnatural  to  readers  who  approach 
them  in  a  different  mood,  and  are  left  without  a  clue  to  the  mood 
in  which  they  shaped  themselves  to  the  poet's  fancy. 

However  much  Donne  might  toy  and  trifle  with  some  of  the 
mediaeval  fancies  about  the  soul  and  the  principles  of  life,  there  were 
others  which  had  taken  a  deep  hold  of  him,  and  installed  themselves 
as  the  organs  of  his  innermost  feelings.  '  I  make  account,'  he  says, 
in  writing  to  one  of  his  friends,  '  that  this  writing  of  letters,  when 
it  is  with  any  seriousness,  is  a  kind  of  ecstasy  and  a  departure  and 
secession  and  suspension  of  the  soul,  which  doth  then  communicate 
itself  to  two  bodies.'  A  man  of  warm  affections,  Donne  loved  to 
think  that  his  soul  could  hold  communion  with  distant  friends  in  a 
rapt  trance  such  as  that  in  which  the  solitary  mystic,  striving  to  shut 
out  every  impression  of  sense,  sought  to  transport  his  soul  into  direct 
communion  with  the  great  soul  of  the  universe.  It  may  have  been 
but  a  half-belief,  a  pleasing  self-imposture,  but  that  it  was  earnest, 
we  cannot  doubt.  We  may  call  it  fantastic,  if  we  please,  and  even 
artificial,  but  we  cannot  call  it  forced  or  cold.  No  more  can  we 
fairly  apply  these  epithets  to  the  sweet  fancies  which  it  inspired,  and 
which  appear,  it  must  be  admitted,  strained  and  exaggerated  enough 
if  we  have  no  regard  to  the  feeling  in  which  they  had  their  root. 
Dr.  Johnson  quotes  some  stanzas  from  Donne's  beautiful  leave-taking 
of  his  wife  before  setting  out  on  a  journey,  with  the  savage  remark — 
*  To  the  following  comparison  of  a  man  that  travels  and  his  wife 
that  stays  at  home,  with  a  pair  of  compasses,  it  may  be  doubted 
whether  ingenuity  or  absurdity  has  the  better  claim.'  But  in  a 
generation  when  Donne's  doctrine  of  ecstatic  communion,  whether 
as  a  belief  or  as  a  sentimental  fiction,  would  have  obtained  a  more 
indulgent  reception  than  Dr.  Johnson  would  have  given  it,  Izaak 


858         THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.       May 

Walton  records  that  he  had  heard  many  good  judges  say  that  the 
'  Greek  and  Letin  writers  had  never  surpassed  this  poem. 

As  virtuous  men  pass  mildly  away 

And  whisper  to  their  souls  to  go, 
Whilst  some  of  their  sad  friends  do  say 

Now  his  breath  goes,  and  some  say,  no  ; 

So  let  us  melt  and  make  no  noise, 

Nor  tear-floods  nor  sigh-tempests  move ; 
'Twere  profanation  of  our  joys 

To  tell  the  laity  our  love. 

Moving  of  the  earth  brings  harms  and  fears, 

Men  reckon  what  it  did  and  meant ; 
But  trepidations  of  the  spheres, 

Though  greater  far,  are  innocent. 

Dull  sublunary  lovers'  love, 

Whose  soul  is  sense,  cannot  admit 
Absence,  for  that  it  doth  remove 

Those  things  which  elemented  it. 

But  we  by  a  love  so  far  refined 

That  ourselves  know  not  what  it  is, 
Interassured  of  the  mind 

Care  less  eyes,  lips,  and  hands  to  miss. 

Our  two  souls,  therefore,  which  are  one, 

Though  I  must  go,  endure  not  yet 
A  breach,  but  an  expansion 

Like  gold  to  airy  thinness  beat. 

If  they  be  two,  they  are  two  so 

As  stiff  twin  compasses  are  two  ; 
Thy  soul,  the  fixed  foot,  makes  no  show 

To  move,  but  doth,  if  the  other  do. 

And  though  it  in  the  centre  sit, 

Yet,  when  the  other  far  doth  roam, 
It  leans  and  hearkens  after  it 

And  grows  erect,  as  that  comes  home. 

Such  wilt  thou  be  to  me,  who  must 

Like  the  other  foot,  obliquely  run  ; 
Thy  firmness  makes  my  circle  just, 

And  makes  me  end  where  I  begun. 

'  Their  sentiments  were  trifling  and  affected.'  M.  Taine  marks 
for  peculiar  reprobation  the  extravagance  of  Donne's  adjuration  to 
his  mistress  when  she  lay  sick  of  a  fever. 

Oh,  do  not  die,  for  I  shall  hate 

All  women  so  when  thou  art  gone, 
That  thee  I  shall  not  celebrate 

When  I  remember  thou  wast  one. 

He  can  see  no  motive  for  so  strained  an  hyperbole  except  literary 
foppery — it  was  a  lovers'  commonplace  to  say  that  they  would  hate 


1880.  JOHN  DONNE.  859 

all  women  if  their  mist ress;  were  no  more,  and  Donne  was  bound  to 
outdo  the  commonplace  extravagance.  There  is  no  arguing  about 
lovers'  hyperboles. 

But  yet  thou  canst  not  die,  I  know  ; 

To  leave  the  world  behind  is  death  ; 
But  when  thou  from  this  world  shalt  go, 

The  whole  world  vapours  with  thy  breath. 

Or  if  when  thou,  the  world's  soul,  goest, 

It  stay,  'tis  but  thy  carcase  then, 
The  fairest  woman  but  thy  ghost, 

But  corrupt  worms  the  worthiest  men* 

O  wrangling  schools,  that  search  what  fire 
Shall  burn  this  world  !     Had  none  the  wit 

Unto  this  knowledge  to  aspire 
That  this  her  fever  might  be  it. 

Such  sallies  into  the  pure  empyrean  of  hyperbole  must  always  appear 
incomprehensible  and  heartless  absurdity  to  certain  temperaments. 
The  heat  of  flames  so  thin  and  fantastic  has  no  warmth  for  them. 
They  need  a  more  gross  and  material  blaze  to  lift  them  out  cf  cold- 
ness and  discomfort. 

O  Love,  Love,  Love,  O  withering  might, 
0  Sun,  that  at  thy  noonday  height 
Shudderest  when  I  strain  my  sight 
Throbbing  through  all  thy  heat  and  light ! 

Such  utterances  as  this  of  our  present  Poet  Laureate's  youth  move 
them.  They  recognise  in  this  the  voice  of  true  passion,  but  they  will 
not  admit  that  any  sincerity  of  feeling  whatever  can  lie  at  the  heart 
of  the  more  insubstantial  extravagances  of  Donne.  There  must 
always  be  Low  Churchmen  as  well  as  Ritualists  in  impassioned  poetry, 
temperaments  that  cannot  be  stirred  except  by  raw  brandy,  and 
temperaments  that  acknowledge  the  influence  of  milder  stimulants. 

The  bulk  of  Donne's  poems — a  very  small  bulk  compared  with 
his  reputation  in  his  own  time — consists  of  short  pieces  elaborately 
finished.  His  want  of  self-determining  impulses,  his  discursive  and 
dilatory  habits,  and  his  difficulty  in  satisfying  himself  with  his  work, 
were  not  favourable  to  copious  composition.  He  had  difficulty 
in  making  up  his  mind,  he  tells  us,  about  the  writings  of  other  people, 
and  still  greater  difficulty  in  making  up  his  mind  about  his  own. 
'I  doubt  and  stick,  and  do  not  quickly  say  "  good."  I  censure  much 
and  tax.'  His  longest  work, '  The  Progress  of  the  Soul,'  which  might 
have  been  a  monument  worthy  of  his  genius,  remains  an  unfinished 
fragment.  It  is  founded  upon  the  Pythagorean  doctrine  of  Metem- 
psychosis, and  it  contains  a  dim  and  fantastic  foreshadowing  of  the 
modern  doctrine  of  evolution.  The  poet's  fiction  is  that  the  soul,  in 
passing  from  one  bodily  habitation  to  another,  retains  in  such  state 
some  memory  of  its  previous  states.  It  takes  some  colour  from 


860  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  May 

every  creature  in  which  it  has  lived,  and  so  goes  on  adding  to  the 
complexity  of  its  nature.  Donne  inscribes  his  work  'poema  satyricon,' 
and  many  touches  in  the  completed  section  justify  the  title,  but  it 
was  not  intended  to  be  a  satire  .of  fugitive  fashions  and  customs.  No 
other  satirist  ever  expounded  his  design  in  such  a  strain  of  impas- 
sioned sublimity. 

I  sing  the  progress  of  a  deathless  soul, 

Whom  Fate — which  God  made  but  doth  not  control — 

Placed  in  most  shapes  ;  all  times  before  the  law 

Yoked  us,  and  when,  and  since,  in  this  I  sing ; 

And  the  great  world  to  his  aged  evening 

From  infant  morn,  through  manly  noon  I  draw  ; 

What  the  gold  Chaldee,  or  silver  Persian  saw 

Greek  brass,  or  Roman  iron,  is  in  this  one ; 

A  work  to  outwear  Seth's  pillars,  brick  and  stone, 

And,  Holy  Writ  excepted,  made  to  yield  to  none. 

Thee,  eye  of  Heaven,  this  great  soul  envies  not. 

By  thy  male  force  is  all  we  have  begot. 

In  the  first  East,  thou  now  begin'st  to  shine, 

Suck'st  early  balm,  and  Island  spices  there. 

And  wilt  auon  in  thy  loose-reined  career 

At  Tagus,  Po,  Seine,  Thames,  and  Danow  dine, 

And  see  at  night  thy  Western  land  of  Mine  ; 

Yet  hast  thou  not  more  nations  seen  than  she, 

That  before  thee  one  day  began  to  be, 

And  thy  frail  light  being  quenched  shall  long  long  outlive  thee. 

Before  setting  out  on  his  great  enterprise,  the  poet  appeals  to  Destiny 
to  show  him  his  fate,  that  he  may  not  waste  his  strength  in  vain,  and 
rob  his  grave  of  its  due. 

Great  Destiny,  the  Commissary  of  God, 

That  hast  marked  out  a  path  and  period 

For  everything ;  who,  when  we  offspring  took, 

Our  ways  and  ends  see'st  at  one  instant ;  Thou 

Knot  of  all  causes ;  Thou,  whose  changeless  brow 

Ne'er  smiles  nor  frowns,  0  vouchsafe  thou  to  look, 

And  show  my  story  in  Thy  eternal  book. 

That  (if  my  prayer  be  fit)  I  may  understand 

So  much  myself,  as  to  know  with  what  hand, 

How  scant  or  liberal,  this  my  life's  race  is  spanned. 

To  my  six  lustres,  almost  now  outwore,3 

Except  thy  book  owe  me  so  many  more  ; 

Except  my  legend  be  free  from  the  lets 

Of  steep  ambition,  sleepy  poverty, 

Spirit-quenching  sickness,  dull  captivity, 

Distracting  business,  and  from  beauty's  nets, 

And  all  .that  calls  from  this  and  the  other  whets ; 

O  let  me  not  launch  out,  but  let  me  save 

The  expense  of  brain  and  spirit ;  that  my  grave 

His  right  and  due,  a  whole  unwasted  man  may  have. 

2  The  poem  was  begun  in  1601,  when  Donne  was  twenty-eight  years  old. 


1880.  JOHN  DONNE.  861 

According  to  the  Pythagorean  doctrine,  the  soul  in  its  wanderings 
may  lodge  in  plants  as  well  as  animals.  The  soul  whose  progress 
Donne  aspired  to  trace  had  its  first  dwelling-place  on  the  fatal  tree 
in  Paradise. 

For  this  great  soul,  which  here  amongst  us  now 

Doth  dwell,  and  moves  that  hand,  and  tongue,  and  brow, 

Which  as  the  Moon  the  sea,  moves  us ;  to  hear 

Whose  story  with  long  patience  you  will  long  ; 

For  'tis  the  crown  and  last  strain  of  my  song ; 

This  soul  to  whom  Luther  and  Mahomet  were 

Prisons  of  flesh  ;  this  soul  which  oft  did  tear 

And  mend  the  cracks  of  the  Empire  and  late  Rome, 

And  lived  where  every  great  change  did  come 

Had  first  in  Paradise  a  low  but  fatal  room. 

It  was  in  the  apple  which  Adam  and  Eve  ate. 

Prince  of  the  orchard,  fair  as  dawning  morn, 
Fenced  with  the  law,  and  ripe  as  soon  as  born  ; 
That  apple  grew  which  this  soul  did  enlive. 

When  the  *  slight  veins  and  tender  conduit  pipe '  through  which  the 
soul  drew  life  and  growth  to  this  apple  were  broken  by  the  serpent's 
grip,  it  fled  in  search  of  a  tenement  to  a  dark  and  foggy  plot,  and 
gave  life  to  a  mandrake.  This  is  his  description  of  the  begin- 
nings of  growth  in  the  plant  when  the  soul  has  quickened  it. 

His  right  arm  he  thrust  out  towards  the  East, 
Westward  his  left ;  the  ends  did  themselves  digest 
Into  the  lesser  strings — these  fingers  were  : 
And  as  a  slumberer  stretching  on  his  bed 
This  way  he  this  and  that  way  scattered 
His  other  leg,  which  feet  with  toes  upbear. 

After  a  few  transmigrations  among  smaller  animals,  the  wandering 
soul  was  placed  by  Destiny  in  a  very  l  roomful  house,'  the  body  of  a 
whale,  a  vast  antediluvian  monster. 

At  every  stroke  his  brazen  fins  do  take 
More  circles  in  the  broken  sea  they  make 
Than  cannons'  voices  when  the  air  they  tear  : 
His  ribs  are  pillars,  and  his  high-arched  roof 
Of  bark,  that  blunts  best  steel,  is  thunder-proof ; 
Swim  in  him  swallowed  dolphins  without  fear, 
And  feel  no  sides,  as  if  his  vast  womb  were 
Some  inland  sea  ;  and  ever  as  he  went 
He  spouted  rivers  up  as  if  he  meant 
To  join  our  seas  with  seas  above  the  firmament. 

He  hunts  not  fish,  but  as  an  officer 
Stays  in  his  Court,  at  his  own  net,  and  there 
All  suitors  of  all  sorts  themselves  enthrall ; 
So  on  his  back  lies  this  whale  wantoning, 
And  in  his  gulf-like  throat  sucks  even  thing 
That  passeth  near.     Fish  chaseth  fis!j,  and  all, 


862  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY.  May 

Flyer  and  follower,  in  this  whirlpool  fall. 

Oh,  might  not  states  of  more  equality 

Consist  ?     And  is  it  of  necessity 

That  thousand  guiltless  smalls  to  make  one  great  should  die  ? 

Touches  of  satire  like  the  above  hit  at  the  abuses  of  the  courts  of  law 
are  intermingled  with  the  main  flow  of  the  descriptive  story.  Every 
stage  in  the  soul's  progress  is  made  to  yield  some  sarcastic  lesson  for 
the  times,  some  political  or  social  maxim. 

If  Donne  had  completed  the  original  design  of  this  great  poem, 
and  traced  the  fortunes  of  the  soul — the  hero  of  the  epic — through 
all  the  great  political  and  religious  epochs  of  Eoman  history,  it  would 
have  been  an  achievement  worthy  of  his  extraordinary  powers.  But 
to  have  realised  this  i/,  he  would  have  needed  the  addition  to  his 
many  splendid  gifts  of  still  another,  the  gift  of  perseverance.  '  The 
Progress  of  the  Soul '  completed  in  the  same  high  strain  with  which  it 
begins  would  have  been  a  great  monument,  but  it  would  have  been 
a  monument  of  a  different  type  of  man  from  Donne.  The  fragment, 
as  it  stands,  represents  him  perfectly  in  the  extent  as  well  as  in  the 
limitation  of  his  powers.  It  breaks  off  abruptly  and  unworthily, 
with  a  commonplace  scoff  at  the  wickedness  of  women. 

She  knew  treachery 
Rapine,  deceit,  and  lust  and  ills  enough 
To  be  a  woman  ;  Themech  she  is  now, 
Sister  and  wife  to  Cain,  Cain  that  first  did  plow. 

He  takes  leave  of  his  Soul  when  it  has  reached  this  halting-place  as  if 
he  were  tired  of  pursuing  its  history. 

It  must  be  admitted  that  Donne  belongs  to  the  class  of  failures 
in  literature — failures,  that  is  to  say,  for  the  purpose  of  making  an 
enduring  mark,  of  accomplishing  work  which  should  be  a  perpetual 
possession  to  humanity.  He  was  a  failure,  not  from  lack  of  power, 
but  from  superabundance.  No  single  faculty  had  the  lead  in  his 
richly  endowed  organisation.  No  one  mood  had  sufficient  strength 
to  overbear  all  others,  and  compel  all  his  powers  into  its  service. 
It  may  be  thought  that  this  is  only  another  way  of  saying  that  Donne 
was  a  man  of  amazing  talents  without  being  a  man  of  genius.  Yet 
there  is  no  poet  of  the  Shakespearian  age  to  whom  it  would  be  more 
inappropriate  to  deny  the  rank  of  genius,  in  any  conceivable  accepta- 
tion of  the  term.  If  we  take  talent  to  be  the  power  of  adroitly 
manipulating  common  material  into  common  forms,  no  man  had  less 
of  it  than  Donne.  He  had  an  invincible  repugnance  to  the  common- 
place. Everything  is  his  own,  alike  the  thought  and  the  instrument 
by  which  it  is  expressed.  He  is  no  man's  debtor.  He  digs  his  own 
ore,  and  uses  it  according  to  his  own  fancies. 

For  the  widest  and  most  enduring  kind  of  reputation,  talent  is  as 
necessary  as  genius.  He  who  writes  for  the  greatest  number  must 


1880.  JOHN  DONNE.  863 

have  both.  Donne  was  confirmed  in  the  exclusive  cultivation  of  his 
genius  by  the  conditions  under  which  he  wrote.  His  poems  were 
not  intended  for  wide  publicity ;  they  were  intended  for  the  delight 
and  amusement  of  a  small  circle  among  whom  they  were  circulated 
in  manuscript.  There  is  much  in  them  that  does  not  accord  with  our 
ideas  of  refinement  and  culture  ;  but  we  must  make  allowance  for 
changes  of  taste,  and  the  circle  for  which  Donne  wrote  had  at  least 
this  much  of  the  characteristics  of  refinement  and  culture  that  it  was 
weary  and  impatient  of  commonplace.  There  is  always  the  danger 
with  such  select  circles,  that  they  put  themselves  in  antagonism  to 
the  dominant  spirit  of  their  time.  We  may  almost  say  in  fact  that 
this  antagonism  is  an  inevitable  element  in  the  atmosphere  of  senti- 
ments and  ideas  that  gathers  round  a  group  who  have  separated 
themselves  from  the  crowd  and  organised  any  sort  of  intellectual  or 
artistic  aristocracy.  Their  shibboleths  are  coloured  by  it,  and  much 
of  their  work  is  inspired  by  it.  The  men  who  write  for  such  an 
aristocracy  must  be  content  with  a  limited  popularity  in  their  own 
time,  and  must  be  prepared  for  a  very  rapid  diminution  in  the 
numbers  of  thfeir  audience  as  time  rolls  on  and  generation  after 
generation  forms  for  itself  its  own  watchwords  of  culture.  A  gener- 
ation is  represented  to  posterity  by  its  best  commonplace,  and  those 
who  do  not  enter  the  main  stream  but  stand  critically  on  the  banks 
or  disport  themselves  in  retired  eddies  soon  pass  from  the  notice  of 
all  but  the  curious  explorers  of  the  past. 

WILLIAM  MINTO. 


864  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY.  May 


THE  PINCH  OF  POVERTY. 


IN  these  days  of  reduction  of  rents,  or  of  total  abstinence  from  rent- 
paying,  it  is,  I  am  told,  the  correct  thing  to  be  '  a  little  pressed  for 
money.'  It  is  a  sign  of  connection  with  the  landed  interest  (like  the 
banker's  ejaculation  in  Middlemarch}  and  suggests  family  acres,  and 
entails,  and  a  position  in  the  county.  (In  which  case  I  know  a  good 
many  people  who  are  landlords  on  a  very  extensive  scale,  and  have 
made  allowances  for  their  tenants  the  generosity  of  which  may  be 
described  as  Quixotic.)  But  as  a  general  rule,  and  in  times  less  ex- 
ceptionally hard,  though  Shakespeare  tells  us  '  How  apt  the  poor  are 
to  be  proud,'  they  are  not  proud  of  being  poor. 

'  Poverty,'  says  the  greatest  of  English  divines,  '  is  indeed  de- 
spised and  makes  men  contemptible ;  it  exposes  a  man  to  the  influences 
of  evil  persons,  and  leaves  a  man  defenceless ;  it  is  always  suspected  ; 
its  stories  are  accounted  lies,  and  all  its  counsels  follies ;  it  puts  a 
man  from  all  employment  ;  it  makes  a  man's  discourses  tedious  and 
his  society  troublesome.  This  is  the  worst  of  it.'  Even  so  poverty 
seems  pretty  bad,  but,  begging  Dr.  Jeremy  Taylor's  pardon,  what  he 
has  stated  is  by  no  means  '  the  worst  of  it.'  To  be  in  want  of  food 
at  any  time,  and  of  firing  in  winter  time,  is  ever  so  much  worse  than 
the  inconveniences  he  enumerates;  and  to  see  those  we  love — delicate 
women  and  children  perhaps — in  want  of  them,  is  worse  still.  The 
fact  is,  the  excellent  bishop  probably  never  knew  what  it  was  to  go 
without  his  meals,  but  took  them  t  reg'lar '  (as  Mrs.  Gamp  took  her 
Brighton  ale)  as  bishops  generally  do.  Moreover,  since  his  day, 
Luxury  has  so  universally  increased,  and  the  value  of  Intelligence  has 
become  so  well  recognised  (by  the  publishers)  that  even  philosophers, 
who  profess  to  despise  such  things,  have  plenty  to  eat,  and  good  of  its 
kind  too.  Hence  it  happens  that,  from  all  we  hear  to  the  contrary 
from  the  greatest  thinkers,  the"  deprivation  of  food  is  a  small  thing  : 
indeed,  as  compared  with  the  great  spiritual  struggles  of  noble  minds, 
and  the  doubts  that  beset  them  as  to  the  supreme  government  of  the 
universe,  it  seems  hardly  worth  mentioning. 

In  old  times,  when  folks  were  not  so  '  cultured,'  starvation  was 
thought  more  of.  It  is  quite  curious,  indeed,  to  contrast  the  high- 
flying morality  of  the  present  day  (when  no  one  is  permitted,  either 


1880.  THE  PINCH  OF  POVERTY.  865 

by  Evolutionist  or  Eitualist,  however  dire  may  be  his  necessity,  so 
much  as  to  jar  his  conscience)  with  the  shocking  laxity  of  the  Holy 
Scriptures.  '  Men  do  not  despise  a  thief  if  he  steal  to  satisfy  his 
soul  when  he  is  hungry,'  says  Solomon,  after  which  stretch  of  charity, 
strange  to  say,  he  goes  on  to  speak  of  marital  infidelity  in  terms  that, 
considering  the  number  of  wives  he  had  himself,  strike  one  as  severe. 
It  is  certain,  indeed,  that  the  sacred  writers  were  apt  to  make 
great  allowances  for  people  with  empty  stomachs,  and  though  I  am 
well  aware  that  the  present  profane  ones  think  this  very  reprehensi- 
ble, I  venture  to  agree  with  the  sacred  writers.  The  sharpest  tooth 
of  poverty  is  felt,  after  all,  in  the  bite  of  hunger.  A  very  amusing 
and  graphic  writer  once  described  his  experience  of  a  whole  night 
passed  in  the  streets ;  the  exhaustion,  the  pain,  the  intolerable 
weariness  of  it,  were  set  forth  in  a  very  striking  manner  ;  the  sketch 
was  called  '  The  Key  of  the  Street,'  and  was  thought  by  many,  as 
Browning  puts  it,  to  be  '  the  true  Dickens.'  But  what  are  even  the 
pangs  of  sleeplessness  and  fatigue  compared  with  those  of  want  ?  Of 
course  there  have  been  fanatics  who  have  fasted  many  days;  but  they 
have  been  supported  by  the  prospect  of  spiritual  reward.  I  confess  I 
reserve  my  pity  for  those  who  have  no  such  golden  dreams,  and  who 
fast  perforce.  It  is  exceedingly  difficult  for  mere  worldlings — such 
as  most  of  us  are — not  to  eat,  if  it  is  possible,  when  we  are  hungry.  I 
have  known  a  great  social  philosopher  who  flattered  himself  that  he  was 
giving  his  sons  an  experience  of  High  Thinking  and  Low  Living  by  re- 
stricting their  pocket-money  to  two  shillings  a  day,  out  of  which  it  was 
understood  they  were  to  find  their  own  meals.  I  don't  know  whether 
the  spirit  in  their  case  was  willing,  but  the  flesh  was  decidedly  weak, 
for  one  of  them,  on  this  very  moderate  allowance,  used  to  contrive  to 
always  have  a  pint  of  dry  champagne  with  his  luncheon.  The  fact  is, 
that  of  the  iron  grip  of  poverty,  people  in  general,  by  no  means  except- 
ing those  who  have  written  about  it,  have  had  very  little  experience  ; 
whereas  of  the  pinch  of  it  a  good  many  people  know  something.  It 
is  the  object  of  this  paper — and  the  question  should  be  an  interest- 
ing one,  considering  how  much  it  is  talked  about — to  inquire  briefly 
where  it  lies. 

It  is  quite  extraordinary  how  very  various  are  the  opinions  enter- 
tained on  this  point,  and,  before  sifting  them,  one  must  be  careful  in 
the  first  place  to  eliminate  from  our  inquiry  the  cases  of  that  con- 
siderable class  of  persons  who  pinch  themselves.  For,  however  severely 
they  do  it,  they  may  stop  when  they  like  and  the  pain  is  cured. 
There  is  all  the  difference  in  the  world  between  pulling  one's  own  tooth 
out,  and  even  the  best  and  kindest  of  dentists  doing  it  for  one. 
How  gingerly  one  goes  to  work,  and  how  often  it  strikes  one  that  the 
tooth  is  a  good  tooth,  that  it  has  been  a  fast  friend  to  us  for  ever  so 
many  years  and  never  '  fallen  out '  before,  and  that  after  all  it  had 
better  stop  where  it  is  ! 

VOL.  VII.— No.  39.  3  M 


866  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  May 

To  the  truly  benevolent  mind,  indeed,  nothing  is  more  satisfactory 
than  to  hear  of  a  miser  denying  himself  the  necessaries  of  life  a  little 
too  far  and  ridding  us  of  his  presence  altogether.  Our  confidence  in 
the  average  virtue  of  humanity  assures  us  that  his  place  will  be  supplied 
by  a  better  man.  The  details  of  his  penurious  habits,  the  comfortless 
room,  the  scanty  bedding,  the  cheese-rinds  on  his  table,  and  the  fat 
banking-book  under  his  thin  bolster,  only  inspire  disgust ;  if  he  were 
pinched  to  death  he  did  it  himself,  and  so  much  the  better  for  the 
world  in  general  and  his  heir  in  particular. 

Again,  the  people  who  have  a  thousand  a  year,  and  who  try  to 
persuade  the  world  that  they  have  two  thousand,  suffer  a  good  deal  of 
inconvenience,  but  it  can't  be  called  the  pinch  of  poverty.  They  may 
put  limits  to  their  washing-bills,  which  persons  of  cleanlier  habits 
would  consider  unpleasantly  narrow ;  they  may  eat  cold  mutton  in 
private  for  five  days  a  week  in  order  to  eat  turtle  and  venison  in 
public  (and  with  the  air  of  eating  them  every  day)  on  the  sixth  ;  and 
they  may  immure  themselves  in  their  back  rooms  in  London  through- 
out the  autumn  in  order  to  persuade  folks  that  they  are  still  at 
Trouville,  where  for  ten  days  they  did  really  reside  and  in  splendour ; 
but  all  their  stint  and  self-incarceration,  so  far  from  awakening  pity, 
only  fill  us  with  contempt.  I  am  afraid  that  even  the  complaining 
tones  of  our  City  friend  who  tells  us  that  in  consequence  of  '  the 
present  unsettled  state  of  the  markets '  he  has  been  obliged  to  make 
6  great  retrenchments ' — which  it  seems  on  inquiry  consist  in  putting 
down  one  of  his  carriages  and  keeping  three  horses  instead  of  six — 
fail  to  draw  the  sympathising  tear.  Indeed,  to  a  poor  man  this  pre- 
tence of  suffering  on  the  part  of  the  rich  is  perhaps  even  more  offen- 
sive than  their  boasts  of  their  prosperity. 

On  the  other  hand,  when  the  rich  become  really  poor  their  case  is 
hard  indeed  ;  though,  strange  to  say,  we  hear  little  of  it.  It  is  like 
drowning ;  there  is  a  feeble  cry,  a  little  ineffectual  assistance  from 
the  bystanders,  and  then  they  go  under.  It  is  not  a  question  of  pinch 
with  tJiem ;  they  have  fallen  into  the  gaping  mouth  of  ruin,  and  it 
has  devoured  them.  If  we  ever  see  them  again,  it  is  in  the  second 
generation  as  waiters  (upon  Providence),  or  governesses,  and  we  say 
'  Why,  dear  me,  that  was  Bullion's  son  (or  daughter),  wasn't  it  ? '  using 
the  past  tense  as  if  they  were  dead.  '  I  remember  him  when  he  lived 
in  Eaton  Square.'  This  class  of  cases  rarely  comes  under  the  head  of 
'  genteel  poverty.'  They  were  at  the  top,  and  hey  presto  !  by  some 
malignant  stroke  of  fate,  they  are  at  the  bottom ;  and  there  they  stick. 

I  don't  believe  in  bachelors  ever  experiencing  the  pinch  of  poverty; 
I  have  heard  them  complaining  of  it  at  the  club,  while  ordering 
Medina  oysters  instead  of  Natives,  but,  after  all,  what  does  it  signify 
even  if  they  were  reduced  to  cockles  ?  They  have  no  appearances  to 
keep  up,  and  if  hey  cannot  earn  enough  to  support  themselves  they 
must  be  poor  creatures  indeed. 


1880.  THE  PINCH  OF  POVERTY.  867 

It  is  the  large  families  of  moderate  income,  who  are  delicate,  and 
have  delicate  tastes,  that  feel  the  twinge :  and  especially  the  poor 
girls.  I  remember  a  man,  with  little  care  for  his  personal  appearance, 
of  small  means  but  with  a  very  rich  sense  of  humour,  describing  to 
me  his  experiences  when  staying  at  a  certain  ducal  house  in  the 
country,  where  his  feelings  must  have  been  very  similar  to  those  of 
Christopher  Sly.  In  particular  he  drew  a  charming  picture  of  the 
magnificent  attendant  who  in  the  morning  would  put  out  his  clothes 
for  him,  which  had  not  been  made  by  Mr.  Poole,  nor  very  recently 
by  anybody.  The  contempt  which  he  well  understood  his  Grace's 
gentleman  must  have  felt  for  him  afforded  him  genuine  enjoyment. 
But  with  young  ladies,  in  a  similar  position,  matters  are  very 
different ;  they  have  rarely  a  sense  of  humour,  and  certainly  none 
strong  enough  to  counteract  the  force  of  a  personal  humiliation.  I 
have  known  some  very  charming  ones,  compelled  to  dress  on  a  very 
small  allowance,  who,  in  certain  mansions  where  they  have  been 
occasionally  guests,  have  been  afraid  to  put  their  boots  outside  their 
door,  because  they  were  not  of  the  newest,  and  have  trembled  when 
the  officious  lady's-maid  has  meddled  with  their  scanty  wardrobe.  A 
philosopher  may  think  nothing  of  this,  but,  considering  the  tender 
skin  of  the  sufferer,  it  may  be  fairly  called  a  pinch. 

In  the  investigation  of  this  interesting  subject,  I  have  had  a  good 
deal  of  conversation  with  young  ladies,  who  have  given  me  the  fullest 
information,  and  in  a  manner  so  charming,  that,  if  it  were  common  in 
witnesses  generally,  it  would  make  Blue-Books  the  most  delightful 
description  of  reading. 

*I  consider  it  to  be  a  pinch,'  says  one,  '  when  I  am  obliged  to  put 
on  black  mittens  on  occasions  when  I  know  other  girls  will  have  long 
white  kid  gloves.'  I  must  confess  I  have  a  prejudice  myself  against 
mittens ;  they  are,  so  to  speak,  '  gritty '  to  touch  ;  so  that  the  pinch, 
if  it  be  one,  experienced  by  the  wearer,  is  shared  by  her  ungloved 
friends.  The  same  thing  may  be  said  of  that  drawing-room  fire, 
which  is  lit  so  late  in  the  season  for  economical  reasons,  and  so  late 
in  the  day  at  all  times ;  the  pinch  is  felt  as  much  by  the  visitors  as 
by  the  members  of  the  household.  These  things,  however,  are  mere 
nips,  and  may  be  placed  in  the  same  category  with  the  hardships 
complained  of  by  my  friend  Quiverfull's  second  boy.  '  I  don't  mind 
having  Papa's  clothes  cut  up  for  me,'  he  says,  '  but  what  I  do  think 
hard  is  getting  Bob's  clothes  [Bob  being  his  elder  brother],  which 
have  been  Papa's  first ;  however,  I  am  in  great  hopes  that  I  am  out- 
growing. Bob.' 

A  much  more  severe  example  of  the  pinch  of  poverty  than  these 
is  to  be  found  in  railway  travelling  ;  no  lady  of  any  sense  or  spirit 
objects  to  travel  by  the  second,  or  even  the  third  class,  if  her  means 
do  not  justify  her  going  by  the  first.  But  when  she  meets  with 
richer  friends  upon  the  platform,  and  parts  with  them  to  journey  in 

3M2 


868  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY.  May 

the  same  compartment  with  their  man-servant,  she  suffers  as  acutely 
as  though,  when  the  guard  slams  the  door  of  the  carriage  with  the 
vehemence  proportioned  to  its  humble  rank,  her  tender  hand  had 
been  crushed  in  it.  Of  course  it  is  very  foolish  of  her;  but  it 
demands  democratic  opinions,  such  as  almost  no  woman  of  birth  and 
breeding  possesses,  not  to  feel  that  pinch.  Her  knowledge  that  it  is 
also  hard  upon  the  man-servant,  who  has  never  sat  in  her  presence 
before,  but  only  stooped  over  her  shoulder  with  '  'Ock,  Miss,'  serves 
but  to  increase  her  pain. 

A  great  philosopher  has  stated  that  the  worst  evil  of  poverty  is, 
that  it  makes  folks  ridiculous  ;  by  which  I  hope  he  only  means  that, 
as  in  the  above  case,  it  places  them  in  incongruous  positions.  The 
man,  or  woman,  who  derives  amusement  from  the  lack  of  means  of  a 
fellow-creature,  would  jeer  at  a  natural  deformity,  be  cruel  to  children, 
and  insult  old  age.  Such  people  should  be  whipped  and  then  hanged. 
Nevertheless  there  are  certain  little  pinches  of  poverty  so  slight,  that 
they  tickle  almost  as  much  as  they  hurt  the  victim.  A  lady  once  told 
me  (interrupting  herself,  however,  with  pleasant  bursts  of  merriment) 
that  as  a  young  girl  her  allowance  was  so  small  that  when  she  went 
out  to  spend  the  morning  at  a  friend's,  her  promised  pleasure  was 
almost  darkened  by  the  presentiment  (always  fulfilled)  that  the  cab- 
man was  sure  to  charge  her  more  than  the  proper  fare.  The  extra 
expense  was  really  of  consequence  to  her,  but  she  never  dared  dispute 
it  because  of  the  presence  of  the  footman  who  opened  the  door. 

Some  young  ladies — quite  as  lady-like  as  any  who  roll  in  chariots 
— aannot  even  afford  a  cab.  *  What  /  call  the  pinch  of  poverty,'  ob- 
served an  example  of  this  class,  '  is  the  waiting  for  omnibus  after 
omnibus  on  a  wet  afternoon  and  finding  them  all  full.' 

'  But  surely,'  I  replied  with  gallantry,  '  any  man  would  have  given 
up  his  seat  to  you  ? ' 

She  shook  her  head  with  a  smile  that  had  very  little  fun  in  it. 
1  People  in  omnibuses,'  she  said, '  don't  give  up  their  seats  to  others.' 
Nor,  I  am  bound  to  confess,  do  they  do  so  elsewhere ;  if  I  had  been 
in  their  place,  perhaps  I  should  have  been  equally  selfish  ;  though  I 
do  think  I  should  have  made  an  effort,  in  this  instance  at  least,  to 
make  room  for  her  close  beside  me.1 

A  young  governess  whom  some  wicked  fairy  endowed  at  her  birth 
with  the  sensitiveness  often  denied  to  princesses,  has  assured  me 
that  her  journeys  by  railway  have  sometimes  been  rendered  miserable 
by  the  thought  that  she  had  not  even  a  few  pence  to  spare  for  the 

1  There  is,  however,  some  danger  in  this.  I  remember  reading  of  some  highly 
respectable  old  gentleman  in  the  City  who  thus  accommodated  on  a  wet  day  a  very 
nice  young  woman  in  humble  circumstances.  She  was  as  full  of  apologies  as  of  rain- 
water, and  he  of  goodnatured  rejoinders,  intended  to  put  her  at  her  ease ;  so  that  he 
became,  in  a  Platonic  and  paternal  way,  quite  friendly  with  her  by  the  time  she  arrived 
at  her  destination — which  happened  to  be  his  own  door.  She  turned  out  to  be  his 
new  cook,  which  was  afterwards  very  embarrassing. 


1880.  THE  PINCH  OF  POVERTY.  869 

porter  who  would  presently  shoulder  her  little  box  on  to  the  roof  of 
her  cab. 

It  is  people  of  this  class,  much  more  than  those  beneath  them, 
who  are  shut  out  from  all  amusements.  The  mechanic  goes  to  the 
play  and  to  the  music-hall,  and  occasionally  takes  his  '  old  girl,'  as  he 
calls  his  wife,  and  even  '  a  kid '  or  two,  to  the  Crystal  Palace.  But 
those  I  have  in  my  mind  have  no  such  relaxation  from  compulsory 
duty  and  importunate  care.  '  I  know  it's  very  foolish,  but  I  feel  it 
sometimes  to  be  a  pinch,'  says  one  of  these  ill-fated  ones,  '  to  see  them 
all  [the  daughters  of  her  employer]  going  to  the  play,  or  the  opera, 
while  I  am  expected  to  be  satisfied  with  a  private  view  of  their 
pretty  dresses.'  No  doubt  it  is  the  sense  of  comparison  (and  especially 
with  the  female)  that  sharpens  the  sting  of  poverty.  It  is  not, 
however,  through  envy  that  the  '  prosperity  of  fools  destroys  us  '  so 
much  as  the  knowledge  of  its  unnecessariness  and  waste.  When  a 
mother  has  a  sick  child  who  needs  sea  air,  which  she  cannot  afford  to 
give  it,  the  consciousness  that  her  neighbour's  family  (the  bead  of 
which  perhaps  is  a  most  successful  financier  and  market-rigger)  are 
going  to  the  Isle  of  Wight  for  three  months,  though  there  is  nothing 
at  all  the  matter  with  them,  is  an  added  bitterness.  How  often  it  is 
said  (no  doubt  with  some  well-intentioned  idea  of  consolation)  that 
after  all  money  cannot  buy  life  !  I  remember  a  curious  instance  to 
the  contrary  of  this.  In  the  old  days  of  sailing-packets  a  country 
gentleman  embarked  for  Ireland,  and  when  a  few  miles  from  land 
broke  a  blood-vessel  through  sea-sickness.  A  doctor  on  board  pro- 
nounced that  he  would  certainly  die  before  the  completion  of  the 
voyage  if  it  was  continued  ;  whereupon  the  sick  man's  friends  con- 
sulted with  the  captain,  who  convoked  the  passengers,  and  persuaded 
them  to  accept  compensation  in  proportion  to  their  needs  for  allowing 
the  vessel  to  be  put  back  ;  which  was  accordingly  done. 

One  of  the  most  popular  fictions  of  our  time  was  even  written  with 
this  very  moral,  that  life  is  unpurchasable.  Yet  nothing  is  more 
certain  than  that  life  is  often  lost  through  want  of  money — that  is  of 
the  obvious  means  to  save  it.  In  such  a  case  how  truly  has  it  been 
written  that  '  the  destruction  of  the  poor  is  their  poverty ' !  This, 
however,  is  scarcely  a  pinch,  but,  to  those  who  have  hearts  to  feel  it, 
a  wrench  that  '  divides  asunder  the  joints  and  the  marrow.' 

A  nobler  example,  because  a  less  personal  one,  of  the  pinch  of 
poverty,  is  when  it  prevents  the  accomplishment  of  some  cherished 
scheme  for  the  benefit  of  the  human  race.  I  have  felt  such  a  one 
myself  when  in  extreme  youth  I  was  unable,  from  a  miserable  absence 
of  means,  to  publish  a  certain  poem  in  several  cantos.  That  the 
world  may  not  have  been  much  better  for  it  if  I  had  had  the  means 
does  not  affect  the  question.  It  is  easy  to  be  incredulous.  Henry 
the  Seventh  of  England  did  not  believe  in  the  expectations  of 
Columbus,  and  suffered  for  it,  and  his  case  may  have  been  similar  to 
that  of  the  seven  publishers  to  whom  I  applied  in  vain. 


870  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  May 

A  man  with  an  invention  on  which  he  has  spent  his  life,  but  has 
no  means  to  get  it  developed  for  the  good  of  humanity — or  even 
patented  for  himself — must  feel  the  pinch  of  poverty  very  acutely. 

To  sum  up  the  matter,  the  longer  I  live,  the  more  I  am  convinced 
that  the  general  view  in  respect  to  material  means  is  a  false  one. 
That  great  riches  are  a  misfortune  is  quite  true  ;  the  effect  of  them 
in  the  moral  sense  (with  here  and  there  a  glorious  exception,  however) 
is  deplorable  :  a  shower  of  gold  falling  continuously  upon  any  body 
(or  soul)  is  as  the  waters  of  a  petrifying  spring.  But,  on  the  other 
hand,  the  occasional  and  precarious  dripping  of  coppers  has  by  no 
means  a  genial  effect.  If  the  one  recipient  becomes  hard  as  the 
nether  millstone,  the  other  (just  as  after  constant  '  pinching '  a  limb 
becomes  insensible)  grows  callous,  and  also  (though  it  seems  like  a  con- 
tradiction in  terms)  sometimes  acquires  a  certain  dreadful  suppleness. 
Nothing  is  more  monstrous  than  the  generally  received  opinion  with 
respect  to  a  moderate  competence  ;  that  '  fatal  gift,'  as  it  is  called, 
which  encourages  idleness  in  youth  by  doing  away  with  the  necessity 
for  exertion.  I  never  hear  the  same  people  inveighing  against  great 
inheritances,  which  are  much  more  open  to  such  objections.  The 
fact  is,  if  a  young  man  is  naturally  indolent,  the  spur  of  necessity 
will  drive  him  but  a  very  little  way,  while  the  having  enough  to  live 
upon  is  often  the  means  of  preserving  his  self-respect.  One  often 
hears  what  humiliating  things  men  will  do  for  money,  whereas  the 
truth  is  that  they  do  them  for  the  want  of  it.  It  is  not  the  tempta- 
tion which  induces  them,  but  the  pinch.  '  Give  me  neither  poverty 
nor  riches,'  was  Agur's  prayer  ;  '  feed  me  with  food  convenient  for  me, 
lest  I  be  full  and  deny  Thee,  and  say,  Who  is  the  Lord  ?  or  lest  I  be 
poor  and  steal.'  And  there  are  many  things,  flatteries,  disgraceful 
humiliations,  hypocrisies,  which  are  almost  as  bad  as  stealing.  One 
of  the  sharpest  pinches  of  poverty  to  some  minds  must  be  their  in- 
ability (because  of  their  dependency  on  him  and  that  of  others  upon 
them)  to  tell  a  man  what  they  think  of  him. 

Eiches  and  poverty  are  of  course  but  relative  terms;  but  the 
happiest  material  position  in  which  a  man  can  be  placed  is  that  of 
*  means  with  a  margin.'  Then,  however  small  his  income  may  be, 
however  it  may  behove  him  to  '  cut  and  contrive,'  as  the  housekeepers 
call  it,  he  does  not  feel  the  pinch  of  poverty.  I  have  known  a  rich 
man  say  to  an  acquaintance  of  this  class,  '  My  good  friend,  if  you 
only  knew  how  very  small  are  the  pleasures  my  money  gives  me  which 
you  yourself  cannot  purchase ! '  And  for  once  it  was  not  one  of  those 
cheap  and  empty  consolations  which  the  wealthy  are  so  ready  to  be- 
stow upon  their  less  fortunate  fellow-creatures.  Dives  was,  in  that 
instance,  quite  right  in  his  remark  ;  only  we  must  remember  he  was 
not  speaking  to  Lazarus.  '  A  dinner  of  herbs  where  love  is,'  is 
doubtless  quite  sufficient  for  us ;  only  there  must  be  enough  of  it, 
and  the  herbs  should  be  nicely  cooked  in  an  omelette. 

JAMES  PAYN. 


1880.  871 


IRISH  ABSENTEEISM. 


IN  the  course  of  the  anti-rent  agitation,  which  has  been  attracting  so 
much  notice  in  Ireland  of  late,  the  grievance  of  Absenteeism  has 
been  prominently  and  forcibly  adverted  to  on  more  than  one  occasion. 
It  is  an  old  grievance,  one  that  runs  through  Irish  history  from  the 
very  earliest  times,  sowing  its  seeds  from  century  to  century,  and 
leaving  ever  a  harvest  of  ills  for  future  generations  to  reap. 

A  considerable  period  has  elapsed  since  the  subject  was  last  dis- 
cussed— the  state  of  Ireland  has  in  the  meanwhile  materially  changed, 
and  now  that  the  matter  is  being  again  brought  into  notice,  it  is 
most  desirable  the  question  should  be  carefully  examined  whether 
Irish  absenteeism  is  really  an  evil  and  a  grievance,  and  if  so,  how, 
and  to  what  extent,  it  is  such.  More  or  less  mistaken  views  have, 
as  a  rule,  been  held  regarding  it ;  authorities  even  have  differed ;  and 
the  parties  concerned  have  each  paraded  and  insisted  upon  the 
conclusions  most  in  accordance  with  their  personal  interests  and 
sympathies.  The  word  *  absentee '  has  been  variously  denned.  Some 
people  only  consider  a  landowner  an  absentee  if  he  resides  per- 
manently out  of  Ireland.  Others  apply  the  term  to  a  landowner 
who  resides  so  little  on  his  property  that  it  is  in  no  way  benefited  by 
the  expenditure  of  the  revenue  which  he  derives  from  it,  or  by  his 
personal  presence — irrespective  of  whether  he  resides  in  Ireland  or 
not.  It  is  unnecessary  to  waste  time  in  discussing  which  is  the  more 
accurate  definition.  The  difference  between  them  is  merely  one  of 
degree,  and  the  actual  meaning  of  the  word  will  make  itself  clear  as 
we  proceed. 

Absenteeism  begins  to  figure  early  in  Irish  history.  So  far  back 
as  the  reign  of  Richard  the  Second  its  effects  had  begun  to  attract 
notice.  Many  of  the  English  lords  to  whom  grants  of  land  had 
originally  been  made  were  found  to  have  withdrawn  to  England, 
and  as  the  Irish  immediately  resumed  possession  of  the  estates  thus 
neglected,  the  English  cause  lost  ground.  This  was  deemed  to  be  an 
evil  requiring  a  remedy,  and  an  Act  was  passed  forfeiting  two-thirds 
of  the  profits  of  the  estates  of  all  absentees. 

In  the  reign  of  Henry  the  Eighth  the  non-residence  of  landowners 
again  attracted  attention,  and  the  Legislature,  recognising  the  very 
undesirable  effects  of  the  practice,  applied  a  remedy  of  rather  'an 


872  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  May 

effectual  character,  inflicting  no  less  a  penalty  than  forfeiture  on 
several  absentee  landowners,  and  confiscating  to  the  Crown  the  Irish 
estates  of  the  Duke  of  Norfolk,  the  Earl  of  Shrewsbury,  and  others.1 

The  subject  again  comes  into  prominence  in  Elizabeth's  reign, 
absenteeism  having  been  the  principal  cause  of  the  failure  of  her 
scheme  for  the  settlement  of  Munster,  and  for  the  regeneration  thereby 
of  that  portion  of  Ireland.  The  English  nobles  to  whom  she  granted 
extensive  estates  out  of  the  confiscated  lands,  were  unwilling  to  take 
up  their  permanent  residence  in  Ireland,  and  after  a  short  time  began 
to  neglect  their  estates  there,  and  to  withdraw  to  England,  and  the 
scheme  of  settlement  ended  therefore  in  total  failure. 

The  causes  of  this  failure  were  subsequently  so  clearly  recognised 
that  when  James  the  First  was  projecting  the  settlement  of  Ulster, 
the  greatest  care  was  taken  to  prevent  a  repetition  of  such  results ; 
and  the  success  of  his  scheme  was,  in  no  small  measure,  due  to  the 
stringent  conditions  which  were  imposed  on  the  settlers  as  to  residence 
and  as  to  the  performance  of  the  duties  of  their  position  as  land- 
owners. From  time  to  time  after  this,  as  we  turn  the  leaves  of  Irish 
history,  or  peruse  works  relating  to  the  state  of  the  country,  we  find 
writer  after  writer  referring  to  the  subject. 

Sir  William  Temple,  writing  from  Dublin  at  the  end  of  the  seven- 
teenth century,  said : — 

The  country  loses  the  expense  of  many  of  the  richest  persons  or  families  at 
home,  and  mighty  sums  of  money  must  needs  go  over  from  hence  into  England, 
which  the  great  stock  of  rich  native  commodities  here  can  make  the  only  amends 
for.  These  circumstances,  so  prejudicial  to  the  increase  of  trade  and  riches  in 
a  country,  seem  natural,  or  at  least  have  ever  been  incident  to  the  government 
here. 

Dean  Swift,  some  years  later,  in  a  sermon  on  the  causes  of  the 
wretched  condition  of  Ireland,  said  : — 

The  second  cause  of  our  miserable  state  is  the  folly,  the  vanity,  and  ingratitude 
of  those  vast  numbers  who  think  themselves  too  good  to  live  in  the  country  which 
gave  them  birth,  and  still  gives  them  bread  ;  and  rather  choose  to  pass  their  days 
and  consume  their  wealth,  and  draw  out  the  very  vitals  of  their  mother  kingdom 
among  those  who  heartily  despise  them. 

And  in  the  Drapier's  Letters  the  absentees  fall  under  the  lash  of  his 
satire. 

Arthur  Young,  in  his  Tour  in  Ireland  in  the  year  1780,  gives 
a  list  of  absentees,  and  estimates  their  rental  at  732,000^.,  whilst  he 

1  The  preamble  of  the  Act  is  worth  quoting : — '  Forasmuch  as  it  is  notorious 
and  evident  that  this,  the  King's  land  of  Ireland,  heretofore  being  inhabited,  and 
in  due  obedience  and  subjection  unto  the  King's  most  noble  progenitors,  hath  prin- 
cipally grown  into  ruin,  desolation,  rebellion,  and  decay,  by  occasion  that  great 
dominions,  lands,  and  possessions  had  descended  to  noblemen  of  the  realm  of  Eng- 
land, who,  leaving  the  same,  have  absented  themselves  out  of  the  said  land  of  Ireland, 
demouring  within  the  said  realm  of  England,  and  not  providing  for  the  good  order 
and  suretie  of  the  same  their  possessions  there,'  i'c. 


1880.  IRISH  ABSENTEEISM.  873 

estimates  the  rental  of  all  Ireland  at  5,293,000£.     On  these  figures 
he  remarks :  — 

The  total,  though  not  equal  to  what  has  been  reported,  is  certainly  an  amazing 
drain  upon  a  kingdom  cut  off  from  the  reaction  of  a  free  trade,  and  such  a  one  as 
must  have  a  considerable  effect  in  preventing  the  course  of  its  prosperity. 

It  is  not  the  simple  amount  of  the  rental  being  remitted  into  another  country, 
but  the  damp  on  all  sorts  of  improvements,  and  the  total  want  of  countenance  and 
encouragement  which  the  lower  tenantry  labour  under. 

Many  passages  of  similar  purport  could  also  be  quoted  from  other 
writers. 

By  about  the  date  of  Young's  Tour,  the  Irish  Parliament  had 
become  a  body  of  considerable  importance,  and,  on  more  than  one 
occasion,  absenteeism  formed  the  subject  of  discussion  in  the  Irish 
House  of  Commons. 

In  1773  Sir  J.  Blaquiere  succeeded  so  far  as  to  induce  the  British 
Ministers  to  assent  to  a  tax  on  the  property  of  absentees,  but  his 
proposal  was  lost,  when  it  came  before  the  Irish  House  of  Commons, 
by  a  majority  of  14. 

Ten  years  afterwards,  when  the  Irish  Parliament  had  freed  itself 
from  the  restraining  provisions  of  Poynings'  Act,  and  had  become 
'  independent,'  the  subject  was  brought  forward  by  a  Mr.  Molyneux, 
who  proposed  that  a  tax  of  four  shillings  in  the  pound  should  be 
deducted  from  all  sums  remitted  to  persons  having  estates  in  Ireland 
and  not  residing  therein  six  months  in  the  year ;  and  justified  his 
proposal  on  the  ground  that  the  noblemen  and  gentlemen  who 
possessed  large  estates  in  Ireland,  but  who  spent  their  income  in 
another  country,  did  not  contribute  to  the  support  of  the  State  in 
proportion  to  the  property  they  possessed.2  This  scheme  did  not 
meet  with  much  favour.  The  Attorney-General  moved  an  amend- 
ment '  to  show  his  abhorrence'  of  the  tax,  which  he  thought  should 
be  '  scouted  out  of  the  House  with  every  mark  of  reprobation,'  and 
the  proposal  was  rejected  by  184  to  22. 

And  yet  it  would  appear  that  the  grievance  was  a  real  one.  Adam 
Smith,  who,  at  least,  may  be  regarded  as  an  impartial  judge,  recog- 
nised and  admitted  the  truth  of  the  arguments  urged  in  favour  of  a 
tax.  He  pointed  out  that  those  who  live  in  another  country  contri- 
bute nothing  by  their  consumption  towards  the  support  of  the 
Government  of  that  country  in  which  is  situated  the  source  of  their 
revenue ;  and  that  where  there  is  no  land-tax,  nor  any  tax  on  the 
transference  of  property,  as  was  the  case  in  Ireland,  such  absentees 
might  derive  a  great  revenue  from  the  protection  of  a  Government  to 
the  support  of  which  they  did  not  contribute  a  single  shilling.3 

-  It  is  to  be  borne  in  mind  that  at  this  time  Ireland  had  her  separate  Exchequer 
and  paid  the  expense  of  her  own  Government. 

3  He  adds :  '  The  inequality  is"]  likely  to  be  greatest  in  a  country  of  which  the 
Government  is  in  some  respects  subordinate  and  dependent  upon  that  of  some  other. 


874  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY.  May 

Another  long  discussion  took  place  in  the  Irish  House  of  Commons 
in  1797.  The  arguments  already  stated  were  reproduced.  It  was 
again  pointed  out  that  absentee  landlords  who  were  possessed  of 
estates  variously  estimated  between  a  fourth  and  a  sixth  of  the  whole 
country,  escaped  all  taxation,  and  that  the  burden  of  the  cost  of 
government  fell  entirely  on  the  residents  in  Ireland.  The  proposal 
of  a  tax  was  again  made,  but  again  negatived.  Once  more  the  floods 
of  declamation  were  let  loose  against  it.  The  measure  was  unjust, 
unconstitutional,  and  impolitic ;  unjust  as  being  a  partial  tax,  uncon- 
stitutional as  restraining  natural  liberty,  and  impolitic  as  tending  to 
deter  strangers  from  settling  in  the  country.  It  was  meant  to  compel 
landlords  to  reside  in  Ireland,  but  it  was  the  absolute  inherent  right 
of  every  free  subject  to  choose  his  habitation  and  establish  his 
residence  in  any  part  of  her  Majesty's  dominions  he  might  think 
proper,  and  the  imposition  of  a  fine  or  coercion  by  the  operation  of  a 
partial  tax  would  be  a  direct  subversion  of  that  right.  It  was  a  class 
tax  ;  it  would  render  necessary  a  registry  of  all  lands,  and  it  would 
go  to  the  ruin  of  trade  and  credit  by  diverting  the  cash  of  the  country 
from  commercial  purposes. 

A  perusal  of  these  discussions  does  not  impress  one  much  with 
the  manner  in  which  subjects  were  debated  in  the  Irish  House  of 
Commons.  There  is  not  the  slightest  vestige  of  the  recognition  of 
any  responsibility  on  the  part  of  landowners  towards  their  tenants 
and  towards  their  country  ;  nor  was  there  a  single  word  said  in  con- 
demnation of  a  practice  which,  to  say  the  least  of  it,  was  greatly  to  be 
deprecated.  The  discussions,  moreover,  never  rose  to  the  height  of 
the  general  question,  but  dealt  merely  with  absenteeism  as  a  fiscal 
grievance ;  and  this  it  undoubtedly  was,  in  spite  of  all  arguments 
and  Parliamentary  majorities  to  the  contrary.  The  grievance,  how- 
ever, was  only  one  so  long,  as  each  country  maintained  its  own 
Government  and  its  separate  Exchequer.  In  1801  the  Governments 
were  united;  in  1817  the  Exchequers  amalgamated;  thenceforward 
the  cost  of  Government  was  paid  out  of  Imperial  Funds,  and  the 
fiscal  grievance  ended. 

Absenteeism,  however,  was  not  limited  in  its  effects  to  this  com- 
paratively small  fiscal  question,  and  its  real  gravity  lay  in  no  such 
narrow  compass.  It  is  no  exaggeration  to  say  that,  throughout  the 
whole  recent  history  of  Ireland,  absenteeism  has  affected  the  entire 
community  of  that  country,  politically,  socially,  and  economically : 
its  consequences  have  been  far-reaching,  all-embracing,  and  lasting  in 
their  character  ;  and  not  alone  was  the  state  of  the  country  affected 

The  people  who  possess  the  most  property  in  the  dependent,  will,  in  this  case,  gene- 
rally choose  to  live  in  the  governing  country.  Ireland  is  precisely  in  this  situation, 
and  we  cannot,  therefore,  wonder  that  the  proposal  of  a  tax  on  absentees  should  be 
so.  very  popular  in  that  country.'  See  Wealth  of  Nation*,  Book  v.,  ch.  2, 


1880.  IRISH  ABSENTEEISM.  875 

thereby  at  the  time,  but  the  full  measure  of  the  evil  was  only  realised 
in  the  future. 

It  will,  perhaps,  be  best  to  consider  the  economic  aspect  first. 

Some  people  have  gone  so  far  as  to  maintain  that,  economically, 
Ireland  did  not  suffer  at  all  from  absenteeism.  We  may  take  Mr. 
J.  K.  McCulloch,  so  well  known  as  a  political  economist,  as  the  most 
prominent  exponent  of  this  school. 

He  was  examined  before  a  Select  Committee  of  the  House  of 
Commons  in  1825,  which  was  then  inquiring  into  the  state  of  Ireland, 
and  he  there  asserted  that  *  the  income  of  a  landlord  when  he  is  an  ab- 
sentee, is  really  as  much  expended  in  Ireland  as  if  he  were  living  in  it.' 

This  rather  startling  view  he  was  asked  to  explain,  and  in  reply 
he  said : — 

When  a  landlord  becomes  an  absentee,  his  rent  must  be  remitted  to  him  one 
way  or  another,  either  in  money  or  in  commodities.  It  cannot  continue  to  be  re- 
mitted to  him  from  Ireland  in  money,  therefore  the  rents  of  absentees  can  only  be 
remitted  in  commodities.  And  this,  I  think,  would  be  the  nature  of  the  operation : 
When  a  landlord  has  an  estate  in  Ireland,  and  goes  to  live  in  London  or  Paris, 
his  agent  gets  the  rent  and  goes  and  buys  a  bill  of  exchange  with  it.  Now  the 
Jbill  of  exchange  is  a  draft  drawn  against  equivalent  commodities  that  are  to  be 
exported  from  Ireland  ;  it  is  nothing  more  than  an  order  to  receive  an  equivalent 
amount  in  commodities  which  must  be  sent  from  Ireland.  The  merchants  who 
get  10,000/.,  or  any  other  sum,  from  the  agent  of  an  absentee  landlord,  go  into  the 
Irish  market  and  buy  exactly  the  same  amount  of  commodities  as  the  landlord 
would  have  bought  had  he  been  at  home  ;  the  only  difference  being  that  the  land- 
lord would  eat  them  and  would  wear  them  in  London  or  Paris,  and  not  in  Dublin 
or  in  his  house  in  Ireland. 

It  was  impossible  that  a  proposition  so  manifestly  false  as  this 
should  pass  unchallenged  ;  and,  a  short  time  after,  there  appeared  in 
the  Quarterly  Review  (March  1826)  an  article  which  gave  a  very 
different  appearance  to  the  economic  aspect  of  absenteeism.  The 
writer  puts  so  clearly  and  convincingly  the  opposite  side  of  the  case, 
that  I  quote  the  passage  : — 

We  will  simplify  the  process  described  by  Mr.  McCulloch,  and  suppose  the  rent 
of  an  absentee  to  be  transmitted  to  him  directly,  without  the  intervention  of 
merchants  and  bills  of  exchange.  Let  it  be  assumed  then  that  the  rent; due  to 
an  absentee  amounts  to  100  qrs.  of  wheat,  100  head  of  cattle,  and  100  firkins  of 
butter,  and  that  his  tenants  convey  these  to  Cork,  whence  they  are  transported  to 
England,  France,  or  Italy,  for  the  use  of  the  landlord.  If  the  owner  of  this 
estate  lived  in  Ireland,  he  would  expend  his  wheat,  beef,  and  butter  on  Irish 
footmen  and  housemaids,  or  Irish  tailors,  coachmakers,  butchers,  bakers,  &c.,  to 
whom  he  would  give  employment ;  but  as  an  absentee  he  expends  them  on  the 
domestics,  artisans,  and  mechanics  whom  he  employs  at  Westminster,  Paris,  or 
Naples.  Still,  if  we  are  to  believe  the  witness,  his  income  is  as  much  expended  in 
Ireland  as  if  he  were  living  in  it. 

The  case  is  so  clear  that  it  is  strange  that  a  man  of  Mr. 
McCulloch's  abilities  should  have  fallen  into  the  error  he  did.  The 
plain  patent  fact  was,  that  Ireland  had  annually  to  export  a  large 
amount  of  agricultural  produce  in  order  to  obtain  the  money  which 


876  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  May 

had  to  be  remitted  to  absentees,  and  Ireland  received  no  return 
whatever  for  such  exports,  for  the  money  obtained  by  such  exportation 
was  immediately  sent  out  of  the  country  to  pay  the  rent  due  to 
absentees. 

The  rest  of  Mr.  McCulloch's  views  on  this  subject  were  vitiated 
by  the  cardinal  error  into  which  he  had  fallen,  and  he  even  went  so 
far  as  to  say  that,  economically,  it  was  '  very  nearly  the  same  thing  ' 
to  Ireland,  whether  the  whole  gentry  of  the  country  were  absentees 
or  not.  This  was  as  incorrect  as  his  other  statement,  for  there  are 
two  very  evident  economic  disadvantages  of  absenteeism  which  at 
once  refute  his  assertion.  The  first  is,  that  no  portion  of  the  land- 
owner's income  is  spent  on  the  property  or  its  neighbourhood  in 
articles  of  consumption  ;  the  second  is,  that  no  portion  of  that  income 
is  spent  in  giving  employment  to  the  people.  It  may  be  admitted, 
as  held  by  economists,  that  even  had  the  absentees  resided  on  their 
properties,  the  employment  they  could  give  would  not  have  perma- 
nently raised  the  rate  of  wages  of  the  country ;  but  it  is  not  the  less 
true  that  their  residence  would  have  created  a  demand  for  various 
kinds  of  labour  highly  beneficial  to  the  people.  In  this  point  of 
view,  the  absence  of  the  landowners  affects  labourers,  artisans,  and 
tradespeople,  rather  than  the  tenant-farmers ;  but  in  Ireland  many 
of  the  small  farmers  would  have  been  only  too  glad  to  get  employ- 
ment, so  that  they  also  felt  the  loss  to  some  extent. 

Nobody  for  a  moment  expects  that  a  resident  landlord  should 
spend  his  whole  income  on  the  property  from  which  he  derives  it,  for 
there  are  many  commodities  which  he  would  be  obliged  to  import 
from  manufacturing  centres ;  but  it  is  none  the  less  evident  that  a 
portion  of  his  income  would  be  expended  amongst  local  tradesmen, 
whilst  those  who  act  as  carriers  would  derive  some  benefit  from  that 
portion  expended  elsewhere. 

Another  manner  in  which  absenteeism  affects  a  country  economi- 
cally is  as  regards  the  cultivation  of  the  land.  A  good  deal  of 
evidence  upon  this  point  was  taken  before  the  different  Committees 
and  Commissions  that  were  appointed  to  inquire  into  the  state  of 
Ireland,  but  a  great  deal  of  it  was  very  contradictory.  The  conclusion 
arrived  at  by  some  of  those  who  most  closely  examined  the  question 
was,  that  the  relative  state  of  cultivation  of  the  estates  of  resident 
and  absentee  landlords  seemed  to  depend  entirely  on  the  means, 
intelligence,  and  industry  of  the  tenants.  This,  however,  is  not  as 
decisive  as  at  first  sight  might  appear,  for,  speaking  generally,  the 
means,  intelligence,  and  industry  of  the  tenants  would  be  greater  on 
the  estates  of  good  resident  landlords  than  on  those  of  absentees. 
After  going  through  the  evidence  given  before  these  Committees,  the 
balance  of  opinion  would  appear  to  be,  that  the  cultivation  was,  as  a 
rule,  worse  on  the  properties  of  absentees.  Doubtless  there  were  and 
are  many  cases  in  which,  owing  to  the  good  management  of  an  agent, 


1880.  IRISH  ABSENTEEISM.  877 

and  the  generosity  of  the  absentee  landlord,  the  cultivation  on  the 
property  of  an  absentee  would  be  superior  to  that  on  the  property  of 
some  residents  ;  but  these  were  the  exceptions  rather  than  the  rule, 
and  they  did  not  controvert  the  general  proposition  ;  whilst  it  is  only 
the  natural  inference  that  where  the  tenantry  were  neglected,  and 
left  to  pursue  their  own  old-fashioned  wasteful  methods  of  cultivation, 
and  received  no  instruction  in  improved  methods,  they  should  be 
behind  those  of  their  neighbours  who  received  some  guidance  and 
assistance  from  resident  landowners.  This  held  truer  some  time  ago 
than  it  does  now ;  for,  owing  to  the  work  of  agricultural  societies, 
and  the  instruction  conveyed  by  newspapers  and  books,  the  tenant  is 
far  less  dependent  on  his  landlord  for  instruction  and  guidance  than 
he  was  formerly. 

The  popular  idea  of  absenteeism  in  Ireland  has  been  derived  from 
the  economic  aspect  of  the  subject,  it  being  .that  which  came  most 
home  to  the  agricultural  population  of  the  country,  and  appealed 
most  to  their  feelings.  In  the  years  before  the  famine,  when  over 
2,000,000  people  were  living  on  the  verge  of  absolute  pauperism, 
and  in  a  state  of  semi-starvation,  they  saw  a  vast  quantity  of  the 
produce  of  the  country  being  sent  away,  from  which  they  derived  no 
benefit ;  they  saw  food  exported  which  was  urgently  wanted  at  home, 
and  for  which  labour  would  willingly  have  been  given,  and  the  name 
of  absentee  became  a  by-word  and  a  term  of  reproach. 

It  must,  I  think,  be  acknowledged,  upon  a  calm  and  impartial 
examination  of  the  matter,  that  their  view  was  not  far  from  being 
the  correct  one ;  for  when  we  consider  the  economic  effects  of  ab- 
senteeism— when  we  see  that  the  tenantry  suffered  from  the  absence 
of  that  guiding  and  instructing  influence  which  would  have  added  to 
the  productiveness  of  their  farms,  that  labourers  suffered  from  want 
of  that  employment  which  a  resident  landlord  would  have  to  some 
extent  afforded  them,  and  that  tradesmen  and  others  suffered  from 
the  want  of  local  custom  and  expenditure — we  are  forced  to  the  con- 
clusion, that,  viewed  in  its  economic  aspect,  absenteeism  was  and  is 
undoubtedly  an  evil.  The  political  and  social  effects  are,  however, 
in  many  respects  even  more  important,  affecting,  as  they  have  done 
for  years,  the  disposition  of  the  people  towards  England,  the  civilisa- 
tion and  comfort  of  the  population,  and  the  existence  of  that  mutual 
good  feeling  which  is  so  essential  to  prosperity,  and  to  the  utilisation 
of  the  rich  resources  of  the  land. 

Arthur  Young  had  referred  to  some  of  the  political  evils  of  the 
practice,  and  attention  was  directed  to  them  in  the  Irish  House  of 
Commons  in  1797  ;  for  Colonel  Vandeleur,  in  proposing  the  tax,  said 
that  the  financial  aspect  of  his  proposal  was  nothing  when  compared 
with  its  policy.  All  the  disturbances  which  had  taken  place  in  the 
country  for  half  a  century,  disgracing  its  character,  and  checking  its 
growth,  had,  he  said,  uniformly  been  found  to  commence  on  the 


878  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  May 

properties  of  absentees,  who,  if  resident,  would  have  curbed  the 
licentious  spirit  of  the  disorderly,  removed  some  of  the  causes  of 
discontent,  and  encouraged  industry.  The  Irish  Parliament,  how- 
ever, either  did  not  or  would  not  recognise  the  evils  ;  no  attempt, 
therefore,  was  made  to  grapple  with  them,  and  things  were  let  to 
go  their  own  course.  Unfortunately,  instead  of  any  improvement 
taking  place,  and  absenteeism  with  its  attendant  evils  diminishing, 
the  state  of  Ireland  went  from  bad  to  worse.  The  abolition  of  the 
Irish  Parliament  removed  one  of  the  inducements  of  residence  in 
Ireland  to  many  of  the  wealthier  class.  The  rebellion  of  1798,  and 
the  subsequent  abortive  attempt  at  another  rebellion,  gave  an  aspect 
of  disorder  and  insecurity  to  the  country  which  was  not  conducive  to 
the  residence  of  persons  who  could  live  elsewhere,  and  there  were 
other  circumstances  which  gradually  led  up  to  that  state  of  things 
which  in  after  years .  aggravated  and  intensified  the  effects  of 
absenteeism. 

The  number  of  landowners  in  Ireland  was  small  as  compared 
with  the  agricultural  population  of  the  country.  Of  these  many 
were  unwilling  to  reside  in  Ireland,  or  unable  to  attend  personally  to 
their  estates  there  ;  and,  content  with  a  moderate  income,  provided 
it  was  a  comparatively  certain  one,  they  gave  leases  of  their 
properties  at  a  low  rent,  and  so  freed  themselves  from  the  troubles 
of  management.  The  great  advance  of  prices  of  agricultural  produce 
consequent  on  the  war  with  France  enabled  these  leaseholders  to 
sublet;  and  this  process  went  on  until  the  lands  passed  through 
many  hands,  and  the  rents  were  forced  up  to  the  highest  point.  The 
enfranchisement  of  40s.  freeholders  in  1793  had  given  a  political 
inducement  to  sublet  and  subdivide  the  land.  These  causes,  and 
others  to  which  reference  need  not  be  made,  combined  to  bring 
about  that  minute  subdivision  of  farms  which  has  been  the  source  of 
nearly  every  evil  in  Ireland,  and  with  it  an  enormous  increase  of  the 
population  of  the  country  without  any  corresponding  improvement 
in  their  circumstances. 

Affairs,  long  unsatisfactory,  began  to  reach  a  climax  towards  the 
end  of  the  first  quarter  of  the  century,  and  thenceforward  the  state  of 
the  country  year  by  year  demanded  more  anxious  attention.  Com- 
mittee after  Committee  was  appointed  by  Parliament  to  ascertain  the 
causes  of  the  poverty  and  distress  in  Ireland,  and  if  possible  to 
suggest  some  remedy.  It  is  unnecessary  to  repeat  the  descriptions 
given  in  their  reports.  One  fact,  bearing  on  our  present  subject, 
comes  out  with  painful  clearness,  and  that  was  that  the  unfortunate 
condition  of  the  people  in  a  great  portion  of  the  country  was 
aggravated  by  absenteeism.  In  many  parts  of  Ireland  those  to  whom 
the  poorer  classes  had  a  right  to  look  for  information,  advice,  and 
assistance,  were  not  to  be  found.  Some,  by  leasing  their  land  as 
above  described,  had  placed  it  for  a  time  out  of  their  power  to 


1880.  IRISH  ABSENTEEISM.  879 

render  any  assistance.  Others  had  deputed  the  management  of  their 
properties  to  agents,  who  frequently  were  ignorant  of  the  true  interests 
of  their  owners,  and,  as  a  rule,  were  careless  of  the  comforts  and  welfare 
of  the  tenants.  Hence,  therefore,  large  masses  of  the  people  were 
left  to  follow  their  own  dictates.  Steeped  in  poverty,  misery,  and 
ignorance,  often  without  the  bare  necessaries  of  life,  with  no  helping 
hand  held  out  to  them,  with  no  ray  of  instruction  or  kindness  reaching 
them  from  above,  they  had  no  encouragement,  no  motive  to  regard 
with  kindly  feelings  those  who  by  circumstances  had  become  their 
masters. 

The  absence  of  landowners  was  all  the  more  keenly  felt,  and 
more  particularly  disastrous  in  the  first  thirty  or  thirty-five  years  of 
the  century,  because  there  was  no  Poor  Law  or  organised  system  of 
charity  to  alleviate  the  distress  of  the  people ;  there  were  no  state 
schools  or  public  system  of  education  to  lift  them  out  of  the  slough 
of  ignorance  in  which  they  were  so  deeply  plunged ;  and  there  were 
no  facilities  of  travelling  to  enable  them  to  obtain  elsewhere  the  em- 
ployment which  they  were  unable  to  find  at  home. 

It  was  but  a  natural  consequence  of  this  state  of  things  that  the 
people  should  have  become  the  easy  prey  of  any  political  agitator 
who  made  specious  promises  and  held  out  alluring  hopes  to  them.  It 
was  an  actual  consequence  that  they  were  lawless,  turbulent,  addicted 
to  violence,  and  prone  to  attempt  to  redress  what  they  considered, 
justly  or  not,  as  grievances.  The  advantages  of  a  system  for  the  ad- 
ministration of  justice  had  not  yet  been  realised  by  them.  They  had 
not  yet  learned  that  the  laws  were  for  their  benefit,  if  they  would 
but  have  recourse  to  them,  as  much  as  for  their  punishment  if  they 
defied  and  broke  them.  Moreover,  in  many  parts  of  Ireland,  owing 
to  the  absence  of  the  landowners,  there  was  no  one  to  check  the 
initiatory  stages  of  disturbance  and  lawlessness,  and  often  and  often, 
small  beginnings,  which  could  easily  have  been  checked  at  the  outset, 
grew  to  troublesome  ends.  It  is  of  course  undeniable — being 
manifest  enough — that  even  in  places  where  there  were  resident 
landlords,  and  where  all  the  moral  and  sometimes  coercive  influence 
of  position  was  used,  political  agitation  throve  and  crime  could  not 
be  checked ;  but  any  one  who  believes  that  the  peace  of  the  country 
suffered  little  detriment  by  absenteeism  must  either  be  very  prejudiced 
and  ignorant,  or  have  read  the  history  of  Ireland  to  very  little 
purpose. 

It  is  difficult  to  overrate  the  influence  which  an  active  resident  land- 
lord has  with  his  tenantry,  whether  by  exam  pie,  inducement,  or  at  times 
by  compulsion  ;  and  it  has  been  nothing  less  than  a  political  calamity 
that  an  influence  which  might  have  been  so  advantageously  and  so 
beneficially  exercised  in  Ireland  should  not  have  been  utilised  to  its 
full  extent. 

It  would,  however,  be  most  unfair  to  omit  from  consideration  the 


880  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  May 

extenuating  circumstances  in  favour  of  some  of  the  absentees.  There 
are,  first  of  all,  many  men  who  hold  also  large  properties  in  England, 
and  upon  whom,  therefore,  England  has  greater  claims  than  Ireland. 
Many  of  these  have  endeavoured  to  minimise  the  results  of  non- 
residence  by  the  appointment  of  resident  agents  and  by  thus  en- 
deavouring to  perform  by  deputy  the  duties  and  responsibilities  of 
their  ownership. 

It  must  also  be  acknowledged  that  absenteeism  does  not  spring 
entirely  from  the  predilections  of  landowners  for  the  more  entertaining 
society  of  London  or  foreign  capitals,  or  from  any  indifference  to  their 
duties  ;  for  it  is  beyond  all  question  true — no  matter  how  indignantly 
the  assertion  will  be  repudiated — that  in  some  parts  of  the  country  the 
tenantry  are  directly  responsible  for  the  non-residence  of  their  land- 
lords. Case  after  case  has  occurred  in  which  the  tenants  have 
absolutely  driven  away  their  landlord  by  threatened  or  actual  violence, 
resorting  even  to  murder  to  accomplish  their  end.  By  their  secret 
societies,  and  threatenings  and  disorderliness,  they  have  endeavoured 
to  prevent  many  landlords  exercising  some  of  the  most  ordinary  rights 
of  property,  and  they  have  made  it  impossible  for  any  person  to  live 
amongst  them  who  could  live  elsewhere.  Throughout  the  history  of 
the  last  fifty  years,  this  fact  is  only  too  evident,  nor  has  it  ceased  in 
the  present  day.  It  would  be  manifestly  an  injustice  to  censure  men 
for  living  away  from  their  properties  when  some  of  their  tenantry  by 
threatening  violence,  even  assassination,  make  their  lives  a  source  of 
constant  anxiety  to  them  ;  and  it  is  but  a  well-merited  punishment  to 
tenantry  who  act  in  this  manner,  that  they  should  be  deprived  of  the 
advantages  which  the  residence  of  a  landlord  brings  with  it. 

This  much  must  be  said  in  extenuation  of  absentees ;  but  there 
are  men,  who,  having  neither  of  these  excuses,  having  no  claims 
from  property  in  England,  nor  any  occasion  to  fear  danger  from  their 
tenantry  in  Ireland,  totally  ignore  the  duties  of  their  status  as  land- 
owners— men  who  think  their  duties  as  such  are  confined  to  the  mere 
receiving  a  rental  from  their  property — who,  having  no  residence  on 
their  property,  give  no  employment  of  any  kind  to  the  people  of  their 
district,  and  make  no  return  in  any  way  for  the  advantages  they 
receive.  These  are  the  drones  of  the  hive,  and  they  it  is  who  give 
occasion  for  the  demand  put  forward  at  some  of  the  land  meetings 
in  Ireland  for  a  compulsory  sale  of  the  estates  of  absentees  to  the 
tenants  at  a  valuation. 

Fortunate  is  it  for  Ireland  that,  thanks  to  the  efforts  of  successive 
Governments,  the  sphere  of  the  evil  effects  of  absenteeism  lias  of  late 
years  considerably  narrowed.  The  provision  made  by  the  State  for 
the  education  of  the  people  through  the  National  Board  supplied  one 
of  the  most  urgent  wants — a  want  which,  though  not  attended  to  by 
resident  landlords  to  the  extent  it  ought  to  have  been,  would  never 
have  been  attended  to  by  absentees. 


1880.  IRISH  ABSENTEEISM.  881 

The  establishment  of  dispensaries  throughout  Ireland,  and  the 
granting  of  medical  relief,  which  was  also  provided  by  Parliament, 
tended  in  a  very  great  degree  to  alleviate  the  sufferings  of  the 
people  in  illness,  and  to  supply  them  with  some  of  those  comforts 
which  the  wealthier  classes  where  resident  would  have  been  able,  to 
some  extent,  to  give  them.  The  Poor  Law  at  least  secured  them 
against  the  last  extremities  of  poverty  and  helplessness. 

Crime  was  to  a  great  extent  checked  by  the  institution  of  an 
efficient  police  force,  which  exercised  a  strict  supervision  over  the 
people.  Furthermore,  amongst  the  large  sales  of  land  in  the 
Encumbered  Estates  Court,  the  properties  of  many  absentees  were 
sold,  so  that,  in  one  way  or  another,  the  evils  of  absenteeism  are  not 
so  great  as  they  were  formerly,  nor  are  the  effects  of  it  so  far- 
reaching. 

But  no  measures  adopted  by  the  State  can  fully  supply  the 
numerous  moral  and  indirect  benefits  which  the  residence  of  landlords 
amongst  their  tenants  confers.  The  presence  of  a  more  enlightened 
and  refined  class,  the  example  of  a  higher  standard  of  living,  the 
stimulus  which  a  little  judicious  encouragement  gives,  and  the 
kindlier  feelings  evoked  by  a  personal  interest  in  the  tenantry,  and 
by  the  removal  of  many  little  subjects  of  complaint,  many  of  the 
smaller  ills  and  irritants  of  life — these  are  advantages  for  which 
legislation  can  make  no  provision.  Nor  is  it  merely  on  the  tenantry 
that  the  social  benefits  are  conferred ;  for  where  there  are  inter- 
mediate classes,  they  also  derive  some  advantages  from  association, 
even  if  only  occasional,  with  a  more  cultivated  and  higher-educated 
class,  and  thus  a  good  example  permeates  through  all  grades,  and 
effects  improvement  in  many  ways. 

It  is  impossible  to  estimate  now  the  full  results  of  the  want  of 
this  leaven  in  Ireland.  Writing,  in  1845,  of  landlords  in  Ireland,  the 
Land  Occupation  Commissioners  said  : — 'The  foundation  of  almost  all 
the  evils  by  which  the  social  condition  of  Ireland  is  disturbed,  is  to 
be  traced  to  feelings  of  mutual  distrust  which  too  often  separate  the 
class  of  landlord  and  tenant,  and  prevent  all  united  exertion  for  the 
common  benefit.'  And  if  this  was  the  case  as  regards  resident 
landlords,  how  much  less  prospect  was  there  of  absentee  landlords 
and  tenants  working  harmoniously  together  for  the  common  benefit ! 

Where  the  social  and  political  evils  of  absenteeism  are  thus  so 
great  and  so  evident,  the  residence  of  landowners  on  their  properties 
for  at  least  a  portion  of  each  year  is  nothing  less  than  a  paramount 
duty  due  to  society  generally.  Having  regard  to  the  past  history  of 
Ireland,  it  is  perhaps  more  a  duty  in  that  country  than  in  any  other. 

It  is  to  be  borne  in   mind  that  the  right  to  property  is  not  a 

natural   right,  but  merely   a   social  right,  created  by  law  for  the 

benefit  of  the  public ;  and  that  certain  very  definite  responsibilities 

are   attached  to  the  possession  thereof.     Any  person  inheriting  or 

VOL.  VII.— No.  39.  3  N 


882  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY.  May 

even  purchasing  landed  property  receives  it  '  charged  with  its  moral 
as  well  as  its  legal  engagements.'  As  has  been  very  justly  pointed 
out,4  '  There  is  a  compact  implied  at  least  between  the  landlord  and 
the  peasantry ^who  have  been  brought  up  on  his  estate,  by  which  the 
latter  have  as  good  a  right  to  protection  as  the  lord  of  the  soil  has 
to  make  arbitrary  dispositions  for  the  future  management  of  his 
property.' 

The  neglect  of  some  of  these  duties  by  resident  landlords  evoked 
once  from  the  Government  of  Ireland  a  declaration  which,  familiar  as 
it  is,  cannot  be  too  often  quoted ;  crystallising,  as  it  does,  into  a 
maxim  the  vital  truth  of  the  case,  and  condensing  into  a  few 
sentences  the  causes  of,  and  the  remedy  for,  the  miserable  state  of 
Ireland  : — 

Property  lias  its  duties  as  well  as  its  rights  ;  to  the  neglect  of  those  duties  in 
time  past  is  mainly  to  be  ascribed  that  diseased  state  of  society  in  which  such 
crimes  (murder  &c.)  take  their  rise  ;  and  it  is  not  in  the  enactment  or  enforcement 
of  statutes  of  extraordinary  severity,  but  in  the  better  and  more  faithful  per- 
formance of  those  duties,  and  the  more  enlightened  and  humane  exercise  of  those 
rights,  that  a  permanent  remedy  for  such  disorders  is  to  be  sought.5 

No  one  who  reads  carefully  and  impartially  the  history  of  Ireland 
during  the  present  century,  can  fail  to  trace  the  unfortunate  effects 
of  absenteeism  throughout  that  period.  It  is,  in  fact,  impossible  to 
ignore  them.  The  absenteeism  of  the  Protestant  clergy  from  their 
parishes,  consequent  on  their  holding  a  plurality  of  livings,  and  the 
imperfect  performance  of  their  duties,  did  not  lead  more  effectually 
to  the  religious  demoralisation  of  the  people  under  their  charge, 
and  the  falling  away  of  many  from  the  Church,  than  the  absence  of 
landowners  did  to  the  political  demoralisation  of  the  people.  In 
extensive  districts  in  Ireland,  there  was  no  one  to  check  the  evil 
tendencies  of  the  people,  no  one  to  prevent  them  rushing  impetuously 
after  political  will-o'-the-wisps,  no  one  to  try  and  win  them  to  the 
side  of  order  and  peace. 

This  is  not  a  matter  upon  which  one  is  left  to  speculation,  for 
there  is  visible  proof  of  the  results  of  the  two  systems — the  system 
of  residence,  and  of  absenteeism.  Those  parts  of  Ireland  in  the 
present  day  which  are  best  disposed  to  the  English  Government,  which 
are  freest  from  political  agitation,  which  are  the  most  peaceful  and 
law-abiding,  and  in  which  the  people  are  most  generally  enlightened, 
liberal,  and  tolerant,  are  just  those  places  where  the  landowners  have 
been  longest  and  most  constantly  resident,  and  have  for  generations 
faithfully  performed  the  duties  of  their  position.  Those  parts  of 
Ireland  where  the  people  are  most  lawless,  most  ignorant,  super- 
stitious, poor,  and  backward,  are  the  places  where  absenteeism  has 

4  See  '  Eeport  of  Railway  Commissioners  in  Ireland,'  Parliamentary  Papers. 

5  See  McLennan 's  Life  of  Thomas  Erummond,  who  was  Under- Secretary  for  Ireland 
at  the  time  (1835),  and  by  whom  this  paragraph  was  written, 


1880.  IRISH  ABSENTEEISM.  883 

thrown  its  blighting  influence,  and  where  the  people  have  been  left 
most  to  themselves. 

Had  absentees  but  done  their  duty,  the  result  for  many  past 
years  and  in  the  present  day  would  have  been  far  different.  Unfor- 
tunately, as  it  is,  disturbance,  crime,  political  agitation,  and  dis- 
affection to  England,  these  were  and  are  the  Nemesis  of  absenteeism, 
a  Nemesis  visited  unfortunately  not  on  the  absentees,  but  on  the 
kingdom  itself. 

Proposals  to  remedy  absenteeism,  though  often  talked  about, 
have  never  been  seriously  made,  because  the  evil  is  not  one  which 
can  be  easily  reached  by  legislation. 

Any  law  imposing  additional  taxation  on  absentees  would  but 
add  to  the  burden  of  tenantry  upon  whom  the  tax  would  ultimately 
fall — neither  could  any  law  be  made  enforcing  residence  for  a  certain 
number  of  months  in  the  year.  The  compulsory  sale  of  their 
estates,  as  now  demanded  by  Irish  agitators,  is  a  request  equally 
beyond  the  pale  of  feasibility,  and  cannot  be  complied  with.  The 
sole  hope,  the  sole  means  of  effecting  any  improvement,  any  ameliora- 
tion, or  of  awakening  absentees  to  a  sense  of  their  duties,  is  through 
public  opinion,  a  strong  expression  of  which  may  be  productive  of 
much  good. 

Those  who  have  claims  upon  them  in  England,  let  them,  at  least 
for  a  time,  give  greater  attention  to  their  properties  in  Ireland, 
where  their  presence  and  their  example  are  so  urgently  required, 
and  would  be  productive  of  such  beneficial  results.  Whilst  those 
who,  without  any  such  justification,  neglect  the  duties  of  landowners, 
let  them  be  entreated,  even  impelled,  to  consider  the  heavy  responsi- 
bility resting  upon  them  ;  let  it  be  shown  them  that  their  action  or 
inaction  involves  not  only  the  welfare  of  their  tenantry,  but  in  no 
inconsiderable  degree  the  peace  and  prosperity  of  the  country ;  let 
them  see  that  the  evil  their  neglect  entails,  affects  not  only  the 
present  time,  but  also  generations  to  come ;  and  if  they  are  then 
still  unwilling  to  undertake  the  performance  of  the  duties  which 
their  position  as  landowners  entails  on  them,  let  them  at  least  seek 
some  other  investment  for  their  property  than  that  which  is  fraught 
with  so  many  economical  and  social  disadvantages  to  Ireland,  and 
with  such  lamentable  political  results  to  the  kingdom  at  large. 

HENRY  L.  JEPHSON. 


3  N  2 


88 i  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  May 


ON   THE  NURSING   CRISIS  AT 
GUYS  HOSPITAL. 


I. 

SIR  THOMAS  BROWNE  justly  remarks  that  '  every  man  is  not  a  proper 
champion  for  truth,  nor  fit  to  take  up  the  gauntlet  in  the  cause  of 
verity.'  I  hope  I  shall  not  be  considered  unchivalrous,  if  I  should  say 
that  this  maxim  is  sometimes  applicable  to  lady  champions,  as  well 
as  to  men.  It  will  be  admitted  to  be  a  subject  of  regret  when  a 
good  cause,  that  needs  no  more  than  a  simple  history  to  recommend 
it,  is  advocated  by  statements  of  which  the  least  that  can  be  said  is 
that  they  are  exaggerated,  and  that  they  suggest  conclusions  which  are 
not  true. 

I  am  led  to  these  remarks  by  the  perusal  of  an  article  in  the  last 
number  of  this  Eeview,  on  '  The  Present  Crisis  at  Guy's  Hospital.' 
The  writer,  whose  object  is  to  enlist  the  sympathies  of  hospital 
authorities  and  the  public  in  general  in  favour  of  a  better  class  of 
nurses  for  the  sick,  in  which  I  entirely  go  with  her,  has  weakened  her 
argument,  and  raised  up  prejudice  against  her  cause,  from  a  want  of 
fairness  or  want  of  knowledge  which  has  prevented  a  liberal  recogni- 
tion of  the  labours  of  those  who  have  hitherto  worked  in  this  great 
field. 

The  nursing  at  the  large  London  hospitals,  though  by  no  means 
near  perfection,  and  probably  not  far  on  the  road  to  it,  has  been, 
under  a  high  sense  of  duty  on  the  part  of  the  women  engaged,  and 
from  a  humble  wish  to  carry  out  the  instructions  of  the  medical 
and  surgical  officers,  generally  good,  and  often  very  excellent. 

It  is  therefore  a  quite  improper  aspersion  on  this  class  of  women, 
so  to  write  as  that  the  fair  inference  would  be  that  they  are  generally 
immoral  and  intemperate,  and  that  they  are  not  actuated,  as  most 
other  persons  are,  by  a  reasonable  sense  of  the  responsibility  of  their 
work. 

t  The  writer,  speaking  of  hospital  sisters  and  nurses,  sa}^s  : — 

In  the  evening,  by  arrangement  with  the  matron,  who  was  a  kind  of  upper 
servant  or  housekeeper,  the  lower  order  of  nurse,  or  scrubber,  was  left  in  charge  of 
the  patients,  while  the  old-fashioned  head  nurse  went  out  to  take  her  hardly-earned 


1880.  THE  NURSING   CRISIS  AT  GUTS  HOSPITAL.    885 

holiday,  too  often,  alas !  in  the  nearest  public  house.  She  came  hack  at  the  regu- 
lation hour,  more  or  less  the  worse  for  drink  as  the  case  might  be,  and  went  to  bed, 
to  sleep  off  the  effects  of  it ;  no  inquiry  was  made  as  to  her  condition,  since  it  was 
nobody's  business,  as  long  as  she  satisfied  the  medical  men  by  the  work  which 
came  under  their  notice,  to  ask  how  her  hours  off  duty  were  spent,  or  what  her 
own  moral  condition  might  be. 

I  am  far  from  saying  (she  adds)  that  every  nurse  under  the  old  system  was 
drunken  or  dissolute,  but  I  do  say  that,  as  a  rule,  their  moral  character  was  unsatis- 
factory. 

So  much  for  this  writer's  statement.  It  would  seem  to  any  one 
unacquainted  with  the  subject  that  the  author  of  these  serious  accu- 
sations was  a  person  of  large  experience  on  the  subject  she  treats  of, 
for  nothing  less  than  this  would  warrant  so  wholesale  a  condemnation. 
The  reader  may  therefore  be  surprised  when  I  say  that  these  charges 
rest  upon  the  most  limited  and  superficial  experience  of  the  system 
condemned,  the  writer  having  been  but  a  few  weeks  in  the  hospital 
as  a  learner  of  the  rudiments  of  nursing.  In  contradiction  of  her 
statements  I  can  affirm  that  a  residence  of  fifteen  years  within  the 
walls  of  Guy's  Hospital,  and  an  unusually  intimate  acquaintance  with 
what  took  place  within  the  wards,  have  left  upon  my  mind  a  quite 
contrary  impression,  and  I  have  no  reason  to  believe  that  there  has 
been  a  deterioration  of  the  sisters  and  nurses  since  my  day.  I  am 
constrained  to  say  that  this  sort  of  writing  about  them  comes  near  to 
'  evil-speaking.'  It  is  possible,  and  to  my  conviction  probable,  how- 
ever, that  this  lady  may  have  other  inspirations  than  such  as  would 
naturally  spring  up  in  her  young  mind.  However  this  may  be,  it 
cannot  be  necessary  to  do  an  injustice,  and  to  excite  prejudice,  in 
order  to  promote  such  a  good  cause  as  the  better  selection  and  train- 
ing of  nurses. 

I  agree  with  Miss  Lonsdale  and  her  friends  that  hitherto  there 
has  been  but  little  selection  of  proper  persons  to  become  nurses,  and 
it  is  a  matter  for  congratulation  that  the  authorities  of  our  large 
hospitals  are  alive  to  the  pressing  importance  of  this  matter,  and 
are  willing  to  make  arrangements  for  both  the  selection  and  the 
training  of  such  women.  Any  action  in  this  direction  will  be  not 
only  in  the  interest  of  the  patients  of  the  hospital  themselves,  but 
also  in  the  interest  of  the  public  at  large. 

It  would  therefore  naturally  be  a  matter  of  surprise  that  any 
opposition  to  this  useful  movement  should  arise  from  the  medical  and 
surgical  staff  of  the  hospital,  yet  much  antagonistic  feeling  has  been 
excited  by  it,  and  is  still  felt,  I  believe,  not  only  at  Guy's,  but  also  in 
other  hospitals.  Though  I  have  no  immediate  relation  to  the  work 
my  colleagues  carry  on  at  Guy's,  I  have  not  been  indifferent  to  the 
objections  they  have  felt  to  the  new  order  of  nursing  which  has  been 
introduced  there,  nor  to  the  feeling  of  irritation  which  has  been 
occasioned  by  many  incidents  connected  with  this  change. 

Miss  Lonsdale  supposes  that  the  objections  of  the  medical  and 


886  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  May 

surgical  staff  arise  from  several  causes,  but,  as  I  infer  from  what  she 
says,  none  of  them  of  an  honourable  character.  According  to 
this  lady  they  are,  an  indifference  to  the  nursing  improvement,  or 
rather  a  preference  for  a  low  intellectual  and  moral  standard  in 
nurses,  jealousy  of  refined  intelligence  and  repugnance  to  its  presence, 
ignorance  of  what  nursing  should  be,  and  a  desire  to  conceal 
4  practices  and  experiments  indulged  in  in  the  wards,'  &c.  I  may 
leave  it  to  the  public  to  judge  how  far  such  an  indictment  as  this 
is  likely  to  be  true  against  a  large  body  of  highly  educated 
gentlemen,  the  physicians  and  surgeons  of  a  large  hospital  containing 
hundreds  of  patients — a  hospital  hitherto  considered  an  honour  to 
our  country,  whose  Medical  School  has  produced  a  long  list  of  dis- 
tinguished physicians  and  surgeons,  whose  pupils,  numbered  by 
thousands,  are  now  practising  in  every  part  of  the  world,  vindicating 
at  home  and  abroad,  in  public  and  private  practice,  the  honour  of 
their  profession,  and  justly  proud  of  being  Gruy's  men. 

Such  imputations,  coming  from  a  spokesman  of  the  new  system, 
naturally  raise  the  greatest  objections  to  it.  This  writer  exposes 
indeed,  in  the  article  in  question,  the  very  grounds  of  this  great  op- 
position ;  and  no  wonder,  for  what  physician  or  surgeon  would  care 
to  have  much  to  do  with  ladies  who  begin  by  so  misunderstanding 
them  and  their  work  ?  If  the  coming  class  of  nurses  are  to  have 
no  more  respect  for  the  medical  and  surgical  staff  than  is  here 
shown,  I  am  afraid  the  opposition  to  them  will  not  be  very  short- 
lived, and  the  establishment  of  a  nursing  school,  which  I  have  so 
long  been  looking  for,  will  not  be  soon  realised. 

The  ladies  who  ask  the  suffrages  of  the  profession  for  promoting 
the  art  of  nursing  to  a  higher  grade  than  it  holds  at  present,  must 
not  hope  to  introduce  this  movement  by  condemning,  in  such  terms 
as  I  have  quoted,  honest  and  worthy  persons  who  have  hitherto  done 
the  work.  Nor  can  they  do  it  by  acting  as  if  the  objections  on  the 
part  of  the  profession  were  of  that  unworthy  character  which  this 
writer  supposes. 

The  true  and  I  believe  the  chief  objection  which  medical  men  have 
felt  against  the  new  order  of  nursing  is  that  it  introduces  a  new  ele- 
ment between  them  and  their  patients.  It  has  been  naturally  a  re- 
cognised if  not  expressed  principle,  both  in  hospital  and  private  practice, 
that  in  the  treatment  of  the  patient  everything  is  to  be  subordinate  to 
the  purpose  of  the  physician  or  surgeon ;  not  that  the  medical  man 
should  have  to  consider  mere  domestic  matters,  but  that  these  should 
co-operate  with,  and  be  entirely  subject  to,  the  details  of  nursing.  But 
4  a  doctor,'  says  Miss  Lonsdale,  '  is  no  more  necessarily  a  judge  of  the 
details  of  nursing  than  a  nurse  is  acquainted  with  the  properties  and 
effects  of  the  administration  of  certain  drugs.'  This  is  the  claim  of 
the  new  nursing  system.  It  is  preposterous  and  absurd.  Every 
medical  man,  if  not  the  public  in  general,  will  feel  this  to  be  so. 


1880.  THE  NURSING  CRISIS  AT  GIUY'S  HOSPITAL.  887 

I  for  my  own  part  should  say  that  the  medical  man  who  does  not  feel 
the  absurdity  of  it  is  unmindful  how  often  minor  matters  may  be  of 
vital  importance  in  the  treatment  of  his  patient. 

So  much  is  this  lady's  statement  the  reverse  of  fact,  that  the 
most  distinguished  members  of  the  profession  would  not  entrust  the 
nursing  in  some  anxious  cases  to  a  woman,  however  highly  trained 
she  might  be  as  a  nurse,  or,  if  they  did,  not  without  the  strictest  super- 
vision on  their  part  directly,  or  through  some  proper  assistant.  These 
pages  are  not  for  bedside  histories,  but  I  may  say  that  it  almost  daily 
happens,  in  the  wards  of  our  large  hospitals,  that  cases  requiring 
special  care  are  not  committed  to  nurses  alone,  but  are  placed  under 
the  immediate  and  constant  supervision  of  students  advanced  in  their 
studies,  who  watch  over  and  direct  every  item  of  the  nursing. 

It  is  obviously  part  of  the  teaching  of  a  medical  man  that  this 
should  be  so,  and  that  he  should  acquaint  himself  minutely  with  every 
particular  of  bedside  treatment.  There  should  be  no  circumstance 
affecting  the  sick  man,  nor  any  office  to  be  rendered  him,  of  which 
the  medical  attendant  should  not  be  the  best  judge,  and  the  best 
agent  if  necessary,  though  in  the  nature  of  human  affairs  there  is  and 
must  be  a  division  of  labour,  and  the  less  important  part  in  the 
management  of  the  sick  will  fall  on  the  nurses.  The  above  misconcep- 
tion as  to  the  supposed  supreme  knowledge  of  lady-nurses  for  nursing, 
and  the  fancied  independence  of  their  position  and  work,  are  errors 
to  be  recognised  and  corrected  in  the  very  initiation  of  any  new 
system.  The  profession  can  never  sanction  a  nursing  system  which* 
claims  for  itself  not  to  be  under  their  'control  and  direction.  It  is 
impossible  for  them  to  do  so  if  they  have  a  high  sense  of  their  duty. 

Oh !  could  some  kindly  demon  dispossess  these  nursing  ladies  of 
this  too  presumptuous  spirit,  here  so  naively  confessed  and  defended, 
there  might  be,  I  think,  some  hope  of  their  success.  But  to  suppose 
that  a  nurse  can  have  a  knowledge  of  her  work  without  being  properly 
taught  through  the  profession,  is  to  betray  an  almost  palpable 
ignorance  of  the  subject,  and  of  the  only  way  by  which  the  education 
of  nurses  can  be  advanced.  For  instance,  take  the  matter  of  cleanli- 
ness, which  all  would  say  is  a  nurse's  speciality  of  knowledge  ;  yet  so 
far  is  it  from  being  so,  that  science,  and  even  advanced  science,  has 
lately  been  much  occupied  in  instructing  medical  men  what  cleanliness 
really  is,  and  I  may  venture  to  affirm  that  no  nurse  has  a  proper 
conception  of  it,  though  probably  this  lady  would  maintain  that  she 
is  as  good  a  judge  of  cleanliness  as  the  best  informed  surgeon.  Again, 
take  the  preparation  and  fitness  of  different  kinds  of  food  for  the 
sick ;  much  on  these  points  is  confided  to  the  nurse,  or  those  acting 
under  her  instructions,  but  how  can  she  obtain  the  adequate  know- 
ledge for  her  guidance  in  these  duties  but  from  the  science  of 
medicine  ?  In  fact,  there  is  no  proper  duty  which  the  nurse  has  to 
perform,  even  to  the  placing  of  a  pillow,  which  does  not  or  may  not 


888  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  May 

involve  a  principle,  and  a  principle  which  can  be  only  properly  met 
by  one  who  has  had  the  advantage  of  medical  instruction.  It  is  a 
fundamental  and  dangerous  error  to '  maintain  that  any  system  of 
nursing  has  sources  of  knowledge  not  derived  from  the  profession,  and 
that  it  can  be  maintained  and  advanced  within  its  own  sphere.  Such 
an  error  is  as  irrational  as  would  be  that  of  the  man  in  a  balloon 
who,  forgetting  the  conditions  of  his  buoyancy,  should  step  from  the 
car. 

As  the  views  of  medicine  and  surgery  advance  in  the  treatment 
of  disease,  the  particulars  required  in  good  nursing  will  advance  as 
part  of  the  improved  treatment.  Nothing  illustrates  this  more  plainly 
than  the  antiseptic  surgery  of  modern  times,  which  saves  many  lives 
by  cleanliness  alone  ;  and  were  this  the  proper  place,  almost  infinite 
illustrations  might  be  given  of  improvements  in  nursing  growing  im- 
mediately out  of  the  advances  of  medicine.  A  nurse  should  be  so  edu- 
cated as  to  be  able  to  understand  the  intentions  of  the  physician  or 
surgeon  in  the  treatment  he  may  order,  so  as  to  be  able  to  ask  for 
new  instructions  if  his  purposes  do  not  seem  to  be  attained. 

There  must  be  no  '  divine  right '  assumed  for  nurses.  There 
seems  a  hint  of  claiming  this  by  the  writer  in  question,  for  I  ob- 
serve she  says  that  '  the  matron  will  consider  herself  bound  to  regard, 
as  far  as  in  her  lies,  the  wishes  of  the  doctors.'  Nursing  is  not 
especially  a  woman's  art.  To  suppose  it  to  be  so  is  to  draw  a  large 
conclusion  from  a  small  premiss.  A  mother  is  no  doubt  by  '  divine 
right '  the  nurse  of  her  child,  but  how  very  little  way  on  the  right 
road  do  her  instincts  for  the  most  part  carry  her  even  in  that  limited 
duty,  and  how  much  has  she  to  learn  of  the  conditions  necessary 
to  a  healthy  life,  such  as  proper  feeding,  pure  air,  cleanliness, 
clothing,  warmth,  &c. 

To  suppose  that  woman  has  an  inherent  fitness  for  nursing  is  a 
poetical  fiction,  and  one  which  I  believe  has  had  an  influence  in 
retarding  the  proper  education  of  women  for  these  duties.  On 
economic  and  social  grounds  alone,  women  are  chiefly  selected  for 
nursing ;  but  it  would  be  an  error  to  suppose  that  they  have  any 
special  intellectual  fitness  for  it. 

The  gentleness,  tenderness,  patience,  delicacy,  and  high  sentiment 
of  women,  are  no  doubt  a  very  advantageous  stock  upon  which  to 
engraft  that  kind  of  knowledge  required  for  nursing ;  but  all  these 
great  personal  advantages  would  be  more  than  neutralised  by  an 
alloy  of  self-assertion.  I  may  tell  my  lady  friend  that  it  was  not  so 
in  Utopia.  There  this  matter  of  nursing  was  much  in  advance  of 
our  own,  and  was  governed  by  the  principles  I  have  advocated,  carried 
to  their  highest  pitch.  It  was  the  public  opinion  in  Utopia  that 
woman  had  her  own  fitness  and  sphere  of  work,  as  man  had  his,  and 
they  used  often  to  remark  that  there  was  a  kind  of  harmony  in  this, 
as  of  the  heavenly  bodies. 


1880.  THE  NURSING  CRISIS  AT  GUY'S  HOSPITAL.   889 

As  attendance  on  the  sick  often  called  for  great  skill  and  prudence, 
there  was  in  Utopia  a  careful  selection  of  the  fittest  women  for  such 
duties,  the  chief  recommendation  being  humility,  docility,  and  wil 
lingness  of  mind  to  be  instructed  and  directed  by  the  physicians. 
And  although  education,  in  all  directions  of  usefulness  and  the 
higher  intelligences,  was  never  so  much  esteemed  as  amongst  the 
Utopians,  there  seemed  to  superficial  observers  some  contradiction  in 
this ;  for  they,  both  men  and  women,  were  considered  the  most 
educated,  who  had  the  deepest  knowledge  of  their  ignorance. 

The  present  crisis  at  GKiy's  can  only  be  of  interest  to  the  public 
so  far  as  it  affects  the  better  training  of  nurses  in  general.  Now, 
although  there  have  sprung  up  on  all  sides  so-called  institutions  for 
nurses,  some  of  which  are  excellent  and  some  not  worthy  of  considera- 
tion, it  must  be  confessed  that  little  or  nothing  has  been  done  to 
meet  the  daily  wants  in  this  respect.  Unhappily  there  exists  a 
difference  of  opinion  as  to  the  desirability  of  utilising  the  wards  of 
our  hospitals  for  meeting  this  want.  Some  of  my  colleagues  entertain 
a  doubt  whether  the  bedside  studies  of  the  students  would  not  be 
interfered  with  by  it. 

As  the  maintenance  of  the  Medical  School  in  its  highest  efficiency 
is  of  the  first  importance,  any  risk  of  damaging  it  must  certainly  be 
avoided ;  but  I  believe  that  if  the  position  of  the  lady  pupils  and 
nurses  were  duly  assigned  and  regulated,  there  need  not  be  any 
apprehension  on  that  score. 

The  education  of  medical  men  for  their  profession,  and  the 
training  of  nurses  to  act  under  them,  involve  no  contradictory  pur- 
poses, and,  with  the  cordial  support  and  co-operation  of  the  medical 
staff,  both  could  go  on  together,  and  to  the  public  advantage. 

Let  it  be  at  the  outset  understood  and  acknowledged  that  the 
system  of  nursing  which  has  been  hitherto  in  vogue  at  Guy's  is  un- 
deserving of  such  censure  as  Miss  Lonsdale's  article  has  passed  upon 
it ;  that  the  sisters  or  superiors  of  the  wards  have  been  women  of 
excellent  character,  some  of  them  ladies  by  birth  and  education,  and 
all  of  them  such  in  conduct  and  good  feeling ;  that  the  nurses,  though 
not  always  well  selected,  were  not  therefore,  as  a  class,  drunken  and 
dissolute,  and,  if  not  educated  according  to  modern  requirements,  still 
trustworthy,  and  for  the  main  purpose  of  nursing,  in  most  cases,  all 
that  could  be  desired.  Let  these  truths  be  liberally  acknowledged, 
and  let  it  be  laid  down,  as  a  first  principle,  that  the  nursing  system  is 
to  be  under  the  auspices  and  regulated  by  the  advice  of  the  medical 
officers,  and  I  feel  sure  that  the  evolution  of  nursing  to  a  higher  level 
will  not  be  opposed  by  them. 

There  is,  however,  a  further  part  of  this  lady's  paper  I  cannot  pass 
over  in  silence.  She  writes  as  if  the  existence  of  the  Medical  School 
of  Guy's  Hospital  were  on  its  trial,  as  if  it  were  at  this  time  of  day  a 
question  of  the  possibility  of  carrying  on  a  large  hospital  without  it, 


890  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  May 

and  is  apparently  forgetful  or  ignorant  of  the  fact  that  the  high 
training  of  medical  men  is  an  absolute  necessity  for  the  country.  Of 
course  it  is  not  to  be  expected  that  this  young  writer  knows  much 
about  the  subject  upon  which  she  exercises  her  pen ;  therefore  it  would 
be  unbecoming  of  me  to  press  too  hardly  upon  the  foolishness  of  her 
remarks.  I  would  not  write  so  strongly,  but  that  the  public  may  not 
be  able  to  gauge  the  authority  of  the  writer  or  the  importance  of  the 
subject. 

Not  only  is  the  Medical  School  a  necessary  part  of  this  great 
institution,  but  its  existence  has  raised  the  hospital  to  the  eminence 
it  now  holds  in  the  world.  If  the  lady  nurses  entertain  the  idea  that 
the  nursing  system  cannot  flourish  in  the  presence  of  the  Medical 
School,  then  they  must  seek  some  other  arena  for  their  operations..  I 
fancy  I  perceive  between  the  lines  of  this  lady's  writing,  which  is 
probably  not  altogether  her  own,  a  feeling  of  jealousy  that  the  whole 
of  the  hospital  system  is  not  given  up  to  her  party.  She  even  claims 
that  nurses  should  have  a  right  to  exclude,  except  at  certain  times, 
the  medical  students  from  the  wards.  Nothing  could  be  more  absurd 
than  such  a  proposition.  The  wards  of  a  hospital  should  be  fre- 
quented by  the  students  continually,  day  or  night.  It  is  much  to  be 
regretted  that  they  are  so  little  frequented  by  them.  Every  facility 
should  be  offered  to  the  medical  student  to  enable  him  to  watch 
minutely  the  cases  under  his  care.  How  is  he  ever  to  be  fitted  to 
discharge  the  responsible  duties  of  practice,  unless  he  have  trained 
himself  by  observation  to  recognise  the  phases  of  disease  and  the 
effects  of  remedies?  Both  patients  and  nurses  gain  by  the  assiduous 
performance  of  this  bedside  work,  nor  is  any  one  incommoded  or 
injured  by  it.  The  usefulness  of  our  hospitals  would  be  hopelessly 
impaired,  if  any  hindrance  were  thrown  in  the  way  of  the  student  in 
his  practical  studies.  There  is  a  proper  corps  of  students,  physicians' 
clerks,  and  dressers,  whose  duties  cannot  be  performed  without  this 
constant  attendance  in  the  wards.  As  to  any  inconvenience  to  the 
patients  themselves,  not  only  is  none  occasioned  by  the  performance 
of  the  duties  in  question,  but  on  the  contrary  it  begets  a  feeling 
of  confidence  and  satisfaction. 

It  might  perhaps  seem  to  any  one  unacquainted  with  the  size  of 
our  large  wards,  that  the  visits  of  students  would  interfere  with 
good  order  and  with  the  privacy  of  the  patients ;  but  nothing  of  the 
kind  really  happens  in  the  practice  of  the  hospital,  though  this 
lady  would  seem  to  imply  as  much.  The  students  visit  the  case 
or  cases  in  which  they  are  specially  interested,  or  to  which  their 
proper  duties  call  them,  without  disturbing  or  interfering  with  those 
with  whom  they  have  no  concern.  The  quiet  zeal  evinced  by 
students  in  these  visits  is  one  of  the  most  pleasant  and  useful 
influences  in  a  hospital. 

I  speak  with  no  common  feeling  on  this  subject,  having  passed  a 


1880.  THE  NURSING  CRISIS  AT  GUTS  HOSPITAL.   891 

period  longer  than  a  revolution  of  Jupiter,  as  a  student,  in  the  per- 
formance of  these  duties,  whilst  my  lady  friend,  who  feels  so  differ- 
ently from  myself,  gained  her  information,  I  am  informed,  within  a 
revolution  of  the  Moon. 

I  cannot  bring  to  a  close  these  few  remarks  on  Miss  Lonsdale's 
paper  respecting  '  The  Crisis  at  Guy's  Hospital '  without  a  feeling 
of  pain  and  disappointment.  The  tone  in  which  she  has  written  re- 
specting all  concerned,  whether  medical  men,  students,  or  nurses, 
is  exaggerated,  disrespectful,  and  unfair.  The  reckless  way  in 
which  a  worthy  though  uneducated  class  of  women  are  stigmatised, 
the  unworthy  motives  which  are  attributed  to  gentlemen  of  educa- 
tion, the  statement  that  medical  men  and  their  pupils  are  so  devoid  of 
moral  sense  and  refinement  that  their  words  and  ways  are  only  decent 
because  a  lady  is  present  in  the  wards  to  restrain  them,  and  that  the 
opposition  to  lady-nurses  is  grounded  upon  nothing  so  much  as  upon 
the  desire  to  get  rid  of  such  restraint — all  these  utterances,  taken  to- 
gether, indicate,  on  the  part  either  of  the  writer  or  of  those  who  have 
inspired  her,  an  animus  which  all  must  deplore.  For  my  own  part, 
I  have  special  grounds  of  regret.  Comparing  small  things  with 
great,  I  had  long  hoped  that  our  large  hospitals  might  be  made 
as  available  for  the  education  and  training  of  carefully  selected 
women  for  nurses,  as  they  have  so  long  and  successfully  been  for  the 
education  of  medical  men ;  and  whilst  I  have  been  encouraging  the 
authorities  at  Guy's  to  prosecute  this  movement,  comes  this  writer's 
article,  like  a  dead  fly  in  the  ointment  of  the  apothecary,  and  mars 
the  work. 

WILLIAM  W.  GULL. 

(Consulting  Physician  to  Guy's  Hospital.') 


892  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  May 


II. 


IT  is  evident  that  young  blood  does  not  like  restraint.  We  live 
in  a  stirring  age,  when  women's  rights  and  modern  schools  of  thought 
are  brought  before  us  on  every  hand.  Past  experience  in  the  varied 
departments  of  knowledge  or  labour  is  lightly  esteemed,  or  it  is  re- 
garded as  unsuitable  in  this  advanced  period  of  the  world's  history. 
Among  the  subjects  in  which  progress  and  reformation  have  been 
demanded,  nursing  in  our  public  institutions  has  occupied  a  large 
share  of  attention.  It  is  perfectly  true  that  there  was  room  for  im- 
provement, and  every  wise  man  in  the  medical  profession  would  desire 
that  the  nursing  of  the  sick  should  be  rendered  as  efficient  as  possible ; 
but  there  is  such  a  thing  as  sentiment  instead  of  judgment,  and  con- 
ceit favoured  by  ignorance.  Disease  and  suffering  are  realities,  and 
efficient  relief  must  be  guided  by  knowledge  and  experience,  which 
are  more  likely  to  be  possessed  by  men  who  have  devoted  their  lives 
to  the  subject,  than  by  sentimental  women  who  have  but  slight  ac- 
quaintance with  the  requirements  of  disease. 

Guy's  Hospital  is  an  old-established  institution ;  several  genera- 
tions have  passed  since  it  was  founded  ;  tens  of  thousands  of  human 
beings  have  been  relieved  in  its  wards.  The  most  grateful  expressions 
have  been  called  forth  by  the  benefits  there  received,  and  its  value 
has  been  appreciated  by  both  high  and  low,  rich  and  poor.  The 
services  of  men  such  as  Sir  Astley  Cooper,  Dr.  Bright,  Dr.  Addison, 
Dr.  Babington,  Dr.  Grolding  Bird,  Mr.  Aston  Key,  Mr.  Hilton,  not  to 
mention  those  who  are  held  in  the  highest  regard  amongst  their 
countrymen,  and  whose  names  are  on  the  honorary  staff,  have  been 
devoted  to  the  carrying  out  of  the  benevolent  purposes  of  the  founder. 
Their  works  or  their  words  could  testify  whether  '  the  welfare  of  the 
patients '  has  not  been  the  first  consideration  of  the  staff,  and  whether 
the  large  Medical  School  attached  to  the  hospital  has  not  been  of  the 
greatest  value  to  the  patients  and  to  the  whole  nation.  Such  results 
would  have  been  impossible,  if  the  character  of  the  nursing  at  Guy's 
Hospital,  its  staff,  its  sisters  and  students,  its  arrangements  and  its 
working  had  been  in  conformity  with  the  statements  made  by  its  recent 
detractors.  About  eighty  years  ago  Mr.  Benjamin  Harrison  found 
the  hospital  little  better  than  a  workhouse  infirmary,  but  by  the  co- 
operation and  talents  of  men,  whose  names  have  been  mentioned,  a 


1880.  THE  NURSING   CRISIS  AT  GUTS  HOSPITAL.   893 

Medical  School  was  established,  and  the  hospital  was  raised  to  a  high 
standard.  Other  Treasurers  have  followed  in  his  steps,  and  still 
further  increased  the  efficiency  of  the  institution.  Their  names  will 
always  be  held  in  honour  and  esteem  by  future  generations.  Their 
work  was  one  of  real  progress  and  improvement ;  they  did  everything 
to  advance  to  the  highest  state  of  proficiency  both  the  staff  and  the 
school.  They  directed  minutely  all  the  concerns  of  the  hospital,  and 
did  not  ignore  its  moral  condition.  The  Medical  School  has  added 
still  more  to  the  fame  and  lustre  of  the  hospital,  and  has  enabled  it 
in  a  tenfold  degree  to  relieve  suffering  and  to  save  life. 

These  results  have  been  attained  under  a  system  which  is  now 
condemned  by  those  who  have  had  no  experience  of  its  character  or 
its  worth  ;  and  it  is  sought  to  substitute  a  method  at  variance  with 
the  old  traditions  and  the  valuable  practical  working  of  the  hospital. 
We  are  asked  to  believe  that  blind  sentiment  and  the  theoretical 
ideas  of  strangers  are  better  guides  than  the  experience  of  those  who 
have  spent  the  greater  portion  of  their  lives  in  the  work  of  the  hos- 
pital, and  who  have  attained  to  no  mean  position  in  their  profession. 

The  article  with  which  the  public  has  been  favoured  in  the  Nine- 
teenth Century  on  a  '  Crisis  at  Guy's  Hospital '  is  doubtless  intended 
to  throw  some  light  on  the  subject  that  is  exciting  so  much  attention 
in  the  medical  world  ;  but,  as  the  picture  is  drawn  from  imagination, 
scarcely  any  of  its  statements  can  be  substantiated  by  facts.  The 
staff  of  the  hospital,  with  its  late  matron,  sisters,  nurses,  and  students, 
are  pictured  in  the  darkest  colours,  that  the  contrast  of  the  new  sys- 
tem may  be  brought  out  in  brighter  relief,  and  may  be  seen  to  the 
best  advantage. 

As  the  writer  of  the  article  referred  to  only  appeared  on  the  scene 
last  November,  her  information  is  not  derived  from  personal  observa- 
tion ;  and  a  few  facts  may  prove  whether  Miss  Lonsdale  is  correct 
when  she  has  *  no  hesitation  in  affirming  that  the  presence  of  these 
refined  and  intelligent  ladies  as  a  restraint '  upon  the  improprieties 
(to  use  no  stronger  term)  of  all  concerned  '  is  the  principal  thing 
against  which  the  staff  are  protesting  with  all  their  might.'  In  No- 
vember last  a  new  matron  with  modern  ideas  was  suddenly  introduced 
into  the  hospital,  whereby  its  peace  and  harmony  were  overturned  as 
completely,  as  if  an  ignited  bombshell  were  thrown  in  the  midst  of  a 
zealous  ambulance  corps. 

The  first  introduction  of  the  new  system  was  seen  in  the  rules 
which  were  at  once  laid  down  (without  any  consultation  with  the 
staff],  and  which  were  found  totally  unfit  for  working  the  hospital. 
The  nurses  were  informed  that  they  would  be  subject  to  removal  into 
other  wards  every  three  months,  ostensibly  that  they  might  learn 
nursing  more  fully,  but  the  comfort  of  the  nurses  and  the  benefit  of 
the  patients  were  lost  sight  of. 

We  have  had  an  illustration  of  the  disadvantages  of  this  plan  in 


894  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  May 

private  practice.  A  lady  patient  was  attended  by  a  nurse  from  one 
of  the  institutions  where  the  rule  required  that  her  services  should 
not  be  continued  with  one  patient  more  than  three  months,  but  that 
another  nurse  should  then  be  supplied  from  the  same  institution.  The 
first  woman  by  her  skill  and  tact  was  most  valuable  to  the  patient ; 
by  her  influence  she  induced  her  to  take  food,  she  was  regaining 
strength,  and  there  was  every  prospect  of  recovery.  The  change  of 
nurse  proved  most  disastrous  ;  the  second  had  no  influence  on  the 
patient,  who  refused  food,  and  declined  from  that  time,  and  she 
eventually  sank.  In  this  case  the  nurse  was  studied  more  than  the 
benefit  of  the  patient,  in  order  to  follow  out  the  new  nursing  ideas. 

When  this  rule  was  introduced  into  the  hospital,  the  staff  were 
compelled  to  protest,  as  they  knew  that  such  a  course  might  even 
lead  to  the  sacrifice  of  life.  To  change  a  nurse  in  the  midst  of  a 
critical  case,  or  to  send  an  attendant  from  a  patient  with  erysipelas 
to  a  surgical  operation,  was  found  to  be  disastrous,  and  the  order  had 
to  be  dropped,  but  not  before  forty  nurses  had  given  notice  after 
appealing  in  vain  against  the  new  rule.  The  sudden  exodus  of  so 
large  a  number  of  old  and  experienced  nurses  was  felt  to  be  a  misfor- 
tune, but  it  was  too  late  to  stop  it,  and  twenty-four  left  in  one  day. 
These  were  not  drunken,  immoral,  untrained  women,  but  valuable 
efficient  nurses,  who  had  served  faithfully  and  intelligently,  some  of 
them  for  many  years.  On  inquiry  we  find  that  about  fifty  nurses 
have  left  since  November,  but  not  one  of  them  for  impropriety  of  con- 
duct ;  and  other  institutions  have  gladly  availed  themselves  of  their 
services.  It  is  true  their  places  have  been  supplied,  but  too  often  by 
young  inexperienced  women,  mere  novices,  and  the  public  may  judge 
of  the  injury  to  the  patients  and  the  annoyance  to  the  staff.  Several 
of  these  young  nurses  have  broken  down  from  their  unaccustomed 
duties,  and  have  had  to  be  nursed  themselves. 

We  acknowledge  that  in  so  large  a  number  of  women  (more  than 
eighty)  there  has  been  an  occasional  instance  of  intemperance  and 
immorality ;  but  this  does  not  warrant  the  statement,  which  is  grossly 
untrue,  that  such  is  the  general  character  of  Gruy's  nurses.  With 
equal  justice  might  we  reflect  upon  every  lady  pupil,  because  the 
conduct  of  one  of  them  gave  rise  to  great  scandal. 

Another  rule  affecting  the  nurses  was  as  to  the  time  of  exercise 
or  recreation.  The  former  plan  was  for  half  of  them  to  go  out  on 
alternate  evenings  from  six  to  ten,  when,  Miss  Lonsdale  informs  us, 
they  spent  their  time  at  the  public  house,  and  returned  to  sleep  off 
the  effects  of  their  carousal  without  notice  or  observation  ! 

No  doubt  a  woman  might  abuse  her  privilege,  but  the  nurses 
generally  found  it  an  extreme  relief  after  their  arduous  duties  to 
spend  this  time  with  their  families  or  friends,  and  return  at  night 
feeling  that  the  day's  work  was  over.  We  have  the  testimony  of  a 
former  nurse,  who  worked  for  seven  years  at  Guy's,  that  she  had  to 


1880.  THE  NURSING   CRISIS  AT  GUTS  HOSPITAL.   895 

walk  four  miles,  and  was  most  thankful  for  the  opportunity  of 
visiting  her  mother  and  child,  whom  she  was  helping  to  support. 
We  may  add  that  this  nurse  is  not  of  the  charwoman  class,  but  one 
of  the  most  efficient  and  competent  women  that  could  be  produced, 
skilful  in  attending  every  kind  of  disease.  This  can  be  proved  by 
many  of  our  first  physicians,  from  whom  she  has  received  numerous 
testimonials  during  the  seven  subsequent  years  in  which  she  has 
been  engaged  in  private  nursing,  although  she  was  trained  for  six 
years  in  one  ward  under  the  old  system.  The  time  of  recreation, 
however,  might  be  open  to  objection,  but  surely  in  the  interest  of 
the  patient  it  need  not  be  just  when  the  physician  goes  round ;  and 
this  is  the  time  selected  under  the  new  system,  and  advocated  by 
Miss  Lonsdale,  whereby  the  physician  has  been  deprived  of  much 
necessary  information,  and  his  opportunities  of  investigation  have 
been  thwarted.  This  rule  has  now  been  changed  on  account  of  the 
strong  representations  of  the  staff. 

The  charges  against  the  night  nurses  of  turning  the  wards  into  a 
laundry,  taking  the  patients'  money,  and  feeding  themselves  with 
their  wine  and  nourishment,  are  most  unfounded.  In  my  earlier 
professional  life  I  have  visited  the  wards  at  all  hours  of  the  night, 
to  attend  upon  some  severe  cases,  and  have  often  entered  when  I  was 
not  expected,  but  I  can  say  I  never  witnessed  such  things ;  although 
I  have  seen  a  night  nurse  asleep.  With  varied  house  surgeons  and 
house  physicians,  who  have  been  cognisant  of  everything  going  on  in 
the  wards  for  many  years,  no  such  complaints  have  ever  been  brought 
before  us. 

We  are  informed,  however,  by  Miss  Lonsdale  that  '  doctors  are 
no  more  necessarily  judges  of  the  details  of  nursing  than  the  nurse  is 
acquainted  with  the  properties  and  effects  of  the  administration  of 
certain  drugs.'  We  think  our  leading  physicians  would  be  rather 
startled,  if  they  were  told  that  they  know  nothing  about  nursing ; 
that  they  must  not  interfere  with  its  details ;  they  are  out  of  their 
province ;  that  all  they  have  to  do  is  to  prescribe  the  medicines  their 
patients  require.  They  would  be  still  more  astonished,  if  the  nurse 
chose  to  take  a  walk  at  the  hour  the  physician  was  expected,  leaving 
him  to  find  out  all  that  relates  to  the  progress  of  his  patient  the  best 
way  that  he  can.  The  staff  at  Gruy's  are  old-fashioned  enough  to 
believe  that  a  well-trained  physician  understands  every  minute  detail 
of  nursing,  so  as  to  direct  the  diet,  the  temperature,  the  position — in 
fact,  everything  that  affects  his  patient — or  else  he  is  unfit  for  his 
duties. 

It  is  not  generally  known  that  Guy's  Hospital  has  been  one  of 
the  largest  institutions  for  training  nurses,  and  also  the  first ;  the 
idea  originated  with  Mrs.  Fry,  and  was  supported  by  a  former 
treasurer,  Mr.  Benjamin  Harrison.  It  is  true  that  the  training  was 
a  short  one,  but  it  was  of  the  greatest  service  to  those  women  who 


896  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  May 

were  instructed  in  tile  wards.  The  nurses  for  the  Devonshire  Square 
institution  were  the  first  to  derive  this  benefit  from  Guy's  Hospital, 
and  the  connection  has  lasted  for  thirty-six  years.  The  excellence  of 
these  nurses  is  well  known  by  the  public.  For  fifteen  years  the 
nurses  associated  with  the  Kev.  Mr.  Pennefather's  work  at  Mildmay 
have  received  a  similar  benefit,  and  for  ten  years  Mrs.  Eanyard's  Bible 
nurses  have  shared  in  a  like  training.  These  latter  nurses  were 
earnest  and  devoted  Christian  women,  true  sisters  of  mercy,  who  by 
this  help  were  qualified  to  render  most  valuable  service  to  the 
suffering  poor  in  their  own  homes.  This  has  been  no  small  honour, 
and  has  greatly  increased  the  beneficent  work  of  the  hospital ;  but  all 
these  nurses  have  now  been  compelled  to  go  elsewhere,  as  they  are  no 
longer  admitted  into  Guy's  Hospital. 

Let  us  now  examine  some  of  the  rules  of  this  modern  system  of 
nursing,  as  it  affects  the  patients.  In  former  times  it  was  the  custom 
for  the  convalescents  to  have  their  breakfast  at  six,  and  to  rise  when 
the  ward  was  warm  and  comfortable.  According  to  modern  notions, 
it  is  thought  desirable  that  the  night  nurse  should  make  the  beds, 
therefore  the  patients  have  been  turned  out  at  half-past  five.  For  a 
patient  just  recovering  from  rheumatism  or  bronchitis  to  rise  in  a  cold 
ward  on  a  cheerless  winter's  morning,  one  hour  and  a  half  before  break- 
fast (which  is  now  given  at  seven),  in  order  that  the  night  nurse  may 
attend  to  her  duties,  is  not  what  we  should  consider  good  nursing. 
Xo  wonder  that  a  patient  had  a  relapse ;  but  it  was  trained  nursing 
and  the'  new  system.  Of  course  the  doctor  can  order  his  patient  to 
remain  in  bed. 

Cleanliness  is  a  most  important  point  even  in  health,  and  still 
more  needful  in  sickness,  but  life  is  better.  One  of  the  new  rules  is 
to  *  wash  backs,'  and  the  nurse  or  probationer  must  obey  her 
directions  ;  but  what  can  be  more  consummate  ignorance  than  to 
carry  out  such  a  rule  without  guidance  or  discrimination,  and  to 
ignore  the  condition  of  the  sufferer  ? 

For  instance,  in  a  case  of  internal  inflammation,  requiring  perfect 
rest,  where  the  physician  had  directed  that  the  patient  was  not  to 
get  out  of  bed,  nor  even  to  move  his  limbs  upon  any  consideration, 
so  that  absolute  rest  might  be  maintained — notwithstanding  this 
order  the  new  system  enjoins  that  the  back  be  washed  or  dusted ; 
therefore  this  patient  was  allowed  to  pull  himself  up,  that  the  nursing 
rule  might  be  carried  out,  in  direct  opposition  to  the  physician,  who 
knew  that  the  least  movement  might  lead  to  the  extension  of  disease, 
and  be  fraught  with  the  greatest  peril  to  life.  This  is  not  nursing  the 
sick.  It  would  be  far  better  for  the  patient  to  remain  in  his  quiet 
home,  where  he  could  rest,  than  to  be  assailed  by  the  officious  atten- 
tions of  these  sentimental  nurses. 

Again,  a  little  lad  with  severe  inflammation  of  the  lungs  is 
brought  into  the  hospital  cold  and  dirty.  The  doctor  orders  him  a 


1880.  THE  NURSING  CRISIS  AT  GUY'S  HOSPITAL.    897 

warm  bath  and  a  hot  poultice  to  his  chest ;  but  in  a  day  or  two, 
while  the  attack  still  continues,  the  poor  boy  is  seized  afresh,  raised 
in  bed,  and  a  student  finds  him  stripped  to  the  waist,  while  these 
trained  nurses  are  washing  him.  Of  course  the  student  protests,  and 
tells  them  of  the  danger,  but  he  was  very  much  in  the  way,  his 
presence  was  a  great  interference  with  the  modern  regime.  Can  we 
regard  this  as  an  improved  method  of  nursing  the  sick  ?  In 
another  case  of  severe  illness,  notwithstanding  the  entreaties  of  the 
sufferer,  the  same  process  was  carried  out,  although  checked  by  the 
sudden  appearance  of  the  physician,  who  rescued  the  poor  fellow  from 
his  tormentors.  Would  such  treatment  have  been  carried  out  by 
our  old  nurses,  who  were  trained  under  the  direction  of  the  physician 
instead  of  the  theoretical  rules  of  the  new  refined  system  ? 

Modern  nursing  does  not  like  interference ;  the  trained  nurses 
must  follow  their  routine,  whether  life  is  trembling  in  the  balance  or 
no.  What  does  it  matter  if  ignorant  doctors  object  ?  The  details  of 
nursing  are  not  in  their  province.  Imagine  the  risk  to  a  patient  in 
the  third  or  fourth  week  of  fever,  with  whom  a  very  slight  movement 
might  take  away  his  chance  of  life  by  producing  fatal  perforation ; 
but  to  carry  out  the  new  system  he  must  be  turned  about,  that 
the  back  may  be  washed,  or  he  may  get  bedsore.  We  think  that 
it  would  be  better  to  preserve  the  chance  of  life,  than  to  let  the 
patient  die  with  a  clean  back. 

We  are  of  opinion,  that  if  a  patient  have  acute  rheumatism, 
bronchitis,  inflammation  of  the  lungs  or  bowels,  he  had  better,  if  he 
desire  life,  avoid  such  nursing  and  stay  at  home.  If  this  be  the  new 
system  of  training,  we  should  be  sorry  to  have  the  attention  of  these 
trained  nurses,  however  refined  they  may  be,  or  to  recommend  them 
to  our  private  patients. 

As  to  the  administration  of  medicines,  the  sister  was  formerly 
held  responsible,  as  she  had  directions  from  the  physician,  and  was 
acquainted  with  each  case.  One  of  the  new  rules  has  been  to  place 
this  duty  in  the  hands  of  the  lady  pupil ;  but  this  has  been  found  so 
objectionable  that  the  rule  has  been  modified.  Mere  routine  must 
come  into  collision  with  the  ever-varying  circumstances  of  life,  much 
more  with  those  of  disease. 

All  these  rules  have  been  given  for  the  private  instruction  of 
nurses,  pupils,  &c.,  and  it  is  only  when  they  come  into  practice  that 
the  physician  has  discovered  them.  Under  the  new  system  he  has 
to  be  continually  on  the  alert  to  guard  his  patient  from  positive 
injury,  and  to  prevent  his  careful  treatment  from  being  thwarted. 

There  is  something  sentimentally  attractive  in  the  modern  idea 
of  sisterhoods.  They  are  regarded  as  bonds  of  union  for  those  who  are 
united  in  devoted  service  to  a  benevolent  cause;  the  feelings  are 
carried  away  with  the  beauty  of  the  thought,  and  the  heart  glows 
with  satisfaction  as  it  dwells  on  the  character  of  the  work  and  its 
VOL.  VII.— No.  39.  3  0 


898  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  May 

self-denying  sacrifice.     The  mother  is  the  guide,  the  director,  the 
law  ;  but  may  not  this  be  mere  sentimentalism  ? 

We  should  be  sorry  to  say  a  word  to  detract  from  the  devotedness 
of  Christian  ladies,  or  to  discourage  those  who  are  willing  to  spend 
their  time  and  abilities  in  relieving  the  sick  and  suffering.  They 
could  not  devote  their  talents  to  a  higher  purpose,  but  they  can  only 
accomplish  the  object  they  have  in  view  when  under  the  guidance  of 
medical  skill. 

At  Guy's  the  '  sisters  '  have  always  been  called  after  their  wards, 
as  a  mere  name  of  distinction,  totally  unconnected  with  any  religious 
system.  When  the  new  arrangement  was  first  introduced,  we  greatly 
feared  the  formation  of  a  sisterhood  ;  but  the  existence  of  anything  of 
the  kind  has  been  denied  and  strongly  repudiated. 

Every  germ  requires  time  to  be  developed.  Noxious  weeds  may 
have  but  small  beginnings,  and  appear  most  innocent  in  character, 
but  when  fully  grown  we  are  often  surprised  at  their  fruit. 

Nothing  would  be  more  deplorable  than  any  attempt  to  interfere 
with  the  freedom  of  religious  opinion  which  has  always  prevailed  at 
Gruy's.  The  only  thing  to  be  desired,  among  the  poor  suffering  and 
dying  patients,  is  an  earnest  spiritual  influence  which  may  afford 
them  the  consolation  they  need. 

The  students  come  in  for  a  full  share  of  condemnation  from  Miss' 
Lonsdale.  According  to  her  statements,  they  are  '  universally 
acknowledged  to  be  uncouth,'  *  behaving  exactly  as  their  natural 
disposition  prompts  them,'  and  requiring  the  moral  restraint  of 
refined  ladies,  as  '  doctors  and  students  alike  were  at  no  trouble 
to  consider  either  their  own  manners  or  the  feelings  of  the  nurses.' 
1 1  ask,'  says  this  writer,  '  are  not  practices  and  experiments  indulged 
by  medical  men,  and  permitted  by  them  to  members  of  the  medical 
schools,  which  it  is  understood  had  better  not  be  named  beyond  the 
wards  of  the  hospital  ? '  This  is  tolerable  assurance  after  a  month's 
experience  of  a  London  hospital  that  has  produced  such  names  as 
those  we  have  mentioned,  as  well  as  of  others  now  on  the  staff,  and 
thousands  throughout  the  country,  whose  character  and  fame  have 
been  established  almost  before  this  lady  was  born.  It  is  but  too 
evident  that  she  is  the  mouthpiece  of  her  party,  and  she  only  gives 
expression  to  the  opinion  of  those  who  want  to  establish  a  system. 
But  it  makes  all  right-minded  men  recoil  from  the  presence  of 
these  ladies,  if  they  can  only  work  by  a  presuming  interference  in- 
stead of  being  the  valuable  help  they  might  be. 

The  students  are  charged  with  a  want  of  decency  and  propriety, 
of  an  undue  familiarity  with  the  nurses,  sanctioned  by  those  who  are 
above  them.  We  pity  the  imagination  which  can  draw  such  a 
picture,  but  it  only  reflects  on  those  who  can  boldly  make  such 
assertions  without  facts  or  experience  to  warrant  them. 

It  is  certainly  very  obstructive  to  all  the  minute  and  meddlesome 


1880.  THE  NURSING   CRISIS  AT  GUT'S  HOSPITAL.   899 

details  of  the  new  system  to  have  students  watching  their  patients 
at  all  hours,  and  the  nursing  according  to  modern  theories  might  be 
carried  on  more  freely  if  these  gentlemen  were  altogether  absent. 
The  duties  which  they  have  been  accustomed  to  perform  would  then 
be  left  for  the  lady  pupil,  and  this  would  accord  far  better  with 
the  ideas  of  the  new  system. 

But  what  is  it  that  has  made  Guy's  Hospital  such  a  name  in  the 
world  ?  Is  it  not  the  very  presence  of  these  students  that  insures 
accuracy  of  observation,  and  enables  scientific  details  to  be  noted, 
which  would  otherwise  be  impossible  ?  At  the  same  time,  the  oppor- 
tunities afforded  to  the  students  at  the  bedside  for  the  study  of 
disease  have  secured  that  skill  and  experience  in  the  medical  practi- 
tioner, the  benefit  of  which  the  public  have  so  largely  shared.  Any 
one  who  has  known  the  work  of  the  students,  and  who  has  heard  the 
patients  speak  of  their  attention,  can  bear  testimony  to  the  estimate 
in  which  they  are  held  by  the  inmates  of  the  hospital.  The  services 
of  the  students  are  of  the  greatest  value  to  the  staff,  and  an  inex- 
pressible comfort  and  advantage  to  the  patients,  while  their  devoted- 
ness  and  self-sacrifice  have  often  been  the  means  of  saving  life. 

Should  the  fashionable  mania  for  nursing  have  full  sway  accord- 
ing to  the  theories  of  Miss  Lonsdale,  the  physician  himself  would  be 
scarcely  required. 

If  the  public  are  satisfied  to  ignore  the  value  of  medical  skill,  by 
all  means  let  the  doors  of  the  hospital  be  closed  to  students  ('  it  was 
only  intended  for  patients  '),  and  let  the  future  treatment  of  disease 
be  handed  over  to  these  refined  and  highly  trained  ladies  ! 

The  character  of  the  late  matron  deserves  a  better  tribute  than 
she  receives  from  one  who  is  altogether  ignorant  of  her  work  or  the 
value  of  her  services.  We  all  desire  to  see  an  educated  lady  as  the 
matron  of  Guy's  Hospital,  one  who  can  exercise  decided  authority, 
and  take  the  entire  control  of  everything  that  relates  to  domestic 
detail,  both  with  sisters,  nurses,  and  patients.  We  think  her  rule 
should  be  maintained  with  tact  and  discretion,  with  sympathy  and 
kindness,  so  that  every  one  may  look  up  to  her  with  confidence,  and 
all  the  workers  may  be  united  in  carrying  out  the  means  of  relief 
suggested  by  the  medical  staff  for  the  benefit  of  the  patients,  which 
we  regard  as  the  chief  end  for  which  the  hospital  was  instituted. 

As  to  the  '  sisters,'  nothing  could  be  more  incorrect  than  to  state 
that  they  have  been  mere  '  housekeepers ; '  if  Miss  Lonsdale  had  taken 
the  trouble  to  inquire,  she  would  have  found  that  several  who  have 
recently  left  have  been  ladies  both  by  education  and  position.  Of 
three  who  have  left  since  November,  one  was  the  daughter  of  a 
colonel  and  wife  of  an  officer,  another  the  niece  of  an  old  sister  of 
Guy's,  a  third  had  formerly  been  a  governess  ;  of  three  who  had  left 
a  short  time  before,  we  are  informed  that  one  was  a  lady  of  indepen- 
dent means,  another  the  daughter  of  a  well-known  brewer,  and  a  third 

3  o  2 


900  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  May 

was  distantly  related  to  the  present  Treasurer.  We  may  add,  that 
•when  the  late  Queen  Adelaide  required  a  nurse,  one  of  the  sisters  of 
Gruy's  was  selected,  and  well  did  she  sustain  the  reputation  of  our  hos- 
pital training. 

It  is  the  desire  of  the  staff  to  secure  the  services  of  those  who  are 
ladies  in  every  sense  of  the  word,  the  more  gifted  and  intelligent  the 
better  ;  but  it  is  their  opinion,  as  the  result  of  long  experience,  that  a 
large  hospital  will  be  worked  far  more  efficiently  if  each  '  sister '  has 
the  entire  control  of  her  own  ward.  We  think  that  she  alone  should 
be  responsible  to  the  physician  for  carrying  out  his  directions,  and 
for  the  proper  administration  of  medicines,  &c.  ;  that  every  nurse, 
helper,  and  attendant  should  be  subject  to  her  guidance,  and  that 
all  complaints  in  the  ward  should  be  made  in  the  first  place  to  the 
sister — of  course  she  herself  being  subject  to  the  matron  and  the 
executive  of  the  hospital. 

What  the  staff  object  to  is  the  system  of  centralisation,  whereby 
the  sisters  are  deprived  of  full  control  of  their  wards,  so  that  they  may 
be  reduced  to  the  level  of  head  hurses,  whereby  the  whole  power  is 
placed  in  the  hands  of  one  individual,  to  be  exercised  wisely  or  not 
as  the  case  may  be. 

We  affirm  that  the  ward  system  has  worked  well  hitherto,  and  a 
ruthless  interference  with  it  will  prove  a  great  misfortune. 

No  one  is  more  desirous  than  the  staff  of  Guy's  Hospital  to  see 
the  highest  state  of  efficiency  in  the  nursing  of  their  patients,  and 
many  improvements  have  been  made  at  their  suggestion ;  but  im- 
provement of  detail  does  not  require  revolution  in  principle. 

The  staff  are  perfectly  willing  to  receive  nurses  of  an  educated 
class,  if  only  they  can  perform  the  necessary  duties ;  and  the  more 
thoroughly  they  are  trained  the  better,  provided  that  the  training  is 
according  to  the  requirements  of  disease,  instead  of  being  guided  by 
sentimental  theories.  For  this  reason  they  have  strongly  urged  that 
untried  and  inexperienced  women  should  not  be  placed  in  responsible 
positions,  and  be  asked  to  discharge  duties  for  which  they  are  alto- 
gether unqualified.  This  makes  it  the  more  to  be  regretted  that  the 
hospital  has  lost  the  services  of  so  many  valuable  and  long-tried  nurses, 
not  because  they  '  pleased  the  fancy  of  the  physician,'  but  because  they 
were  able  to  perform  difficult  duties,  which  required  scientific  train- 
ing and  experience.  The  injury  falls  unfortunately  upon  those  whom 
the  hospital  was  intended  to  benefit. 

The  staff  do  not  object  to  lady  pupils,  so  long  as  they  conduct  them- 
selves as  ladies,  not  as  agents  of  a  system  of  espionage  where  truth  is 
held  lightly,  nor  as  meddlesome  busybodies  who  interfere  with  the 
well-being  of  the  patients. 

The  presence  of  truly  refined  Christian  ladies  would  exercise  a 
beneficial  influence  in  the  wards,  and  prove  a  great  comfort  to  the 
suffering  and  sorrowful ;  but,  if  the  hospital  is  to  be  continued  as  an 


1880.  THE  NURSING   CRISIS  AT  GUTS  HOSPITAL.    901 

institution  for  the  skilful  treatment  of  disease,  it  must  be  under  the 
direction  of  the  doctors,  instead  of  the  matron,  in  all  things  that  con- 
cern the  patients. 

It  could  scarcely  have  happened  that  a  large  medical  staff  of 
various  opinions  in  many  things  should  have  continued  a  unani- 
mous opposition  for  five  months  both  to  the  changes  that  have  been 
made  and  the  manner  of  introducing  them,  unless  there  were  some 
valid  reason  for  their  decided  protest.  Is  it  likely  that  the  staff 
can  commend  a  system  where  the  medical  men  are  ignored,  and 
only  treated  as  opponents,  unless  they  fall  in  with  every  rule  intro- 
duced by  these  self-taught  nurses  ?  The  physician  must  lead,  while 
the  nurse  must  be  content  to  follow  and  to  learn,  if  there  is  to  be 
harmony  or  success  in  their  work.  The  time  may  come  when  it  will 
be  found  that  long  experience  and  professional  science  are  of  more 
value  than  sentimental  theories. 

S.  0.  HABERSHOX. 

(Senior  Physician  to  Guy's  Hospital.) 


902  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  May 


III. 


IT  is  extremely  difficult  to  discover  any  useful  purpose  served  by  the 
publication  of  the  article,  'The  Present  Crisis  at  Gruy's  Hospital,' 
which  appears  in  the  April  number  of  the  Nineteenth  Century,  and 
it  is  still  more  difficult  to  comprehend  the  object  of  the  writer  in 
introducing  into  such  article  damaging  and  incorrect  statements 
concerning  one  of  the  most  useful  and  meritorious  charitable  institu- 
tions of  London. 

The  writer  purports  to  relate  and  explain  the  causes  of  a  recent 
'  crisis  '  at  Guy's  Hospital  with  reference  to  the  system  of  nursing  at 
that  hospital,  the  interest  in  which  hardly  extends  to  the  general 
public.  Very  early  in  the  article  the  author  states  that  'in  the 
largest  institution  of  the  kind,  the  London  Hospital,  the  old  system 
(of  nursing)  is  still  in  full  force,'  and  then  proceeds  to  condemn,  in 
strong  but  in  undiscriminating  terms,  the  old  system  of  nursing.  Now 
to  connect  any  institution  with  evils  and  abuses  which  are  ruthlessly 
exposed  must  be  injurious  to  such  institution ;  but  where  the  existence 
of  evils  to  be  exposed  or  of  abuses  to  be  redressed  is  clearly  established, 
the  advantages  to  be  derived  from  the  setting  forth  the  truth  must 
confessedly  neutralise  the  injury  caused  by  the  exposure.  The  truth, 
however,  must  be  clear  and  undoubted.  To  allege  that  evils  exist 
which  do  not  exist,  and  to  indicate  abuses  which  are,  as  matter  of 
fact,  absent,  are  the  reverse  of  public  duties,  and  are  acts  which 
cannot  be  criticised  otherwise  than  most  severely. 

The  London  Hospital  is  the  largest  hospital  in  London — in  Great 
Britain.  It  depends  greatly  on  public  support,  inasmuch  as  its 
endowment  supplies  only  three-eighths  of  an  annual  expenditure  of 
40,000?.  Therefore  the  charitable  public  are  trusted  to  provide 
25,000?.  per  annum,  or  five- eighth  parts  of  the  general  revenues  of  the 
hospital.  Any  interference  with  or  check  to  this  full  stream  of 
charity  cannot  but  act  most  injuriously  on  the  good  work  the  hospital 
is  enabled  to  perform.  The  London  Hospital  contains  nearly  800 
beds,  of  which  number  about  600  are  constantly  filled.  The  amount 
of  human  misery  and  suffering  assuaged  and  relieved  in  these  600 
or  800  beds  must  be  enormous  and  almost  impossible  to  estimate.  It 
is  the  fear  that  the  statements  concerning  the  system  of  nursing  at 
this  hospital  (incorrect,  as  will  hereafter  be  shown)  may  possibly 


I860.  THF   NURSING   CRISIS  AT  GUY'S   HOSPITAL.    903 

damage  the  hospital  in  the  eyes  of  the  charitable  public,  which  induces 
the  present  writer  to  offer  a  categorical  denial  of  the  allegation  that 
the  '  nursing  at  the  London  Hospital  preserves  all  the  evils  of  the 
*  old  system '  so  graphically  described  in  the  article  in  the  Nineteenth 
Century. 

It  is  needless  to  express  any  opinion  as  to  the  necessity  or  ex- 
pediency of  arguing  in  support  of  that  which  no  one  denies,  or  specially 
insisting  on  superior  training  for  nurses,  because  at  the  present  day 
no  one  qualified  to  form  a  decision  will  contend  that  untrained 
persons  are  competent  to  perform  the  manifold  duties  required  of 
modern  medical  and  surgical  nurses.  It  is  now  universally  agreed 
that  nurses  must  be  efficiently  trained,  and  that  educated  persons  are 
more  easily  trained,  and  make  better  nurses  when  trained,  than 
nurses  '  mainly  drawn  from  the  class  to  which  the  domestic  char- 
woman belongs.' 

The  managers  of  the  London  Hospital  are  as  deeply  impressed 
with  these  truths  as  the  writer  of  the  article  in  the  Nineteenth 
Centuryt  and  they  have  been  greatly  influenced  by  them  in  the 
organisation  of  the  nursing  system  in  their  hospital.  The  nurses  are 
not  *  scrubbers,'  but  are  respectable  young  women  possessing  a  taste 
for  nursing  and  desirous  of  becoming  nurses  as  a  professional  calling,  and 
who  have  been  trained  as  probationers  for  a  sufficient  time  to  become 
qualified  as  thoroughly  efficient  and  trustworthy  nurses.  They  then, 
and  not  till  then,  take  their  place  in  the  wards  and  perform  the 
functions  of  nurses.  Their  qualifications  consist  in  moral  and  physical 
fitness  as  well  as  knowledge  of  the  art  of  nursing,  and  the  allegation 
that  they  are  to  be  classed  with  drunken  charwomen  is  emphatically 
repudiated.  The  nurses  of  each  ward  are  under  the  control  of  a 
ward-sister,  whom  the  managers  have  earnestly  desired  to  be,  and  in 
selecting  whom  they  require  that  she  shall  be,  a  lady,  and  very  different 
from  the  experienced  '  housekeeper  '  mentioned  in  the  article  in  the 
Nineteenth  Century,  c  who  keeps  and  gives  out  wine  and  spirits,  and 
partakes  of  them  or  not  as  she  is  disposed.' 

The  ward-sisters  are  required  to  possess,  besides  the  education 
and  the  bearing  of  a  lady  (which  enable ^thern  to  exercise  the  moral 
control  in  the  wards  referred  to  in  the  article),  a  sufficient  amount  of 
practical  knowledge,  which  confessedly  varies  among  the  several 
ward-sisters  according  to  their  different  intelligences  and  aptitudes. 
An  experienced  matron  rules  over  the  ward-sisters,  and  none  but  an 
educated  lady  would  be  deemed  eligible  for  such  position.  The 
whole  subject  of  nursing  has  for  years  occupied  the  attention  of  the 
managers  of  the  London  Hospital,  and  improvements  have  been  from 
time  to  time  and  still  are  being  introduced  ;  but,  as  the  hospital  is  so 
greatly  dependent  on  public  support,  it  is  deemed  better  and  wiser 
to  make  changes  and  introduce  reforms  gradually  and  unostenta- 
tiously, so  as  not  to  challenge  criticism  or  provoke  opposition  from 


904  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  May 

the  various  quarters  from  which  the  means  of  support  are  derived. 
But  one  change  is  not  likely  to  be  advocated  by  the  managers  of  the 
London  Hospital ;  and  from  a  casual  remark  in  the  article  in  the 
Nineteenth  Century  it  would  seem  that  the  ultimate  object  of  the 
writer  of  that  article  was  to  maintain  the  advantages  of  that  system 
of  nursing  against  which  the  London  Hospital  has  already  pronounced, 
viz.  the  nursing  by  members  of  sisterhoods.  The  comparative  merits 
of  nurses  connected  with  sisterhoods  and  nurses  free  from  the  obliga- 
tions of  sisterhoods  have  recently  been  very  warmly  discussed.  It  is 
unnecessary  on  the  present  occasion  to  touch  upon  the  subject,  except 
in  order  to  state  that  the  London  Hospital  does  not  recognise  the 
advantages  of  sisterhoods,  and  is  not  desirous  of  introducing  members 
of  any  sisterhood  into  its  wards  as  nurses.  But  it  is  anxious,  now 
as  heretofore,  to  make  the  system  of  nursing  as  perfect  as  it  can  be ; 
and  the  managers,  knowing  well  that  *  good  nursing  is  second  (if  it 
be  second)  to  good  medical  and  surgical  treatment,'  will  not  fail  to 
introduce  from  time  to  time  any  well-considered  and  practically  expe- 
dient change  and  improvement  into  its  nursing  system. 

ALFRED  Gr.  HENRIQUES. 


1880.  905 


A' CONSERVATIVE    VIEW  OF 
THE  ELECTIONS. 


IF  an  article  which  appeared  in  the  last  number  of  the  Nineteenth 
Century,  entitled  *  The  Docility  of  an  Imperial  Parliament,'  did  not 
bear  about  it  such  evident  marks  of  heat  and  hurry  as  to  rob  it  of 
much  of  the  authority  belonging  to  the  name  appended  to  it,  I  should 
have  declined  the  invitation  of  the  Editor  of  the  Nineteenth  Century 
to  offer  any  remarks  on  the  result  of  the  late  General  Election.  Why 
grope  about  in  the  dark,  I  might  have  been  told,  for  an  explanation 
of  events  which  lies  straight  before  you  in  the  broad  noonday  ?  A 
wicked,  grovelling,  treacherous,  and  abominable  Parliament  has 
simply  met  the  doom  which  every  right-thinking  man  was  confident 
awaited  it.  But  as  I  cannot  believe  that  the  article  in  question 
represents  either  the  sober  sentiments  of  the  writer  himself,  or  is  in 
harmony  with  the  views  of  the  Liberal  party  in  general,  a  large  pro- 
portion of  which  is  included  in  the  sweeping  curse  pronounced  upon 
the  late  Parliament,  I  may  be  allowed  perhaps  to  proceed  on  my 
way  without  further  reference  to  it. 

The  first  sensation  excited  in  the  public  mind  by  the  downfall  of 
the  late  Administration  was  one  of  pure  astonishment.  Its  sudden- 
ness was  startling.  In  smooth  water,  under  a  clear  sky,  without  a  note 
of  warning,  the  ship  went  straight  to  the  bottom,  as  if  struck  by  some 
invisible  hand  upraised  beneath  the  waters.  I  am  not  about  to 
engage  in  any  vindication  of  the  late  Government,  the  sole  object  of 
these  remarks  being  to  consider  what  the  future  has  in  store  for  us. 
But  in  dwelling  on  the  unexpected  issue  of  the  late  election  it  will 
be  impossible  to  avoid  all  reference  to  past  circumstances ;  and  I  only 
wish  it  to  be  understood  that  they  will  be  introduced  simply  in  illus- 
tration of  my  argument,  and  not  for  the  sake  of  raising  any  dis- 
cussion on  their  merits.  I  repeat,  then,  that  the  complete  and 
instantaneous  collapse  of  the  Conservative  party  smote  the  vast 
majority  of  lookers-on  with  amazement,  wherever  they  dwelt,  to 
whatever  party  they  belonged,  and  whatever  their  vocation  in  life. 
It  may  be  quite  true  that  here  and  there  a  few  individuals,  who  had 
taken  special  trouble  to  inquire  into  the  matter,  had  arrived  at  con- 
clusions somewhat  different  from  the  generally  prevailing  one,  and 
were  disposed  to  believe  that  the  Liberals  would  gain  a  small 


906  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  'May 

majority.  Even  these,  however,  in  their  most  sanguine  calculations, 
never  dreamed  of  what  actually  occurred ;  while  by  the  great  body 
of  the  public,  by  the  recognised  agents  of  both  political  parties, 
and  by  the  public  press  in  general,  it  was  confidently  antici- 
pated that  the  Government  would  hold  their  ground,  not  indeed  with 
their  old  majority,  but  in  sufficient  numbers  to  make  it  impossible 
for  a  disunited  Opposition  to  attack  them  with  success.  These  asser- 
tions will  no  doubt  be  challenged ;  and  as,  unless  they  can  be  made 
good,  the  rest  of  what  I  have  to  say  might  just  as  well  not  have  been 
written,  I  must  briefly  recapitulate  the  circumstances  (which  seem  to 
me  to  justify  them,  at  the  risk  of  repeating  much  which  everybody 
knows  already. 

We  may  be  told  that  this  conception  of  what  the  '  great  body  of 
the  public  '  was  thinking  about  the  matter  had  its  origin  entirely  in 
London,  where,  the  subsequent  verdicts  of  the  metropolitan  constitu- 
encies notwithstanding,  there  was  a  great  preponderance  of  feeling 
among  the  classes  just  above  the  lowest  in  favour  of  the  Con- 
servative Government.  It  was  all-powerful  in  the  City ;  it  flourished 
in  great  strength  at  the  West-end,  and  was  fostered  and  inflated 
by  the  cynical  Toryism  of  the  clubs.  Now  there  are  undoubtedly 
some  elements  of  Liberalism — and  those,  it  must  be  granted,  especially 
hostile  to  the  late  Administration — which  are  more  visible  to  the 
naked  eye  in  country  towns  than  they  are  in  London.  Nonconformity  is 
one  of  these ;  perhaps  the  temperance  movement  is  another.  Both 
of  these  are,  comparatively  speaking,  lost  to  view  in  the  immensity  of 
the  metropolis,  and  it  is  perfectly  intelligible  that  any  one  mixing  in  the 
general  society  of  a  town  like  Leicester  or  Nottingham  should  have 
detected  more  signs  of  hostility  to  the  Government  than  one  whose 
observations  were  confined  solely  to  the  metropolis.  Let  this  admis- 
sion be  taken  for  what  it  is  worth.  My  appeal  is  to  common  experi- 
ence— the  common  experience  of  all  those  whom  business  or  pleasure 
has  carried  not  to  this  town  particularly  or  that,  but  all  over  England, 
north,  south,  east,  and  west,  during  the  last  three  years — and  I 
ask  all  the  readers  of  this  periodical  whether,  of  all  the  men  of  this 
class  with  whom  they  have  come  in  contact  within  the  period  men- 
tioned, nineteen  out  of  twenty  have  not  given  the  same  report  of 
the  political  opinion  of  the  country.  Commercial  travellers,  dealers 
of  every  kind  attending  the  great  fairs  and  markets,  newspaper 
reporters,  Government  inspectors — I  care  not  who — one  and  all  have 
had  the  same  story  to  tell.  I  am  of  course  speaking  in  general 
terms.  There  have  doubtless  been  exceptions,  and  at  this  point  I 
may  as  well  protest  against  that  kind  of  criticism  which  is  so  aptly 
illustrated  by  Dr.  Johnson :  '  If  I  come  to  an  orchard,  and  say  "  There's 
no  fruit  here,"  and  there  comes  a  poring  man  who  finds  two  apples  and 
three  pears,  and  tells  me,  "  Sir,  you  are  mistaken,  I  have  found  both 
apples  and  pears,"  I  should  laugh  at  him  :  what  would  that  be  to  the 


1880.   A  CONSERVATIVE  VIEW  OF  THE  ELECTIONS.   907 

purpose  ? '  I  feel  convinced  that  on  the  whole  the  experience  of  all 
my  readers  will  confirm  what  I  say  :  namely,  that  a  very  general  im- 
pression prevailed  all  over  the  country  that  popular  feeling  was  so 
far  in  favour  of  the  Ministry  as  to  make  any  immediate  change 
of  government  extremely  improbable ;  that  this  was  the  conclusion 
to  be  gathered  from  what  the  traveller  overheard  in  his  third- 
class  carriage,  the  passenger  in  his  daily  omnibus,  the  tourist  at 
his  table  d'hote,  the  merchant  in  the  town  exchange,  from  what  all 
sorts  and  conditions  of  men  reported  as  the  current  talk  of  the  places 
which  they  most  frequented ;  and  that  this  conclusion  was  accepted 
as  more  or  less  well  founded  by  both  the  Liberal  and  the  Conser- 
vative parties.  It  may  be  added  here  that  although  this  estimate 
was  not  justified  by  the  event,  the  fact  will  be  found  only  to 
strengthen  the  case  which  it  is  my  object  to  establish.  Evidence 
of  popular  feeling  on  questions  of  great  public  moment,  which  es- 
capes the  observation  of  the  great  mass  of  the  upper  and  lower 
classes,  is  really  no  evidence  at  all.  We  may  apply  to  it  the  old 
maxim  De  non  apparentibus.  And  it  is  to  the  danger  of  such  a 
state  of  things  that  I  wish  to  call  particular  attention. 

In  the  next  place  there  is  the  testimony  afforded  by  the  bye- 
elections  which  occurred  between  1874  and  1880.  I  have  already 
said  that  the  present  article  is  not  intended  as  any  vindication  of  the 
late  Government.  But  in  order  to  show  still  more  clearly  how 
very  natural  was  the  surprise  created  by  its  fall,  we  must  consider 
that  between  1874  and  1880  the  consituencies  had  ample  opportunities 
of  showing  their  disapproval  of  the  Government  had  they  really  felt 
it.  But  what  are  the  facts  ?  In  February  1 874  the  Conservative 
majority  was  46.  In  March  1880  it  was  39.  During  the  six  years 
of  Lord  Beaconsfield's  administration  the  Conservative  party  lost  only 
four  seats.1  As  it  seems  to  be  generally  allowed  that  every  govern- 
ment, from  sheer  impatience  or  disappointment  among  the  consti- 
tuencies, must  expect  to  lose  a  few  seats  in  the  course  of  its  tenure  of 
power,  a  government  could  hardly  lose  less  than  Lord  Beaconsfield's ; 
and  it  was  impossible,  therefore,  that  the  public  at  large  should  accept 
such  losses  as  any  evidence  of  its  general  unpopularity.  On  the 
contrary,  they  would  naturally  draw  the  opposite  conclusion  from  it ; 
nor  are  we  left  without  a  most  important  witness  to  the  legitimacy  of 
that  conclusion.  Writing  to  the  Times  on  the  14th  of  April,  Mr. 
Melly,  the  chairman  of  the  Liverpool  Reform  Club,  admits  that  if  a 
dissolution  had  taken  place  in  1878,  '  the  figures  would  have  been 
different : '  i.e.  that  an  appeal  to  the  people  exclusively  on  the 
foreign  policy  of  the  Government  would  have  renewed  the  Conservative 
majority.  On  the  other  hand  it  can  hardly  be  any  failure  in  the 

1  Norwich  being  a  vacant  Liberal  seat,  these  four  count  only  seven  instead  of 
eight  on  a  division. 


908  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  May 

domestic  policy  of  the  Government  which  has  alienated  the  working 
class ;  for  almost  all  that  the  Government  has  done  in  the  way  of 
domestic  legislation  has  been  for  the  benefit  of  the  working  class. 
Mr.  Mundella  and  Mr.  Macdonald  are  our  witnesses  to  the  great 
popularity  of  such  measures  as  the  Factories  and  Workshops  Act,  the 
Enclosure  of  Commons  Act,  the  Conspiracy  and  Protection  of  Property 
Act,  the  Masters  and  Workmen  Act ;  and  to  these  we  may  add  the 
remission  of  the  sugar  duties  and  the  exemptions  from  income-tax. 

Seeing,  therefore,  that  the  domestic  legislation  of  the  Govern- 
ment has  been  altogether  favourable  to  the  working  classes,  and  that 
when  they  had  the  opportunity  of  condemning  its  foreign  policy  they 
did  not  take  advantage  of  it — combining,  that  is,  what  the  Govern- 
ment notably  had  done  to  gratify  the  working  class,  what  the  working 
class  in  turn  had  not  done  to  show  their  disapproval  of  the  Government, 
and  what  the  current  opinion  of  the  day  declared  to  be  the  probable 
event — I  think  I  may  fairly  say  that  the  great  body  of  the  public  had 
every  reason  to  be  amazed  and  confounded  by  the  result.  It  might  be 
urged,  perhaps,  that  a  great  effect  had  been  produced  by  the  eloquent 
and  vigorous  declamation  of  Mr.  Gladstone  addressed  at  the  eleventh 
hour  to  the  electors  of  Midlothian.  We  all  know  the  weight  of  Mr. 

Gladstone's  arm : 

Quantus 
In  clypeum  assurgat,  quo  turbine  torqueat  hastaiu. 

But  there  was  no  evidence  of  such  effect.  His  tour  in  Scotland  was 
followed  by  contested  elections  in  three  most  important  English 
boroughs,  which  all  told  in  favour  of  the  Government,  and  that,  too, 
in  emphatic  terms.  In  one  great  Liberal  constituency  in  the 
north  of  England,  where  no  Conservative  was  supposed  to  have 
a  chance,  the  Liberal  candidate  only  won  by  so  small  a  majority 
that  the  triumph  of  his  opponent  at  the  next  opportunity  was 
confidently  predicted,  and  the  prediction  was  actually  realised. 
In  another  great  constituency  equally  devoted  to  Liberalism  for  the 
last  fifty  years,  the  Conservative  candidate  polled  more  votes  than  the 
two  Liberals  put  together.  These  events  did  not  seem  to  betoken 
any  change  in  the  feeling  of  the  people,  produced  either  by  Mr. 
Gladstone's  eloquence  or  any  other  cause.  Yet,  with  the  cheers  of  the 
great  Southwark  victory  still  ringing  in  its  ears,  the  Government,  on 
appealing  to  the  country,  went  down  in  a  moment,  as  though  the 
ground  beneath  its  feet  had  been  a  quicksand. 

It  seems  to  me,  I  must  confess,  that  the  event  is  one  to  excite 
the  most  serious  reflections  in  politicians  of  all  shades.  It  is  useless, 
I  suppose,  to  disclaim  party  motives ;  but,  useless  or  not,  I  can  most 
honestly  declare  that  I  am  actuated  by  none  such  at  the  present 
moment.  That  the  government  of  this  country,  whether  Liberal  or 
Conservative,  should  be  at  the  mercy  of  a  popular  opinion,  working, 
as  it  were,  underground,  invisible,  inaudible,  inscrutable,  and  throw- 


1880.  A  CONSERVATIVE  VIEW  OF  THE  ELECTIONS.  909 

ing  up  no  indications  whatever  to  mark  the  course  which  it  is  taking — 
that  it  should  be  possible  both  for  political  parties  and  for  the 
general  public  to  remain  to  the  last  in  total  ignorance  of  the 
intentions  of  that  great  lower  class  which  can  turn  elections  at  its 
will — is  not  only  so  remote  from  the  common-sense  of  politics,  but  so 
manifestly  inconsistent  with  the  maintenance  of  any  dignified  or 
regular  system  of  government,  that  it  is  not  necessary  for  a  man 
to  be  on  the  losing  side  to  make  him  anxious  about  our  political 
future. 

Besides,  it  is  important  to  remember  that  even  in  1874  a  sur- 
prise of  the  same  kind,  though  not  nearly  so  startling  or  so  absolute, 
was  the  result  of  Mr.  Gladstone's  dissolution.  During  the  five  years 
of  his  administration  the  Liberal  party  had  lost  twenty-two  seats, 
but  the  Government  majority  was  still  between  seventy  and  eighty 
when  the  elections  began.  The  general  opinion  then  was  that  it 
would  be  reduced  perhaps  to  twenty  or  thirty,  or  even  to  ten  or  a 
dozen  ;  some  sanguine  politicians  calculated  on  a  slight  Conservative 
majority.  But  the  result  was  a  surprise  all  round.  There  appeared  to 
be  no  adequate  reason  for  so  violent  a  revulsion  of  feeling.  Some 
considerable  irritation  was  known  to  have  been  produced  among  im- 
portant 'classes  of  the  community,  but  nobody  calculated  on  so 
violent  a  demonstration  of  resentment.  Six  years  have  passed  away, 
and  we  see  another  resilience  of  opinion  far  more  violent  than  the 
last,  and  far  less  capable  of  explanation.  The  conclusion  is  forced  upon 
one  that  the  classes  in  whose  hands  political  power  is  now  deposited 
cannot  be  trusted  to  support  the  policy  of  any  government,  even 
though  they  may  have  given  unequivocal  signs  of  their  approval  of  it, 
whenever  any  temporary  inconvenience  or  physical  depression  happens 
to  cross  their  path  and  put  them  out  of  conceit  with  their  former  idol. 
A  majority  of  the  people  of  this  country  did  undoubtedly  approve  of 
the  foreign  policy  of  the  Government ;  that  much  is  admitted  by  its 
adversaries.  This  policy  might  be  wise  or  foolish,  just  or  unjust. 
Its  quality  is  nothing  to  the  purpose.  The  important  fact  is  that 
the  people  believed  in  it,  and  must  have  believed,  therefore,  that  the 
welfare  of  this  country  was  involved  in  it.  Yet  when  they  are  called 
on  to  support  the  Administration  which  was  pledged  to  that  policy,  so 
far  from  showing  any  sense  of  the  magnitude  of  the  issues  at  stake, 
they  virtually  declare  that  they  will  try  a  change  of  government 
'  for  luck  ; '  that,  as  the  existing  Government  has  been  attended  by 
bad  times  and  bad  weather,  another  perhaps  will  bring  better  ;  and, 
at  all  events,  that  after  one  party  has  been  in  office  six  years,  it  is 
time  the  other  had  its  innings.  The  wanton  levity,  or  else  the  total 
insensibility  to  the  gravity  of  their  own  duties,  which  such  a  use  of 
their  power  implies  in  those  who  are  now  '  our  masters,'  is  enough 
to  fill  any  man,  whether  he  has  gained  or  lost  by  it  for  the  moment, 
with  the  most  gloomy  and  sickening  forebodings.  And  that  is  what 


910  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  May 

has  actually  occurred.  I  am  confident  that,  when  the  first  flush  of 
triumph  has  passed  away,  Liberals  themselves  will  be  the  first 
to  acknowledge  the  danger  which  now  lies  ahead  of  us.  I  am 
certain  even  now  that  if  Conservative  and  Liberal  partisans,  drop- 
ping the  tricks  of  the  trade,  were  to  talk  confidentially  with  each 
other,  there  would,  on  this  point  at  least,  be  very  little  difference 
between  them. 

Prior  to  1867  political  parties  held  power  for  considerable  terms 
of  years — sixty,  forty,  or  thirty  years,  during  which  time  the  whole 
world  knew  pretty  well  what  our  policy  was  likely  to  be.  From 
1835  to  1865,  for  instance,  a  species  of  gentle  Liberalism  was  in  the 
ascendant,  which  never  varied  very  greatly  whoever  might  happen  to 
be  in  office.  And  will  any  one  venture  to  believe  that  if  Mr.  Glad- 
stone had  been  brought  into  power  in  1868  by  the  old  constituencies, 
with  a  full  concurrence  in  the  general  principles  of  his  policy,  he 
would  have  been  ejected  as  he  was  in  1874 ;  or  that  if  Lord  Beacons- 
field  had  been  brought  in  by  the  old  constituencies  in  1874,  with  the 
same  full  concurrence  in  the  general  principles  of  his  policy,  he 
would  have  been  ejected  as  he  has  been  in  1880?  No  one,  I  am 
certain,  will  maintain  such  an  opinion  for  a  moment.  The  relative 
strength  of  parties  might  have  been  considerably  modified,  but  no 
such  absolute  bouleversement  as  that  of  this  year  and  six  years  ago 
would  have  been  possible  without  frequent  and  unmistakable  premo- 
nitions of  it. 

The  question  then  is  whether  we  are  to  expect  a  constant  repeti- 
tion of  such  doings ;  whether  we  are  to  have  a  system  not  only  of 
septennial  parliaments,  but  also  of  septennial  ministries,  each  in  turn 
representing  one  of  two  rival  parties;  and  whether  both  our  foreign 
and  domestic  policy  is  to  be  in  a  constant  flux,  so  that  no  reliance  is 
to  be  placed  on  our  continuance  in  any  one  path  or  our  support  of 
any  one  ally  ?  Is  every  election  henceforth  to  be  a  leap  in  the  dark ; 
and  is  the  franchise  to  be  used  by  an  overwhelming  majority  of  the 
enfranchised,  solely  with  a  view  to  the  petty  accidents  of  the  moment 
and  without  any  regard  to  the  highest  interests  of  the  State  ?  It  has 
been  said,  we  believe  with  great  truth,  that  it  is  difficult  for  unedu- 
cated minds  to  dissociate  the  two  ideas  of  power  and  mischief;  and 
on  that  hypothesis  we  may  infer  that  the  lowest  class  of  voters  regard 
every  government  in  turn  as  their  natural  enemy,  and  only  enthrone 
one  because  that  is  a  necessary  condition  of  pulling  down  another. 
If,  however,  the  exercise  of  political  power  after  this  fashion  is  what 
we  have  now  to  expect  as  the  inevitable  result  of  enfranchising  the 
working  classes,  it  may  possibly  not  be  too  late  to  devise  some  inter- 
vening check.  The  Eeform  Bill  of  1867  was  clearly  unavoidable. 
It  was  as  much  the  necessary  result  of  the  Act  of  1832,  as  the  en- 
franchisement of  the  peasantry  is  the  necessary  sequel  to  the  enfran- 
chisement of  the  artisan.  But  it  does  not  follow  that  it  was  a  good 


1880.  A  CONSERVATIVE  VIEW  OF  THE  ELECTIONS.  911 

thing  in  itself.  The  real  authors  of  the  mischief,  however,  were  not 
those  who  saw  the  futility  of  attempting  to  set  up  an  intermediate 
pecuniary  qualification  between  the  ten-pound  suffrage  and  the  rate- 
paying  suffrage — a  barrier  that  must  have  been  swept  away  almost  as 
soon  as  it  was  erected — but  those  who  fifty  years  ago  did  not  use  the 
opportunity  vouchsafed  to  them  to  introduce  greater  elements  of  per- 
manence into  the  new  political  settlement. 

We  hear  a  great  deal  of  the  '  practical  anomalies '  which  led 
to  the  first  Eeform  Bill,  and  there  was  no  denying  their  magnitude. 
But  nobody  inquired  at  the  time — perhaps  at  such  times  it  never 
is  inquired — whether,  under  the  anomalies  complained  of,  any 
system  or  principle  was  concealed,  which  in  some  form  or  other 
it  might  be  worth  while  to  endeavour  to  preserve,  or  for  which 
a  substitute  must  be  found.  Such  questions  are  too  intricate  for 
discussion  in  times  of  great  popular  excitement  and  in  the  heat  of 
Parliamentary  debate.  They  can  only  be  considered  in  the  closet; 
and  I  am  not  aware  of  any  work  in  which  this  question  was  inves- 
tigated prior  to  1832.  The  people  of  England,  I  believe,  had 
accepted  these  anomalies  for  so  many  generations  because  they  un- 
consciously saw  in  the  old  borough  system  the  indirect  means  of 
perpetuating  the  form  of  government  to  which  they  had  always  been 
accustomed — government  on  all  Imperial  questions  by  the  Crown 
and  the  aristocracy,  on  financial  ones  by  the  House  of  Commons. 
Originally  the  House  of  Commons  was  assembled  exclusively  to 
vote  supplies ;  and  though  it  is  not  to  be  supposed  that  a  body  of 
men  so  circumstanced  did  not  occasionally  discuss  other  matters,  or  ex- 
press opinions  on  the  policy  of  the  Government,  its  functions,  on  the 
whole,  were  financial,  and  while  they  continued  to  be  so  its  constitu- 
tion was  really  democratic.  But  as  it  gradually  acquired  new  powers 
and  extended  its  jurisdiction  to  new  spheres  of  action,  the  nomi- 
nation boroughs  became  the  means  of  keeping  the  direction  of  affairs 
substantially  in  the  same  hands.  As  the  popular  assembly  became 
more  and  more  powerful,  it  became  less  and  less  popular,  thus  in- 
sensibly adapting  itself  to  the  constitutional  system  with  which  it 
had  been  incorporated,  and  retaining  the  confidence  of  the  nation  as 
long  as  it  secured  the  objects  for  which  alone  the  nation  really  cared. 
It  was  this  perfect  harmony  between  the  actual  results  of  the  old 
borough  system  and  the  traditional  theory  of  the  Constitution  which 
blinded  people  to  its  practical  anomalies.  But  as  long-continued 
popular  distress  and  the  existence  of  great  practical  abuses,  un- 
noticed during  the  excitement  of  war,  gradually  undermined  the 
confidence  of  the  people  in  their  old  aristocratic  system,  the  singular 
machinery  by  which  it  had  so  long  been  supported  began  to  attract 
more  of  their  attention ;  and  their  eyes  became  fixed  on  these 
4  anomalies,'  to  the  neglect  of  all  other  considerations. 

The  favourable  moment,  therefore,  was  allowed  to  pass,  and  we 


912  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  May 

have  only  now  to  note  the  failure  of  every  attempt  which  has  since 

been  made  to  find  an  equivalent  for  what  was  then  abandoned some 

means,  that  is,  of  keeping  the  democratic  element  in  the  Constitution 
from  overpowering  every  other  class,  and  of  securing  to  the  aristocracy 
of  intelligence  some  such  control  over  numbers  as  was  exercised  by  the 
aristocracy  of  birth.  We  have  now  looming  in  no  remote  future  that 
final  trial  of  strength  between  property  and  numbers  which,  in  Dr. 
Arnold's  opinion,  has  never  terminated  in  any  country  without  great 
and  irreparable  disasters.  How,  then,  can  we  avert  them  in  this 
country  ? 

Many   proposals   have    been   made   for    establishing  some   such 
securities  as  I  have  here  referred  to,  but  none  as  yet  which  have 
recommended  themselves  to  practical   politicians.     ;It   is   probable 
that  in  1832  the  system  of  plurality  of  votes  might  have  been  intro- 
duced without  difficulty  ;  and  although  there  are  many  objections  to 
such  a  plan,  it  is  perhaps  as  simple  and  as  equitable  a  one  as  any  that 
have  yet  been  suggested.     But  what  might  very  well  have  formed 
part  of  the  original  scheme,  before  the  people  had  begun  to  use  their 
power,  and  when  there  would  have  seemed  nothing  strange  in  establish- 
ing some  compensation  for  the  loss  of  what  constituted  the  steadying 
elements  of  the  old  system,  could  hardly  be  attempted  now  with  any 
hope  of  success,  when  the  very  loss  in  question  has  come  to  seem  an 
integral  and  essential  part  of  the  whole  reform,  and  when  such  a 
scheme  would  confessedly  aim  at  taking  away  some  part  of  the  power 
which  the  people  have  now  exercised  for  years.     It  is,  however,  not 
improbable  that   the  violent   oscillations  of  the  electoral  machine 
which  we  have  lately  experienced  may  set  people  thinking  afresh 
upon  this  point  before  the  introduction  of  the  new  Eefprm  Bill  which 
we  are  to  expect  at  the  hands  of  the  Liberal  Government.     It  cannot 
be  for  the  interests  of  the  nation  at  large  that  opinion,, or  what  stands 
for  such,  should  be  perpetually  swinging  backwards  and  forwards  as  it 
has  done  since  1868.     And  the  reconstruction  of  our  county  system,  if 
dealt  with  in  a  statesmanlike  spirit,  might  afford  an  "opportunity  of 
ballasting  the  vessel  so  as  to  prevent  the  ill  effects  of  a  blind  rush 
to   one  side  or  the   other  on  the  part  of  the  uneducated  classes. 
At   the  same  time  it  will  be  as  well  that  any  Government,  in  the 
matter  of  a  County  Eeform  Bill,  should  proceed  with  circumspection. 
Granted  that  it  is  not  only  the  logical  conclusion  of  the  reform  begun 
fifty  years  ago,  but  also,  what  cannot  perhaps   so  easily  be  proved, 
that  the  peasantry  have  a  right  to  the  franchise  because  it  has  been 
given  to  the  artisans,  it  does  not  follow  that  the  Government  of  the 
day  may  not  choose  its  own  time  for  introducing  a  measure  so  im- 
portant.    And  it  is  exceedingly  questionable  whether  at  the  present 
moment  the  agricultural  labourer  is  not  less  fit  than  he  was  in  1867 
for  the  exercise  of  this  privilege.     Since  that  time  we  have  seen  the 
growth  of  a  rural  chartism  not  dissimilar  in  many  respects  to  the 


1880.  A  CONSERVATIVE  VIEW  OF  THE  ELECTIONS.    913 

urban  chartism  of  forty  years  ago.  Like  that,  no  doubt,  it  has  been 
provoked  by  real  wrongs  ;  but  like  that  also  it  has  become  the  nurse 
of  many  wild  delusions  and  mischievous  theories  which  it  is  needless 
to  say  the  country  will  never  allow  to  be  reduced  to  practice,  but 
which,  if  not  allowed  to  die  out  before  political  power  is  conferred  on 
those  who  entertain  them,  may  lead  to  deplorable  results.  Nobody, 
we  suppose,  is  more  thoroughly  acquainted  with  the  English  agri- 
cultural poor  than  Mr.  Richard  Jefferies.  In  his  latest  work  on 
this  subject  he  tells  us  what  are  the  nine  points  of  the  new  '  cottage 
charter.'  They  are  as  follows  :  '  (1)  The  confiscation  of  large  estates. 
(2)  The  subdivision  of  land.  (3)  The  abolition  of  the  laws  of  settle- 
ment of  land.  (4)  The  administration  of  the  land  by  the  authorities 
of  State.  (5)  The  confiscation  of  glebe  lands  for  division  and  distribu- 
tion. (6)  The  abolition  of  church  tithes.  (7)  Extension  of  the  county 
franchise.  (8)  Education  gratis,  free  of  fees  or  payment  of  any  kind. 
(9)  High  wages,  winter  and  summer  alike,  irrespective  of  season, 
prosperity,  or  adversity.'  He  adds,  what  may  be  perfectly  true,  that  the 
only  point  for  which  the  majority  of  the  labourers  care  is  the  last  one. 
But  if  they  are  told  that  they  cannot  get  that  except  through  the  medium 
of  the  others,  they  will  demand  all.  Besides,  there  is,  he  allows,  a  con- 
siderable minority  among  the  peasantry  who  really  do  care  for  the 
others,  and  a  minority  consisting  for  the  most  part  of  the  younger 
and  more  vigorous  men.  They  may  be  few  in  number  as  yet ;  but 
while  the  spirit  is  abroad  none  can  say  how  far  it  may  spread.  And 
if  we  consider  what  might  have  been  the  consequence  of  passing  in 
1839  the  Reform  Bill  of  1867,  we  shall  perhaps  hesitate  to  extend 
the  Act  of  1 867  to  a  population  under  the  same  class  of  delusions 
which  prevailed  an  1839.  Sooner  or  later,  however,  the  electoral  rights 
of  the  town  and  county  population  must  be  placed  upon  the  same 
footing ;  and  then  will  be  the  time  to  consider  whether  anything  can 
be  done  to  remedy  the  evil  to  which  I  have  ventured  in  this  article 
to  call  attention.  Merely  to  add  on  to  the  working-class  constituencies 
of  the  towns  a  new  working-class  constituency  belonging  to  the 
counties,  would  simply  intensify  the  mischief  till  the  state  of  things 
became  absolutely  intolerable,  and  relief  would  be  sought  perhaps  in 
a  direction  the  reverse  of  liberal.  At  all  events  I  feel  convinced 
that  the  evil  complained  of  must  in  time  be  recognised  even  by 
those  who  have  immediately  profited  by  it.  I  may  have  painted 
it  in  too  vivid  colours  :  I  am  quite  alive  to  that  possibility.  But 
I  say  that  it  exists  ;  that  it  is  no  creature  of  the  imagination ;  and 
that  it  will  form  one  of  the  most  perplexing  factors  with  which  we 
shall  have  to  reckon  in  the  political  arrangements  of  the  future. 

I  know  that  there  is  a  great  deal  of  this  from  which  partisans  on 
both  sides  will  dissent.  Conservatives,  I  know,  will  maintain  that  the 
loss  of  seats  was  mainly  due  to  an  accumulation  of  minor  causes  with 
which  Government  could  not  be  supposed  to  be  acquainted,  and  not 

VOL.  VII.— No.  39.  3  P 


914  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  May 

to  any  general,  even  supposing  it  to  be  temporary,  dissatisfaction. 
Some  seats  of  course,  which  were  snatched  in  1874  out  of  the  jaws  of 
their  opponents,  they  expected  to  lose.  Some  were  lost  through  false 
security,  some  for  want  of  due  attention  on  the  part  of  members  to 
their  constituents,  others  by  the  superior  organisation  which  was 
insured  by  a  larger  expenditure.  If  from  thirty  to  forty  seats  were 
lost  in  this  manner  during  the  first  few  days,  the  impetus  thereby 
imparted  to  the  Liberal  attack  cost  as  many  more.  Add  a  quantum 
Buffidt  of  commercial  and  agricultural  depression,  and  you  have  the 
whole  catastrophe  explained.  The  very  smallness  of  the  majorities 
by  which  so  many  seats  have  been  won  and  lost  goes  far  to  confirm 
this  view.  I  am  far  from  saying  that  there  is  nothing  at  all  in  any 
of  these  representations ;  there  may  possibly  be  a  good  deal.  But 
whatever  truth  they  may  contain  does  not  affect  what  I  have  been 
saying,  for  nobody  beforehand  anticipated  so  total  a  discomfiture  on 
any  one  of  these  grounds.  And  if  so  great  and  violent  a  change, 
fraught  with  such  momentous  possibilities,  can  be  brought  about  by 
such  comparatively  paltry  agencies  without  anybody  suspecting  their 
activity,  the  fact  only  strengthens  my  argument.  How  can  we  rely 
from  day  to  day  on  a  public  opinion  dependent  on  such  influences  ; 
how  can  we  measure  it  or  gauge  it  for  our  guidance  on  great  national 
questions  ?  Liberal  partisans,  on  the  other  hand,  declare  that  if  men 
will  shut  their  eyes  they  cannot  expect  to  see ;  that  the  municipal 
elections  of  last  autumn  showed  which  way  public  feeling  was  running ; 
that  many  of  the  Liberal  members  who  in  the  last  Parliament  sup- 
ported Ministers  have  lost  their  seats ;  and  would  the  Opposition 
leaders  have  been  so  anxious  for  a  dissolution  if  they  had  not  known 
they  were  to  win  by  it  ?  The  municipal  elections  might  possibly  have 
suggested  something  had  they  not  been  followed  immediately  by  the 
Liverpool,  Sheffield,  and  Southwark  elections ;  but  their  significance, 
never  at  any  time  very  great,  was  utterly  drowned  in  the  much 
greater  significance  very  naturally  attached  to  these  contests.  That 
Liberal  members  who  supported  the  late  Government  have  since  been 
unseated  may  also  be  some  evidence  that  the  Government  was 
unpopular.  But  unless  some  warning  had  been  given  to  these  gentle- 
men— unless  they  had  some  reason  to  believe  that  the  votes  which 
they  recorded  for  Ministers  were  unpalatable  to  their  constituents — 
their  defeat  is  only  an  additional  illustration  of  what  I  am  striving1 
to  establish.  That  the  leaders  of  the  Opposition  should  have  been 
anxious  for  a  dissolution  is  easily  explained.  They  could  not  be 
worse  off  than  they  were,  and  it  was  all  but  certain  that  they  would 
be  better ;  whereas,  the  longer  the  dissolution  was  deferred,  the  more 
chance  was  there  that  the  recovery  of  trade  and  agriculture  might 
strengthen  the  hands  of  the  Administration. 

'  The  Government,'  says  the  Edinburgh  Revieiu,  '  had  lost  the 
confidence  of  the  country  without  knowing  it.'     But  that  is  precisely 


1880.   A  CONSERVATIVE  VIEW  OF  THE  ELECTIONS.    915 

my  case.  That  is  just  what  Mr.  Gladstone  had  done  in  1874  ;  and 
it  is  in  the  possibility  of  a  government  losing  the  confidence  of  the 
country  without  knowing  it,  and  without  its  being  known  or  suspected 
by  three-fourths  of  the  upper  and  lower  middle  classes,  that  the  very 
danger  consists  which  it  has  been  the  object  of  this  paper  to  describe. 
It  is  easy  to  be  wise  after  tht  event.  But  that  the  result  of  the  election 
was  never  for  one  moment  anticipated  by  the  great  body  of  the  English 
people,  any  more  than  it  was  by  the  Government,  is  a  proposition  which 
I  am  certain  will  be  affirmed  by  the  general  experience  of  the  public. 
What  was  the  turn  of  the  Conservatives  yesterday  may  be  the  turn  of 
the  Liberals  to-morrow ;  and  it  might  be  well  if  both  sides  would  con- 
sider what  measures  can  be  taken  to  steady  the  motion  of  the  body 
politic,  and  to  prevent  the  government  of  the  country  from  becoming 
merely  a  government  of  impulse — an  impulse,  too,  proceeding  from 
a  class  of  society  which  is  necessarily  under  the  dominion  of  its 
physical  wants,  and  the  members  of  which,  from  the  very  circum- 
stances which  surround  them,  creating  as  they  do  a  marked  uni- 
formity of  thought  and  character,  are  prone  to  follow  one  another, 
and  to  rush  altogether  in  the  same  direction  as  hope  or  fear  may 
instigate  them. 

The  lowest  stratum  of  the  constituencies  which  exists  in  our  great 
towns  is  one  of  which  we  know  nothing.     What  do  the  inhabitants  of 
Belgrave  or  of  Grosvenor  Square,  or  the  occupiers  of  the  luxurious  villas 
which  encircle  our  parks  and  gardens — what  do  the  dwellers  in  Bays- 
water  or  in  Bloomsbury,  or  the  barrister  in  the  Temple,  or  the  trades- 
man in  the  Strand  or  Regent  Street,  know  of  the  labouring  population 
which  surrounds  them  ?     What  does  such  a  man  know  of  the  cobbler 
who  makes  his   shoes,  of  the  tailor  who  makes  his  clothes,  of  the 
blacksmith  who  shoes  his  horses,  of  the  carpenter  who  mends  his 
chairs  ?     He  knows  some  of  their  masters.     He  knows  the  polite  and 
smiling  gentleman  who  receives  his  order,  and  who  very  likely  lives 
himself  in  a  house  worth  several  hundreds  a  year.     But  what  does  he 
know  of  the  workpeople  ?     Nothing,  absolutely  nothing.     He  almost 
rubs  shoulders  with  a  class  of  whom  he  positively  knows  no  more  than  if 
they  were  at  Timbuctoo,  and  who  know,  of  course,  as  little  of  him. 
They  see  his  splendour  or  his  comfort,  but  he  does  not  see  their 
squalor.     The  two  are  knit  together  by  none  of  those  charities  and 
courtesies  which  mark  the  intercourse  of  rich  and  poor  in  the  country. 
The  upper  classes  of  society  in  the  country  know  the  poorer  classes 
thoroughly  well ;  and  whatever  may  be  thought  of  the  relations  which 
have  long  existed  between  them,  there  is  at  least  no  ignorance  of  each 
other's  habits,  thoughts,  and  characters.    In  great  cities  this  ignorance 
is,  I  fear,  profound ;  for   as   it   is   in  London,  so  I  apprehend  it   is 
in  all  our  other  great  towns.     And  this  fact  it  is  which  is  calculated 
to  inspire  so  much  anxiety  when  we  reflect  on  recent  events,  and  on 
others  but  a  little  more  remote.     We  are  in  the  hands  of  an  invisible 


916  THE  NWETEENTH   CENTURY. 

power,  neither  malignant,  nor  lawless,  nor  furious,  but  blind,  unre- 
flecting, and  credulous.  And  surely,  when  we  see  it  rushing  from  one 
extreme  to  another  with  such  precipitancy  as  has  lately  been  exhibited, 
he  is  no  alarmist  who  suggests  that  we  have  some  reason  to  be  anxious 
for  the  future  stability  of  society. 

Finally,  let  me  repeat  once  more  that  all  which  I  have  written 
relates  exclusively  to  the  evidence  which  existed  down  to  last  March 
of  any  such  change  of  opinion  as  the  present  election  has  discovered, 
and  of  such  evidence  as  is  palpable  to  all  men  who  take  a  reasonable 
interest  in  politics.  I  am  neither  denying  nor  affirming  that  the 
policy  of  the  Government  was  wise,  just,  and  beneficial.  That  ques- 
tion has  nothing  at  all  to  do  with  the  one  raised  in  these  pages.  It 
lies  very  close  to  it ;  but  it  runs  on  parallel  lines,  and  the  two  do  not 
touch  each  other  at  all.  I  say  that  the  election  took  the  country  by 
surprise ;  that  we  have  no  guarantee  that  future  elections  will  not  be 
of  the  same  kind  ;  that  the  ultimate  result  must  be  the  alternate 
succession  of  Conservatives  and  Liberals  to  power  for  short  terms  of 
years,  with  little  or  no  regard  to  the  highest  class  of  political  ques- 
tions ;  that  such  a  system  must  be  demoralising  to  the  nation,  and 
infinitely  injurious  to  the  State  ;  and  that  consequently  it  is  the  duty 
of  all  Liberals  as  well  as  of  all  Conservatives,  who  look  to  some- 
thing beyond  the  accidents  of  the  hour,  to  consider  well  if  nothing 
can  be  done  to  counteract  a  tendency  which  is  fraught  with  such 
disastrous  consequences. 

I  have  said  nothing  of  the  county  elections,  because  the  meaning 
of  the  agricultural  vote  where  it  was  given  against  the  Conservatives 
is  perfectly  well  known,  and  because  farmers  are  a  class  whom  we  all 
know  and  understand.  The  danger,  therefore,  to  which  I  call  atten- 
tion, is  not  in  any  way  illustrated  by  the  behaviour  of  the  county 
constituencies. 

T.  E.  KRBBEL. 


THE 


NINETEENTH 
CENTURY. 


No.  XL.— JUNE  1880. 


ENGLAND  AND  RUSSIA   IN  ASIA. 

CONSIDERING  that  Mr.  Grant  Duff  has  found  it  admissible  to  divide 
the  politicians  of  the  Conservative  party  in  England  into  Black  and 
White  Jingoes,  I  have  but  the  alternative  to  come  forward  in  the 
hitherto  nondescript  character  of  a  Foreign  Jingo.  This  is,  at  all 
events,  a  rather  curious  denomination,  and  I  must  therefore  account 
for  the  reasons  which  induce  me  to  do  so.  Firstly  I  have  to  say 
why  I  come  forward  at  all,  and  secondly,  what  are  the  arguments 
upon  which  I  base  my  political  views  of  that  highly  interesting 
question  of  rivalry  between  England  and  Eussia  in  Central  Asia. 

I  am  fully  aware  of  the  somewhat  queer  position  into  which  I  get 
by  mixing  in  the  politics  of  a  country  which  I  like  and  admire,  but  to 
which  I  am  a  foreigner.  The  many  anonymous  letters,  nay,  postcards, 
in  which  certain  narrow-minded  political  opponents  in  England 
remind  me,  in  not  very  flattering  terms,  to  '  paddle  my  own  canoe,' 
to  care  about  the  business  of  my  own  country,  and  not  to  meddle 
with  the  affairs  of  England,  might  well  have  cooled  my  zeal,  or  im- 
pressed me  with  the  belief  that  I  am  engaged  in  a  rather  useless 
task.  But  no  !  The  effect  is  quite  the  contrary  of  what  was 
expected  by  my  adversaries.  Their  anonymous  sneering  has  rather 
encouraged  and  raised  my  spirits;  I  am  the  more  ready  for  a  fight, 
for  I  get  convinced  of  the  necessity  that  an  impartial  writer,  whose 
eyes  are  not  blinded  by  the  thick  veil  of  smoke  rising  out  of  the 
fire  of  party  struggle,  must  obviously  view  the  details  of  that  ques- 
VOL.  VII.— No.  40.  3  Q 


918  THE  NINETEENTH    CENTURY.  June 

tion  in  a  muck  clearer  light,  and  that  he  will  not  stumble  over  the 
blocks  which  so  often  bar  the  way  of  a  home  politician  towards  the 
foreign  policy  of  his  country. 

In  reviewing  the  line  of  policy  pursued  by  English  statesmen  in 
the  course  of  the  last  decades  in  the  East,  we  shall  discover  the  car- 
dinal mistake  in  the  ignorance  or  in  the  insufficient  appreciation  of 
the  great  difference  which  exists  between  Eastern  and  Western  poli- 
tics. I  mean  to  say,  in  their  disregarding  entirely  that  peculiar 
spirit  of  the  Asiatics,  and  of  the  Mohammedan  Asiatics  in  general, 
after  which  the  only  possible  sound  policy  can  be  shaped.  Before 
all,  it  ought  to  be  borne  "in  mind  that  the  political  maxims  and 
theories  employed  in  Europe  and  in  reference  to  Europeans  can  be  of 
no  avail  in  Asia  and  with  Asiatics.  The  man  in  the  Old  World,  a 
greyhaired  child,  is  particularly  fond  of  diplomatising,  of  tricks  and 
of  subterfuges ;  he  never  shows  his  colours,  not  even  to  his  friends  and 
nearest  relatives,  and  still  less  in  his  dealings  with  the  European ; 
and  being  under  the  continual  impression  of  distrust,  fear,  and  suspi- 
cion caused  by  the  overwhelming  superiority  of  the  West,  he  very 
naturally  never  expects  sincerity  and  straightforwardness  from  the 
latter — nay,  he  will  show  the  more  reticence,  the  greater  the 
frankness  with  which  he  is  met.  It  would  be  idle  to  suppose  that 
these  greyhaired  children  do  or  can  pursue,  with  their  intrigues  and 
dissimulation,  some  serious  aim.  No  ;  nothing  of  the  kind,  for  a 
deeper  look  into  the  history  of  our  transactions  with  the  East  will 
show  that  the  most  brilliant  stars  on  the  heaven  of  Turkish,  Persian, 
and  Afghan  diplomacy  were  and  are,  when  viewed  from  a  near  vici- 
nity, but  very  modestly  twinkling  tiny  sparks,  very  poor  diplomatists, 
to  whom  Prince  Bismarck  would  scarcely  confide  a  second-rate  con- 
sular post.  Eussia  alone  had  always  a  keen  eye  for  the  discern- 
ment of  this  discrepancy  ;  she  always  showed  a  particular  aptitude  in 
the  selection  of  the  proper  means  to  deal  with  her  adversaries  in  Asia. 
She  never  indulged  in  illusions  about  the  good  faith  of  Asiatic 
statesmen,  and  has  consequently  never  had  to  experience  such  bitter 
disappointments  as  the  English  found  quite  recently  in  their  dealing 
with  Shir  Ali  and  Yakoob  Khan.  It  is  certainly  a  very  laudable  act, 
and  worthy  of  the  moral  standpoint  of  our  Christian  civilisation,  to  ad- 
here in  Asia  strictly  to  our  principles  of  morality ;  but  we  ought  never 
to  forget  that  it  is  a  very  useless  undertaking  to  parade  before  a  blind 
man  with  a  Raphael  cartoon.  It  is  our  duty,  before  all  things,  to  open  his 
eyes ;  we  have  to  modify  and  to  adapt  our  means  in  order  to  approach 
him  more  closely  j  and  then  we  may  nourish  the  hope  of  transforming 
gradually  that  abject  character  of  his,  and  of  bringing  him  round  to  our 
notions  of  justice  and  righteousness.  Eussia,  as  far  as  historical 
evidence  proves,  never  aspired  to  produce  such  a  change  of  morality 
in  the  East ;  she  has  always  had  but  aggrandisement  and  material  ends 
in  view.  But  England,  to  whom  her  staunchest  enemy  will  not  deny  the 


1880.  ENGLAND  AND   RUSSIA   IN  ASIA.  919 

title  of  a  real  representative  of  Western  culture,  has  to  prosecute 
essentially  different  aims.  With  her  the  material  advantages  are  only 
the  basis  for  moral  results,  and  therefore  she  is  bound  to  be  particularly 
careful  in  her  operations  in  the  East ;  for  the  success  she  has  to  insure 
does  not  regard  only  the  national  interest  of  Great  Britain,  but  emi- 
nently the  future  standing  of  our  Western  civilisation,  nay,  the  sacred 
cause  of  humanity,  in  the  distant  regions  of  the  Old  World. 

Next  to  the  shortcomings  produced  by  impracticable  and  one- 
sided political  measures,  England  must  too  frequently  expiate  the 
heat  of  contest  with  which  party-fights  are  fought  at  home,  and  by 
which  the  agency  of  her  power  and  influence  abroad  becomes  some- 
times of  a  rather  problematic  nature.  I  do  not  agree  with  those  who 
say  that  the  sic  volo  sic  jubeo  of  a  despotic  government  is  more 
efficient  for  the  extension  of  national  greatness  abroad  than  the  will 
of  a  free  constitutional  people,  but  I  expect  this  will  to  be  a  unani- 
mous one,  not  like  that  in  England,  where  politicians  of  the  ultra- 
Liberal  party  publicly  declare  in  Parliament  that  they  would  like  to 
see  if  that  horrible  beast,  called  the  British  Lion,  would  burst  in  the 
East — politicians  who  make  no  secret  of  it  that  they  would  exult  in 
England's  losing  India,  in  the  chance  of  Constantinople  becoming  a 
Eussian  town,  and  in  other  similar  pious  expectations.  But  we  ought 
not  to  forget  that  the  vehemence  and  injustice  of  party  criticism 
must  in  the  end  slacken  the  most  fervent  zeal  of  gifted  patriots, 
and  diminish  greatly  the  number  of  those  who  leave  their  insular 
home  in  order  to  earn  distinctions  and  merits  in  the  distant  East. 
It  would  be  useless  to  deny  the  fact  that  the  England  of  to-day  is 
not  half  so  rich  in  statesmen  versed  in  Eastern  politics  as  this 
very  England  was  at  the  beginning  of  the  present  century.  NOT 
can  I  conceal  from  myself  the  impression  that  the  interest  shown 
by  the  English  public  at  large  towards  the  various  topics  referring 
to  the  East  is  scarcely  adequate  to  the  duty  which  England, 
as  the  greatest  Mohammedan  Power,  has  taken  upon  herself.  There 
are  comparatively  but  very  few  meetings,  very  few  papers,  in 
which  that  highly  important  question  of  transforming  the  social 
condition  of  forty  millions  of  Mohammedans  is  discussed ;  and  the 
public  opinion  elicited  from  time  to  time  in  reference  to  political 
events  in  Central  Asia  manifests  either  very  scanty  information  on 
the  subject,  or  is  to  such  a  degree  imbued  with  party  spirit  that  it 
helps  little  or  nothing  towards  the  formation  of  a  sound  judgment, 
and  has  more  an  embroiling  than  a  clearing  effect. 

I  suppose  that  those  who  know  the  tendency  of  my  political 
writings  during  the  last  sixteen  years  will  not  attribute  my  finding 
fault  with  a  certain  class  of  English  politicians  to  a  preconceived 
anti-English  feeling.  Nor  can  I  be  accused  of  a  particular  predilection 
for  one  party.  I  had  to  point  out  these  errors  in  order  to  prove  that 
they  are  the  very  fount  and  origin  of  the  misjudgment  and  false 


920  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY.  June 

interpretation  in  \vhick  the  latest  events  in  Afghanistan  and  beyond 
the  frontiers  of  that  country  have  been  viewed  and  expounded  in 
England.  To  begin  with  Afghanistan,  I  must  say  at  once  that 
nothing  was  more  painful  and  afflicting  for  the  impartial  observer 
than  the  unjustified  compassion  and  commiseration  which  was  shown 
to  the  well-deserved  fate  of  Shir  Ali  Khan,  who  has  almost  been 
depicted  with  a  halo  of  martyrdom  suffered  through  the  cruel  and 
inhuman  treatment  of  the  late  Government.  I  wish  that  these 
softhearted  humanitarian  writers  could  have  spent  a  few  weeks  with 
me  in  the  society  of  those  rapacious,  treacherous,  and  cruel  Asiatics, 
called  Afghans,  or  that  they  could  have  had  the  opportunity  of  pene- 
trating into  the  detestable  mysteries  of  character  of  the  ruling 
classes  in  the  Mohammedan  world.  I  am  sure  their  mind  would 
have  been  essentially  changed  in  reference  to  that  innocent  lamb 
Shir  Ali,  and  they  would  discover  at  once  that  the  rupture  between 
England  and  Afghanistan,  far  from  having  been  provoked  by  the 
over-zealous  activity  and  vainglory  of  the  English  Conservatives, 
is  nothing  but  the  simple  and  natural  result  of  the  dealings  of  a 
distrustful  and  avaricious  Asiatic  despot  with  a  credulous,  frank, 
and  straightforward  European.  It  is  not  my  intention  to  reopen  the 
rather  too  much  lengthened  controversy  as  to  the  right  or  wrong  of 
England's  interference  in  Afghanistan,  but  I  cannot  suppress  my  full 
conviction  that  the  recent  war  may  well  have  been  delayed,  but  could 
scarcely  have  been  avoided,  having  been  forced  upon  England  partly  by 
the  personal  character  of  the  late  Shir  Ali  himself,  partly  by  the  in- 
terference of  Eussia,  to  whom  the  demonstration  of  the  British  fleet 
before  Constantinople  was  a  means  and  not  the  cause  of  aggression. 
As  to  Shir  Ali  Khan,  I  am  at  a  loss  to  understand,  firstly,  how  an 
English  statesman  could  ever  have  expected  an  Afghan  prince,  whose 
nation  is  in  a  deadly  dread  of  the  English,  and  whose  savage  fanati- 
cism is  boundless,  to  become  a  trustworthy  and  reliable  ally.  We 
always  hear  about  the  good  faith  and  valuable  services  the  late  Dost 
Mohammed  rendered  to  Great  Britain  during  the  Sepoy  revolu- 
tion ;  but  it  ought  to  be  borne  in  mind  that  the  abstinence  of  the 
grey  Afghan  wolf  did  not  lie  so  much  in  his  love  and  sincerity  for 
the  English,  as  in  his  firm  belief  of  the  superiority  and  final 
success  of  the  British  arms.  Had  the  Russians  been  in  1857  in 
Samarkand,  as  they  are  to-day,  it  may  be  taken  for  granted  that  all 
the  exertions  and  all  the  wisdom  of  Edwardes  would  have  proved 
useless ;  for  the  old  Dost,  in  spite  of  his  former  resultless  stipulations 
with  Vitkevitch,  would  scarcely  have  abstained  from  an  inroad  into 
the  Peshawur  territory.  Secondly,  putting  aside  all  the  Asiatic  pro- 
pensities of  the  bilious  and  avaricious  late  Afghan  ruler,  how  could  it 
have  been  forgotten  that  Shir  Ali  was  at  the  very  outset  of  his  career 
not  only  slighted,  but  sadly  forsaken,  by  the  Indian  Government  ? 
The  famous  letter  of  Lord  Lawrence,  in  which  it  was  said  to 


1880.  ENGLAND  AND   RUSSIA    IN  ASIA.  921 

'  Aide-toi  et  le  bon  Dieu  anglais  t'aidera,'  did  not  sound  very  en- 
couraging at  a  time  when,  beset  on  all  sides  by  enemies  and  void  of 
all  means,  he  had  to  fight  hard  for  the  recovery  of  his  throne.  Or 
have  the  opponents  of  an  active  policy  really  the  naivete  to  believe 
that  a  revengeful  Barekzi  can  readily  forget  what  he  fancies  an 
offence,  and  that  in  his  subsequent  relations  with  the  Viceroys  of 
India  he  should  come  forward  as  a  feeling  friend  and  grateful  ally  ? 
It  is  now  sufficiently  proved  that  he  left  the  meeting  of  Umballah 
dissatisfied,  not  seeing  the  deep  pockets  of  his  chogha  so  amply  filled 
as  he  expected ;  that  he  sent  with  reluctance  his  Vezir  Noor-Ullah  to 
Peshawur,  where  all  the  abilities  of  Sir  Lewis  Pelly  must  have  failed; 
and  that  finally  he  had  to  refuse  the  embassy  of  Sir  Nevile  Chamber- 
lain not  only  because  advised  to  do  so  by  General  Stolyetoff,  but 
also  to  mantle  his  falsehood,  having  years  ago  consistently  refused  to 
receive  an  English  envoy  at  Kabul,  declaring  himself  unable  to 
guarantee  the  safety  of  a  Feringhee,  whilst  the  Eussian  Christian 
was  met  everywhere  with  distinctions  and  outbursts  of  joy  by  Shir 
Ali,  as  by  his  pious  Mohammedan  subjects. 

So  much  for  Shir  Ali  as  the  promoter  of  the  recent  war  be- 
tween England  and  Afghanistan.  Turning  now  to  the  Russian 
agency,  I  have  already  pointed  out  that  England's  threatening  posi- 
tion during  the  late  Turco-Russian  war  did  not  so  much  create  as 
accelerate  the  anger  of  the  Cabinet  of  St.  Petersburg,  and  the  con- 
sequent move  to  the  country  on  the  left  bank  of  the  Oxus.  The 
concatenation  of  the  recent  events  with  those  of  1839-42  is  too  clearly 
visible  to  escape  attention.  The  first  acts  of  the  drama  are  almost 
the  same,  only  the  names  of  the  performers  are  changed  ;  the  unfor- 
tunate Cavagnari  substituted  for  the  ingenious  Burnes,  Stolyetoff 
acting  in  the  part  of  the  shamefully  disowned  Pole,  Captain  Vitkevitch. 
Happily  Sir  F.  Roberts  has  turned  out  a  better  general  than  Sir  John 
Kaye,  and,  nourishing  the  hope  that  there  will  be  no  necessity  for  a 
Pollock  No.  2,  we  dare  to  say  the  second  performance  of  the  drama  will 
not  conclude  as  a  tragedy,  and  further  that  it  will  not  be  performed 
again.  Suffice  it  to  say,  if  Russia  found  it  advisable  to  despatch  in 
1839  an  agent  to  the  Court  of  Kabul,  and  to  revolutionise  the  whole 
country  from  the  Araxes  to  the  Indus,  when  there  was  no  British 
fleet  in  the  Bosphorus  and  no  Indian  army  in  Malta,  and  when  she 
was  several  hundred  miles  distant  from  the  Oxus — nay,  without  any 
firm  footing  in  Khirgiz  Steppes — how  can  any  one  pretend  that  the 
recent  intrigues  of  General  Kaufmann  beyond  the  Hindukush  were 
•only  provoked  by  England's  philo-Turkish  policy  ?  And  further,  to 
what  purpose  did  Russia  spend  the  money  given  to  Abdurrahman, 
the  presents  given  to  the  chief  of  Badakhshan,  and  to  the  late  Shir 
Ali?  Why  all  the  multifarious  exertions,  which  date  long  before  the 
outbreak  of  the  Turco-Russian  war,  if  she  really  had  no  intentions 
upon  Afghanistan  ?  Can  we  style  this  movement  of  Russia  a  being 
dragged  reluctantly  into  action  ? 


922  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  June 

No!      In    viewing    the    ethnical   and    political    conditions    of 
Afghanistan — the  unruly  temper  of  the  inhabitants   and  the  utter 
impossibility  of  a  homogeneous  rule — and  in  considering  fully  the 
position   of  Kussia   on  the  left   bank  of  the  Oxus — of  that  Russia 
who  will  never  renounce  her  lust  for  secret  machinations — we  shall 
needs  be  convinced  that  the  idea  of  making  Afghanistan  a  neutral 
zone  between  the  two  rival  powers  is  a  preposterous  and  an  impossible 
one.      A  buffer,  whose  interior  is  hollow  and  rotten   can  and  will 
further  only  the  aims  of  that  power  who  likes  to  indulge  in  mole- 
work,  and  who  in  the  subterranean  gallery  of  diplomacy  will  the 
easier  reach  her  goal  of  desire ;  but  it  can  and  will  never  afford  any 
security  to  the  other  power,  who,  whilst  shunning  all  further  territorial 
conquests,  is  only  on  the  outlook  for  a  firm  and  solid  wall,  for  a 
barrier  against  the  threatening  avalanche.     Such  being  the  case,  we 
can  hardly  see  how  the  late  Government  can  be  found  fault  with  for 
having  tried  to  make  of  the  hitherto  unsettled  and  weak  Afghan 
neighbour  a  firm  and  reliable  ally ;  and  why  should  we  wonder  that, 
when  the  said  ends  proved  unattainable,  the  same  Government  had  to 
resort  to    the    '  scientific   frontier,"  a  policy  which,  however   much 
derided,  offers  still  the  only  practical  and  recommendable  measure 
under  the  present  circumstances  ?     The  pros  and  cons  of  this  question 
having  been  so  variously  discussed  by  competent  military  authorities, 
I   would  only  add   that  the  extent  of  that  frontier  does   not  and 
ought  not  to  depend  so  much  upon  the  goodwill  and  intention  of  British 
statesmen  as  upon  the  movements  Russia  is  making,  or  preparing  to 
make,  on  that  tract  of  Central  Asia  which  lies  between  the  Northrand 
of  Iran  and  the  Murgab  and  between  the  left  bank  of  the  Oxus.     If 
it  were  really  possible  to  transform  the  country  of  the  Afghans  into 
that  desirable  buffer,  in  the  feasibility  of  which  a  great  political 
party  in  England  even  now  believes,  I  would  at  once  declare  the 
'  scientific  frontier '  superfluous ;  but  as  there  is  no  doubt  of  the  im- 
practicability of  that  design,  it  must  be  taken  as  a  strict  rule  that  to 
every  Russian  move  towards  the  South  an  English  step  towards  the 
North    must  unavoidably    correspond.     To  Russia   tampering   with 
the  Yomut  Turkomans    on    the   Gorgen,   and   to   her  standing   on 
the  Hyrcanian  steppe,  the  English  occupation  of  Quetta  was  the  ap- 
propriate answer  ;  and  as  the  Court  of  St.  Petersburg  seems  to  per- 
severe  in  the    plan   referring  to  the   culture-oases    of    the    Tekke 
Turkomans,  which  simply  means  the  earlier  or  later  occupation  of 
Merv  and  of  the  western  outrunners  of  the  Paropamisus,  it  is  not 
only  incumbent  upon  England,  but  it  is  her  imperative  duty,  to  hold 
Kandahar,  and  to  connect  this  place,  through  the  railway  now  under 
construction,  with  the  main  body  of  her  Indian  possessions.     We  all 
of  us  know  that  from  the  time  when  good  old  General  Jacob  came  for- 
ward with  his  important  schemes  referring  to  the  country  north  of  the 
Bolan  Pass — schemes  which  are  now  so  ably  supported  by  other  authori- 


1880.  ENGLAND  AND  RUSSIA  IN  ASIA.  923 

ties — there  was  always,  as  there  is  even  now  in  certain  quarters,  a 
great  aversion  against  the  pushing  forwards  of  the  British  outposts  in 
that  or  in  any  other  direction  beyond  the  so-called  natural  boundary 
of  the  Suleiman  range ;  but  I  am  at  a  loss  to  understand  how  this 
aversion  and  antipathy  can  be  reconciled  with  the  settled  opinion  of 
those  who  publicly  say  that  Eussia's  interference  with  Afghanistan 
would  simply  mean  war  on  the  side  of  the  English.  Thirty  or  forty 
years  ago  that  aversion  and  antipathy  may  have  been  justified,  but 
not  at  present,  when  Eussia's  nominal  frontier  is  on  the  right 
bank  of  the  Oxus,  and  the  real  sphere  of  her  influence  extends  to 
Mazendran  and  Khorasan,  to  the  Murgab,  to  Balkh,  and  far  into 
Badakhshan.  I  beg  leave  to  ask,  does  this  not  mean  interference  with 
Afghanistan,  and  was  it  not  necessary,  nay  unavoidable,  to  meet 
Eussia's  progress  towards  the  South  with  a  similar  move  towards  the 
North  ? 

It  is  useless  arguing  that  since  Eussia  has  not  crossed  the 
Oxus  at  Shirabad  or  Kerki,  we  cannot  impeach  her  of  any  actual  in- 
terference with  Afghanistan.  Eussia  was  never  overhasty  in  her 
movements.  Her  usual  way  of  progress  consists  at  first  of  a  right 
and  a  left  lateral  movement ;  and  then  only  follows  the  irre- 
strainable  advance  of  the  central  force,  backed  on  both  sides  by  the 
previously  located  wings.  In  her  planned  conquest  of  the  Central 
Asiatic  Khanates  we  saw  her  proceeding  in  two  different  lines,  on 
the  one  side  towards  the  embouchures  of  the  Yaxartes,  and  on  the 
other  towards  the  Issik-Kol,  and  it  was  only  after  a  firm  position 
insured  on  the  two  said  points  that  the  conquest  of  the  Khanates 
was  successfully  effected.  On  a  similar  plan  is  based  the  en- 
croachment upon  which  Eussia  is'actually  bent.  Six  or  seven  years 
ago  we  saw  her  gliding  down  the  east  shore  of  the  Caspian  to  the 
temporary  stoppage  of  Chikishlar.  This  is  the  western  or  right 
wing,  whilst  the  eastern  or  left  may  be  easily  discovered  in  her 
reiterated  '  scientific  missions '  to  the  Pamir,  in  the  feelers  stretched 
out  towards  Gilgit  and  Yassin,  and  finally  in  her  skilful  manoeuvres 
with  China,  who  runs  great  risk  of  losing  her  Turkestan  possessions, 
and  of  losing  them  for  ever.  With  these  two  standpoints,  namely, 
with  Chikishlar  or  Gomiishtepe  on  the  right,  and  with  Khotan  or 
Kashgar  on  the  left,  Eussia  will  be  almost  sure  of  success  in  her 
future  encroachment  upon  Afghanistan.  Politicians  of  all  parties  in 
England  are  therefore  right  in  viewing  such  an  emergency  as  a  casus 
belli  ;  and,  such  being  the  case,  we  cannot  be  rebuked  for  our  advocat- 
ing at  the  present  moment,  while  the  Eussian  scheme  is  only  in  pre- 
paration, a  solid  forward  policy — a  policy  the  pivot  of  which  is  the 
retention  of  Kandahar  under  all  circumstances  and  at  every  cost.  If 
the  Liberal  politicians  of  England  have  made  up  their  minds  to  keep 
Eussia  off  from  Afghanistan,  they  cannot  disown  or  undo  the  work 
of  their  predecessors  in  the  western  part  of  the  said  country  ;  but  if, 


924  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  June 

moved  by  party  spirit  or  by  ill-applied  economy,  they  would  like  to 
withdraw  to  the  former  line  of  frontier,  they  must  necessarily  con- 
tradict their  own  principle  referring  to  the  non-admission  of  Russian, 
intervention  in  Afghanistan ;  for  with  the  Russian  outposts  at  Chat 
and  Ashk-abad,  eventually  also  in  Merv  on  one  side,  and  with  the 
undeniable  influence  of  the  General  Governor  of  Tashkend  over  the 
upper  course  of  the  Oxus,  the  so-called  neutral  zone  is  nearly  in  the 
grasp  of  the  Czar,  and  the  English  countermove  cannot  be  any 
longer  postponed. 

We  do  not  underrate  the  troubles  and  expenses  England  must 
incur  in  the  pursuance  of  such  a  policy,  but  we  beg  leave  to 
draw  attention  to  the  amount  of  facilities  and  to  the  comparatively 
greater  advantages  this  position  in  Western  Afghanistan  would  secure. 
First  of  all  it  may  be  noted  that  the  ethnical  conditions  of  this  part 
of  the  country — namely,  the  various  different  races,  such  as  Beluches, 
Brahnis,  Afghans,  Parsivans,  Hezares,  Timuris,  Djemshidis,  &c. — 
afford  certainly  more  facilities  to  foreign  influence  than  the  homo- 
geneous Afghan  masses  who  live  between  the  Hindukush  and  the 
Indus.  Secondly,  it  is  proved  by  historical  evidence  that  the  afore- 
said mixed  population,  inhabiting  a  country  which  formed  the 
highway  from  the  barren  north  towards  the  fertile  south,  were  much 
more  accustomed  to  foreign  rule  than  the  independent  montagnards 
of  the  ancient  Ghoristan,  a  name  under  which  the  eastern  pprtion 
of  Afghanistan  was  known  in  the  Middle  Age  ;  and  further,  that  the 
ethnical  conglomeration  of  the  country  between  the  Oxus  and  India 
was  never  united  under  one  sceptre.  We  saw,  during  the  rule 
of  Ahmed  Shah  Durani,  the  Ozbeg  chief  Shahmurad  in  possession 
of  Balkh,  Kunduz,  and  Aktche  :  even  Dost  Mohammed  Khan  was 
unable  to  extend  his  power  to  Kerki,  and  if  Shir  Ali  did  so  with 
the  assistance  of  the  English,  this  cannot  be  a  convincing  proof 
against  the  indivisibility  of  the  Afghan  crown.  Thirdly,  there  is 
certainly  no  illusion  about  the  hope  that  Kandahar  will  pay  the  cost 
of  British  protection,  and  that  the  road  connecting  this  outpost  with 
Shikarpur,  in  spite  of  its  length,  will  be  much  easier  safeguarded 
than  any  much  shorter  portion  of  the  way  leading  from  Peshawur 
towards  the  Hindukush.  This  circumstance  alone  suffices  to  re- 
commend the  evacuation  of  Kabul,  leaving  this  old  seat  to  such 
an  Afghan  ruler  as  can  hold  his  own  in  good  relations  with 
England.  Aware  that  such  a  retrogressive  step  will  certainly 
not  heighten  the  prestige  of  Great  Britain  in  the  eyes  of  Asiatics  in 
India  and  abroad,  we  still  would  recommend  it  under  the  condition 
of  retaining  Kandahar,  which  will  form  an  appropriate  counter- 
balance in  this  regard,  and  a  valuable  recompense  for  Kabul,  where 
I  would  not  mind  admitting  even  Abdurrahman,  provided  that  his 
Russian  propensities  be  safeguarded  sufficiently  through  the  firm 
position  on  the  northern  opening  of  the  Kheiber  and  Kuram  passes. 


1880.  ENGLAND  AND   RUSSIA   IN  ASIA.  925 

There  are  besides  many  other  reasons  which  would  recommend,  if  not 
the  continuance,  at  all  events  the  preservation,  of  the  line  of  policy 
the  late  Government  pursued  in  this  direction ;  but  we  shall  not  dwell 
on  it  any  longer,  having  before  us  the  not  less  interesting  part  of  the 
question,  namely,  Kussia's  position  in  Turkoman  Steppe. 

Without  getting  nervous,  or  Mervous,  as  the  Duke  of  Argyll  jestingly 
remarked,  about  the  pile  of  ruins  called  Merv,  or  about  my  former 
hosts  in  the  north  of  Persia,  who  are  the  most  contemptible  ruthless 
robbers,  with  whom  I  cannot  have  any  sympathy,  I  must  say  at 
once  that  Kussia's  doings  on  the  south-eastern  shore  of  the  Caspian 
Sea  are  of  a  very  dubious  character,  and  not  at  all  calculated  to  soothe 
the  apprehension  of  native  and  foreign  Jingoes.  Eussian  official 
writers,  such  as  Professor  Martens,  and  his  over-zealous  colleagues  in 
England,  will  certainly  come  forward  with  their  pious  indignation 
against  those  who  venture  to  suspect  the  humanitarian  doings  of 
Russia  in  that  quarter  of  the  world.  Well,  I  have  not  the  slightest 
desire  to  exculpate  and  to  patronise  the  adventurous  knights-errant 
of  the  Turkoman  Steppes — I  go  even  further  in  saying  that  it  would 
be  a  real  blessing  for  mankind  in  Persia  to  have  chastised  and  brought 
to  order  these  restless  remnants  of  Turanian  savageness — but  I  cannot 
acquiesce  in  seeing  Russia  entrusted  with  that  work — Russia,  which 
is  always  anxious  to  parade  philanthropic  purpose  in  the  interests 
of  her  insatiable  earth-hunger,  and  in  her  secret  aggression  upon 
England.  Are  we  really  thought  naive  enough  to  believe  that 
twenty  millions  of  roubles  spent  hitherto  in  the  desert,  and  other 
millions  which  must  be  spent  in  future,  have  no  other  aim  but  to 
serve  the  sacred  cause  of  humanity  ?  The  detached  oasis  countries  in 
the  Kiiren  mountains  will  never  pay  the  excessive  costs  of  a  firm 
footing,  as  little  as  the  Khanates  will  ever  pay  the  Russo-European 
administration  ;  and  just  as  the  protracted  march  across  the  Khirgiz 
Steppes  had  to  be  pursued  with  the  distant  but  sure  scheme  upon  the 
Khanates,  which  are  looked  upon  at  St.  Petersburg  as  simple  etapes, 
so  will  and  can  the  present  march  across  the  Hyrcanian  have  no 
other  object  in  view  but  the  approach  of  the  fertile  district  of  Eastern 
Khorasan,  viz.  to  Herat  and  its  environs.  There  is  no  doubt  as  to 
this  ultimate  result  of -the  Russian  plans,  whether  or  not  people  in 
England  get  Mervous  or  nervous  about  it. 

A  similar  prospect,  but  with  later  success,  opens  with  reference 
to  the  policy  of  the  Cabinet  of  St.  Petersburg  in  Eastern  Turkestan, 
where,  in  spite  of  all  the  diplomatic  skill  of  the  Chinese,  Russia  will 
ultimately  triumph,  driving  the  big-talking  but  helpless  and  weak 
Chinese  army  before  her  as  far  as  she  pleases.  It  is  an  erroneous 
belief  to  fancy  that  Chinese  proficiency  in  arms  has  overthrown  the 
rule  of  the  late  Yakub  Khan,  and  reconquered  the  Thien-shan-nan-lu 
province.  No  !  the  rule  of  the  late  Atalik  Ghazi  crumbled  from 
itself  whilst  he  was  yet  in  life,  and  yet,  had  his  premature  death 


926  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY.  June 

not  taken  place,  the  disorderly  rabble,  called  Chinese  Army,  would 
not  have  indulged  in  the  easy  walk  to  Kashgar  and  Yarkend, 
where  the  wild  confusion  and  disunion  of  the  Moslem  natives,  and 
not  military  strength,  have  helped  the  Chinese  to  pluck  laurels. 
In  this  regard  I  cannot  share  the  opinion  expressed  in  the  otherwise 
very  able  paper  on  l  The  Chinese  in  Central  Asia,'  published  in  No.  298 
of  the  Quarterly  Review.  It  will  take  a  long  time  before  China  can 
cope  with  Russia,  who,  even  in  the  case  of  a  peaceable  retrocession 
of  Kuldja,  will  always  have  the  means  of  proceeding  in  her  policy  of 
aggression  until  she  has  reached  the  foot  of  the  northern  slopes  of 
the  Kuen-lun  mountains,  the  north-western  continuation  of  which, 
namely,  the  Pamir,  is  actually  almost  entirely  under  her  sway. 

In  attributing  such  far-seeing  and  portentous  schemes  to  the 
actually  semi-bankrupt  and  inwardly  rotten  state  of  Russia,  I  know 
that  I  shall,  in  the  eyes  of  a  certain  class  of  politicians,  come  under 
the  charge  of  inveterate  Russophobia  and  unjustified  black-painting. 
Accustomed  as  I  might  have  become  during  the  two  last  decades  of 
my  literary  career  to  such  charges,  I  must  nevertheless  excuse  myself  by 
saying:  (1)  that  I  do  not  look  upon  it  as  a  mere  chance  that  similar 
views  of  mine,  exhibited  years  ago,  and  ridiculed  at  that  time,  have 
since  been  fulfilled,  and  that  it  is  not  to  the  sham  gift  of  divina- 
tion of  the  former  dervish,  but  to  the  autoptical  experience  of  a 
traveller,  that  I  ascribe  this  sad  success ;  (2)  that  it  is  not  the  Russia' 
of  to-day,  but  the  Russia  of  the  near  future,  from  whom  I  expect  the 
successful  execution  of  these  schemes — schemes  which  are  getting 
riper  every  day,  every  hour,  and  command  therefore  the  assiduous 
attention  of  British  statesmen,  to  whatever  party  they  may  belong. 
Now  that  the  excessive  heat  of  party-struggle  is  gradually  subsiding,  and 
that  the  thick  clouds  of  passion  will  not  any  longer  prevent  the  eye  of 
the  practical  and  sound-judging  Englishmen  from  viewing  distant 
objects  in  the  proper  light,  I  believe  the  time  has  come  to  ask  :  What 
is  the  basis  upon  which  the  advanced  English  Liberals  would  like  to 
build  the  policy  of  a  mutual  understanding  with  Russia  ?  Do  they 
seriously  believe  they  will  find  the  necessary  guarantee  for  the  safety 
of  the  British  Empire  in  the  promises  and  good  faith  of  Russian 
statesmen,  and  do  they  really  not  anticipate  any  danger  from  the 
conterminous  neighbourhood  of  the  northern  rival  close  on  the  frontiers 
of  India  ? 

These  questions  so  variously  and  frequently  discussed  during  the 
last  decades  of  the  present  century,  far  from  finding  a  proper  solu- 
tion, have,  particularly  in  recent  times,  elicited  such  fantastic  views 
and  such  wild  theories,  that  even  a  foreign  bystander  may  be  par- 
doned when,  impelled  by  curiosity  and  by  a  warm  interest  of  long 
standing  in  that  matter,  he  allows  himself  the  interpellation.  Let 
us  consider  these  questions  one  by  one,  and  let  us  begin  with  the 
mutual  understanding. 


1880.  ENGLAND  AND  RUSSIA   IN  ASIA.  927 

When  the  English  friends  of  Eussia — I  mean  those  who  are  plus 
catholique  que  le  Pape — more  Kussian  than  the  Russians  themselves 
— in  order  to  exculpate  the  continual  aggression  of  the  Court  of 
St.  Petersburg,  come  forward  with  the  analogy  of  England's  similar 
doings  in  the  South,  they  have  only  proved  the  unavoidableness  of 
future  collisions,  and  their  comparison  is  certainly  wrong  in  reference 
to  England,  who  would  be  a  thousand  times  happier  were  she  to  stop 
at  her  natural  frontier  of  the  Suleiman  range,  and  who  but  reluctantly 
moves  forward  in  her  self-defence  to  the  great  disgust  of  the  British 
taxpayer.  It  is  only  the  blind  who  must  fail  to  see  that  not  an  un- 
bounded ambition,  nor  an  '  Imperial '  policy,  but  Russia's  secret 
attacks  and  insatiable  lust  of  conquest,  have  forced  England  to  cross 
the  Kheiber  and  the  Bolan. 

Here  we  have  a  constitutional  free  people,  which  clings  spasmodi- 
cally to  the  strings  of  the  state-purse,  and  is  always  unwilling  to 
spend  the  fruit  of  its  labour  upon  venturesome  undertakings,  whilst 
there  we  see  an  unrestrained  autocrat,  who  must  lavish  the  blood 
and  wealth  of  millions  in  order  to  suppress  the  dismal  sound  of  the 
clattering  of  chains  in  the  flourish  of  idle  glory  !  and  this  is  called 
analogy  of  motives  ?  I  presume  the  reader  will  conceive  at  once 
that  with  such  a  difference  of  motives  the  future  prospect  of  a 
mutual  understanding  between  England  and  Russia  is  a  very  dark 
one,  and  that  consequently  the  idea  of  exchanging  the  neighbour- 
hood of  the  rough,  irksome,  and  barbarian  Asiatic  for  that  of  the 
apparently  refined  European,  who  wears  all  kinds  of  murderous 
arms  concealed  under  his  dress,  is  the  unhappiest  possible  in  the 
world.  If  the  Indian  subjects  of  her  Majesty  had  progressed  so 
far  in  their  notions  about  modern  or  Western  civilisation  as  to 
appreciate  fully  the  good  intentions  of  their  English  masters,  and 
the  undeniable  change  for  the  better  which  has  already  taken  place 
in  various  departments  of  social  and  political  life — I  mean  to  say, 
if  they  were  keen  enough  to  discern  between  the  English  and 
the  Russian  civilising  influence  in  the  East — there  would  not  be 
the  slightest  fear  or  danger  from  the  immediate  neighbourhood 
of  Russia.  But  under  the  actual  conditions,  when  the  question 
whether  India  be  Dar-ul-Harb  (Abode  of  War)  or  Dar-ul-Islam  (Abode 
of  Peace)  is  still  largely  discussed,  when  the  innate  love  for  continual 
change,  so  common  with  all  Asiatics,  nay,  with  all  societies  and  men 
in  the  period  of  childhood,  gives  birth  to  vague  hopes  and  illusions, 
at  such  a  time  England  ought  not  and  cannot  let  her  outspoken 
rival  approach  the  field  of  her  activity,  that  enclosure  upon  the 
gates  of  which  so  many  heroes  have  inscribed  their  names  with  blood. 
What  use  in  denying  the  fact  that  the  North-Western  Provinces,  nay, 
the  whole  Mohammedan  portion  of  India,  are  yet  much  like  a  powder- 
mill  in  the  close  vicinity  of  which  the  declared  enemy  cannot  be 
admitted  ?  Those  who  believe  that  England  may  avert  the  seditious 


928  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  June 

designs  of  Russia  by  a  similar  attack  upon  Turkestan  are  grossly 
mistaken ;  for  the  utterly  coward  and  unpatriotic  inhabitants  of  the 
Khanates  can  hardly  be  revolutionised,  whilst  the  inimical  spark 
thrown  upon  the  soil  of  India  will  necessarily  cause  the  most  fearful 
destruction.  With  the  settled  Ozbegs,  Tadjiks,  Sarts,  and  Kuramas, 
any  catastrophe  like  that  of  the  Sepoy  revolution  of  1857  is  wholly 
unimaginable. 

Suffice  it  to  say  that  the  only  means  left  to  England  to  stave 
off  successfully  the  plots  of  her  rival  consists  exclusively  in  unre- 
mitting watchfulness,  and  not  in  the  idle  hope  of  a  future  good  un- 
derstanding between  the  two  rival  Powers.  It  would  be  certainly 
most  desirable,  in  the  interest  of  the  civilisation  of  India,  that 
the  two  great  representatives  of  our  Western  culture  should  come  to 
a  mutual  understanding ;  but  the  dictum  of  optimist  writers,  that 
Asia  is  big  enough  for  the  activity  of  both  great  Powers,  is  un- 
fortunately an  empty  phrase,  and  the  old  Persian  poet  when  saying 
'Ten  dervishes  have  room  on  one  carpet,  but  not  two  kings  in  one 
country,'  is  pretty  near  the  truth.  It  is  obviously  clear  that  the 
eventual  costs  of  the  policy  of  extreme  watchfulness  and  of  other  steps 
connected  with  it  may  find  a  more  useful  application  in  the  material 
and  moral  development  of  India ;  but  the  acre  field  which  we  intend 
to  till  and  to  cultivate  must  be,  before  all,  made  safe  against  the 
co vetousness  of  our  neighbour.  The  money  spent  upon  the  late  Afghan 
war  will  be  only  thrown  away  if  the  present  Grovernment  should  undo 
the  work  of  their  predecessors — a  work  commanded  by  urgent  neces- 
sity, and  executed  as  effectually  as  local  conditions  and  political 
party  spirit  in  England  have  permitted. 

A.  VAMB^RT. 

Pesth :  May  1880. 


1880.  929 


ON  THE  METHOD   OF  ZADIG : 

EETROSPECTIVE   PROPHECY   AS   A   FUNCTION   OF   SCIENCE. 

'  Une  marque  plus  sure  que  toutea  celles  de  Zadig.' — CuviER.1 

i 

IT  is  a  usual  and  a  commendable  practice  to  preface  the  discussion  of 
the  views  of  a  philosophic  thinker  by  some  account  of  the  man  and 
of  the  circumstances  which  shaped  his  life  and  coloured  his  way  of 
looking  at  things ;  but,  though  Zadig  is  cited  in  one  of  the  most 
important  chapters  of  Cuvier's  greatest  work,*  little  is  known  about 
him,  and  that  little  might  perhaps  be  better  authenticated  than 
it  is. 

It  is  said  that  he  lived  at  Babylon  in  the  time  of  King  Moabdar  ; 
but  the  name  of  Moabdar  does  not  appear  in  the  list  of  Babylonian 
sovereigns  brought  to  light  by  the  patience  and  the  industry  of  the 
decipherers  of  cuneiform  inscriptions  in  these  later  years  ;  nor  indeed 
am  I  aware  that  there  is  any  other  authority  for  his  existence  than 
that  of  the  biographer  of  Zadig,  one  Arouet  de  Voltaire,  among  whose 
more  conspicuous  merits  strict  historical  accuracy  is  perhaps  hardly 
to  be  reckoned. 

Happily  Zadig  is  in  the  position  of  a  great  many  other  philoso- 
phers. What  he  was  like  when  he  was  in  the  flesh,  indeed  whether 
he  existed  at  all,  are  matters  of  no  great  consequence.  What  we  care 
about  in  a  light  is  that  it  shows  the  way,  not  whether  it  is  lamp  or 
candle,  tallow  or  wax.  Our  only  real  interest  in  Zadig  lies  in  the 
conceptions  of  which  he  is  the  putative  father ;  and  his  biographer 
has  stated  these  with  so  much  clearness  and  vivacious  illustration, 
that  we  need  hardly  feel  a  pang,  even  if  critical  research  should  prove 
King  Moabdar  and  all  the  rest  of  the  story  to  be  unhistorical,  and 
reduce  Zadig  himself  to  the  shadowy  condition  of  a  solar  myth. 

Voltaire  tells  us  that,  disenchanted  with  life  by  sundry  domestic 
misadventures,  Zadig  withdrew  from  the  turmoil  of  Babylon  to  a 
secluded  retreat  on  the  banks  of  the  Euphrates,  where  he  beguiled  his 

1  '  Discours  sur  les  revolutions  de  la  surface  du  globe,'  Recherches  sitr  les  ossemens 
fossiks,  Ed.  iv.  t.  i.  p.  185. 


930  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  June 

solitude  by  the  study  of  nature.  The  manifold  wonders  of  the  world 
of  life  had  a  particular  attraction  for  the  lonely  student ;  incessant 
and  patient  observation  of  the  plants  and  animals  about  him  sharpened 
his  naturally  good  powers  of  observation  and  of  reasoning ;  until,  at 
length,  he  acquired  a  sagacity  which  enabled  him  to  perceive  endless 
minute  differences  among  objects  which,  to  the  untutored  eye,  ap- 
peared absolutely  alike. 

It  might  have  been  expected  that  this  enlargement  of  the  powers 
of  the  mind  and  of  its  store  of  natural  knowledge  could  tend  to 
nothing  but  the  increase  of  a  man's  own  welfare  and  the  good  of  his 
fellow-men.  But  Zadig  was  fated  to  experience  the  vanity  of  such 
expectations. 

One  day,  walking  near  a  little  wood,  he  saw,  hastening  that  way,  one  of  the 
Queen's  chief  eunuchs,  followed  by  a  troop  of  officials,  who  appeared  to  be  in  the 
greatest  anxiety,  running  hither  and  thither  like  men  distraught,  in  search  of  some 
lost  treasure. 

'  Young  man/  cried  the  eunuch,  '  have  you  seen  the  Queen's  dog  ?  '  Zadig 
answered  modestly, '  A  bitch,  I  think,  not  a  dog.'  '  Quite  right/  replied  the  eunuch ; 
and  Zadig  continued,  '  A  very  small  spaniel  who  has  lately  had  puppies ;  she  limps 
with  the  left  foreleg,  and  has  very  long  ears.'  '  Ah  !  you  have  seen  her  then/  said 
the  breathless  eunuch.  '  Xo,'  answered  Zadig,  '  I  have  not  seen  her ;  and  I  really 
was  not  aware  that  the  Queen  possessed  a  spaniel.' 

By  an  odd  coincidence,  at  the  very  same  time,  the  handsomest  horse  in  the  King's 
stables  broke  away  from  his  groom  in  the  Babylonian  plains.  The  grand  hunts- 
man and  all  his  staff  were  seeking  the  horse  with  as  much  anxiety  as  the  eunuch 
and  his  people  the  spaniel ;  and  the  grand  huntsman  asked  Zadig  if  he  had  not 
seen  the  King's  horse  go  that  way. 

'  A  first-rate  galloper,  small-hoofed,  five  feet  high  ;  tail  three  feet  and  a  half  long ; 
cheek  pieces  of  the  bit  of  twenty-three  carat  gold  ;  shoes  silver  ? '  said  Zadig. 

( "Which  way  did  he  go  ?    Where  is  he  ?  '  cried  the  grand  huntsman. 

'  I  have  not  seen  anything  of  the  horse,  and  I  never  heard  of  him  before/  replied 
Zadig. 

The  grand  huntsman  and  the  chief  eunuch  made  sure  that  Zadig  had  stolen 
both  the  King's  horse  and  the  Queen's  spaniel,  so  they  haled  him  before  the  High 
Court  of  Desterham,  which  at  once  condemned  him  to  the  knout  and  transportation 
for  life  to  Siberia.  But  the  sentence  was  hardly  pronounced  when  the  lost  horse 
and  spaniel  were  found.  So  the  judges  were  under  the  painful  necessity  of  recon- 
sidering their  decision :  but  they  fined  Zadig  four  hundred  ounces  of  gold  for 
saying  he  had  seen  that  which  he  had  not  seen. 

The  first  thing  was  to  pay  the  fine;  afterwards  Zadig  was  permitted  to  open 
his  defence  to  the  court,  which  he  did  in  the  following  terms : 

'  Stars  of  justice,  abysses  of  knowledge,  mirrors  of  truth,  whose  gravity  is  as 
that  of  lead,  whose  inflexibility  is  as  that  of  iron,  who  rival  the  diamond  in  clear- 
ness, and  possess  no  little  affinity  with  gold  ;  since  I  am  permitted  to  address  your 
august  assembly,  I  swear  by  Ormuzd  that  I  have  never  seen  the  respectable  lady 
dog  of  the  Queen,  nor  beheld  the  sacrosanct  horse  of  the  King  of  Kings. 

'  This  is  what  happened.  I  was  taking  a  walk  towards  the  little  wood  near 
which  I  subsequently  had  the  honour  to  meet  the  venerable  chief  eunuch  and  the 
most  illustrious  grand  huntsman.  I  noticed  the  track  of  an  animal  in  the  sand,  and 
it  was  easy  to  see  that  it  was  that  of  a  small  dog.  Long  faint  streaks  upon  the 
little  elevations  of  sand  between  the  footmarks  convinced  me  that  it  was  a  she  dog 
with  pendent  dugs — showing  that  she  must  have  had  puppies  not  many  days  since. 


1880.  ON  THE  METHOD  OF  ZADIG.  931 

Other  scrapings  of  the  sand,  which  always  lay  close  to  the  marks  of  the  forepaws, 
indicated  that  she  had  very  long  ears ;  and,  as  the  imprint  of  one  foot  was  always 
fainter  than  those  of  the  other  three,  I  judged  that  the  lady  dog  of  our  august 
Queen  was,  if  I  may  venture  to  say  so,  a  little  lame. 

'  With  respect  to  the  horse  of  the  King  of  Kings,  permit  me  to  observe  that, 
wandering  through  the  paths  which  traverse  the  wood,  I  noticed  the  marks  of 
horseshoes.  They  were  all  equidistant.  "  Ah !  "  said  I,  "  this  is  a  famous  galloper." 
In  a  narrow  alley,  only  seven  feet  wide,  the  dust  upon  the  trunks  of  the  trees  was 
a  little  disturbed  at  three  feet  and  a  half  from  the  middle  of  the  path.  "  This 
horse,"  said  I  to  myself,  "  had  a  tail  three  feet  and  a  half  long,  and,  lashing  it  from 
one  side  to  the  other,  he  has  swept  away  the  dust."  Branches  of  the  trees  met 
overhead  at  the  height  of  five  feet,  and  under  them  I  saw  newly  fallen  leaves ;  so  I 
knew  that  the  horse  had  brushed  some  of  the  branches,  and  was  therefore  five  feet 
high.  As  to  his  bit,  it  must  have  been  made  of  twenty-three  carat  gold,  for  he 
had  rubbed  it  against  a  stone,  which  turned  out  to  be  a  touchstone,  with  the  pro- 
perties of  which  I  am  familiar  by  experiment.  Lastly,  by  the  marks  which  his 
shoes  left  upon  pebbles  of  another  kind,  I  was  led  to  think  that  his  shoes  were  of 
fine  silver.' 

All  the  judges  admired  Zadig's  profound  and  subtle  discernment;  and  the  fame 
of  it  reached  even  the  King  and  the  Queen.  From  the  ante-rooms  to  the  presence- 
chamber,  Zadig's  name  was  in  everybody's  mouth ;  and,  although  many  of  the  magi 
were  of  opinion  that  he  ought  to  be  burnt  as  a  sorcerer,  the  King  commanded  that 
the  four  hundred  ounces  of  gold  which  he  had  been  fined  should  be  restored  to  him. 
So  the  officers  of  the  court  went  in  state  with  the  four  hundred  ounces ;  only  they 
retained  three  hundred  _  and  ninety-eight  for  legal  expenses,  and  their  servants 
expected  fees. 

Those  who  are  interested  in  learning  more  of  the  fateful  history 
of  Zadig  must  turn  to  the  original ;  we  are  dealing  with  him  only  as 
a  philosopher,  and  this  brief  excerpt  suffices  for  the  exemplification 
of  the  nature  of  his  conclusions  and  of  the  method  by  which  he 
arrived  at  them. 

These  conclusions  may  be  said  to  be  of  the  nature  of  retrospective 
prophecies ;  though  it  is  perhaps  a  little  hazardous  to  employ 
phraseology  which  perilously  suggests  a  contradiction  in  terms — the 
word  '  prophecy  '  being  so  constantly  in  ordinary  use  restricted  to  *  fore- 
telling.' Strictly,  however,  the  term  prophecy  as  much  applies  to 
outspeaking  as  to  foretelling ;  and,  even  in  the  restricted  sense  of 
*  divination,'  it  is  obvious  that  the  essence  of  the  prophetic  operation 
does  not  lie  in  its  backward  or  forward  relation  to  the  course  of  time, 
but  in  the  fact  that  it  is  the  apprehension  of  that  which  lies  out  of 
the  sphere  of  immediate  knowledge ;  the  seeing  of  that  which  to  the 
natural  sense  of  the  seer  is  invisible. 

The  foreteller  asserts  that,  at  some  future  time,  a  properly  situated 
observer  will  witness  certain  events  ;  the  clairvoyant  declares  that,  at 
this  present  time,  certain  things  are  to  be  witnessed  a  thousand 
miles  away ;  the  retrospective  prophet  (would  that  there  were  such  a 
word  as  '  backteller  ' !  )  affirms  that  so  many  hours  or  years  ago,  such 
and  such  things  were  to  be  seen.  In  all  these  cases,  it  is  only  the 
relation  to  time  which  alters — the  process  of  divination  beyond  the 
limits  of  possible  direct  knowledge  remains  the  same. 


932  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY.  June 

No  doubt  it  was  their  instinctive  recognition  of  the  analogy  between 
Zadig's  results  and  those  obtained  by  authorised  inspiration  which 
inspired  the  Babylonian  magi  with  the  desire  to  burn  the  philosopher. 
Zadig  admitted  that  he  had  never  either  seen  or  heard  of  the  horse 
of  the  king  or  of  the  spaniel  of  the  queen  ;  and  yet  he  ventured 
to  assert  in  the  most  positive  manner  that  animals  answering 
to  their  description  did  actually  exist,  and  ran  about  the  plains  of 
Babylon.  If  his  method  was  good  for  the  divination  of  the  course 
of  events  ten  hours  old,  why  should  it  not  be  good  for  those  of 
ten  years  or  ten  centuries  past ;  nay,  might  it  not  extend  to  ten 
thousand  years  and  justify  the  impious  in  meddling  with  the  traditions 
of  Cannes  and  the  fish,  and  all  the  sacred  foundations  of  Babylonian 
cosmogony  ? 

But  this  was  not  the  worst.  There  was  another  consideration 
which  obviously  dictated  to  the  more  thoughtful  of  the  magi  the 
propriety  of  burning  Zadig  out  of  hand.  His  defence  was  worse 
than  his  offence.  It  showed  that  his  mode  of  divination  was  fraught 
with  danger  to  magianism  in  general.  Swollen  with  the  pride  of 
human  reason,  he  had  ignored  the  established  canons  of  magian  lore  ; 
and,  trusting  to  what  after  all  was  mere  carnal  common  sense,  he 
professed  to  lead  men  to  a  deeper  insight  into  nature  than  magian 
wisdom,  with  all  its  lofty  antagonism  to  everything  common,  had 
ever  reached.  What,  in  fact,  lay  at  the  foundation  of  all  Zadig's 
arguments  but  the  coarse  commonplace  assumption,  upon  which 
every  act  of  our  daily  lives  is  based,  that  we  may  conclude  from  an 
effect  to  the  preexistence  of  a  cause  competent  to  produce  that 
effect  ? 

The  tracks  were  exactly  like  those  which  dogs  and  horses  leave  ; 
therefore  they  were  the  effects  of  such  animals  as  causes.  The 
marks  at  the  sides  of  the  fore  prints  of  the  dog  track  were  exactly  such 
as  would  be  produced  by  long  trailing  ears  ;  therefore  the  dog's  long 
ears  were  the  causes  of  these  marks — and  so  on.  Nothing  can  be 
more  hopelessly  vulgar,  more  unlike  the  majestic  development  of  a 
system  of  grandly  unintelligible  conclusions  from  sublimely  incon- 
ceivable premisses,  such  as  delights  the  magian  heart.  In  fact,  Zadig's 
method  was  nothing  but  the  method  of  all  mankind.  Eetrospective 
prophecies,  far  more  astonishing  for  their  minute  accuracy  than  those 
of  Zadig,  are  familiar  to  those  who  have  watched  the  daily  life  of 
nomadic  people. 

From  freshly  [broken  twigs,  crushed  leaves,  disturbed  pebbles, 
and  imprints  hardly  discernible  by  the  untrained  eye,  such  graduates 
in  the  University  of  Nature  will  divine,  not  only  the  fact  that  a  party 
has  passed  that  way,  but  its  strength,  its  composition,  the  course  it 
took,  and  the  number  of  hours  or  days  which  have  elapsed  since  it 
passed.  But  they  are  able  to  do  this  because,  like  Zadig,  they  per- 
ceive endless  minute  differences  where  untrained  eyes  discern 


1880.  ON  THE  METHOD  OF  ZADIG.  933 

nothing  ;  and  because  the  unconscious  logic  of  common  sense  compels 
them  to  account  for  these  effects  by  the  causes  which  they  know  to 
be  competent  to  produce  them. 

And  such  mere  methodised  savagery  was  to  discover  the  hidden 
things  of  nature  better  than  a  priori  deductions  from  the  nature  of 
Ormuzd — perhaps  to  give  a  history  of  the  past,  in  which  Cannes  would 
be  altogether  ignored  !  Decidedly  it  were  better  to  burn  this  man  at 
once. 

If  instinct,  or  an  unwonted  use  of  reason,  led  Moabdar's  magi  to 
this  conclusion  two  or  three  thousand  years  ago,  all  that  can  be 
said  is  that  subsequent  history  has  fully  justified  them.  For  the 
rigorous  application  of  Zadig's  logic  to  the  results  of  accurate  and 
long-continued  observation  has  founded  all  those  sciences  which  have 
been  termed  historical  or  palsetiological,  because  they  are  retrospec- 
tively prophetic  and  strive  towards  the  reconstruction  in  human 
imagination  of  events  which  have  vanished  and  ceased  to  be. 

History,  in  the  ordinary  acceptation  of  the  word,  is  based  upon 
the  interpretation  of  documentary  evidence ;  and  documents  would 
have  no  evidential  value  unless  historians  were  justified  in  their  as- 
sumption that  they  have  come  into  existence  by  the  operation  of 
causes  similar  to  those  of  which  documents  are,  in  our  present  experi- 
ence, the  effects.  If  a  written  history  can  be  produced  otherwise  than 
by  human  agency,  or  if  the  man  who  wrote  a  given  document  was 
actuated  by  other  than  ordinary  human  motives,  such  documents  are 
of  no  more  evidential  value  than  so  many  arabesques. 

Archaeology,  which  takes  up  the  thread  of  history  beyond  the 
point  at  which  documentary  evidence  fails  us,  could  have  no  existence, 
except  for  our  well-grounded  confidence  that  monuments  and  works 
of  art,  or  artifice,  have  never  been  produced  by  causes  different  in  kind 
from  those  to  which  they  now  owe  their  origin.  And  geology,  which 
traces  back  the  course  of  history  beyond  the  limits  of  archaeology,  could 
tell  us  nothing  except  for  the  assumption  that,  millions  of  years  ago, 
water,  heat,  gravitation,  friction,  animal  and  vegetable  life  caused 
effects  of  the  same  kind  as  they  do  now.  Nay,  even  physical  astronomy, 
in  so  far  as  it  takes  us  back  to  the  uttermost  point  of  time  which 
palsetiological  science  can  reach,  is  founded  upon  the  same  assump- 
tion. If  the  law  of  gravitation  ever  failed  to  be  true,  even  to  the 
smallest  extent,  for  that  period,  the  calculations  of  the  astronomer 
have  no  application. 

The  power  of  prediction,  of  prospective  prophecy,  is  that  which  is 
commonly  regarded  as  the  great  prerogative  of  physical  science.  And 
truly  it  is  a  wonderful  fact  that  one  can  go  into  a  shop  and  buy  for 
small  price  a  book,  the  Nautical  Almanac,  which  will  foretell  the  exact 
position  to  be  occupied  by  one  of  Jupiter's  moons  six  months  hence ; 
nay  more,  that,  if  it  were  worth  while,  the  Astronomer  Koyal  could 
furnish  us  with  as  infallible  a  prediction  applicable  to  1980  or  2980. 

VOL.  VII.— No.  40.  3  R 


934  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY.  June 

But  astronomy  is  not  less  remarkable  for  its  power  of  retrospective 
prophecy. 

Thales,  oldest  of  Greek  philosophers,  the  dates  of  whose  birth  and 
death  are  uncertain,  but  who  flourished  about  600  B.C.,  is  said  to 
have  foretold  an  eclipse  of  the  sun  which  took  place  in  his  time 
during  a  battle  between  the  Medes  and  the  Lydians.  Sir  Greorge 
Airy  has  written  a  very  learned  and  interesting  memoir 2  in  which  he 
proves  that  such  an  eclipse  was  visible  in  Lydia  on  the  afternoon  of 
the  28th  of  May  in  the  year  585  B.C. 

No  one  doubts  that,  on  the  day  and  at  the  hour  mentioned  by  the 
Astronomer  Eoyal,  the  people  of  Asia  Minor  saw  the  face  of  the  sun 
totally  obscured.  But,  though  we  implicitly  believe  this  retrospective 
prophecy,  it  is  incapable  of  verification.  It  is  impossible  even  to 
conceive  any  means  of  ascertaining  directly  whether  the  eclipse  of 
Thales  happened  or  not.  All  that  can  be  said  is,  that  the  prospective 
prophecies  of  the  astronomer  are  always  verified ;  and  that,  inasmuch 
as  his  retrospective  prophecies  are  the  result  of  following  backwards 
the  very  same  method  as  that  which  invariably  leads  to  verified 
results  when  it  is  worked  forwards,  there  is  as  much  reason  for 
placing  full  confidence  in  the  one  as  in  the  other.  Retrospective 
prophecy  is  therefore  a  legitimate  function  of  astronomical  science ; 
and  if  it  is  legitimate  for  one  science  it  is  legitimate  for  all ;  the 
fundamental  axiom  on  which  it  rests,  the  constancy  of  the  order  of 
nature,  being  the  common  foundation  of  all  scientific  thought. 
Indeed,  if  there  can  be  grades  in  legitimacy,  certain  branches  of 
science  have  the  advantage  over  astronomy,  in  so  far  as  their  retro- 
spective prophecies  are  not  only  susceptible  of  verification,  but  are 
sometimes  strikingly  verified. 

Such  a  science  exists  in  that  application  of  the  principles  of 
biology  to  the  interpretation  of  the  animal  and  vegetable  remains 
imbedded  in  the  rocks  which  compose  the  surface  of  the  globe,  which 
is  called  Paleontology. 

At  no  very  distant  time,  the  question  whether  these  so-called 
'  fossils '  were  really  the  remains  of  animals  and  plants  was  hotly  disputed . 
Very  learned  persons  maintained  that  they  were  nothing  of  the  kind, 
but  a  sort  of  concretion  or  crystallisation  which  had  taken  place  with- 
in the  stone  in  which  they  are  found ;  and  which  simulated  the  forms 
of  animal  and  vegetable  life,  just  as  frost  on  a  window-pane  imitates 
vegetation.  At  the  present  day,  it  would  probably  be  impossible  to 
find  any  sane  advocate  of  this  opinion ;  and  the  fact  is  rather  sur- 
prising, that  among  the  people  from  whom  the  circle-squarers,  per- 
petual-motioners,  flat-earth  men  and  the  like,  are  recruited,  to 
say  nothing  of  table-turners  and  spirit-rappers,  somebody  has  not 
perceived  the  easy  avenue  to  nonsensical  notoriety  open  to  any  one 

2  '  On  the  Eclipses  of  Agathocles,  Thales,  and  Xerxes,'  Philosophical  Transaction?, 
vol.  cxliii. 


1880.  ON  THE  METHOD   OF  ZADIG.  935 

\vho  will  take  up  the  good  old  doctrine,  that  fossils  are  all  lusus 
natures. 

The  position  would  be  impregnable,  inasmuch  as  it  is  quite  im- 
possible to  prove  the  contrary.  If  a  man  choose  to  maintain  that 
a  fossil  oyster  shell,  in  spite  of  its  correspondence,  down  to  every 
minutest  particular,  with  that  of  an  oyster  fresh  taken  out  of  the  sea, 
was  never  tenanted  by  a  living  oyster,  but  is  a  mineral  concretion, 
there  is  no  demonstrating  his  error.  All  that  can  be  done  is  to  show 
him  that,  by  a  parity  of  reasoning,  he  is  bound  to  admit  that  a  heap 
of  oyster  shells  outside  a  fishmonger's  door  may  also  be  'sports  of  nature,' 
and  that  a  mutton  bone  in  a  dust-bin  may  have  had  the  like  origin. 
And  when  you  cannot  prove  that  people  are  wrong,  but  only  that 
they  are  absurd,  the  best  course  is  to  let  them  alone. 

The  whole  fabric  of  palaeontology,  in  fact,  falls  to  the  ground 
unless  we  admit  the  validity  of  Zadig's  great  principle,  that  like  effects 
imply  like  causes ;  and  that  the  process  of  reasoning  from  a  shell,  or 
a  tooth,  or  a  bone,  to  the  nature  of  the  animal  to  which  it  belonged, 
rests  absolutely  on  the  assumption  that  the  likeness  of  this  shell,  or 
tooth,  or  bone  to  that  of  some  animal  with  which  we  are  already 
acquainted,  is  such  that  we  are  justified  in  inferring  a  correspond- 
ing degree  of  likeness  in  the  rest  of  the  two  organisms.  It  is 
on  this  very  simple  principle,  and  not  upon  imaginary  laws  of  phy- 
siological correlation,  about  which,  in  most  cases,  we  know  nothing 
whatever,  that  the  so-called  restorations  of  the  palaeontologist  are 
based. 

Abundant  illustrations  of  this  truth  will  occur  to  every  one  who  is 
familiar  with  palaeontology ;  none  is  more  suitable  than  the  case  of 
the  so-called  Belemnites.  In  the  early  days  of  the  study  of  fossils, 
this  name  was  given  to  certain  elongated  stony  bodies,  ending  at  one 
extremity  in  a  conical  point,  and  truncated  at  the  other,  which  were 
commonly  reputed  to  be  thunderbolts,  and  as  such  to  have  descended 
from  the  sky.  They  are  common  enough  in  some  parts  of  England  ;. 
and,  in  the  condition  in  which  they  are  ordinarily  found,  it  might  be 
difficult  to  give  satisfactory  reasons  for  denying  them  to  be  merely 
mineral  bodies. 

They  appear,  in  fact,  to  consist  of  nothing  but  concentric  layers 
of  carbonate  of  lime,  disposed  in  subcrystalline  fibres,  or  prisms,  per- 
pendicular to  the  layers.  Among  a  great  number  of  specimens  of 
these  Belemnites,  however,  it  was  soon  observed  that  some  showed  a 
conical  cavity  at  the  blunt  end ;  and,  in  still  better-preserved  speci- 
mens, this  cavity  appeared  to  be  divided  into  chambers  by  delicate 
saucer-shaped  partitions,  situated  at  regular  intervals  one  above  the 
other.  Now  there  is  no  mineral  body  which  presents  any  structure 
comparable  to  this,  and  the  conclusion  suggested  itself  that  the 
Belemnites  must  be  the  effects  of  causes  other  than  those  which  are 
at  work  in  inorganic  nature.  On  close  examination,  the  saucer-shaped 

3  R  2 


936  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  June 

partitions  were  proved  to  be  all  perforated  at  one  point,  and  the 
perforations  being  situated  exactly  in  the  same  line,  the  chambers 
were  seen  to  be  traversed  by  a  canal,  or  siphuncle,  which  thus 
connected  the  smallest  or  apical  chamber  with  the  largest.  There  is 
nothing  like  this  in  the  vegetable  world ;  but  an  exactly  correspond- 
ing structure  is  met  with  in  the  shells  of  two  kinds  of  existing 
animals,  the  pearly  Nautilus  and  the  Spirula,  and  only  in  them. 
These  animals  belong  to  the  same  division — the  Cephalopoda — as 
the  cuttle-fish,  the  squid,  and  the  octopus.  But  they  are  the  only 
existing  members  of  the  group  which  possess  chambered,  siphunculated 
shells  ;  and  it  is  utterly  impossible  to  trace  any  physiological  con- 
nection between  the  very  peculiar  structural  characters  of  a  cephalopod 
and  the  presence  of  a  chambered  shell.  In  fact,  the  squid  has,  instead 
of  any  such  shell,  a  horny  *  pen,'  the  cuttlefish  has  the  so-called  '  cuttle 
bone,'  and  the  octopus  has  no  shell  at  all,  or  a  mere  rudiment  of 
one. 

Nevertheless,  seeing  that  there  is  nothing  in  nature  at  all  like 
the  chambered  shell  of  the  Belemnite,  except  the  shells  of  the  Nautilus 
and  of  the  Spirula,  it  was  legitimate  to  prophesy  that  the  animal 
from  which  the  fossil  proceeded  must  have  belonged  to  the  group 
of  the  Cephalopoda.  Nautilus  and  Spirula  are  both  very  rare 
animals,  but  the  progress  of  investigation  brought  to  light  the 
singular  fact,  that,  though  each  has  the  characteristic  cephalopodous 
organisation,  it  is  very  different  from  the  other.  The  shell  of  Nauti- 
lus is  external,  that  of  Spirula  internal ;  Nautilus  has  four  gills, 
Spirula  two ;  Nautilus  has  multitudinous  tentacles,  Spirula  has 
only  ten  arms  beset  with  horny  rimmed  suckers ;  Spirula,  like  the 
squids  and  cuttlefishes,  which  it  closely  resembles,  has  a  bag  of  ink 
which  it  squirts  out  to  cover  its  retreat  when  alarmed ;  Nautilus  has 
none. 

No  amount  of  physiological  reasoning  could  enable  any  one  to 
say  whether  the  animal  which  fabricated  the  Belemnite  was  more 
like  Nautilus,  or  more  like  Spirula.  But  the  accidental  discovery 
of  Belemnites  in  due  connection  with  black  elongated  masses  which 
were  certainly  fossilised  ink-bags,  inasmuch  as  the  ink  could  be 
ground  up  and  used  for  painting  as  well  as  if  it  were  recent  sepia, 
settled  the  question ;  and  it  became  perfectly  safe  to  prophesy  that 
the  creature  which  fabricated  the  Belemnite  was  a  two-gilled  cepha- 
lopod with  suckers  on  its  arms,  and  with  all  the  other  essential  features 
of  our  living  squids,  cuttlefishes,  and  Spirulce.  The  palaeontologist 
was,  by  this  time,  able  to  speak  as  confidently  about  the  animal  of 
the  Belemnite,  as  Zadig  was  respecting  the  queen's  spaniel.  He 
could  give  a  very  fair  description  of  its  external  appearance,  and  even 
enter  pretty  fully  into  the  details  of  its  internal  organisation,  and  yet 
could  declare  that  neither  he,  nor  any  one  else,  had  ever  seen  one. 
And,  as  the  queen's  spaniel  was  found,  so  happily  has  the  animal  of 


1880.  ON  THE  METHOD  OF  ZADIQ.  937 

the  Belemnite  ;  a  few  exceptionally  preserved  specimens  having  been 
discovered  which  completely  verify  the  retrospective  prophecy  of  those 
who  interpreted  the  facts  of  the  case  by  due  application  of  the  method 
of  Zadig. 

These  Belemnites  flourished  in  prodigious  abundance  in  the  seas  of 
the  mesozoic  or  secondary  age  of  the  world's  geological  history  ;  but 
no  trace  of  them  has  been  found  in  any  of  the  tertiary  deposits,  and 
they  appear  to  have  died  out  towards  the  close  of  the  mesozoic  epoch. 
The  method  of  Zadig,  therefore,  applies  in  full  force  to  the  events  of 
a  period  which  is  immeasurably  remote,  which  long  preceded  the 
origin  of  the  most  conspicuous  mountain  masses  of  the  present  world 
and  the  deposition,  at  the  bottom  of  the  ocean,  of  the  rocks  which 
form  the  greater  part  of  the  soil  of  our  present  continents.  The 
Euphrates  itself,  at  the  mouth  of  which  Cannes  landed,  is  a  thing  of 
yesterday  compared  with  a  Belemnite ;  and  even  the  liberal  chronology 
of  Magian  cosmogony  fixes  the  beginning  of  the  world  only  at  a  time 
when  other  applications  of  Zadig's  method  afford  convincing  evidence 
that,  could  we  have  been  there  to  see,  things  would  have  looked  very 
much  as  they  do  now.  Truly  the  magi  were  wise  in  their  generation  ; 
they  foresaw  rightly  that  this  pestilent  application  of  the  principles  of 
common  sense  inaugurated  by  Zadig  would  be  their  ruin. 

But  it  may  be  said  that  the  method  of  Zadig,  which  is  simple 
reasoning  from  analogy,  does  not  account  for  the  most  striking  feats 
of  modern  palaeontology — the  reconstruction  of  entire  animals  from 
a  tooth  or  perhaps  a  fragment  of  a  bone  ;  and  it  may  be  justly  urged 
that  Cuvier,  the  great  master  of  this  kind  of  investigation,  gave  a 
very  different  account  of  the  process  which  yielded  such  remarkable 
results. 

Cuvier  is  not  the  first  man  of  ability  who  has  failed  to  make  his 
own  mental  processes  clear  to  himself,  and  he  will  not  be  the  last. 
The  matter  can  be  easily  tested.  Search  the  eight  volumes  of  the 
Mecherches  sur  les  Ossemens  fossiles  from  cover  to  cover,  and  no  rea- 
soning from  physiological  necessities — nothing  but  the  application  of 
the  method  of  Zadig  pure  and  simple — will  be  found. 

There  is  one  well-known  case  which  may  represent  all.  It  is  an 
excellent  illustration  of  Cuvier's  sagacity,  and  he  evidently  takes 
some  pride  in  telling  his  story  about  it.  A  split  slab  of  stone  arrived 
from  the  quarries  of  Montmartre,  the  two  halves  of  which  contained 
the  greater  part  of  the  skeleton  of  a  small  animal.  On  careful 
examinations  of  the  characters  of  the  teeth  and  of  the  lower  jaw, 
which  happened  to  be  exposed,  Cuvier  assured  himself  that  they 
presented  such  a  very  close  resemblance  to  the  corresponding 
parts  in  the  living  opossum  that  he  at  once  assigned  the  fossil  to 
that  genus. 

Now  the  opossums  are  unlike  most  mammals  in  that  they  possess 
two  bones  attached  to  the  forepart  of  the  pelvis,  which  are  commonly 


938  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  June 

called  '  marsupial  bones.'  The  name  is  a  misnomer,  originally  con- 
ferred because  it  was  thought  that  these  bones  have  something  to  do 
with  the  support  of  the  pouch,  or  marsupium,  with  which  some,  but 
not  all,  of  the  opossums  are  provided.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  they  have 
nothing  to  do  with  the  support  of  the  pouch,  and  they  exist  as  much 
in  those  opossums  which  have  no  pouches  as  in  those  which  possess 
them.  In  truth,  no  one  knows  what  the  use  of  these  bones  may  be, 
nor  has  any  valid  theory  of  their  physiological  import  yet  been 
suggested.  And  if  we  have  no  knowledge  of  the  physiological  im- 
portance of  the  bones  themselves,  it  is  obviously  absurd  to  pretend 
that  we  are  able  to  give  physiological  reasons  why  the  presence  of 
'  these  bones  is  associated  with  certain  peculiarities  of  the  teeth  and 
of  the  jaws.  If  any  one  knows  why  four  molar  teeth  and  an  inflected 
angle  of  the  jaw  are  almost  always  found  along  with  marsupial  bones, 
he  has  not  yet  communicated  that  knowledge  to  the  world. 

If,  however,  Zadig  was  right  in  concluding  from  the  likeness  of 
the  hoof-prints  which  he  observed  to  a  horse's  that  the  creature  which 
made  them  had  a  tail  like  that  of  a  horse,  Cuvier,  seeing  that  the  teeth 
and  jaw  of  his  fossil  were  just  like  those  of  an  opossum,  had  the  same 
right  to  conclude  that  the  pelvis  would  also  be  like  an  opossum's ;  and 
so  strong  was  his  conviction  that  this  retrospective  prophecy  about  an 
animal  which  he  had  never  seen  before,  and  which  had  been  dead 
and  buried  for  millions  of  years,  would  be  verified,  that  he  went  to 
work  iipon  the  slab  which  contained  the  pelvis  in  confident  expecta- 
tion of  finding  and  laying  bare  the  *  marsupial  bones,'  to  the  satisfac- 
tion of  some  persons  whom  he  had  invited  to  witness  their  disinterment. 
As  he  says : — '  Cette  operation  se  fit  en  presence  de  quelques  per- 
sonnes  a  qui  j'en  avais  annonce  d'avance  le  resultat,  dans  1'intention 
de  leur  prouver  par  le  fait  la  justice  de  nos  theories  zoologiques]; 
puisque  le  vrai  cachet  d'une  tbeorie  est  sans  contredit  la  faculte 
qu'elle  donne  de  prevoir  les  phenomenes.' 

In  the  Ossemens  fossiles  Cuvier  leaves  his  paper  just  as  it  first 
appeared  in  the  Annales  du  Museum,  as  '  a  curious  monument  of 
the  force  of  zoological  laws  and  of  the  use  which  may  be  made 
of  them.' 

Zoological  laws  truly,  but  not  physiological  laws.  If  one  sees  a 
live  dog's  head,  it  is  extremely  probable  that  a  dog's  tail  is  not  far  off, 
though  nobody  can  say  why  that  sort  of  head  and  that  sort  of  tail  go 
together  ;  what  physiological  connection  there  is  between  the  two. 
So  in  the  case  of  the  Montmartre  fossil,  Cuvier,  finding  a  thorough 
opossum's  head,  concluded  that  the  pelvis  also  would  be  like  an 
opossum's.  But,  most  assuredly,  the  most  advanced  physiologist  of 
the  present  day  could  throw  no  light  on  the  question  why  these  are 
associated,  or  could  pretend  to  affirm  that  the  existence  of  the  one  is 
necessarily  connected  with  that  of  the  other.  In  fact,  had  it  so 
happened  that  the  pelvis  of  the  fossil  had  been  originally  exposed, 


1880.  ON  THE  METHOD   OF  ZADIG.  939 

while  the  head  lay  hidden,  the  presence  of  the  '  marsupial  bones,' 
however  like  they  might  have  been  to  an  opossum's,  would  by  no 
means  have  warranted  the  prediction  that  the  skull  would  turn  out 
to  be  that  of  the  opossum.  It  might  just  as  well  have  been  like 
that  of  some  other  Marsupial ;  or  even  like  that  of  the  totally  dif- 
ferent group  of  Monotremes,  of  which  the  only  living  representatives 
are  the  Echidna  and  the  Ornithorhynchus. 

For  all  practical  purposes,  however,  the  empirical  laws  of  co-ordi- 
nation of  structures  which  are  embodied  in  the  generalisations  of 
morphology  may  be  confidently  trusted,  if  employed  with  due  cau- 
tion, to  lead  to  a  just  interpretation  of  fossil  remains;  or,  in  other 
words,  we  may  look  for  the  verification  of  the  retrospective  prophecies 
which  are  based  upon  them. 

And  if  this  be  the  case,  the  late  advances  which  have  been  made 
in  palaeontological  discovery  open  out  a  new  field  for  such  prophecies. 
For  it  has  been  ascertained  with  respect  to  many  groups  of  animals, 
that,  as  we  trace  them  back  in  time,  their  ancestors  gradually  cease 
to  exhibit  those  special  modifications  which  at  present  characterise 
the  type,  and  more  nearly  embody  the  general  plan  of  the  group  to 
which  they  belong. 

Thus,  in  the  well-known  case  of  the  horse,  the  toes  which  are  sup- 
pressed in  the  living  horse  are  found  to  be  more  and  more  complete 
in  the  older  members  of  the  group,  until,  at  the  bottom  of  the  Ter- 
tiary series  of  America,  we  find  an  equine  animal  which  has  four 
toes  in  front  and  three  behind.  No  remains  of  the  horse-tribe  are  at 
present  known  from  any  Mesozoic  deposit.  Yet  who  can  doubt  that, 
whenever  a  sufficiently  extensive  series  of  lacustrine  and  fluviatile 
beds  of  that  age  becomes  known,  the  lineage  which  has  been  traced 
thus  far  will  be  continued  by  equine  quadrupeds  with  an  increasing 
number  of  digits,  until  the  horse  type  merges  in  the  five-toed  form 
towards  which  these  gradations  point  ? 

But  the  argument  which  holds  good  for  the  horse,  holds  good,  not 
only  for  all  mammals,  but  for  the  whole  animal  world.  And  as  .the 
study  of  the  pedigrees  or  lines  of  evolution  to  which  at  present  we 
have  access  brings  to  light,  as  it  assuredly  will  do,  the  laws  of  that 
process,  we  shall  be  able  to  reason  from  the  facts  with  which  the  geo- 
logical record  furnishes  us  to  those  which  have  hitherto  remained,  and 
many  of  which,  perhaps,  may  for  ever  remain,  hidden.  The  same 
method  of  reasoning  which  enables  us,  when  furnished  with  a  frag- 
ment of  an  extinct  animal,  to  prophesy  the  character  which  the  whole 
organism  exhibited,  will,  sooner  or  later,  enable  us,  when  we  know  a 
few  of  the  later  terms  of  a  genealogical  series,  to  predict  the  nature 
of  the  earlier  terms. 

In  no  very  distant  future,  the  method  of  Zadig,  applied  to  a 
greater  body  of  facts  than  the  present  generation  is  fortunate  enough 
to  handle,  will  enable  the  biologist  to  reconstruct  the  scheme  of  life 


940  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  June 

from  its  beginning,  and  to  speak  as  confidently  of  the  character  of 
long  extinct  living  beings,  no  trace  of  which  has  been  preserved,  as 
Zadig  did  of  the  queen's  spaniel  and  the  king's  horse.  Let  us  hope 
that  they  may  be  better  rewarded  for  their  toil  and  their  sagacity 
than  was  the  Babylonian  philosopher ;  for  perhaps,  by  that  time,  the 
Magi  also  may  be  reckoned  among  the  members  of  a  forgotten  Fauna, 
extinguished  in  the  struggle  for  existence  against  their  great  rival 
common  sense. 

THOMAS  H.  HUXLEY. 


1880.  94; 


FICTION— FAIR  AND  FOUL. 

ON  the  first  rnild — or,  at  least,  the  first  bright — day  of  March,  in  this 
year,  I  walked  through  what  was  once  a  country  lane,  between  the 
hostelry  of  the  Half-moon  at  the  bottom  of  Herne  Hill,  and  the 
secluded  College  of  Dulwich. 

In  my  young  days,  Croxsted  Lane  was  a  green  bye-road  traver- 
sable  for  some  distance  by  carts :  but  rarely  so  traversed,  and,  for  the 
most  part,  little  else  than  a  narrow  strip  of  untilled  field,  separated  by 
blackberry  hedges  from  the  better  cared-for  meadows  on  each  side  of 
it :  growing  more  weeds,  therefore,  than  they,  and  perhaps  in  spring  a 
primrose  or  two — white  archangel — daisies  plenty,  and  purple  thistles 
in  autumn.  A  slender  rivulet,  boasting  little  of  its  brightness,  for 
there  are  no  springs  at  Dulwich,  yet  fed  purely  enough  by  the  rain 
and  morning  dew,  here  trickled — there  loitered — through  the  long 
grass  beneath  the  hedges,  and  expanded  itself,  where  it  might,  into 
moderately  clear  and  deep  pools,  in  which,  under  their  veils  of  duck- 
weed, a  fresh-water  shell  or  two,  sundry  curious  little  skipping 
shrimps,  any  quantity  of  tadpoles  in  their  time,  and  even  sometimes 
a  tittlebat,  offered  themselves  to  my  boyhood's  pleased,  and  not  in- 
accurate, observation.  There,  my  mother  and  I  used  to  gather  the 
first  buds  of  the  hawthorn  ;  and  there,  in  after  years,  I  used  to  walk  in 
the  summer  shadows,  as  in  a  place  wilder  and  sweeter  than  our  garden, 
to  think  over  any  passage  I  wanted  to  make  better  than  usual  in 
Modern  Painters. 

So,  as  aforesaid,  on  the  first  kindly  day  of  this  year,  being 
thoughtful  more  than  usual  of  those  old  times,  I  went  to  look  again 
at  the  place. 

Often,  both  in  those  days,  and  since,  I  have  put  myself  hard  to  it, 
vainly,  to  find  words  wherewith  to  tell  of  beautiful  things ;  but 
beauty  has  been  in  the  world  since  the  world  was  made,  and  human 
language  can  make  a  shift,  somehow,  to  give  account  of  it,  whereas 
the  peculiar  forces  of  devastation  induced  by  modern  city  life  have 
only  entered  the  world  lately ;  and  no  existing  terms  of  language 
known  to  me  are  enough  to  describe  the  forms  of  filth,  and  modes  of 
ruin,  that  varied  themselves  along  the  course  of  Croxsted  Lane.  The 
fields  on  each  side  of  it  are  now  mostly  dug  up  for  building,  or  cut 


942  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY.  June 

through  into  gaunt  corners  and  nooks  of  blind  ground  by  the  wild 
crossings  and  concurrencies  of  three  railroads.  Half  a  dozen  hand- 
fuls  of  new  cottages/ with  Doric  doors,  are  dropped  about  here  and 
there  among  the  gashed  ground  :  the  lane  itself,  now  entirely  grass- 
less,  is  a  deep-rutted,  heavy-hillocked  cart-road,  diverging  gatelessly 
into  various  brickfields  or  pieces  of  waste  ;  and  bordered  on  each  side 
by  heaps  of — Hades  only  knows  what ! — mixed  dust  of  every  unclean 
thing  that  can  crumble  in  drought,  and  mildew  of  every  unclean 
thing  that  can  rot  or  rust  in  damp  :  ashes  and  rags,  beer-bottles  and 
old  shoes,  battered  pans,  smashed  crockery,  shreds  of  nameless  clothes, 
door-sweepings;  floor-sweepings,  kitchen  garbage,  back-garden  sew- 
age, old  iron,  rotten  timber  jagged  with  out-torn  nails,  cigar-ends, 
pipe-bowls,  cinders,  bones,  and  ordure,  indescribable ;  and,  variously 
kneaded  into,  sticking  to,  or  fluttering  foully  here  and  there  over  all 
these, — remnants  broadcast,  of  every  manner  of  newspaper,  advertise- 
ment or  big-lettered  bill,  festering  and  flaunting  out  their  last  publi- 
city in  the  pits  of  stinking  dust  and  mortal  slime. 

The  lane  ends  now  where  itsjprettiest  windings  once  began ;  being 
cut  off  by  a  cross-road  leading  out  of  Dulwich  to  a  minor  railway 
station:  and  on  the  other  side  of  this  road,  what  was  of  old  the 
daintiest  intricacy  of  its  solitude  is  changed  into  a  straight,  and 
evenly  macadamised  carriage  drive,  between  new  houses  of  extreme 
respectability,  with  good  attached  gardens  and  offices — most  of  these 
tenements  being  larger — all  more  pretentious,  and  many,  I  imagine, 
held  at  greatly  higher  rent  than  my  father's,  tenanted  for  twenty  years 
at  Herne  Hill.  And  it  became  matter  of  curious  meditation  to  me 
what  must  here  become  of  children  resembling  my  poor  little 
dreamy  quondam  self  in  temper,  and  thus  brought  up  at  the  same  dis- 
tance from  London,  and  in  the  same  or  better  circumstances  of 
worldly  fortune  ;  but  with  only  Croxsted  Lane  in  its  present  condition 
for  their  country  walk.  The  trimly  kept  road  before  their  doors, 
such  as  one  used  to  see  in  the  fashionable  suburbs  of  Cheltenham  or 
Leamington,  presents  nothing  to  their  study  but  gravel,  and  gas-lamp 
posts  ;  the  modern  addition  of  a  vermilion  letter-pillar  contributing 
indeed  to  the  splendour,  but  scarcely  to  the  interest  of  the  scene ;  and 
a  child  of  any  sense  or  fancy  would  hastily  contrive  escape  from 
such  a  barren  desert  of  politeness,  and  betake  itself  to  investigation, 
such  as  might  be  feasible,  of  the  natural  history  of  Croxsted  Lane. 

But,  for  its  sense  or  fancy,  what  food,  or  stimulus,  can  it  find,  in 
that  foul  causeway  of  its  youthful  pilgrimage  ?  What  would  have 
happened  to  myself,  so  directed,  I  cannot  clearly  imagine.  Possibly, 
I  might  have  got  interested  in  the  old  iron  and  wood-shavings  ;  and 
become  an  engineer  or  a  carpenter  :  but  for  the  children  of  to-day, 
accustomed  from  the  instant  they  are  out  of  their  cradles,  to  the 
sight  of  this  infinite  nastiness,  prevailing  as  a  fixed  condition  of  the 
universe,  over  the  face  of  nature,  and  accompanying  all  the  operations 


1880.  FICTION— FAIR  AND  FOUL.  943 

of  industrious  man,  what  is  to  be  the  scholastic  issue  ?  unless,  indeed, 
the  thrill  of  scientific  vanity  in  the  primary  analysis  of  some  unheard- 
of  process  of  corruption — or  the  reward  of  microscopic  research  in  the 
sight  of  worms  with  more  legs,  and  acari  of  more  curious  generation 
than  ever  vivified  the  more  simply  smelling  plasma  of  antiquity. 

One  result  of  such  elementary  education  is,  however,  already 
certain ;  namely,  that  the  pleasure  which  we  may  conceive  taken 
by  the  children  of  the  coming  time,  in  the  analysis  of  physical 
corruption,  guides,  into  fields  more  dangerous  and  desolate,  the  ex- 
patiation  of  imaginative  literature :  and  that  the  reactions  of  moral 
disease  upon  itself,  and  the  conditions  of  languidly  monstrous  charac- 
ter developed  in  an  atmosphere  of  low  vitality,  have  become  the 
most  valued  material  of  modern  fiction,  and  the  most  eagerly  dis- 
cussed texts  of  modern  philosophy. 

The  many  concurrent  reasons  for  this  mischief  may,  .1  believe,  be 
massed  under  a  few  general  heads. 

I.  There  is  first  the  hot  fermentation  and  unwholesome  secrecy 
of  the  population  crowded  into  large  cities,  each  mote  in  the  misery 
lighter,  as   an   individual   soul,    than   a   dead  leaf,  but   becoming 
oppressive  and  infectious  each  to  his  neighbour,  in  the  smoking  mass 
of  decay.     The  resulting  modes  of  mental  ruin  and  distress  are  con- 
tinually new ;  and  in  a  certain  sense,  worth  study  in  their  monstro- 
sity :  they   have  accordingly  developed  a  corresponding  science  of 
fiction,   concerned   mainly  with   the  description  of  such   forms   of 
disease,  like  the  botany  of  leaf-lichens. 

In  De  Balzac's  story  of  Father  Goriot,  a  grocer  makes  a  large 
fortune,  of  which  he  spends  on  himself  as  much  as  may  keep  him 
alive  ;  and  on  his  two  daughters,  all  that  can  promote  their  pleasures 
or  their  pride.  He  marries  them  to  men  of  rank,  supplies  their 
secret  expenses,  and  provides  for  his  favourite  a  separate  and  clandes- 
tine establishment  with  her  lover.  On  his  deathbed,  he  sends  for 
this  favourite  daughter,  who  wishes  to  come,  and  hesitates  for  a 
quarter  of  an  hour  between  doing  so,  and  going  to  a  ball  at  which  it 
has  been  for  the  last  month  her  chief  ambition  to  be  seen.  She 
finally  goes  to  the  ball. 

This  story  is,  of  course,  one  of  which  the  violent  contrasts  and 
spectral  catastrophe  could  only  take  place,  or  be  conceived,  in  a 
large  city.  A  village  grocer  cannot  make  a  large  fortune,  cannot 
marry  his  daughters  to  titled  squires,  and  cannot  die  without  having 
his  children  brought  to  him,  if  in  the  neighbourhood,  by  fear  of 
village  gossip,  if  for  no  better  cause. 

II.  But  a  much  more   profound  feeling  than  this  mere  curiosity 
of  science  in  morbid  phenomena  is  concerned  in  the  production  of 
the  carefullest  forms  of  modern  fiction.     The  disgrace  and  grief  re- 
sulting from  the  mere  trampling  pressure  and  electric  friction  of  town 
life,    become  to  the    sufferers   peculiarly  mysterious  in  their    unde- 


944  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY.  June 

servedness,  and  frightful  in  their  inevitableness.  The  power  of  all 
surroundings  over  them  for  evil ;  the  incapacity  of  their  own  minds 
to  refuse  the  pollution,  and  of  their  own  wills  to  oppose  the  weight, 
of  the  staggering  mass  that  chokes  and  crushes  them  into  perdition, 
brings  every  law  of  healthy  existence  into  question  with  them,  and 
every  alleged  method  of  help  and  hope  into  doubt.  Indignation, 
without  any  calming  faith  in  justice,  and  self-contempt,  without 
any  curative  self-reproach,  dull  the  intelligence,  and  degrade  the 
conscience,  into  sullen  incredulity  of  all  sunshine  outside  the  dunghill, 
or  breeze  beyond  the  wafting  of  its  impurity ;  and  at  last  a  philosophy 
developes  itself,  partly  satiric,  partly  consolatory,  concerned  only 
with  the  regenerative  vigour  of  manure,  and  the  necessary  obscurities 
of  fimetic  Providence ;  showing  how  everybody's  fault  is  somebody 
else's,  how  infection  has  no  law,  digestion  no  will,  and  profitable  dirt 
no  dishonour. 

And  thus  an  elaborate  and  ingenious  scholasticism,  in  what  may 
be  called  the  Divinity  of  Decomposition,  has  established  itself  in  con- 
nection with  the  more  recent  forms  of  romance,  giving  them  at  once 
a  complacent  tone  of  clerical  dignity,  and  an  agreeable  dash  of 
heretical  impudence ;  while  the  inculcated  doctrine  has  the  double 
advantage  of  needing  no  laborious  scholarship  for  its  foundation,  and 
no  painful  self-denial  for  its  practice. 

III.  The  monotony  of  life  in  the  central  streets  of  any  great 
modern  city,  but  especially  in  those  of  London,  where  every  emotion 
intended  to  be  derived  by  men  from  the  sight  of  nature,  or  the  sense 
of  art,  is  forbidden  for  ever,  leaves  the  craving  of  the  heart  for  a 
sincere,  yet  changeful,  interest,  to  be  fed  from  one  source  only. 
Under  natural  conditions  the  degree  of  mental  excitement  necessary 
to  bodily  health  is  provided  by  the  course  of  the  seasons,  and  the 
various  skill  and  fortune  of  agriculture.  In  the  country  every 
morning  of  the  year  brings  with  it  a  new  aspect  of  springing  or 
fading  nature ;  a  new  duty  to  be  fulfilled  upon  earth,  and  a  new 
promise  or  warning  in  heaven.  No  day  is  without  its  innocent  hope, 
its  special  prudence,  its  kindly  gift,  and  its  sublime  danger ;  and  in 
every  process  of  wise  husbandry,  and  every  effort  of  contending  or 
remedial  courage,  the  wholesome  passions,  pride,  and  bodily  power  of 
the  labourer  are  excited  and  exerted  in  happiest  unison.  The  com- 
panionship of  domestic,  the  care  of  serviceable,  animals,  soften  and 
enlarge  his  life  with  lowly  charities,  and  discipline  him  in  familiar 
wisdoms  and  unboastul  fortitudes ;  while  the  divine  laws  of  seed- 
time which  cannot  be  recalled,  harvest  which  cannot  be  hastened, 
and  winter  in  which  no  man  can  work,  compel  the  impatiences 
and  coveting  of  his  heart  into  labour  too  submissive  to  be  anxious, 
and  rest  too  sweet  to  be  wanton.  What  thought  can  enough  com- 
prehend the  contrast  between  such  life,  and  that  in  streets  where 
summer  and  winter  are  only  alternations  of  heat  and  cold  ;  where 


1880.  FICTION— FAIR  AND  FOUL.  945 

snow  never  fell  white,  nor  sunshine  clear ;  where  the  ground  is  only 
a  pavement,  and  the  sky  no  more  than  the  glass  roof  of  an  arcade ; 
where  the  utmost  power  of  a  storm  is  to  choke  the  gutters,  and  the 
finest  magic  of  spring,  to  change  mud  into  dust :  where — chief  and 
most  fatal  difference  in  state,  there  is  no  interest  of  occupation 
for  any  of  the  inhabitants  but  the  routine  of  counter  or  desk  within 
doors,  and  the  effort  to  pass  each  other  without  collision  outside ; 
so  that  from  morning  to  evening  the  only  possible  variation  of  the 
monotony  of  the  hours,  and  lightening  of  the  penalty  of  existence, 
must  be  some  kind  of  mischief,  limited,  unless  by  more  than  ordi- 
nary godsend  of  fatality,  to  the  fall  of  a  horse,  or  the  slitting  of  a 
pocket. 

I  said  that  under  these  laws  of  inanition,  the  craving  of  the 
human  heart  for  some  kind  of  excitement  could  be  supplied  from  one 
source  only.  It  might  have  been  thought  by  any  other  than  a 
sternly  tentative  philosopher,  that  the  denial  of  their  natural  food  to 
human  feelings  would  have  provoked  a  reactionary  desire  for  it ;  and 
that  the  dreariness  of  the  street  would  have  been  gilded  by  dreams  of 
pastoral  felicity.  Experience  has  shown  the  fact  to  be  otherwise ; 
the  thoroughly  trained  Londoner  can  enjoy  no  other  excitement  than 
that  to  which  he  has  been  accustomed,  but  asks  for  that  in  con- 
tinually more  ardent  or  more  virulent  concentration;  and  the 
ultimate  power  of  fiction  to  entertain  him  is  by  varying  to  his  fancy 
the  modes,  and  defining  for  his  dulness  the  horrors,  of  Death.  In 
the  single  novel  of  Bleak  House  there  are  nine  deaths  (or  left  for 
death's,  in  the  drop  scene)  carefully  wrought  out  or  led  up  to,  either 
by  way  of  pleasing  surprise,  as  the  baby's  at  the  brickmaker's,  or 
finished  in  their  threatenings  and  sufferings,  with  as  much  enjoyment 
as  can  be  contrived  in  the  anticipation,  and  as  much  pathology  as 
can  be  concentrated  in  the  description.  Under  the  following  varieties 
of  method : — 

One  by  assassination         .         .  Mr.  Tulkinghorn. 

One  by  starvation,  with  phthisis  Joe. 

One  by  chagrin  .         .  Eichard. 

One  by  spontaneous  combustion  Mr.  Krook. 

One  by  sorrow          .         .         .  Lady  Ded  lock's  lover. 

One  by  remorse        .         .         .  Lady  Dedlock. 

One  by  insanity        .         .         .  Miss  Flite. 

One  by  paralysis       .         .         .  Sir  Leicester. 

Besides  the  baby,  by  fever,  and  a  lively  young  Frenchwoman  left  to 
be  hanged. 

And  all  this,  observe,  not  in  a  tragic,  adventurous,  or  military 
story,  but  merely  as  the  further  enlivenment  of  a  narrative  intended 
to  be  amusing ;  and  as  a  properly  representative  average  of  the 
statistics  of  civilian  mortality  in  the  centre  of  London. 


916  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  June 

Observe  further,  and  chiefly.  It  is  not  the  mere  number  of 
deaths  (which,  if  we  count  the  odd  troopers  in  the  last  scene,  is 
exceeded  in  Old  Mortality,  and  reached,  within  one  or  two,  both  in 
Waverley  and  Guy  Mannering}  that  marks  the  peculiar  tone  of  the 
modern  novel.  It  is  the  fact  that  all  these  deaths,  but  one,  are  of 
inoffensive,  or  at  least  in  the  world's  estimate  respectable  persons ; 
and  that  they  are  all  grotesquely  either  violent  or  miserable,  purport- 
ing thus  to  illustrate  the  modern  theology  that  the  appointed  destiny 
of  a  large  average  of  our  population  is  to  die  like  rats  in  a  drain, 
either  by  trap  or  poison.  Not,  indeed,  that  a  lawyer  in  full  practice 
can  be  usually  supposed  as  faultless  in  the  eye  of  heaven  as  a  dove 
or  a  woodcock  ;  but  it  is  not,  in  former  divinities,  thought  the  will  of 
Providence  that  he  should  be  dropped  by  a  shot  from  a  client  l>ehind 
his  fire-screen,  and  retrieved  in  the  morning  by  his  housemaid  under 
the  chandelier.  Neither  is  Lady  Dedlock  less  reprehensible  in  her 
conduct  than  many  women  of  fashion  have  been  and  will  be :  but  it 
would  not  therefore  have  been  thought  poetically  just,  in  old- 
fashioned  morality,  that  she  should  be  found  by  her  daughter  lying 
dead,  with  her  face  in  the  mud  of  a  St.  Giles's  churchyard. 

In  the  work  of  the  great  masters  death  is  always  either  heroic, 
deserved,  or  quiet  and  natural  (unless  their  purpose  be  totally  and 
deeply  tragic,  when  collateral  meaner  death  is  permitted,  like  that  of 
Polonius  or  Eoderigo).  In  Old  Mortality,  four  of  the  deaths,  Both- 
well's,  Ensign  Grrahame's,  Macbriar's,  and  Evandale's,  are  magnifi- 
cently heroic ;  Burley's  and  Oliphant's  long  deserved,  and  swift ;  the 
troopers',  met  in  the  discharge  of  their  military  duty,  and  the  old 
miser's,  as  gentle  as  the  passing  of  a  cloud,  and  almost  beautiful  in 
its  last  words  of — now  unselfish — care. 

1  Ailie '  (he  aye  ca'd  me  Ailie,  we  were  auld  acquaintance,)  l  Ailie,  take  ye 
care  and  baud  the  gear  weel  thegither;  for  the  name  of  Morton  of  Milmv  cod's 
gane  out  like  the  last  sough  of  an  auld  sang.'  And  sae  he  fell  out  o'  ae  dwam  into 
another,  and  ne'er  spak  a  word  mair,  unless  it  were  something  we  cou'dna  mak  out, 
about  a  dipped  candle  being  gude  eneugh  to  see  to  dee  wi'.  He  cou'd  ne'er  bide  to 
see  a  moulded  ane,  and  there  was  ane,  by  ill  luck,  on  the  table. 

In  Guy  Mannering,  the  murder,  though  unpremeditated,  of  a 
single  person,  (himself  not  entirely  innocent,  but  at  least  by  heart  - 
lessness  in  a  cruel  function  earning  his  fate,)  is  avenged  to  the  utter- 
most on  all  the  men  conscious  of  the  crime ;  Mr.  Bertram's  death, 
like  that  of  his  wife,  brief  in  pain,  and  each  told  in  the  space  of 
half-a-dozen  lines  ;  and  that  of  the  heroine  of  the  tale,  self-devoted, 
heroic  in  the  highest,  and  happy. 

Nor  is  it  ever  to  be  forgotten,  in  the  comparison  of  Scott's  with 
inferior  work,  that  his  own  splendid  powers  were,  even  in  early  life, 
tainted,  and  in  his  latter  years  destroyed,  by  modern  conditions  of 
commercial  excitement,  then  first,  but  rapidly,  developing  themselves. 
There  are  parts  even  in  his  best  novels  coloured  to  meet  tastes  which 


1880.  FICTION— FAIR  AND  FOUL.  947 

he  despised ;  and  many  pages  written  in  his  later  ones  to  lengthen 
his  article  for  the  indiscriminate  market. 

But  there  was  one  weakness  of  which  his  healthy  mind  remained 
incapable  to  the  last.  In  modern  stories  prepared  for  more  refined 
or  fastidious  audiences  than  those  of  Dickens,  the  funereal  excitement 
is  obtained,  for  the  most  part,  not  by  the  infliction  of  violent  or 
disgusting  death  ;  but  in  the  suspense,  the  pathos,  and  the  more  or 
less  by  all  felt,  and  recognised,  mortal  phenomena  of  the  sick-room. 
The  temptation,  to  weak  writers,  of  this  order  of  subject  is  especially 
great,  because  the  study  of  it  from  the  living — or  dying — model  is  so 
easy,  and  to  many  has  been  the  most  impressive  part  of  their  own 
personal  experience ;  while,  if  the  description  be  given  even  with 
mediocre  accuracy,  a  very  large  section  of  readers  will  admire  its 
truth,  and  cherish  its  melancholy.  Few  authors  of  second  or  third 
rate  genius  can  either  record  or  invent  a  probable  conversation  in 
ordinary  life  ;  but  few,  on  the  other  hand,  are  so  destitute  of  observant 
faculty  as  to  be  unable  to  chronicle  the  broken  syllables  and  languid 
movements  of  an  invalid.  The  easily  rendered,  and  too  surely 
recognised,  image  of  familiar  suffering  is  felt  at  once  to  be  real  where 
all  else  had  been  false ;  and  the  historian  of  the  gestures  of  fever  and 
words  of  delirium  can  count  on  the  applause  of  a  gratified  audience 
as  surely  as  the  dramatist  who  introduces  on  the  stage  of  his  flagging 
action  a  carriage  that  can  be  driven  or  a  fountain  that  will  flow. 
But  the  masters  of  strong  imagination  disdain  such  work,  and  those 
of  deep  sensibility  shrink  from  it.1  Only  under  conditions  of  personal 
weakness,  presently  to  be  noted,  would  Scott  comply  with  the  cravings 
of  his  lower  audience  in  scenes  of  terror  like  the  death  of  Front-de- 
Bceuf.  But  he  never  once  withdrew  the  sacred  curtain  of  the  sick- 
chamber,  nor  permitted  the  disgrace  of  wanton  tears  round  the 
humiliation  of  strength,  or  the  wreck  of  beauty. 

IV.  No  exception  to  this  law  of  reverence  will  be  found  in  the 
scenes  in  Cceur  de  Lion's  illness  introductory  to  the  principal  incident 
in  the  Talisman.  An  inferior  writer  would  have  made  the  king- 
charge  in  imagination  at  the  head  of  his  chivalry,  or  wander  in  dreams 
by  the  brooks  of  Aquitaine  ;  but  Scott  allows  us  to  learn  no  more 
startling  symptoms  of  the  king's  malady  than  that  he  was  restless  and 
impatient,  and  could  not  wear  his  armour.  Nor  is  any  bodily  weak- 
ness, or  crisis  of  danger,  permitted  to  disturb  for  an  instant  the  royalty 
of  intelligence  and  heart  in  which  he  examines,  trusts  and  obeys  the 
physician  whom  his  attendants  fear. 

Yet  the  choice  of  the  main  subject  in  this  story  and  its  com- 
panion— the  trial,  to  a  point  of  utter  torture,  of  knightly  faith,  and 

1  Nell,  in  the  Old  Curiosity  Shop,  was  simply  killed  for  the  market,  as  a  butcher 
kills  a  lamb  (see  Forsters  Life"),  and  Paul  was  written  under  the  same  conditions  of 
illness  which  affected  Scott — a  part  of  the  ominous  palsies,  grasping  alike  author  and 
subject,  both  in  Itombey  and  Little  Dorrit, 


948  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY.  June 

several  passages  in  the  conduct  of  both,  more  especially  the  exag- 
gerated scenes  in  theHouseofBaldringham,  and  hermitage  of  Engedi, 
are  signs  of  the  gradual  decline  in  force  of  intellect  and  soul  which 
those  who  love  Scott  best  have  done  him  the  worst  injustice  in  their 
endeavours  to  disguise  or  deny.  The  mean  anxieties,  moral  humilia- 
tions, and  mercilessly  demanded  brain-toil,  which  killed  him,  show 
their  sepulchral  grasp  for  many  and  many  a  year-  before  their  final 
victory  ;  and  the  states  of  more  or  less  dulled,  distorted,  and  polluted 
imagination  which  culminate  in  Castle  Dangerous,  cast  a  Stygian  hue 
over  St.  Ronarfs  Well,  The  Fair  Maid  of  Perth,  and  Anne  of  Geier- 
stein,  which  lowers  them,  the  first  altogether,  the  other  two  at  fre- 
quent intervals,  into  fellowship  with  the  normal  disease  which  festers 
throughout  the  whole  body  of  our  lower  fictitious  literature. 

Fictitious  !  I  use  the  ambiguous  word  deliberately  ;  for  it  is  im- 
possible to  distinguish  in  these  tales  of  the  prison-house  how  far  their 
vice  and  gloom  are  thrown  into  their  manufacture  only  to  meet  a  vile 
demand,  and  how  far  they  are  an  integral  condition  of  thought  in 
the  minds  of  men  trained  from  their  youth  up  in  the  knowledge  of 
Londinian  and  Parisian  misery.  The  speciality  of  the  plague  is  a 
delight  in  the  exposition  of  the  relations  between  guilt  and  decrepi- 
tude ;  and  I  call  the  results  of  it  literature  '  of  the  prison-house,'  be- 
cause the  thwarted  habits  of  body  and  mind,  which  are  the  punish- 
ment of  reckless  crowding  in  cities,  become,  in  the  issue  of  that 
punishment,  frightful  subjects  of  exclusive  interest  to  themselves ;  and 
the  art  of  fiction  in  which  they  finally  delight  is  only  the  more 
studied  arrangement  and  illustration,  by  coloured  firelights,  of  the 
daily  bulletins  of  their  own  wretchedness,  in  the  prison  calendar,  the 
police  news,  and  the  hospital  report. 

The  reader  will  perhaps  be  surprised  at  my  separating  the  greatest 
work  of  Dickens,  Oliver  Twist,  with  honour,  from  the  loathsome  mass 
to  which  it  typically  belongs.  That  book  is' an  earnest  and  uncari- 
catured  record  of  states  of  criminal  life,  written  with  didactic  purpose, 
full  of  the  gravest  instruction,  nor  destitute  of  pathetic  studies  of 
noble  passion.  Even  the  Mysteries  of  Paris  and  Graboriau's  Crime 
d'Augival  are  raised,  by  their  definiteness  of  historical  intention  and 
forewarning  anxiety,  far  above  the  level  of  their  order,  and  may  be 
accepted  as  photographic  evidence  of  an  otherwise  incredible  civili- 
sation, corrupted  in  the  infernal  fact  of  it,  down  to  the  genesis  of 
such  figures  as  the  Vicomte  d'Augival,  the  Stabber,2  the  Skeleton,  and 

2  '  Chourineur '  not  striking  with  dagger-point,  but  ripping  with  knife-edge. 
Yet  I  do  him,  and  La  Louve,  injustice  in  classing  them  with  the  two  others  ;  they 
are  pnt  together  only  as  parts  in  the  same  phantasm.  Compare  with  La  Louve,  the 
strength  of  wild  virtue  in  the  '  Louvecienne  '  (Lucienne)  of  Gaboriau — she,  province- 
born  and  bred  ;  and  opposed  to  Parisian  civilisation  in  the  character  of  her  sempstress 
friend.  '  De  ce  Paris,  ou  elle  etait  nee,  elle  savait  tout — elle  connaissait  tout.  Bien 
ne  I'etonnait,  nul  ne  1'intimidait.  Sa  science  des  details  materials  de  1'existence 
etait_inconcevable.  Impossible  de  la  duper  ! — Eh  bien  !  cette  fille  si  laborieuse  et 


1880.  FICTION— FAIR  AND  FOUL.  949 

the  She-wolf.  But  the  effectual  head  of  the  whole  cretinous  school  is 
the  renowned  novel  in  which  the  hunchbacked  lover  watches  the 
execution  of  his  mistress  from  the  tower  of  Notre-Dame ;  and  its 
strength  passes  gradually  away  into  the  anatomical  preparations,  for 
the  general  market,  of  novels  like  Poor  Miss  Finch,  in  which  the 
heroine  is  blind,  the  hero  epileptic,  and  the  obnoxious  brother  is 
found  dead  with  his  hands  dropped  off,  in  the  Arctic  regions.3 

si  econome  n'avait  meme  pas  la  plus  vague  notion  dcs  sentiments  qui  sont  1'honnenr 
de  la  femme.  Je  n'avais  pas  idee  d'une  si  complete  absence  de  sens  moral ;  d'une  si 
inconsciente  depravation,  d'une  impudence  si  effrontement  naive.' — L*  Argent  des 
autres,  vol.  i.  p.  358. 

••  The  reader  who  cares  to  seek  it  may  easily  find  medical  evidence  of  the 
physical  effects  of  certain  states  of  brain  disease  in  producing  especially  images  of 
truncated  and  Hermes-like  deformity,  complicated  with  grossness.  Horace,  in 
the  Epodes,  scoffs  at  it,  but  not  without  horror.  Luca  Signorelli  and  Raphael  in 
their  arabesques  are  deeply  struck  by  it :  Durer,  defying  and  playing  with  it  alter- 
nately, is  almost  beaten  down  again  and  again  in  the  distorted  faces,  hewing 
halberts,  and  suspended  satyrs  of  his  arabesques  round  the  polyglot  Lord's  Prayer ; 
it  takes  entire  possession  of  Balzac  in  the  Conies  D-rolatiquex ;  it  struck  Scott  in 
the  earliest  days  of  his  childish  '  visions  '  intensified  by  the  axe-stroke  murder  of  his 
grand  aunt ;  L.  i.  142,  and  sec  close  of  this  note.  It  chose  for  him  the  subject  of 
the  Heart  of  Midlothian,  andjproduced  afterwards  all  the  recurrent  ideas  of  execu- 
tions, tainting  Nigel,  almost  spoiling  Quentin  Durward — utterly  the  Fair  Maid  of 
Perth  :  and  culminating  in  Bizarro,  L.  r.  149.  It  suggested  all  the  deaths  by  fall- 
ing, or  sinking,  as  in  delirious  sleep — Kennedy,  Eveline  Neville  (nearly  repeated  in 
Clara  Mowbray),  Amy  Eobsart,  the  Master  of  Ravenswood  in  the  quicksand,  Morris, 
and  Corporal  Grace-be-here — compare  the  dream  of  Gride,  in  Nicholas  NicJdeby, 
and  Dickens's  own  last  words,  on  the  grmmd,  (so  also,  in  my  own  inflammation  of  the 
brain,  two  years  ago,  I  dreamed  that  I  fell  through  the  earth  and  came  out  on  the 
other  side).  In  its  grotesque  and  distorting  power,  it  produced  all  the  figures  of  the 
Lay  Goblin,  Pacolet,  Flibbertigibbet,  Cockledemoy,  Geoffrey  Hudson,  Fenella,  and 
Nectabanus  ;  in  Dickens  it  in  like  manner  gives  Quilp,  Krook,  Smike,  Smallweed,  Miss 
Mowcher,  and  the  dwarfs  and  wax-work  of  Nell's  caravan ;  and  runs  entirely 
wild  in  Barnaby  Rudge,  where,  with  a  corps  de  drome  composed  of  one  idiot,  two 
madmen,  a  gentleman  fool  who  is  also  a  villain,  a  shop-boy  fool  who  is  also  a 
blackguard,  a  hangman,  a  shrivelled  virago,  and  a  doll  in  ribands — carrying  this 
company  through  riot  and  fire,  till  he  hangs  the  hangman,  one  of  the  madmen,  his 
mother,  and  the  idiot,  runs  the  gentleman-fool  through  in  a  bloody  duel,  and  burns 
and  crushes  the  shop-boy  fool  into  shapelessness,  he  cannot  yet  be  content  without 
shooting  the  spare  lover's  leg  off,  and  marrying  him  to  the  doll  in  a  wooden  one  ; 
the  shapeless  shop-boy  being  finally  also  married  in  two  wooden  ones.  It  is  this 
mutilation,  observe,  which  is  the  very  sign  manual  of  the  plague ;  joined,  in  the 
artistic  forms  of  it,  with  a  love  of  thorniness — (in  their  mystic  root,  the  truncation 
of  the  limbless  serpent  and  the  spines  of  the  dragon's  wing.  Compare  Modern 
Painters,  vol.  iv.,  '  Chapter  on  the  Mountain  Gloom,'  s.  19)  ;  and  in  all  forms  of  it, 
with  petrifaction  or  loss  of  power  by  cold  in  the  blood,  whence  the  last  Darwinian 
process  of  the  witches'  charm — '  cool  it  with  a  baboon's  blood,  then  the  charm  is  firm 
and  good.'  The  two  frescoes  in  the  colossal  handbills  which  have  lately  decorated 
the  streets  of  London  (the  baboon  with  the  mirror,  and  the  Maskelyne  and  Cooke 
decapitation)  are  the  final  English  forms  of  Raphael's  arabesque  under  this  influence ; 
and  it  is  well  worth  while  to  get  the  number  for  the  week  ending  April  3,  1880,  of 
Young  Folks — '  a  magazine  of  instructive  and  entertaining  literature  for  boys  and 
girls  of  all  ages,'  containing  '  A  Sequel  to  Desdichado  '  (the  modern  development  of 
Ivanhoe),  in  which  a  quite  monumental  example  of  the  kind  of  art  in  question  will 
be  found  as  a  leading  illustration  of  this  characteristic  sentence,  "•  See,  good  Cerberus," 
said  Sir  Rupert,  '  my  hand  has  been  struck  off.  You  must  make  me  a  hand  of  iron, 

VOL.  VII.— No.  40.  3  S 


950  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  June 

This  literature  of  the  Prison-house,  understanding  by  the  word 
not  only  the  cell  of  Newgate,  but  also  and  even  more  definitely  the 
cell  of  the  Hotel-Dieu,  the  Hopital  des  Fous,  and  the  grated  corridor 
with  the  dripping  slabs  of  the  Morgue,  having  its  central  root  thus 
in  the  He  de  Paris — or  historically  and  pre-eminently  the  '  Cite  de 
Paris ' — is,  when  understood  deeply,  the  precise  counter-corruption  of 
the  religion  of  the  Sainte  Chapelle,  just  as  the  worst  forms  of  bodily 
and  mental  ruin  are  the  corruption  of  love.  I  have  therefore  called 
it  '  Fiction  mecroyante,'  with  literal  accuracy  and  precision  ;  accord- 
ing to  the  explanation  of  the  word  which  the  reader  may  find  in  any 
good  French  dictionary,4  and  round  its  Arctic  pole  in  the  Morgue, 
he  may  gather  into  one  Caina  of  gelid  putrescence  the  entire  product 
of  modern  infidel  imagination,  amusing  itself  with  destruction  of  the 
body,  and  busying  itself  with  aberration  of  the  mind. 

Aberration,  palsy,  or  plague,  observe,  as  distinguished  from  normal 
evil,  just  as  the  venom  of  rabies  or  cholera  differs  from  that  of  a  wasp 
or  a  viper.  The  life  of  the  insect  and  serpent  deserves,  or  at  least 
permits,  our  thoughts  ;  not  so  the  stages  of  agony  in  the  fury-driven 
hound.  There  is  some  excuse,  indeed,  for  the  pathologic  labour  of 
the  modern  novelist  in  the  fact  that  he  cannot  easily,  in  a  city  popu- 
lation, find  a  healthy  mind  to  vivisect :  but  the  greater  part  of  such 
amateur  surgery  is  the  struggle,  in  an  epoch  of  wild  literary  compe- 
tition, to  obtain  novelty  of  material.  The  varieties  of  aspect  and 
colour  in  healthy  fruit,  be  it  sweet  or  sour,  may  be  within  certain 
limits  described  exhaustively.  Not  so  the  blotches  of  its  conceivable 
blight :  and  while  the  symmetries  of  integral  human  character  can 
only  be  traced  by  harmonious  and  tender  skill,  like  the  branches  of 

one  rvitk  springs  in  it,  so  that  I  can  make  it  grasp  a  dagger."1 '  The  text  is  also,  as  it 
professes  to  be,  instructive  ;  being  the  ultimate  degeneration  of  what  I  have  above 
•called  the  '  folly  '  of  Ivanlioe ;  for  folly  begets  folly  down,  and  down ;  and  whatever 
Scott  and  Turner  did  wrong  has  thousands  of  imitators — their  wisdom  none  will  so 
much  as  hear,  how  much  less  follow  ! 

In  both  of  the  Masters,  it  is  always  to  be  remembered  that  the  evil  and  good  are 
alike  conditions  of  literal  vision  :  and  therefore  also,  inseparably  connected  with  the 
state  of  the  health.  I  believe  the  first  elements  of  all  Scott's  errors  were  in  the 
milk  of  his  consumptive  nurse,  which  all  but  killed  him  as  an  infant,  L.  i.  19 — and 
was  without  doubt  the  cause  of  the  teething  fever  that  ended  in  his  lameness  (L.  i. 
20).  Then  came  (if  the  reader  cares  to  know  what  I  mean  by  Fors,  let  him  read  the 
page  carefully)  the  fearful  accidents  to  his  only  sister,  and  her  death,  L.  i.  17  ;  then 
the  madness  of  his  nurse,  who  planned  his  own  murder  (21),  then  the  stories  con- 
tinually told  him  of  the  executions  at  Carlisle  (24),  his  aunt's  husband  having  seen 
them ;  issuing,  he  himself  scarcely  knows  how,  in  the  unaccountable  terror  that  came 
upon  him  at  the  sight  of  statuary,  31 — especially  Jacob's  ladder;  then  the  murder 
of  Mrs.  Swinton,  and  finally  the  nearly  fatal  bursting  of  the  bloodvessel  at  Kelso, 
with  the  succeeding  nervous  illness,  65-67 — solaced,  while  he  was  being  '  bled  and 
blistered  till  he  had  scarcely  a  pulse  left,'  by  that  history  of  the  Knights  of  Malta — 
fondly  dwelt  on  and  realised  by  actual  modelling  of  their  fortress,  which  returned 
to  his  mind  for  the  theme  of  its  last  effort  in  passing  away. 

4  <  Se  dit  par  denigrement,  d'uu  chretien  qui  ne  croit  pas  les  dogmes  de  sa  reli- 
gion.'— Fleming,  vol.  ii.  p.  659. 


1880.  FICTION—FAIR  AND  FOUL.  951 

a  living  tree,  the  faults  and  gaps  of  one  gnawed  away  by  corroding 
accident  can  be  shuffled  into  senseless  change  like  the  wards  of  a 
Chubb  lock. 

V.  It  is  needless  to  insist  on  the  vast  field  for  this  dice-cast  or 
card-dealt  calamity  which  opens  itself  in  the  ignorance,  money- 
interest,  and  mean  passion,  of  city  marriage.  Peasants  know  each 
other  as  children — meet,  as  they  grow  up  in  testing  labour ;  and  if  a 
stout  farmer's  son  marries  a  handless  girl,  it  is  his  own  fault.  Also 
in  the  patrician  families  of  the  field,  the  young  people  know  what 
they  are  doing,  and  marry  a  neighbouring  estate,  or  a  covetable  title, 
with  some  conception  of  the  responsibilities  they  imdertake.  But 
even  among  these,  their  season  in  the  confused  metropolis  creates 
licentious  and  fortuitous  temptation  before  unknown;  and  in  the 
lower  middle  orders,  an  entirely  new  kingdom  of  discomfort  and  dis- 
grace has  been  preached  to  them  in  the  doctrines  of  unbridled  plea- 
sure which  are  merely  an  apology  for  their  peculiar  forms  of  ill- 
breeding.  It  is  quite  curious  how  often  the  catastrophe,  or  the 
leading  interest,  of  a  modern  novel,  turns  upon  the  want,  both  in 
maid  and  bachelor,  of  the  common  self-command  which  was  taught 
to  their  grandmothers  and  grandfathers  as  the  first  element  of  ordi- 
narily decent  behaviour.  Rashly  inquiring  the  other  day  the  plot 
of  a  modern  story  from  a  female  friend,  I  elicited,  after  some  hesi- 
tation, that  it  hinged  mainly  on  the  young  people's '  forgetting  them- 
selves in  a  boat ; '  and  I  perceive  it  to  be  accepted  as  nearly  an  axiom 
in  the  code  of  modern  civic  chivalry  that  the  strength  of  amiable 
sentiment  is  proved  by  our  incapacity  on  proper  occasions  to  express, 
and  on  improper  ones  to  control  it.  The  pride  of  a  gentleman  of  the 
old  school  used  to  be  in  his  power  of  saying  what  he  meant,  and  being 
silent  when  he  ought,  (not  to  speak  of  the  higher  nobleness  which 
bestowed  love  where  it  was  honourable,  and  reverence  where  it  was 
due) ;  but  the  automatic  amours  and  involuntary  proposals  of  recent 
romance  acknowledge  little  further  law  of  morality  than  the  instinct 
of  an  insect,  or  the  effervescence  of  a  chemical  mixture. 

There  is  a  pretty  little  story  of  Alfred  de  Musset's, — La  Mouche, 
which,  if  the  reader  cares  to  glance  at  it,  will  save  me  further  trouble 
in  explaining  the  disciplinarian  authority  of  mere  old-fashioned 
politeness,  as  in  some  sort  protective  of  higher  things.  It  describes, 
with  much  grace  and  precision,  a  state  of  society  by  no  means  pre- 
eminently virtuous,  or  enthusiastically  heroic ;  in  which  many  people 
do  extremely  wrong,  and  none  sublimely  right.  But  as  there  are 
heights  of  which  the  achievement  is  unattempted,  there  are  abysses 
to  which  fall  is  barred ;  neither  accident  nor  temptation  will  make 
any  of  the  principal  personages  swerve  from  an  adopted  resolution,  or 
violate  an  accepted  principle  of  honour;  people  are  expected  as  a 
matter  of  course  to  speak  with  propriety  on  occasion,  and  to  wait 
with  patience  when  they  are  bid  :  those  who  do  wrong,  admit  it ; 

3  s2 


952  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY.  June 

those  who  do  right  don't  boast  of  it  ;  everybody  knows  his  own 
mind,  and  everybody  has  good  manners. 

Nor  must  it  be  forgotten  that  in  the  worst  days  of  the  self-in- 
dulgence which  destroyed  the  aristocracies  of  Europe,  their  vices, 
however  licentious,  were  never,  in  the  fatal  modern  sense,  'un- 
principled.' The  vainest  believed  in  virtue ;  the  vilest  respected  it. 
4  Chaque  chose  avait  son  nom,' 6  and  the  severest  of  English  moralists 
recognises  the  accurate  wit,  the  lofty  intellect,  and  the  unfretted 
benevolence,  which  redeemed  from  vitiated  surroundings  the  circle  of 
d'Alembert  and  Marmontel.6 

I  have  said,  with  too  slight  praise,  that  the  vainest,  in  those  days, 
'  believed '  in  virtue.  Beautiful  and  heroic  examples  of  it  were  always 
before  them ;  nor  was  it  without  the  secret  significance  attaching  to 
what  may  seem  the  least  accidents  in  the  work  of  a  master,  that  Scott 
gave  to  both  his  heroines  of  the  age  of  revolution  in  England  the 
name  of  the  queen  of  the  highest  order  of  English  chivalry.7  • 

It  is  to  say  little  for  the  types  of  youth  and  maid  which  alone 
Scott  felt  it  a  joy  to  imagine,  or  thought  it  honourable  to  portray, 
that  they  act  and  feel  in  a  sphere  where  they  are  never  for  an  instant 
liable  to  any  of  the  weaknesses  which  disturb  the  calm,  or  shake  the 
resolution,  of  chastity  and  courage  in  a  modern  novel.  Scott  lived 
in  a  country  and  time,  when,  from  highest  to  lowest,  but  chiefly 
in  that  dignified  and  nobly  severe  8  middle  class  to  which  he  himself 
belonged,  a  habit  of  serene  and  stainless  thought  was  as  natural  to 
the  people  as  their  mountain  air.  Women  like  Kose  Bradwardine 
and  Ailie  Dinmont  were  the  grace  and  guard  of  almost  every  house- 
hold (Grod  be  praised  that  the  race  of  them  is  not  yet  extinct,  for  all 
that  Mall  or  Boulevard  can  do) ,  and  it  has  perhaps  escaped  the  notice 
of  even  attentive  readers  that  the  comparatively  uninteresting  cha- 
racter of  Sir  Walter's  heroes  had  always  been  studied  among  a  class 
of  youths  who  were  simply  incapable  of  doing  anything  seriously 
wrong ;  and  could  only  be  embarrassed  by  the  consequences  of  their 
levity  or  imprudence. 

But  there  is  another  difference  in  the  woof  of  a  Waverley  novel 
from  the  cobweb  of  a  modern  one,  which  depends  on  Scott's  larger 

s  '  ^t  son  nom,'  properly.  The  sentence  is  one  of  Victor  Chcrbuliez's,  in  Prosper 
liandoce,  which  is  full  of  other  valuable  ones.  See  the  old  nurse's  '  ici  bas  les 
choses  vont  de  travers,  comme  un  chien  qui  va  a  vepres,'  p.  93 ;  and  compare  Prosper's 
treasures, '  la  petite  Venus,  et  le  petit  Christ  d'ivoire,'  p.  121 ;  also  Madame  Bre- 
hanne's  request  for  the  divertissement  of  '  quelque  belle  battcrie  a  coups  de  couteau ' 
with  Didier's  answer.  '  Helas  1  madame,  vous  jouez  de  malheur,  ici  dans  la  Drome, 
Ton  se  massacre  aussi  peu  que  possible,'  p.  33. 

•  Edgeworth's  Tales  (Hunter,  1827),  '  Harrington  and  Ormond,'  vol.  iii.  p.  260. 

'  Alice  of  Salisbury,  Alice  Lee,  Alice  Bridgnorth. 

8  Scott's  father  was  habitually  ascetic.  '  I  have  heard  his  son  tell  that  it  was 
common  with  him,  if  any  one  observed  that  the  soup  was  good,  to  taste  it  again,  and 
say,  "  Yes — it  is  too  good,  bairns,"  and  dash  a  tumbler  of  cold  water  into  his  plate.' 
— Lockhart's  Life  (Black,  Edinburgh,  1869),  vol.  i.  p.  ;512.  In  other  places  I  refer 
to  this  book  in  the  simple  form  of  '  L.' 


1880.  FICTION— FAIR  AND  FOUL.  953 

view  of  human  life.  Marriage  is  by  no  means,  in  his  conception  of 
man  and  woman,  the  most  important  business  of  their  existence  ; 9 
nor  love  the  only  reward  to  be  proposed  to  their  virtue  or  exertion. 
It  is  not  in  his  reading  of  the  laws  of  Providence  a  necessity  that 
virtue  should,  either  by  love  or  any  other  external  blessing,  be  re- 
warded at  all ; 10  and  marriage  is  in  all  cases  thought  of  as  a  consti- 
tuent of  the  happiness  of  life,  but  not  as  its  only  interest,  still  less 
its  only  aim.  And  upon  analysing  with  some  care  the  motives  of  his 
principal  stories,  we  shall  often  find  that  the  love  in  them  is  merely  a 
light  by  which  the  sterner  features  of  character  are  to  be  irradiated, 
and  that  the  marriage  of  the  hero  is  as  subordinate  to  the  main  bent 
of  the  story  as  Henry  the  Fifth's  courtship  of  Katherine  is  to  the 
battle  of  Agincourt.  Nay,  the  fortunes  of  the  person  who  is  nomi- 
nally the  subject  of  the  tale  are  often  little  more  than  a  background 
on  which  grander  figures  are  to  be  drawn,  and  deeper  fates  forth- 
shadowed.  The  judgments  between  the  faith  and  chivalry  of  Scot- 
land at  Drumclog  and  Bothwell  bridge  owe  little  of  their  interest  in 
the  mind  of  a  sensible  reader  to  the  fact  that  the  captain  of  the 
Popinjay  is  carried  a  prisoner  to  one  battle,  and  returns  a  prisoner 
from  the  other  :  and  Scott  himself,  while  he  watches  the  white  sail 
that  bears  Queen  Mary  for  the  last  time  from  her  native  land,  very 
nearly  forgets  to  finish  his  novel,  or  to  tell  us — and  with  small  sense 
of  any  consolation  to  be  had  out  of  that  minor  circumstance, — 
that  *  Eoland  and  Catherine  were  united,  spite  of  their  differing 
faiths.' 

Neither  let  it  be  thought  for  an  instant  that  the  slight,  and  some- 
times scornful,  glance  with  which  Scott  passes  over  scenes  which  a 
novelist  of  our  own  day  would  have  analysed  with  the  airs  of  a  philo- 
sopher, and  painted  with  the  curiosity  of  a  gossip,  indicate  any  ab- 
sence in  his  heart  of  sympathy  with  the  great  and  sacred  elements  of 
personal  happiness.  An  era  like  ours,  which  has  with  diligence  and 
ostentation  swept  its  heart  clear  of  all  the  passions  once  known  as 
loyalty,  patriotism,  and  piety,  necessarily  magnifies  the  apparent 
force  of  the  one  remaining  sentiment  which  sighs  through  the  barren 
chambers,  or  clings  inextricably  round  the  chasms  of  ruin ;  nor  can 
it  but  regard  with  awe  the  unconquerable  spirit  which  still  tempts  or 
betrays  the  sagacities  of  selfishness  into  error  or  frenzy  which  is 
believed  to  be  love. 

That  Scott  was  never  himself,  in  "the  sense  of  the  phrase  as  em- 
ployed by  lovers  of  the  Parisian  school,  '  ivre  d'amour,'  may  be  ad- 
mitted without  prejudice  to  his  sensibility,11  and  that  he  never  knew 

9  A  young  lady  sang  to  me,  just  before  I  copied  out  this  page  for  press,  a  Muss 
Somebody's  'great  song,' '  Live,  and  Love,  and  Die.'     Had  it  been  written  for  no- 
thing better  than  silkworms,  it  should  at  least  have  added — Spin. 

10  See  passage  of  introduction  to  Ivanhoe,  wisely  quoted  in  L.  vi.  106. 

11  See  below,  note  17,  p.  057,  on  the  conclusion  of  Woodstock. 


954  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  June 

*  1'amor  che  move  '1  sol  e  1'altre  stelle,'  was  the  chief,  though  unrecog- 
nised, calamity  of  his  deeply  chequered  life.  But  the  reader  of 
honour  and  feeling  will  not  therefore  suppose  that  the  love  which 
Miss  Vernon  sacrifices,  stooping  for  an  instant  from  her  horse,  is  of 
less  noble  stamp,  or  less  enduring  faith,  than  that  which  troubles  and 
degrades  the  whole  existence  of  Consuelo ;  or  that  the  affection  of 
Jeanie  Deans  for  the  companion  of  her  childhood,  drawn  like  a  field 
of  soft  blue  heaven  beyond  the  cloudy  wrack  of  her  sorrow,  is  less 
fully  in  possession  of  her  soul  than  the  hesitating  and  self-reproachful 
impulses  under  which  a  modern  heroine  forgets  herself  in  a  boat,  or 
compromises  herself  in  the  cool  of  the  evening. 

I  do  not  wish  to  return  over  the  waste  ground  we  have  traversed, 
comparing,  point  by  point,  Scott's  manner  with  those  of  Bermondsey 
and  the  Faubourgs ;  but  it  may  be,  perhaps,  interesting  at  this  moment 
to  examine,  with  illustration  from  those  Waverley  novels  which  have 
so  lately  retracted  the  attention  of  a  fair  and  gentle  public,  the 
universal  conditions  of  '  style,'  rightly  so  called,  which  are  in  all  ages, 
and  above  all  local  currents  or  wavering  tides  of  temporary  manners, 
pillars  of  what  is  for  ever  strong,  and  models  of  what  is  for  ever  fair. 

But  I  must  first  define,  and  that  within  strict  horizon,  the  works 
of  Scott,  in  which  his* perfect  mind  may  be  known,  and  his  chosen 
ways  understood. 

His  great  works  of  prose  fiction,  excepting  only  the  first  half- 
volume  of  Waverley r,  were  all  written  in  twelve  years,  1814-26  (of 
his  own  age  forty-three  to  fifty-five),  the  actual  time  employed  in 
their  composition  being  not  more  than  a  couple  of  months  out  of  each 
year;  and  during  that  time  only  the  morning  hours  and  spare  minutes 
during  the  professional  day.  *  Though  the  first  volume  of  Waverley 
was  begun  long  ago,  and  actually  lost  for  a  time,  yet  the  other  two 
were  begun  and  finished  between  the  4th  of  June  and  the  1st  of  July, 
during  all  which  I  attended  my  duty  in  court,  and  proceeded  without 
loss  of  time  or  hindrance  bf  business.' 12 

Few  of  the  maxims  for  the  enforcement  of  which,  in  Modern 
Painters,  long  ago,  I  got  the  general  character  of  a  lover  of  paradox, 
are  more  singular,  or  more  sure,  than  the  statement,  apparently  so 
encouraging  to  the  idle,  that  if  a  great  thing  can  be  done  at  all,  it 
can  be  done  easily.  But  it  is  in  that  kind  of  ease  with  which  a  tree 
blossoms  after  long  years  of  gathered  strength,  and  all  Scott's  great 
writings  were  the  recreations  of  a  mind  confirmed  in  dutiful  labour, 
and  rich  with  organic  gathering  of  boundless  resource. 

Omitting  from  our  count  the  two  minor  and  ill-finished  sketches 
of  the  Black  Divarf  and  Legend  of  Montrose,  and,  for  a  reason  pre- 
sently to  be  noticed,  the  unhappy  St.  Ronarfs,  the  memorable  ro- 
mances of  Scott  are  eighteen,  falling  into  three  distinct  groups, 
containing  six  each. 

12  L.  iv.  177. 


1880.  FICTION— FAIR  AND  FOUL.  955 

The  first  group  is  distinguished  from  the  other  two  by  characters 
of  strength  and  felicity  which  never  more  appeared  after  Scott  was 
struck  down  by  his  terrific  illness  in  1819.  It  includes  Waverley, 
Guy  Mannering,  The  Antiquary.,  Rob  Roy,  Old  Mortality,  and  The 
Heart  of  Midlothian. 

The  composition  of  these  occupied  the  mornings  of  his  happiest 
days,  between  the  ages  of  43  and  48.  On  the  8th  of  April,  1819 
(he  was  48  on  the  preceding  15th  of  August)  he  began  for  the  first 
time  to  dictate — being  unable  for  the  exertion  of  writing — The  Bride 
of  Lammermuir,  t  the  affectionate  Laidlaw  beseeching  him  to  stop 
dictating,  when  his  audible  suffering  filled  every  pause.  "  Nay, 
Willie,"  he  answered,  "  only  see  that  the  doors  are  fast.  I  would 
fain  keep  all  the  cry  as  well  as  all  the  wool  to  ourselves  ;  but  as  for 
giving  over  work,  that  can  only  be  when  I  am  in  woollen." ' 13  From 
this  time  forward  the  brightness  of  joy  and  sincerity  of  inevitable- 
humour,  which  perfected  the  imagery  of  the  earlier  novels,  are  wholly 
absent,  except  in  the  two  short  intervals  of  health  unaccountably 
restored,  in  which  he  wrote  Redgauntlet  and  Nigel. 

It  is  strange,  but  only  a  part  of  the  general  simplicity  of  Scott's 
genius,  that  these  revivals  of  earlier  power  were  unconscious,  and 
that  the  time  of  extreme  weakness  in  which  he  wrote  St.  Ronan's 
Well,  was  that  in  which  he  first  asserted  his  own  restoration. 

It  is  also  a  deeply  interesting  characteristic  of  his  noble  nature 
that  he  never  gains  anything  by  sickness ;  the  whole  man  breathes  or 
faints  as  one  creature :  the  ache  that  stiffens  a  limb  chills  his  heartr 
and  every  pang  of  the  stomach  paralyses  the  brain.  It  is  not  so* 
with  inferior  minds,  in  the  workings  of  which  it  is  often  impossible 
to  distinguish  native  from  narcotic  fancy,  and  the  throbs  of  conscience? 
from  those  of  indigestion.  Whether  in  exaltation  or  languor,  the 
colours  of  mind  are  always  morbid,  which  gleam  on  the  sea  for  the 
(  Ancient  Mariner,'  and  through  the  casements  on  '  St.  Agnes'  Eve ; ' 
but  Scott  is  at  once  blinded  and  stultified  by  sickness ;  never  has  a 
fit  of  the  cramp  without  spoiling  a  chapter,  and  is  perhaps  the  only 
author  of  vivid  imagination  who  never  wrote  a  foolish  word  but  when 
he' was  ill. 

It  remains  only  to  be  noticed  on  this  point  that  any  strong 
natural  excitement,  affecting  the  deeper  springs  of  his  heart,  would 
at  once  restore  his  intellectual  powers  in  all  their  fulness,  and  that, 
far  towards  their  sunset :  but  that  the  strong  will  on  which  he  prided 
himself,  though  it  could  trample  upon  pain,  silence  grief,  and  compel 
industry,  never  could  warm  his  imagination,  or  clear  the  judgment  in 
his  darker  hours. 

I  believe  that  this  power  of  the  heart  over  the  intellect  is  common 
to  all  great  men:  but  what  the  special  character  of  emotion  was, 

13  L.  vi.  67. 


956  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  June 

that  alone  could  lift  Scott  above  the  power  of  death,  I  am  about  to 
ask  the  reader,  in  a  little  while,  to  observe  with  joyful  care. 

The  first  series  of  romances  then,  above  named,  are  all  that  exhibit 
the  emphasis  of  his  unharmed  faculties.  The  second  group,  com- 
posed in  the  three  years  subsequent  to  illness  all  but  mortal,  bear 
every  one  of  them  more  or  less  the  seal  of  it. 

They  consist  of  the  Bride  of  Lammermuir,  Ivanhoe,  the  Monas- 
tery, the  Abbot,  Kenilworth,  and  the  Pirate.^  The  marks  of 
broken  health  on  all  these  are  essentially  twofold — prevailing  melan- 
choly, and  fantastic  improbability.  Three  of  the  teles  are  agonisingly 
tragic,  the  Abbot  scarcely  less  so  in  its  main  event,  and  Ivanhoe 
deeply  wounded  through  all  its  bright  panoply ;  while  even  in  that 
most  powerful  of  the  series,  the  impossible  archeries  and  axestrokes, 
the  incredibly  opportune  appearances  of  Locksley,  the  death  of  Ulrica, 
and  the  resuscitation  of  Athelstane,  are  partly  boyish,  partly  feverish. 
Caleb  in  the  Bride,  Triptolemus  and  Halcro  in  the  Pirate,  are  all 
laborious,  and  the  first  incongruous ;  half  a  volume  of  the  Abbot  is 
spent  in  extremely  dull  detail  of  Eoland's  relations  with  his  fellow- 
servants  and  his  mistress,  which  have  nothing  whatever  to  do  with 
the  future  story  ;  and  the  lady  of  Avenel  herself  disappears  after  the 
first  volume,  '  like  a  snaw-wreath  when  it's  thaw,  Jeanie.'  The 
public  has  for  itself  pronounced  on  the  Monastery,  though  as  much 
too  harshly  as  it  has  foolishly  praised  the  horrors  of  Ravenswood 
and  the  nonsense  of  Ivanhoe ;  because  the  modern  public  finds  in 
the  torture  and  adventure  of  these,  the  kind  of  excitement  which  it 
seeks  at  an  opera,  while  it  has  no  sympathy  whatever  with  the 
pastoral  happiness  of  Grlendearg,  or  with  the  lingering  simplicities 
of  superstition  which  give  historical  likelihood  to  the  legend  of  the 
White  Lady. 

But  both  this  despised  tale  and  its  sequel  have  Scott's  heart  in 
them.  The  first  was  begun  to  refresh  himself  in  the  intervals  of 
artificial  labour  on  Ivanhoe.  '  It  was  a  relief,'  he  said,  '  to  interlay 
the  scenery  most  familiar  to  me  15  with  the  strange  world  for  which  I 
had  to  draw  so  much  on  imagination.' 16  Through  all  the  closing 
scenes  of  the  second  he  is  raised  to  his  own  true  level  by  his  love 

14  '  One  other  such  novel,  and  there's  an  end  ;  but  who  can  last  for  ever  1  who 
ever  lasted  so  long? ' — Sydney  Smith  (of  the  Pirate)  to  Jeffrey,  December  30,  1821. 
(Letters,  vol.  ii.  p.  223.) 

ls  L.  vi.  p.  188.     Compare  the  description  of  Fairy  Dean,  vii.  192. 

"  All,  alas  !  were  now  in  a  great  measure  so  written.  Ivanhoe,  The  Monastery, 
The  Abbot,  and  Kenilrvorth  were  all  published  between  December  1819  and  January 
1821,  Constable  &  Co.  giving  five  thousand  guineas  for  the  remaining  copyright  of 
them,  Scott  clearing  ten  thousand  before  the  bargain  was  completed ;  and  before 
the  Fortunes  of  Nigel  issued  from  the  press  Scott  had  exchanged  instruments  and 
received  his  bookseller's  bills  for  no  less  than  four  '  works  of  fiction,'  not  one  of  them 
otherwise  described  in  the  deeds  of  agreement,  to  be  produced  in  unbroken  succes- 
sion, each  of  them  to  fill  vp  at  least  three  rolnmfs,  but  rnth  proper  .taring  clatixnt  as  to 
increase  of  copy  money  in  case  any  of  thfm  should  run  to  four  ;  and  within  two  years 
all  this  anticipation  had  been  wiped  off  by  Peveril  of  the  Peal:  Qiientin  Durirard, 
St.  Ronan's  Well,  and  Red  Gauntlet. 


1880.  FICTION— FAIR  AND  FOUL.  957 

for  the  queen.  And  within  the  code  of  Scott's  work  to  which  I  am 
about  to  appeal  for  illustration  of  his  essential  powers,  I  accept  the 
Monastery  and  Abbot,  and  reject  from  it  the  remaining  four  of  this 
group. 

The  last  series  contains  two  quite  noble  ones,  Redgauntlet  and 
Nigel ;  two  of  very  high  value,  Durward  and  Woodstock ;  the 
slovenly  and  diffuse  Peveril,  written  for  the  trade  ;  the  sickly  Tales 
of  the  Crusaders,  and  the  entirely  broken  and  diseased  St.  Ronan's 
Well.  This  last  I  throw  out  of  count  altogether,  and  of  the  rest, 
accept  only  the  four  first  named  as  sound  work  ;  so  that  the  list  of 
the  novels  in  which  I  propose  to  examine  his  methods  and  ideal 
standards,  reduces  itself  to  these  following  twelve  (named  in  order 
of  production):  Waverley,  Guy  Mannering,  the  Antiquai^y,  Mob 
Roy,  Old  Mortality,  the  Heart  of  Midlothian,  the  Monastery,  the 
Abbot,  the  Fortunes  of  Nigel,  Quentin  Dunuard,  and  Woodstock.*7 

It  is,  however,  too  late  to  enter  on  my  subject  in  this  article, 
which  I  may  fitly  close  by  pointing  out  some  of  the  merely  verbal 
characteristics  of  his  style,  illustrative  in  little  ways  of  the  questions 
we  have  been  examining,  and  chiefly  of  the  one  which  may  be  most 
embarrassing  to  many  readers,  the  difference,  namely,  between 
character  and  disease. 

One  quite  distinctive  charm  in  the  Waverleys  is  their  modified 
use  of  the  Scottish  dialect ;  but  it  has  not  generally  been  observed, 
either  by  their  imitators,  or  the  authors  of  different  taste  who  have 
written  for  a  later  public,  that  there  is  a  difference  between  the 
dialect  of  a  language,  and  its  corruption. 

A  dialect  is  formed  in  any  district  where  there  are  persons  of 
intelligence  enough  to  use  the  language  itself  in  all  its  fineness  and 
force,  but  under  the  particular  conditions  of  life,  climate,  and  temper, 
which  introduce  words  peculiar  to  the  scenery,  forms  of  word  and 
idioms  of  sentence  peculiar  to  the  race,  and  pronunciations  indicative 
of  their  character  and  disposition. 

Thus  '  burn  '  (of  a  streamlet)  is  a  word  possible  only  in  a  country 
where  there  are  brightly  running  waters,  'lassie,'  a  word  possible 
only  where  girls  are  as  free  as  the  rivulets,  and  '  auld,'  a  form  of  the 
southern  '  old,'  adopted  by  a  race  of  finer  musical  ear  than  the 
English. 

On  the  contrary,  mere  deteriorations,  or  coarse,  stridulent,  and,  in 
the  ordinary  sense  of  the  phrase,  '  broad'  forms  of  utterance,  are  not 
dialects  at  all,  having  nothing  dialectic  in  them,  and  all  phrases 
developed  in  states  of  rude  employment,  and  restricted  intercourse, 
are  injurious  to  the  tone  and  narrowing  to  the  power  of  the  language 
they  affect.  Mere  breadth  of  accent  does  not  spoil  a  dialect  as  long 

17  Woodstock  was  finished  26th  March  1826.  He  knew  then  of  his  ruin ;  and 
wrote  in  bitterness,  but  not  in  weakness.  The  closing  pages  are  the  most  beautiful 
of  the  book.  But  a  month  afterwards  Lady  Scott  died ;  and  he  never  wrote  glad 
word  more. 


958  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  June 

as  the  speakers  are  men  of  varied  idea  and  good  intelligence ;  but 
the  moment  the  life  is  contracted  by  mining,  millwork,  or  any 
oppressive  and  monotonous  labour,  the  accents  and  phrases  become 
debased.  It  is  part  of  the  popular  folly  of  the  day  to  find  pleasure 
in  trying  to  write  and  spell  these  abortive,  crippled,  and  moie  or 
less  brutal  forms  of  human  speech. 

Abortive,  crippled,  or  brutal,  are  however  not  necessarily  c  cor- 
rupted '  dialects.  Corrupt  language  is  that  gathered  by  ignorance, 
invented  by  vice,  misused  by  insensibility,  or  minced  and  mouthed  by 
affectation,  especially  in  the  attempt  to  deal  with  words  of  which  only 
half  the  meaning  is  understood,  or  half  the  sound  heard.  Mrs. 
G-amp's  c  aperiently  so ' — and  the  '  underminded '  with  primal  sense 
of  undermine,  of — I  forget  which  gossip,  in  the  Mill  on  the  Floss, 
are  master-  and  mistress-pieces  in  this  latter  kind.  Mrs.  Malaprop's 
4  allegories  on  the  banks  of  the  Nile  '  are  in  a  somewhat  higher  order 
of  mistake  :  Mrs.  Tabitha  Bramble's  ignorance  is  vulgarised  by  her 
selfishness,  and  Winifred  Jenkins'  by  her  conceit.  The  '  wot '  of 
Noah  Claypole,  and  the  other  degradations  of  cockneyism  (Sam 
Weller  and  his  father  are  in  nothing  more  admirable  than  in  the 
power  of  heart  and  sense  that  can  purify  even  these) ;  the  '  trewth ' 
of  Mr.  Chadband,  and  '  natur '  of  Mr.  Squeers,  are  examples  of  the 
corruption  of  words  by  insensibility :  the  use  of  the  word  *  bloody'  in 
modern  low  English  is  a  deeper  corruption,  not  altering  the  form  of 
the  word,  but  defiling  the  thought  in  it. 

Thus  much  being  understood,  I  shall  proceed  to  examine  tho- 
roughly a  fragment  of  Scott's  Lowland  Scottish  dialect ;  not  choosing 
it  of  the  most  beautiful  kind ;  on  the  contrary,  it  shall  be  a  piece  reach- 
ing as  low  down  as  he  ever  allows  Scotch  to  go — it  is  perhaps  the  only 
unfair  patriotism  in  him,  that  if  ever  he  wants  a  word  or  two  of  really 
villanous  slang,  he  gives  it  in  English  or  Dutch — not  Scotch. 

I  had  intended  in  the  close  of  this  paper  to  analyse  and  com- 
pare the  characters  of  Andrew  Fairservice  and  Eichie  Moniplies, 
for  examples,  the  former  of  innate  evil,  unaffected  by  external  in- 
fluences, and  undiseased,  but  distinct  from  natural  goodness  as  a 
nettle  is  distinct  from  balm  or  lavender;  and  the  latter  of  innate 
goodness,  contracted  and  pinched  by  circumstance,  but  still  un- 
diseased, as  an  oak-leaf  crisped  by  frost,  not  by  the  worm.  This, 
with  much  else  in  my  mind,  I  must  put  off ;  but  the  careful  study  of 
one  sentence  of  Andrew's  will  give  us  a  good  deal  to  think  of. 

I  take  his  account  of  the  rescue  of  Glasgow  Cathedral  at  the 
time  of  the  Reformation. 

Ah !  it's  a  brave  kirk — nane  o'  ye  re  whiginaleeries  and  curliewurlies  and  open- 
steek  hems  about  it — a'  solid,  weel-jointed  mason -wark,  that  will  stand  as  lang  as 
the  warld,  keep  hands  and  gunpowther  aff  it.  It  had  amaist  a  douncome  lang 
syne  at  the  Reformation,  when  they  pu'd  doun  the  kirks  of  St.  Andrews  and 
Perth,  and  thereawa',  to  cleanse  them  o'  Papery,  and  idolatry,  and  image-worship, 
and  surplices,  and  sic-like  rags  o'  the  muckle  hure  that  sitteth  on  seven  hills,  as  if 
ane  wasna  braid  eneugh  for  her  auld  hinder  end.  Sae  the  commons  o'  Renfrew, 


1880.  FICTION— FAIR  AND  FOUL.  959 

and  o'  the  Barony,  and  the  Gorbals,  and  a'  about,  they  behoved  to  come  into 
Glasgow  ae  fair  morning,  to  try  their  hand  on  purging  the  High  Kirk  o'  Popish  nick- 
nackets.  But  the  townsmen  o'  Glasgow,  they  were  feared  their  auld  edifice  might 
slip  the  girths  in  gaun  through  siccan  rough  physic,  sae  they  rang  the  common 
bell,  and  assembled  the  train-bands  wi'  took  o'  drum.  By  good  luck,  the  worthy 
James  Kabat  was  Dean  o'  Guild  that  year — (and  a  gude  mason  he  was  himsell, 
made  him  the  keener  to  keep  up  the  auld  bigging),  and  the  trades  assembled,  and 
offered  downright  battle  to  the  commons,  rather  than  their  kirk  should  coup  the 
crans,  as  others  had  done  elsewhere.  It  wasna  for  luve  c'  Paperie — na,  na  ! — nane 
could  ever  say  that  o'  the  trades  o'  Glasgow — Sae  they  sune  came  to  an  agreement 
to  take  a'  the  idolatrous  statues  of  sants  (sorrow  be  on  them  !)  out  o'  their  neuks — 
And  sae  the  bits  o'  stane  idols  were  broken  in  pieces  by  Scripture  warrant,  and 
flung  into  the  Molendinar  burn,  and  the  auld  kirk  stood  as  crouse  as  a  cat  when  the 
flaes  are  kaimed  aff  her,  and  a'body  was  alike  pleased.  And  I  hae  heard  wise  folk 
say,  that  if  the  same  had  been  done  in  ilka  kirk  in  Scotland,  the  Reform  wad  just 
hae  been  as  pure  as  it  is  e'en  now,  and  we  wad  hae  mair  Christian-like  kirks ;  for 
I  hae  been  sae  lang  in  England,  that  naething  will  diived  out  o'  my  head,  that  the 
dog-kennel  at  Osbaldistone-Hall  is  better  than  mony  a  house  o'  God  in  Scotland. 

Now  this  sentence  is  in  the  first  place  a  piece  of  Scottish  history 
of  quite  inestimable  and  concentrated  value.  Andrew's  temperament 
is  the  type  of  a  vast  class  of  Scottish — shall  we  call  it  f  sow-thistlian ' 
— mind,  which  necessarily  takes  the  view  of  either  Pope  or  saint 
that  the  thistle  in  Lebanon  took  of  the  cedar  or  lilies  in  Lebanon ; 
and  the  entire  force  of  the  passions  which,  in  the  Scottish  re- 
volution, foretold  and  forearmed  the  French  one,  is  told  in  this  one 
paragraph  ;  the  coarseness  of  it,  observe,  being  admitted,  not  for  the 
sake  of  the  laugh,  any  more  than  an  onion  in  broth  merely  for  its 
flavour,  but  for  the  meat  of  it ;  the  inherent  constancy  of  that 
coarseness  being  a  fact  in  this  order  of  mind,  and  an  essential  part 
of  the  history  to  be  told. 

Secondly,  observe  that  this  speech,  in  the  religious  passion  of  it, 
such  as  there  may  be,  is  entirely  sincere.  Andrew  is  a  thief,  a  liar, 
a  coward,  and,  in  the  Fair  service  from  which  he  takes  his  name,  a 
hypocrite  ;  but  in  the  form  of  prejudice,  which  is  all  that  his  mind 
is  capable  of  in  the  place  of  religion,  he  is  entirely  sincere.  He  does 
not  in  the  least  pretend  detestation  of  image  worship  to  please  his 
master,  or  any  one  else ;  he  honestly  scorns  the  '  carnal  morality  18  as 
dowd  and  fusionless  as  rue-leaves  at  Yule  '  of  the  sermon  in  the  upper 
cathedral ;  and  when  wrapt  in  critical  attention  to  the  4  real  savour 
o'  doctrine '  in  the  crypt,  so  completely  forgets  the  hypocrisy  of  his 
fair  service  as  to  return  his  master's  attempt  to  disturb  him  with  hard 
punches  of  the  elbow. 

Thirdly.  He  is  a  man  of  no  mean  sagacity,  quite  up  to  the  average 
standard  of  Scottish  common  sense,  not  a  low  one ;  and,  though  in- 
capable of  understanding  any  manner  of  lofty  thought  or  passion,  is 
a  shrewd  measurer  of  weaknesses,  and  not  without  a  spark  or  two  of 
kindly  feeling.  See  first  his  sketch  of  his  master's  character  to  Mr. 
Hammorgaw,  beginning :  *  He's  no  a'thegither  sae  void  o'  sense, 

18  Compare  Mr.  Spurgeon's  not  unfrequent  orations  on  the  same  subject. 


960  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  June 

neither ; '  and  then  the  close  of  the  dialogue  :  '  But  the  lad's  no  a  bad 
lad  after  a',  and  he  needs  some  carefu'  body  to  look  after  him.' 

Fourthly.  He  is  a  good  workman  ;  knows  his  own  business  well, 
and  can  judge  of  other  craft,  if  sound,  or  otherwise. 

All  these  four  qualities  of  him  must  be  known  before  we  can 
understand  this  single  speech.  Keeping  them  in  mind,  I  take  it  up, 
word  by  word. 

You  observe,  in  the  outset,  Scott  makes  no  attempt  whatever  to 
indicate  accents  or  modes  of  pronunciation  by  changed  spelling, 
unless  the  word  becomes  a  quite  definitely  new,  and  scarcely  write- 
able  one.  The  Scottish  way  of  pronouncing  c  James,'  for  instance,  is 
entirely  peculiar,  and  extremely  pleasant  to  the  ear.  But  it  is  so, 
just  because  it  does  not  change  the  word  into  Jeems,  nor  into  Jims, 
nor  into  Jawms.  A  modern  writer  of  dialects  would  think  it  amusing 
to  use  one  or  other  of  these  ugly  spellings.  But  Scott  writes  the 
name  in  pure  English,  knowing  that  a  Scots  reader  will  speak  it 
rightly,  and  an  English  one  be  wise  in  letting  it  alone.  On  the  other 
hand  he  writes  '  weel '  for  '  well,'  because  that  word  is  complete  in 
its  change,  and  may  be  very  closely  expressed  by  the  double  e.  The 
ambiguous  '  it's  in  '  gude '  and  '  sune '  are  admitted,  because  far  liker 
the  sound  than  the  double  o  would  be,  and  that  in  *  hure,'  for  grace' 
sake,  to  soften  the  word  ; — so  also '  flaes '  for '  fleas.'  '  Mony '  for  *  many ' 
is  again  positively  right  in  sound,  and  '  neuk '  differs  from  our  '  nook ' 
in  sense,  and  is  not  the  same  word  at  all,  as  we  shall  presently  see. 

Secondly,  observe,  not  a  word  is  corrupted  in  any  indecent  haste, 
slowness,  slovenliness,  or  incapacity  of  pronunciation.  There  is  no 
lisping,  drawling,  slobbering,  or  snuffling  :  the  speech  is  as  clear  as  a 
bell  and  as  keen  as  an  arrow :  and  its  elisions  and  contractions  are 
either  melodious,  ('na,'  for  'not,' — '  pu'd,'  for  'pulled,')  or  as  normal 
as  in  a  Latin  verse.  The  long  words  are  delivered  without  the 
slightest  bungling ;  and  *  bigging '  finished  to  its  last  g. 

I  take  the  important  words  now  in  their  places. 

Brave.  The  old  English  sense  of  the  word  in  '  to  go  brave ' 
retained,  expressing  Andrew's  sincere  and  respectful  admiration. 
Had  he  meant  to  insinuate  a  hint  of  the  church's  being  too  fine,  he 
would  have  said  '  braw.' 

Kirk.     This  is  of  course  just  as  pure  and  unprovincial  a  word  as. 
1  Kirche,'  or  '  eglise.' 

Whigmaleerie.  I  cannot  get  at  the  root  of  this  word,  but  it  is 
one  showing  that  the  speaker  is  not  bound  by  classic  rules,  but  will 
use  any  syllables  that  enrich  his  meaning.  '  Nipperty-tipperty  '  (of 
his  master's  4  poetry-nonsense ')  is  another  word  of  the  same  class. 
'  Curlieurlie '  is  of  course  just  as  pure  as  Shakespeare's  '  Hurly- 
burly.'  But  see  first  suggestion  of  the  idea  to  Scott  at  Blair-Adam 
(L.  vi.  264). 

Opensteek  hems.     More  description,  or  better,  of  the  later  Gothic 


1880.  FICTION— FAIR   AND   FOUL.  961 

cannot  be  put  into  four  syllables.  '  Steek,'  melodious  for  stitch,  Las 
a  combined  sense  of  closing  or  fastening.  And  note  that  the  later 
Gothic,  being  precisely  what  Scott  knew  best  (in  Melrose)  and  liked 
best,  it  is,  here  as  elsewhere,  quite  as  much  himself 19  as  Frank,  that 
he  is  laughing  at,  when  he  laughs  with  Andrew,  whose  '  opensteek 
hems '  are  only  a  ruder  metaphor  for  his  own  '  willow-wreaths  changed 
to  stone.' 

Gunpoivther.     '  -Ther '  is  a  lingering  vestige  of  the  French  *  -dre.! 

Syne.  One  of  the  melodious  and  mysterious  Scottish  words  which 
have  partly  the  sound  of  wind  and  stream  in  them,  and  partly  the 
range  of  softened  idea  which  is  like  a  distance  of  blue  hills  over 
border  land  ('  far  in  the  distant  Cheviot's  blue').  Perhaps  even  the 
least  sympathetic  '  Englisher '  might  recognise  this,  if  he  heard  '  Old 
Long  Since '  vocally  substituted  for  the  Scottish  words  to  the  air.  I 
do  not  know  the  root ;  but  the  word's  proper  meaning  is  not  *  since,' 
but  before  or  after  an  interval  of  some  duration,  '  as  weel  sune  as 
syne.'  '  But  first  on  Sawnie  gies  a  ca',  Syne,  bauldly  in  she  enters.' 

Behoved  (to  come).  A  rich  word,  with  peculiar  idiom,  always 
used  more  or  less  ironically  of  anything  done  under  a  partly  mistaken 
and  partly  pretended  notion  of  duty. 

Slccan.  Far  prettier,  and  fuller  in  meaning  than  'such.'  It 
contains  an  added  sense  of  wonder  ;  and  means  properly  *  so  great ' 
or  '  so  unusual.' 

Took  (o'  drum).  Classical  '  tuck '  from  Italian  '  toccata,'  the  pre- 
luding '  touch  '  or  flourish,  on  any  instrument  (but  see  Johnson  under 
word  '  tucket,'  quoting  Othello).  The  deeper  Scottish  vowels  are  used 
here  to  mark  the  deeper  sound  of  the  bass  drum,  as  in  more  solemn 
warning. 

Bigging.  The  only  word  in  all  the  sentence  of  which  the  Scottish 
form  is  less  melodious  than  the  English,  'and  what  for  no,'  seeing 
that  Scottish  architecture  is  mostly  little  beyond  Bessie  Bell's  and 
Mary  Gray's  ?  '  They  biggit  a  bow're  by  yon  burnside,  and  theekit 
it  ow're  wi  rashes.'  But  it  is  pure  Anglo-Saxon  in  roots  ;  see  glossary 
to  Fairbairn's  edition  of  the  Douglas  Virgil,  1710. 

Coup.  Another  of  the  much-embracing  words  ;  short  for  'upset,' 
but  with  a  sense  of  awkwardness  as  the  inherent  cause  of  fall ;  compare 
Richie  Moniplies  (also  for  sense  of  'behoved'):  '  Ae  auld  hirplin 
deevil  of  a  potter  behoved  just  to  step  in  my  way,  and  offer  me  a 
pig  (earthen  pot— etym.  dub.),  as  he  said  "just  to  put  my  Scotch 
ointment  in ; "  and  I  gave  him  a  push,  as  but  natural,  and  the 
tottering  deevil  coupit  owre  amang  his  own  pigs,  and  damaged  a 
score  of  them.'  So  also  Dandie  Dinmont  in  the  postchaise :  '  'Od ! 
I  hope  they'll  no  coup  us.' 

19  There  are  three  definite  and  intentional  portraits  of  himself,  in  the  novels,  each 
giving  a  separate  part  of  himself :  Mr.  Oldbuck,  ^Frank  Osbaldistone,  and  Alan 
Fairford. 


962  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  June 

The  Grans.  Idiomatic ;  root  unknown  to  me,  but  it  means  in 
this  use,  full,  total,  and  without  recovery. 

Molendinar.  From  '  molendinum,'  the  grinding-place.  I  do 
not  know  if  actually  the  local  name,20  or  Scott's  invention.  Com- 
pare Sir  Piercie's  '  Molinaras.'  But  at  all  events  used  here  with  bye- 
sense  of  degradation  of  the  formerly  idle  saints  to  grind  at  the  mill. 

Grouse.     Courageous,  softened  with  a  sense  of  comfort. 

Ilka.  Again  a  word  with  azure  distance,  including  the  whole 
sense  of '  each  '  and  '  every.'  The  reader  must  carefully  and  reverently 
distinguish  these  comprehensive  words,  which  gather  two  or  more  per- 
fectly understood  meanings  into  one  chord  of  meaning,  and  are  har- 
monies more  than  words,  from  the  above-noted  blunders  between  two 
half-hit  meanings,  struck  as  a  bad  piano-player  strikes  the  edge  of  ano- 
ther note.  In  English  we  have  fewer  of  these  combined  thoughts  ;  so 
that  Shakespeare  rather  plays  with  the  distinct  lights  of  his  words,  than 
melts  them  into  one.  So  again  Bishop  Douglas  spells,  and  doubtless  spoke, 
the  word  4  rose,'  differently,  according  to  his  purpose  ;  if  as  the  chief  or 
governing  ruler  of  flowers,  '  rois,'  but  if  only  in  her  own  beauty,  rose. 

Christian-like.  The  sense  of  the  decency  and  order  proper  to 
Christianity  is  stronger  in  Scotland  than  in  any  other  country,  and 
the  word  '  Christian  '  more  distinctly  opposed  to  '  beast.'  Hence  the 
back-handed  cut  at  the  English  for  their  over-pious  care  of  dogs. 

I  am  a  little  surprised  myself  at  the  length  to  which  this  ex- 
amination of  one  sma?.l  piece  of  Sir  Walter's  first-rate  work  has 
carried  us,  but  here  I  must  end  for  this  time,  trusting,  if  the  Editor 
of  the  Nineteenth  Century  permit  me,  yet  to  trespass,  perhaps  more 
than  once,  on  his  readers'  patience  ;  but,  at  all  events,  to  examine 
in  a  following  paper  the  technical  characteristics  of  Scott's  own  style, 
both  in  prose  and  verse,  together  with  Byron's,  as  opposed  to  our 
fashionably  recent  dialects  and  rhythms;  the  essential  virtues  of 
language,  in  both  the  masters  of  the  old  school,  hinging  ultimately, 
little  as  it  might  be  thought,  on  certain  unalterable  views  of  theirs 
concerning  the  code  called  '  of  the  Ten  Commandments,'  wholly  at 
variance  with  the  dogmas  of  automatic  morality  which,  summed 
again  by  the  witches'  line,  '  Fair  is  foul,  and  foul  is  fair,'  hover 
through  the  fog  and  filthy  pir  of  our  prosperous  England. 

JOHN  KUSKIN. 

20  Andrew  knows  Latin,  and  might  have  coined  the  word  m  his  conceit ;  but, 
writing  to  a  kind  friend  in  Glasgow,  I  find  the  brook  was  called  '  Molyndona  '  even 
before  the  building-  of  the  Sub-dean  Mill  in  1446.  See  also  account  of  the  locality 
in  Mr.  George's  admirable  volume,  Old  Glasgow,  pp.  129,  149,  &c.  The  Protestantism 
of  Glasgow,  since  throwing  that  powder  of  saints  into  her  brook  Kidron,  has  pre- 
sented it  with  other  pious  offerings  ;  and  my  friend  goes  on  to  say  that  the  brook, 
once  famed  for  the  purity  of  its  waters  (much  used  for  bleaching),  '  has  for  nearly 
a  hundred  years  been  a  crawling  stream  of  loathsomeness.  It  is  now  bricked  over, 
and  a  carriage-way  made  on  the  top  of  it ;  underneath  the  foul  mess  still  passes 
through  the  heart  of  the  city,  till  it  falls  into  the  Clyde  close  to  the  harbour.' 


1880.  963 


SOME  INDIAN    SUGGESTIONS  FOR  INDIA. 

THE  accession  of  a  Liberal  Ministry  to  power  will,  in  all  likelihood, 
affect  the  principles  upon  which  India  has  hitherto  been  governed. 
The  members  of  the  present  Government  were  able  to  perceive 
whilst  in  Opposition,  from  an  independent  standpoint,  the  mistakes 
which  vitiated  the  policy  of  their  predecessors  in  office,  and  to  realise 
to  a  certain  extent,  the  absence  of  sympathy  between  the  rulers  and 
the  ruled  which  characterised  the  direction  of  affairs  until  now.  The 
hope,  therefore,  entertained  on  all  sides  in  India  that  the  commence- 
ment of  a  fresh  regime  will  inaugurate  a  more  Liberal  policy  in  that 
country,  can  hardly  be  considered  illegitimate  or  irrational.  The 
difficulties  which  surround  all  Indian  questions,  and  prevent  English- 
men from  ascertaining  genuine  Indian  public  opinion,  lead  to  the 
impression  that  it  will  not  be  inopportune  at  the  present  moment  to 
place  on  record  a  few  suggestions,  from  an  Indian  point  of  view  for 
the  consideration  of  those  to  whose  hands  the  destiny  of  the  country 
has  been  confided. 

The  first  thing  to  which  the  serious  attention  of  the  Liberal 
Ministry  will  probably  be  directed  is  the  financial  condition  of  India 
and  the  system  of  taxation  in  force  there.  In  fact,  the  rehabilitation 
of  Indian  finances  is  a  question  of  the  greatest  emergency,  and  any 
delay  in  grappling  with  it  will  be  a  grievous  mistake.  The  partial 
repeal  of  the  duty  on  imported  cotton  goods,  by  which  the  Indian 
Government  abandoned  without  any  tangible  reason  a  considerable 
amount  of  revenue,  was  one  of  those  mistakes  which  leave  their  mark 
on  the  mind  of  the  people  for  long  periods  of  time.  It  gave  rise  to 
an  impression,  not  without  reason,  that  the  interests  of  the  people  of 
India  were  sacrificed  in  deference  to  the  wishes  of  a  portion  of  the 
British  community ;  and  this  opinion  obtained  public  utterance  in 
various  quarters.  It  is  a  fact  which  has  been  lately  recognised 
by  one  of  the  leading  Liberal  statesmen  in  England,  that  the  cotton 
duties  are  not  maintained  for  protective  purposes,  but  rather  for  fiscal 
reasons  and  exigencies.  An  indirect  tax  of  this  nature  is  more  in  con- 
formity with  the  wishes  of  the  people  than  any  direct  form  of  taxation  • 


964  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  June 

and  while  it  saves  the  Government  much  odium,  it  spares  the  popu- 
lation from  the  tender  mercies  of  the  tax-collector.  The  people, 
as  a  body,  approved  of  the  duty  levied  on  cotton  goods,  because  its 
incidence  was  hardly  perceptible  to  them.  The  Grovernment  having 
abandoned  a  portion  of  the  revenue,  recourse  was  had  to  other  measures 
to  recoup  the  loss  thereby  sustained.  That  to  a  certain  extent  the 
License  Tax  was  designed  to  answer  this  purpose  can  hardly  be  doubted. 
Possibly  it  was  also  intended  that  this  tax  should  provide  an  insurance 
fund  against  famines.  The  object  in  view  may  have  been  very 
commendable,  but  the  method  adopted  for  carrying  it  into  effect 
certainly  deserves  no  commendation.  A  more  mischievous  measure, 
or  one  more  calculated  to  bring  the  Grovernment  into  disrepute  with 
the  mass  of  the  population,  could  not  have  been  devised.  Those  who 
know  the  impecunious  condition  of  the  general  body  of  the  people, 
how  they  live  from  hand  to  mouth,  can  imagine  the  hardships  to 
which  they  were  subjected  at  the  hands  of  the  smaller  satellites  of 
Grovernment.  The  cases  of  gross  oppression  which  were  investigated 
and  exposed  in  the  Presidency  towns  served  to  throw  considerable 
light  on  the  condition  of  affairs  in  the  Moffussil. 

The  amount  realised  by  Grovernment  does  not  represent  the  entire 
sum  extracted  from  the  taxpayers.  The  collectors  and  assessors  have 
always  to  be  assisted  by  informers  (as  was  publicly  admitted  in  open 
court  by  one  of  the  collecting  officers),  and  these  informers,  who 
render  their  services  gratis  to  the  State,  recoup  themselves  for  their 
trouble  from  those  who  have  to  pay  the  tax.  In  a  poor  country  like 
India,  where  the  mass  of  the  population  is  steeped  in  ignorance, 
where  the  English  officials  are  inaccessible  to  the  general  run  of  the 
community,  and  where  there  is  little  public  opinion,  an  indirect  tax 
weighing  lightly  on  the  people,  requiring  no  tax-gatherer  and  no 
informer  for  its  practical  working,  is  in  every  way  preferable  to  direct 
taxation. 

It  would  seem,  however,  that  this  principle  has  been  entirely  lost 
sight  of  in  India  in  every  measure  adopted  heretofore  for  the  adjust- 
ment of  the  finances.  It  would  seem  also  that  the  men  chiefly 
responsible  for  the  introduction  of  the  License  Tax  are  yet  unaware 
of  the  peculiarly  obnoxious  character  this  impost  assumes  when 
worked  by  the  agency  of  informers  and  unpaid  assessors.  Some  dim 
inkling  of  the  hardships  entailed  on  the  people  has  led  to  the 
exemption  of  the  poorest  classes  from  the  operation  of  the  Act ;  the 
relief  afforded  is,  however,  very  partial.  Now  that  the  surplus  is 
acknowledged  to  be  a  dream  of  the  past,  it  is  idle  to  expect,^whilst 
the  financial  direction  remains  in  the  present  hands,  that  the  tax 
will  be  repealed.  Not  even  at  the  time  when  the  idea  of  a  surplus 
was  first  started,  and  many  Alnaschar-like  plans  built  upon  it,  did  the 
repeal  of  the  License  Tax,  or  its  substitution  by  some  indirect  form 
of  taxation,  ever  enter  the  heads  of  the  financial  authorities.  The 


1880.    SOME  INDIAN  SUGGESTIONS  FOR  INDIA.        965 

simplicity  with  which  the  idea  was  formed  and  put  forward  before 
the  public  in  India,  was  matched  by  the  avidity  with  which  it  was 
accepted  in  England.  But  in  India  it  was  never  supposed  for  a 
moment  that  the  optimistic  views  entertained  by  the  Finance 
Minister  had  any  foundation  in  fact.  Those  who  knew  how,  before 
this,  subsequent  events  had  always  falsified  the  Budget  estimates  of 
Sir  John  Strachey,  raised  their  warning  voices  against  implicitly 
trusting  to  the  figures  given  in  the  last  Budget.  It  was  pointed  out 
that,  in  1876-77,  the  actual  expenditure  exceeded  the  Budget  esti- 
mate by  3,094,655Z. ;  in  1877-78,  by  5,180,400^. ;  in  1878-79,  by 
over  1,000,0001. ;  and  in  1879-80,  by  over  1,500,000?.  The  Anglo- 
Indian  press  persistently  called  attention  to  the  lavish  expenditure 
going  on  in  the  military  department.  The  Bombay  Review,  in  a 
trenchant  article  of  the  14th  of  February  last,  spoke  out  vigorously. 
A  portion  of  the  article  is  worth  quoting  : — 

Therefore  the  first  and  pressing  duty  the  Indian  press  has  to  fulfil,  is  to  trace 
the  items  and  sum  up  the  totals  of  the  huge  expenditure  rapidly  accumulating 
month  by  month.     The  tale  thereof  is  being  studiously  and  skilfully  concealed ; 
but,  though  the  task  is  thus  rendered   difficult,  our  daily  contemporaries  with 
.space  and  resources  at  their  command  ought  to  be  equal  to  the  occasion.     Unfor- 
tunately they  will,  for  the  present,  be  a  day  after  the  fair,  as  the  financial  statement, 
cunningly  concocted  on  the  disingenuous  principle  we  have  described,  must  now  be 
nearly  ready  for  launching.     All  the  more  need  is  there  for  those  who  have  any 
sincere  care  for  the  permanent  welfare  of  India,  and  who  cherish  some  sense  of 
political  equity,  to  be  up  and  doing.     We  are  glad  to  see  that  an  attempt  in  the 
direction  we  have  indicated  is  being  made  by  one  of  our  Calcutta  contemporaries 
(Indian  Daily  News),  though  in  a  somewhat  mild  and  apologetic  fashion.     We 
wish  our  space  permitted  us  to  extract  the  articles  on  the  subject  from  that  paper 
of  the  6th  and  7th ;  but  we  give  the  reference,  so  that  other  writers  may,  per- 
chance, be  induced  to  push  the  argument  a   stage  further.     Our  contemporary 
makes  a  very  good  point  in  demanding  that  strict  current  account  shall  be  taken 
of  all  extra  expenditure  caused  bj  the  Afghan  war.     Though  this  order  would 
chiefly  affect  the  military  department — to  which  the  News  appears  to  confine  its 
attention — it  should  be  extended  in  every  direction  where  the  present  strain  is 
felt.     Not  only  the  transport  and  '  followers '  services  are  squandering  money  '  like 
fun,'  but  the  public  works,  the  railways,  and  the  marine,  besides  several  branches  of 
ordinary  civil  service,  are  contributing  to  the  haemorrhage  now  going  on  so  freely. 
The  columns  of  our  contemporaries  in  northern  India  are  full  of  indications  of 
lavish  outlay,  within  our  borders,  on  transport,  service  on  railways,  on  supplies  and 
munitions  of  war ;  while  the  devil's  cauldron,  over  the  border,  is  being  stirred 

merrily  to  the  emphatic  refrain  of  d the  expense,  subsidies  squandered  on  tribes 

who  are  barely  kept  at  bay,  and  ready  rupees  being  flung  broadcast  for  supplies  in 
the  Passes  and  at  Kabul.  Our  Calcutta  contemporary  is  quite  right  in  demanding 
that  account  shall  be  taken  now  of  these  headlong  disbursements  ;  and  very  pro- 
perly adds — '  delay  (in  rendering  these  current  accounts)  should  involve  the  re- 
moval of  the  (head)  officer  responsible  in  each  case.' 

Whilst  almost  every  public  journal  in  India  was  calling  the  attention 
of  Grovernment  to  '  the  cataract  of  unavowed  expenditure,'  it  is  absurd 
to  suppose  that  the  responsible  parties  were  not  aware  of  the  fact 
until  now.  Of  course,  no  one  is  prepared  to  say  that  the  surplus  was 
VOL.  VII.— No.  40.  3  T 


966  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY.  June 

put  forward  designedly.  The  wonder  is,  that  it  was  persistently  believed 
in,  despite  the  plainest  evidence  to  the  contrary.  And  even  now  it 
would  appear,  from  the  telegraphic  summary  of  the  Government  of 
India's  despatch  contained  in  the  papers  of  the  6th  of  May.  that  in  cer- 
tain quarters  there  is  a  desire  to  slur  over  hard  facts.  '  But  for  the 
war,'  it  is  said,  <  there  would  have  been  a  surplus  of  four  millions  both 
in  the  past  and  present  years.'  '  But  for  the  war  ! '  Within  the  last 
four  years,  the  public  debt  has  grown  by  twenty  millions ;  within  the 
last  ten  years,  the  gross  expenditure  has  increased  by  fifteen  or  six- 
teen millions ;  whilst  within  the  last  six  years,  the  army  expenditure 
has  admittedly  increased  by  three  millions.  Making  every  allowance 
for  augmented  railway  returns  and  larger  opium  receipts,  is  there 
any  valid  ground  for  supposing  that  the  additional  revenue,  derivable 
from  these  and  other  accidental  sources,  would  enable  the  two  ends  to 
meet  ?  The  revenue  derived  from  opium  is  of  the  most  precarious 
character,  and  the  abnormal  gains  of  this  year  may  not  improbably 
lead  next  year  to  a  large  fluctuation  contrariwise.  Persia  has  com- 
menced to  compete  vigorously  with  India  in  the  opium  market ;  and 
once  the  practical  monopoly  which  now  exists  ceases,  all  reliance  on 
the  opium  yield  may  safely  be  abandoned  in  financial  calculations. 
Again,  it  is  uncertain  how  far  the  proceeds  of  the  reserved  stocks  of 
opium  of  former  years  have  entered  into  the  Budget  estimate  for  the 
present  year.  The  stoppage  of  public  works  cannot  possibly  be 
permanent.  To  say,  therefore,  that  but  for  the  war  there  would 
have  been  a  surplus  of  four  millions,  is  a  stretch  of  the  imagination. 
Not  only,  at  the  present  moment,  is  there  no  surplus,  but  there  is  a 
deficit  of  about  four  millions.  Some  people  are  inclined  to  believe 
that  even  this  is  under-estimated.  How  is  this  deficit  to  be  met  ? 
Should  the  difficulty  be  tided  over  by  a  loan,  it  is  to  be  feared  the 
Finance  Minister  of  the  future  will  find  no  little  trouble  in  paying 
the  interest  out  of  the  general  revenue.  Let  us  hope  that  England 
will  partially  lighten  the  burden  by  undertaking  the  payment  of  a 
portion  of  the  cost  of  the  Afghan  war.  This  even  would  afford  only 
a  partial  and  temporary  relief.  The  finances  of  India,  in  order  to  be 
placed  on  a  satisfactory  basis,  will  have  to  be  handled  delicately,  yet 
vigorously.  The  partial  abandonment  of  the  duty  on  cotton  goods  is 
already  producing  the  effects  all  along  anticipated.  Goods  which 
come  within  the  exempted  category  are  alone  manufactured  and  sent 
out  to  India.  No  duty,  of  course,  is  leviable  thereupon.  The  entire 
import  duty  on  cotton  goods  may  be  considered  as  virtually  aban- 
doned. With  the  virtual  abandonment  of  the  import  duties,  the 
export  duty  on  rice  will  have  to  go,  as  seems  to  be  anticipated  by  Sir 
J.  Strachey  himself.  What  this  means  may  safely  be  commended  to 
the  attention  of  earnest  people  in  England.  Already  the  export  of 
rice  has  reached  an  unprec  dented  extent  in  India,  and  exercises  no 
little  influence  on  the  fluctuations  in  the  price  of  the  staple  food  of 


1880.     SOME  INDIAN  SUGGESTIONS  FOR   INDIA.       967 

the  country.  Speculators  and  traders  will  gain  chiefly  by  the  abolition 
of  the  export  duty  on  rice,  as  they  have  done  by  the  reduction  of  the 
salt  duty  in  certain  parts  of  India.  The  loss  to  the  public  revenue 
will  accentuate  bthe  misery  of  the  people.  In  view  of  these  facts 
it  is  puerile  to  talk  about  the  war  being  the  only  disturbing  element 
in  financial  calculations. 

A  sifting  inquiry,  such  as  has  been  suggested  by  Mr.  Fawcett, 
into  the  financial  condition  of  India,  will  probably  show  that  the 
only  branch  of  the  public  revenue  which  possesses  any  real  elasticity 
and  where  an  enhancement  might  safely  be  effected  without  creating 
great  popular  discontent,  consists  in  the  income  derived  from  the 
Customs  and  Excise  Departments.  The  incidence  of  the  License  or 
the  Income  Tax  can  never  be  fairly  apportioned  or  equalised,  nor  can 
their  collection  be  altogether  free  from  those  evils  to  which  attention 
has  already  been  directed. 

All  direct  forms  of  taxation  are,  therefore,  strongly  to  be  depre- 
cated. There  remains,  then,  the  question  of  indirect  taxation,  which 
must  be  fairly  discussed  in  order  to  determine  what  margin  was  still 
left  for  the  Indian  Government  in  that  direction.  The  reimposition 
of  the  cotton  duties  also  deserves  serious  consideration.  This  task, 
however,  must  be  approached  without  the  fear  of  hurting  the  sus- 
ceptibilities of  English  constituencies  and  British  manufacturers.  The 
idea  prevalent  in  England  that  the  import  duties  on  cotton  goods 
are  not  only  repugnant  to  the  theory  of  free  trade,  but  have  the 
effect  of  pressing  heavily  on  the  poorer  classes,  is  absolutely  erroneous. 
It  would  appear  that  this  is  the  only  form  of  tax  that  touches  them 
most  lightly.  The  cotton  duty,  like  the  duty  on  sugar,  reached  the 
well-to-do  classes,  who  alone  consumed  the  comparatively  high-priced 
foreign  fabrics.  The  wisdom  of  abandoning  taxes  upon  luxuries,  which 
are  habitually  consumed  by  the  richer  portion  of  the  population,  upon 
purely  theoretical  grounds,  is,  to  say  the  least,  very  doubtful. 

The  consumption  of  '  excisable '  articles,  which  is  a  legal  euphe- 
mism for  intoxicating  liquors  and  drugs,  seems  to  progress  in  the  same 
ratio  as  the  advancement  of  British  civilisation.  The  rich  of  course 
indulge  in  imported  liquors,  whilst  the  poor  betake  themselves  to 
country-made  doashtas,  and  other  intoxicating  drinks '  distilled  from 
rice,  &c.  It  would  seem  that  here  at  least  there  is  ample  field  for  the 
exercise  of  financial  ability.  A  very  excellent  Act  was  passed  by  the 
Bengal  Legislature  about  a  year  ago,  which  has  for  one  of  its  objects 
the  increase  of  the  number  of  articles  upon  which  an  excise  duty 
may  be  levied.1  Its  operation  might  usefully  be  extended  to  the  whole 
of  India. 

The  duty  on  salt  is  another  of  those  questions  which,  sooner  or 

later,  must  engage  the  attention  of  the  Government.     This  duty  has 

been  partially  reduced  in  some  quarters,  and  partially  enhanced  in 

1  The  Bengal  Excise  Act. 

3  T  2 


968  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  June 

others.  Considering  that  in  the  latter  case,  notably  in  Madras  and 
Bombay,  the  people  are  on  the  whole  poorer  than  in  Bengal,  one  is 
inclined  to  doubt  the  financial  success  of  the  measure.  Then  again, 
the  partial  reduction  of  the  duty  in  the  more  favoured  parts,  whilst 
it  has  entailed  some  loss  to  the  revenue,  lias  made  no  appreciable 
difference  in  the  price  of  salt.  Viewed  by  the  light  of  practical 
experience,  it  may  be  questioned  whether  the  thorough  equalisation  of 
the  duty  on  salt  is  feasible. 


That  India  is  on  the  verge  of  bankruptcy  is  a  statement  which 
has  often  been  put  forward,  but  scarcely  ever  seriously  controverted. 
Whatever  truth  there  may  be  in  it,  one  fact  can  hardly  be  disputed, 
that  the  mass  of  the  population  is  worse  off  now  than  at  any  time 
before  under  British  rule.  Everywhere  the  necessaries  of  life  have 
become  dear.  Undoubtedly,  in  many  cases  the  standard  of  living  has 
improved,  but  the  consequence  is  that  living  costs  more  than  twenty 
years  ago.  The  value  of  money  has  diminished.  Trade  does  not  bring 
in  much  profit.  The  supply  of  candidates  for  Government  employ- 
ment is  greater  than  the  demand.  The  cultivators  of  the  soil  are  im- 
poverished, and  the  general  body  of  the  landowning  classes  is  not 
better  off.  The  wages  of  labour  have  increased,  but  the  benefit  which 
might  be  expected  from  increase  of  wages  in  the  improvement  of  the 
•condition  of  the  labouring  classes  is  to  be  seen  nowhere.  There  are  a 
few,  very  few,  rich  people  scattered  over  the  country ;  but,  as  a  whole,  a 
dead  weight  seems  to  hang  on  the  Indian  community.  The  real  causes 
-of  this  serious  outlook  are  not  far  to  seek,  and  may  be  stated  in  a  few 
words.  They  are  the  natural  results,  partly  of  the  financial  difficulties 
of  the  Government  which  necessitate  the  imposition  of  onerous  and 
unpopular  taxes,  and  partly  of  those  circumstances  which  lead  to  a 
heavy  and  incessant  drain  of  large  sums  of  money  year  after  year  in 
the  shape  of  savings,  pensions,  home-charges,  &c.  Those  who  know 
the  nature  of  the  investments  made  by  English  gentlemen  in  India, 
understand  perfectly  that  a  very  small  fraction  of  the  sums  so  with- 
drawn finds  its  way  back  for  '  opening  up  the  resources  of  the 
country.'  A  taste  has  grown  up  on  all  sides  for  foreign  articles  and 
imported  goods,  all  of  which  have  to  be  paid  for  in  hard  cash.  It  is 
not  my  wish  to  decry  the  taste  which  has  grown  up  among  Indians 
for  foreign  things.  I  look  upon  it  as  a  sign  of  progress.  Nor  do  I 
find  fault  with  Englishmen,  who  have  rendered  their  services  faithfully 
and  loyally  to  the  country,  for  enjoying  their  rewards  in  their  own 
fatherland.  The  fact,  however,  remains  that  whereas,  under  the  native 
rule,  the  wealth  of  the  country  continued  there,  by  the  necessity  of  the 
British  rule  an  enormous  portion  of  its  resources  is  withdrawn,  and, 
to  a  great  extent,  lost.  Various  plans  have  been,  from  time  to  time, 
suggested  to  combat  this  evil,  and  to  prevent,  at  least  partially, 


1880.     SOME  INDIAN  SUGGESTIONS  FOR   INDIA.        969 

the  continuous  outflow  of  the  resources  of  India.  One  notable  sugges- 
tion was  that  the  administration  should,  as  far  as  practicable,  be  en- 
trusted to  and  conducted  through  the  instrumentality  of  the  natives 
of  the  country,  saving  thereby  the  necessity  of  importing  costly 
foreign  labour.  In  1870  this  plan  received  the  sanction  of  the 
Imperial  Parliament,  and  an  act  was  passed  embodying  the  principle 
in  a  formal  statute.  It  remained,  however,  a  dead  letter  until  a  year 
or  two  ago,  when,  under  the  pressure  of  British  public  opinion,  the 
Government  of  India  framed  a  set  of  rules,  which  the  Indian  people 
have  with  one  voice  declared  to  be  a  fiasco.  If  the  educated  public 
opinion  of  a  nation  possesses  any  value  in  the  eyes  of  statesmen,  these 
rules  stand  condemned  as  absurd  and  impracticable. 

The  Act  of  1870  was  passed  with  the  object  of  placing  the 
Indian  subjects  of  Her  Majesty  on  a  footing  of  equality  with  the 
British  European  subjects.  It  authorised  the  Indian  Government  to 
appoint  natives  of  India  of  proved  merit  and  ability  to  offices  of  trust 
and  emolument,  without  regard  to  the  fact  whether  they  belonged  to 
the  Civil  Service  or  not.  There  was  no  question  of  a  difference  of 
pay  between  European  and  native  officials  involved  in  the  object  of 
the  Act.  It  is  undoubtedly  true  that  the  primary  principle  in  view 
was  to  save  India  from  bankruptcy  and  collapse  by  utilising  in- 
digenous labour,  and  stopping  the  needless  influx  of  the  foreign 
element.  Had  the  Act  received  the  hearty  concurrence  of  the  Indian 
Grovernment,  two  practical  gains  would  have  resulted  therefrom.  In 
the  first  place,  much  of  the  wealth  which  is  at  the  present  moment 
necessarily  withdrawn,  would  have  remained  in  its  legitimate  sphere, 
and  gone  towards  the  improvement  of  the  masses.  In  the  second 
place,  the  waste  of  public  money  caused  by  the  retention  of  offices 
not  absolutely  needed  would  have  come  to  an  end.  The  rules,  how- 
ever, not  only  stultify  the  object  of  the  Act,  but  negative  completely 
the  theory  upon  which  the  Government  has  ostensibly  proceeded. 
The  invidious  distinction  in  the  matter  of  pay  between  Europeans 
and  Indians,  besides  other  disqualifications,  would  prevent  qualified 
natives  of  India,  whose  services  might  be  really  worth  securing,  from 
entering  the  service  ;  whilst  a  few  unimportant  nominations  here  and 
there  can  have  no  appreciable  effect  on  the  expenditure  of  the 
country.  If  there  is  any  real  intention  on  the  part  of  the  authorities 
in  India  to  utilise  the  acknowledged  capacity  of  the  educated 
Indians  in  the  judicial  and  administrative  departments,  the  principle 
should  be  carried  into  effect  with  the  sole  object  of  benefiting  the 
country,  independently  of  every  consideration  for  class  interests.  If 
economy  is  in  view,  the  pay  of  all  the  high  officers  of  Government 
should  be  cut  down,  irrespective  of  every  question  of  nationality.  In 
every  country  in  the  world  the  emolument  of  an  office  serves  as  the 
standard  of  its  importance  in  the  eyes  of  the  populace.  And  this  is 
particularly  the  case  in  India.  If  the  pay  of  all  the  high  officers  of 


970  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  June 

Government  were  reduced  without  distinction  of  race,  colour,  or 
creed,  there  would  be  no  fear  of  invidious  comparisons  being  drawn 
between  a  European  and  an  Indian  employe.  It  might  possibly  be 
said  that  Indians  living  in  their  own  country  do  not  require  such 
large  salaries  as  Englishmen  going  out  to  a  foreign  land.  There 
appear  to  me  to  be  two  fallacies  involved  in  this  assumption.  Is  it 
necessary  to  import  foreign  labour  to  India«at  a  greater  cost  to  do 
the  same  work  which  an  Indian  would  do  equally  well?  If  the  latter 
cannot  perform  it  as  well  as  a  European,  cadit  qucestio ;  an  Indian 
should  not  be  placed  in  any  position  on  any  pay  whatsoever.  On  the 
other  hand,  if  both  are  equally  efficient,  one  can  hardly  understand 
the  reason  of  importing  foreign  labour  at  greater  expense.  The 
foreigner  who  makes  his  choice  must  fain  accept  the  wages  of  in- 
digenous labour.  This  is  surely  a  principle  of  political  economy  which 
governs  the  employment  of  all  labour,  wherever  there  is  no  monopoly ; 
nor  is  there  any  reason  why  India,  because  she  has  no  voice  in  the 
government  of  the  country,  should  alone  be  deprived  of  the  benefits 
of  this  equitable  rule.  Another  question  is,  Do  Englishmen  really 
require  larger  salaries  than  Indians  ?  No  one  would  suppose  it  is 
intended  to  confer  such  offices  as  are  contemplated  under  the  Act  on 
men  of  the  old,  old  type,  now  happily  extinct,  who  administered 
justice  in  the  villages  of  Bengal  or  Maharashtra  dressed  in  a  single 
loin-cloth.  It  may  be  assumed  that  offices  of  trust  and  responsibility, 
which  require  not  only  capacity  and  cultivation,  but  also  probity  and 
independence,  would  be  conferred  on  men  who  form  the  link  between 
Western  and  Eastern  civilisation.  The  merits  of  these  men  have 
frequently  been  questioned  by  a  new  class  of  Anglo- Indians,  but  the 
motive  is  too  transparent  to  deceive  anybody.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
the  men  of  culture  who  are  growing  up  in  India  under  Western 
influences  should  be  considered  by  a  wise  Government  as  forming  the 
nucleus  of  a  healthy  progressive  organisation  for  the  country.  The 
style  of  living  among  these  men  is  little  inferior  to  that  of  Europeans. 
They  all  look  forward  to  bestowing  on  their  children  the  boons  of  a 
good  English  university  education.  Their  ambitions,  hopes,  and 
aspirations  are  little  behind  those  of  cultivated  Englishmen.  The 
claims  on  their  charity,  on  the  other  hand,  are  as  extensive  as  their 
dependents  are  numerous.  Can  it  be  contended  that  the  expenses  of 
these  men  are  less  than  those  of  Englishmen  ?  Young  Englishmen, 
going  out  to  India,  have,  in  the  majority  of  cases,  only  themselves  to 
support.  They  live  in  '  chummeries,'  and  their  expenses  are  moderate. 
It  is  self-evident  that  the  theory  which  has  been  put  forward  to 
justify  the  distinction  in  the  pay  of  Indian  and  European  officials 
under  the  new  rules,  is  fallacious.  One  may  well  feel  surprised  at 
the  absurdity  of  the  idea  that  there  could  be  any  gain  to  the  State 
by  the  introduction  of  a  few  extra  men  into  the  service  on  reduced 
salaries  whilst  the  main  body  continues  on  the  old  lines. 


1880.     SOME  INDIAN  SUGGESTIONS  FOR  INDIA.        971 

Turning  now  to  the  question  of  comparative  efficiency,  as  the 
primary  element  in  the  consideration  of  economy,  there  can  be  no 
doubt  that,  taken  as  a  body,  the  native  public  servants  are  as  efficient 
as  any  ordinary  European  official.  In  personal  integrity,  in  the  simple- 
minded  discharge  of  public  duties,  and  the  grasp  of  administrative 
details,  they  are  not  inferior  in  the  smallest  degree  to  any  foreigner. 
If  there  is  any  tendency  in  some  of  them  towards  sycophantism,  they 
cannot  be  said  to  stand  alone  in  this  respect ;  and  the  system  under 
which  they  exist  is  directly  responsible  for  the  growth  of  this  repre- 
hensible habit  among  them  as  well  as  among  foreigners.  Personal 
integrity  does  not  consist  in  incorruptibility  alone  ;  it  implies  that  in- 
corruptibility should  be  joined  to  freedom  from  all  kinds  of  prejudices 
and  predilections  which  warp  the  judgment.  As  a  rule,  whether 
from  force  of  circumstances  or  otherwise,  Indian  officials  are  singularly 
free  from  prejudices.  Besides,  a  European,  however  well-intentioned, 
labours  always  under  certain  disadvantages  in  the  satisfactory  dis- 
charge of  his  duties.  His  ignorance  of  the  habits,  customs,  and 
usages  of  the  people  over  whom  he  happens  to  be  placed,  and  his 
imperfect  knowledge  of  the  vernacular  languages,  seriously  interfere 
with  his  efficiency.  Frequent  miscarriages  of  justice  are  occasioned 
simply  by  want  of  knowledge  on  the  part  of  the  officers  of  the 
language  of  the  people,  and  their  modes  of  life  and  thought. 

The  judicial  capacity  of  the  Indians  is  universally  admitted.  The 
deputy-magistrates  and  other  subordinate  executive  officers,  who 
practically  carry  on  the  work  of  administration  all  over  the  country, 
attest  the  administrative  talent  of  the  native  officials.  With  these 
facts  staring  one  in  the  face,  it  is  the  height  of  unreasonableness  to  in- 
sist upon  the  continuance  of  imported  labour.  If  the  obnoxious  rules 
are  abrogated,  as  it  is  to  be  hoped  they  soon  will  be,  care  should  be 
taken  to  avoid  all  invidious  distinctions  between  native  and  foreign 
employes.  In  making  nominations  regard  should  be  had  to  the 
status  of  the  individual  nominee  at  the  time.  For  example,  if  an 
officer  happened  to  be  drawing  Es.  700  per  month  when  so  nominated, 
he  should  be  considered  eligible  for  an  equivalent  office  in  the  Civil 
Service,  say  a  joint  magistracy.  Were  some  such  line  of  action  as  is 
here  indicated  to  be  adopted,  there  can  be  no  question  of  an  inter- 
ference with  vested  interests,  assuming  that  '  vested  interests '  have 
any  right  to  be  thought  of  in  a  matter  of  absolute  justice. 

As  regards  the  question  whether  the  number  of  British  officials 
in  the  country  is  not  more  than  is  actually  needed,  it  may  be  men- 
tioned that  the  point  has  been  repeatedly  discussed  by  some  of  the 
leading  organs  of  Indian  public  opinion,  both  Hindoo  and  Mahom- 
medan.  In  some  districts  not  far  from  one  of  the  Presidency  towns, 
if  my  information  is  not  incorrect,  there  appears  to  be  frequently 
such  a  plethora  of  official  talent  that  the  divisional  head  has  a  little 
difficulty  in  providing  work  for  all  his  subordinates.  Of  course  this 


972  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  June 

applies  to  Sudder  stations  and  places  where  there  are  native  deputies 
to  lighten  the  work  of  'joints '  and  assistants.  And  yet  young  civilians 
are  annually  '  indented '  to  do  the  work  which  can  be  more  effectually 
and  inexpensively  done  by  a  less  numerous  body  of  officials.  It  is  not 
for  a  moment  implied  that  the  Indian  Government  has  wilfully  called 
for  more  men  than  were  required ;  what  India  complains  of  is  that  no 
care  has  hitherto  been  taken  to  ascertain  the  precise  requirements  of 
the  country.  Of  course,  it  is  impossible  now  to  reduce  the  existing 
number,  but  in  future  some  limit  ought  to  be  imposed  on  the  system 
of  indiscriminate  drafting. 

Another  question  which  is  not  out  of  place  here  is,  whether  so 
many  police  superintendents  and  assistant  superintendents  are  really 
needed  in  places  where  assistant  civilian  magistrates  are  available  to 
do  the  work  ?  Nobody  would  advocate  for  a  second  the  union  of  the 
judicial  and  executive  functions  ;  nor  would  it  be  right  to  revert 
to  the  old  system,  under  which  the  police  were  subject  to  the 
control  of  the  head  of  the  district,  who  was  partly  a  police  and  partly 
a  judicial  officer.  The  two  functions  should  always  be  kept  apart,  as 
is  the  case  in  the  Presidency  towns.  The  principle  which  has  been 
so  long  followed  in  the  towns  can  easily  be  introduced  in  the  Moffus- 
sil  without  entailing  any  extra  charge  on  the  State,  and  would  be  the 
means  of  preventing  the  recurrence  of  those  cases  of  police  oppression 
which  so  often  bring  into  discredit  the  administration  of  justice.  But 
the  adoption  of  the  principle  referred  to  ought  not  to  interfere 
with  the  curtailment  of  some  unnecessary  offices  in  the  Police  De- 
partment. It  is  possible  that  in  some  large  districts  separate  police 
superintendents  are  necessary,  but  there  are  others  in  which  certainly 
they  can  be  dispensed  with,  without  detriment  to  the  efficiency  of  the 
administration. 

There  are  various  other  branches  of  the  public  service  where  re- 
trenchment might  safely  be  effected.  The  Bengal  Government  has 
recently  succeeded,  not  without  some  opposition,  in  bringing  about  a 
considerable  reduction  of  expenditure  in  one  department  at  least.  As 
it  is  desirable  to  avoid,  as  much  as  possible,  barren  controversies,  it 
is  needless  to  specify  more  particularly  the  directions  in  which  such 
retrenchment  can  be  achieved.  A  strong,  conscientious  chief,  like  the 
present  Lieutenant-Govern  or  of  Bengal,  would  easily  put  a  stop  to  the 
undoubted  waste  which  goes  on  in  certain  branches  of  the  public  service. 
The  vigour  with  which  he  has  exposed  the  absurdity,  not  to  call  it  by 
any  other  name,  of  maintaining  a  Bureau  of  Agriculture  in  the  North- 
west Provinces,  points  him  out  as  the  fittest  man  to  grapple  effectu- 
ally with  the  difficult  questions  that  have  to  be  faced  shortly  in 
India — a  man  who  would  not  shrink  from  applying  the  pruning-knife 
where  it  is  chiefly  needed — at  the  top. 


1880.     SOME  INDIAN  SUGGESTIONS  FOR  INDIA.        973 

The  legislation  of  the  country  requires  serious  attention.  It 
was  unfortunate  that  no  Indian  was  included  in  the  late  Law 
Commission.  A  judge  of  the  stamp  of  Mr.  Justice  Komesh  Ch under 
Mitter,  whose  experience  and  knowledge  are  acknowledged  and 
appreciated  on  all  sides,  would  have  rendered  invaluable  services 
to  the  Commission,  since  the  task  they  were  engaged  in  had 
reference  entirely  to  the  wants  and  requirements  of  India.  It  is  a 
matter  of  regret  also  that  the  legislative  council  of  India  should 
contain  so  little  Indian  element  in  it  really  valuable.  The  Maha- 
rajahs,  Rajahs,  and  Nawabs  who  have  hitherto  adorned  the  viceregal 
council,  may  be  very  estimable  men  in  themselves ;  but,  with  the 
exception  of  one  or  two,  none  of  them  know  the  English  lan- 
guage, in  which  the  debates  are  conducted,  sufficiently  well  to  under- 
stand the  drift  of  the  arguments.  It  is  difficult  to  see  what  services 
such  men  could  possibly  render  to  the  senate  in  its  task  of  law-making. 
Whilst  the  provincial  councils  include  some  of  the  most  talented 
Indians,  the  Supreme  Council  is  guided  in  its  selection  of  members 
much  more  by  their  rank  and  wealth  than  by  their  fitness.  This  is 
not  meant  as  a  reflection  on  the  individual  members  who  have  had 
the  honour  of  sitting  in  the  Legislative  Council  of  India,  and  who 
have,  according  to  their  lights,  tried  to  be  of  some  assistance  in  its 
deliberations.  If  they  have  failed,  it  is  owing  to  no  fault  of  theirs. 
The  blame  lies  at  the  door  of  others.  As  long  as  the  principle  of 
nomination  exists,  and  as  long  as  the  people  have  no  voice  in  the 
selection  of  the  men  who  are  supposed  to  represent  their  views  in  the 
councils  of  the  Empire,  it  is  desirable  that  the  number  of  Indian 
members  should  not  be  less  than  four,  and  that  their  presence  at  the 
Board  should  be  judged  by  the  standard  of  their  usefulness  and 
ability,  and  not  by  the  titles  attached  to  their  names.  In  the  Bengal 
Legislative  Council  five  out  of  twelve  members  were,  at  one  time, 
natives  of  India.  The  principle  which  answers  so  well  in  the  Lieu- 
tenant-Governor's Council  should  answer  equally  so  in  the  Viceroy's 
Council.  The  services  of  the  members  of  the  Bengal  Council  are 
purely  honorary — the  '  additional '  members  of  the  Indian  Council 
are  allowed  a  sum  of  Us.  1 0,000 2  per  annum,  to  cover  the  costs  of 
their  journeys  to  and  from  Simla.  Possibly  some  change  will  soon 
be  made  in  the  systematic  migration  of  the  Government  from 
Calcutta  for  eight  months  in  the  year.  The  judges  of  the  High 
Court,  magistrates,  barristers,  solicitors,  Small  Cause  Court  judges, 
and  non-official  Europeans  generally,  who  spend  the  major  portion 
of  their  time  in  the  plains,  do  not,  as  a  rule,  feel  the  worse 
for  it.  Would  not  three  or  four  months'  trip  to  the  hills  be 
sufficient  to  recuperate  the  flagged  energies  of  the  chief  officers  of 
Government  without  entailing  on  the  country  the  expense  of  pro- 

»  About  1,OOOZ. 


974  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  June 

viding  for  the  transfer  of  entire  establishments  to  Simla  for  eight  or 
nine  months  in  the  year  ?  The  question  of  the  cost,  not  to  speak  of 
other  undesirabilities,  connected  with  the  annual  exodus  has  been 
thoroughly  discussed.  It  is  to  be  hoped  that  a  Liberal  Government 
will  signalise  its  return  to  power  by  putting  some  kind  of  check  on 
the  enormous  expenditure  which  is  entailed  on  the  country  on  ac- 
count of  these  trips  to  the  famous  hill-station.  It  is  said  that  the 
Indian  Government  has  lately  tried  to  deal  with  the  question  by 
ordering  all  the  clerks  and  subordinate  officers  to  be  permanently 
located  there !  The  result  of  this  order  will  ultimately  be,  that 
extra  clerks  will  have  to  be .  maintained  in  Calcutta  at  an  additional 
expense. 


In  no  country  in  the  world,  perhaps,  is  justice  taxed  so  heavily  as 
in  India.  With  the  exception  of  the  Presidency  towns,  and  except  as  re- 
gards suits  instituted  in  the  Presidency  High  Courts,  suitors  are  sub- 
jected to  the  payment  of  a  heavy  ad  valorem  stamp  duty  on  plaints, 
grounds  of  appeal,  &c.  Those  people  who  have  at  one  time  or  another 
been  connected  with  the  administration  of  justice  in  India,  will  bear 
testimony  to  the  fact  that  the  Stamp  Act  in  numerous  cases  prevents 
the  poorer  classes  from  seeking  redress  in  Courts  of  Justice,  whereas  it 
serves  as  a  great  engine  of  oppression  in  the  hands  of  the  rich. 
Judicial  officers  have  repeatedly  protested  against  the  working  of 
this  peculiarly  obnoxious  Act,  and  the  people  have  been  crying  out 
against  it,  but  no  heed  has  been  paid  to  their  complaints.  If  the 
stamp  duties  are  intended  as  a  prohibitory  tax  on  justice,  it  unques- 
tionably answers  its  purpose.  But  it  is  doubtful  if  it  adds  much  to 
the  popularity  of  the  British  Government. 

The  relation  of  the  Ryots  to  the  Zemindars,  and  the  Ryots  and 
Zemindars  to  the  Government,  forms  one  of  the  burning  questions  of 
the  day,  and  has  to  be  grappled  with  in  earnest,  and  that  speedily. 
Unquestionably  the  condition  of  the  landowning  and  cultivating  classes 
all  over  the  country,  and  their  feelings  towards  the  British  rule,  are  of 
far  greater  importance  than  even  the  financial  difficulties  of  the 
administration.  The  Rumpa  and  the  Deccan  mutiny  and  the  famous 
Pubna  and  Furreedpoor  riots  owed  their  origin  primarily  to  agrarian 
causes.  Owing  to  a  variety  of  circumstances,  people  connected  with 
land  have  latterly  incurred  heavy  losses  in  one  shape  or  another.  No 
doubt  their  own  improvidence  is  mainly  responsible  for  these  unhappy 
results.  At  the  same  time,  it  may  be  asserted,  without  much  fear  of 
contradiction,  that  the  general  indebtedness  of  the  landowning 
classes  and  the  peasantry  of  India  is  the  indirect  consequence  of  two 
causes,  for  which  the  administration  must  be  held  answerable.  The 
introduction  of  the  principle  of  freedom  of  contracts,  recognised  by 
English  Courts,  among  an  unadvanced  community  like  the  masses  of 


1880.     SOME  INDIAN  SUGGESTIONS  FOR  INDIA.        975 

India,  has  had  the  effect  of  throwing  them  completely  into  the  hands 
of  usurers  and  money-lenders.3 

The  rigorous  exaction  of  the  Government  dues  in  literal  accord- 
ance with  the  requirements  of  the  law,  has  often  driven  landowners 
to  obtain  loans  on  the  most  extortionate  terms,  which  have  led 
eventually  to  the  sale  of  their  properties.  Since  the  abolition  of 
the  law  against  usury,  there  is  no  check  on  the  rapacity  of  money- 
lenders. Again,  the  manner  in  which  landed  properties  are  set  up 
to  auction  in  the  Moffussil  in  execution  of  decrees,  without  re- 
served bids,  has  the  effect  of  knocking  down  estates  of  immense 
value  for  a  mere  trifle.  The  Deccan  Kyots'  Eelief  Act,  and  the 
measure  lately  introduced  in  the  Supreme  Council  for  the  protection  of 
the  proprietors  of  the  Jhansi  district,  serve  to  show  that  the  Govern- 
ment is  beginning  to  recognise  the  emergent  character  of  the  difficul- 
ties under  which  the  landed  interest  in  India  is  labouring.  The  relief, 
however,  in  order  to  be  effectual,  must  not  be  partial  in  its  nature. 
Some  plan  ought  to  be  devised  by  which  the  benefits  intended  for  the 
Jhansi  proprietors  may  be  extended  to  other  parts  of  India.  The 
system  of  reserved  bids  might  also  be  introduced  in  the  Moffussil 
to  protect  landowners  in  the  sale  of  their  properties  in  execution  of 
judgment-debts  and  decrees.  The  National  Mohammedan  Association, 
at  Calcutta,  submitted  a  memorial  to  the  Government  of  India  on 
this  subject,  but  no  attention  seems  to  have  been  paid  to  its  recom- 
mendation. 

The  extreme  rigidity  of  the  land  revenue  system  of  India  deserves 
the  most  serious  consideration  of  every  Government  conscientiously  bent 
upon  removing  all  causes  of  discontent  among  a  people  who  have  never 
shown  any  lack  of  forbearance  or  patient  endurance.  The  rigour  with 
which  the  land  tax  is  exacted  all  over  India,  regardless  of  all  questions 
of  droughts  or  floods  (khuski  or  gharki},  bad  or  good  harvests,  has  con- 
duced to  no  small  extent  to  the  present  impoverishment  of  the 
country.  In  those  parts  where  the  Permanent  Settlement  is  in  force, 
the  rule  of  law  is  that  in  case  of  a  default  committed  by  a  Zemindar 
in  the  payment  of  the  Jamma  or  tax  by  the  sunset  of  a  day  fixed, 
his  estate  is  liable  to  be  .sold  by  public  auction.  The  strict  enforce- 
ment of  this  peculiarly  harsh  rule  has  acquired  for  it  the  popular 
designation  of  '  the  Sunset  Law.'  Any  one  who  has  ever  had  to  deal 
with  its  practical  working  must  be  aware  of  the  numberless  cases  of 
ruin  and  beggary  which  have  been  occasioned  thereby,  and  the  infinite 
amount  of  trouble  it  causes  to  many.4  In  relaxing  its  rigour  the 
Government  will  not  only  save  itself  from  much  odium,  but  strengthen 
its  hold  on  the  affections  of  the  people.  For  can  it  be  wondered  at  that 

3  The  writer  of  these  lines  knows  of  a  case,  from  his  own  forensic  experience,  in 
which  a  debt  of  Es.  4,000  (400Z.)  had  swelled  in  ten  years  to  Rs.  30,000  (3,0002.) 

4  Of  the  hardships  to  which  people  are  exposed  in  Behar  and  many  parts  of 
Bengal,  the  writer  ventures  to  speak  from  some  personal  knowledge.     With  refer- 
ence to  the  other  parts,  he  is,  of  course,  obliged  to  speak  from  'secondary  evidence.' 


976  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  June 

the  scions  of  those  houses  which  have  suffered  most  should  look  upon 
the  British  rule  as  responsible  for  their  present  misery  ?  When  it  is 
borne  in  mind  that  absenteeism  is  the  general  rule  in  India,  that 
estates  are  left  in  the  management  of  the  Deivans  and  Mutsuddis,  who 
alone  are  charged  with  the  duty  of  paying  punctually  t  he  Government 
dues;  and  when  it  is  considered  how  open  these  men  are  to  all  sorts 
of  underhand  influences,  either  to  achieve  the  ruin  of  their  masters, 
or  their  own  aggrandisement,  it  may  be  thought  expedient,  if  not 
just,  to  relax  to  some  extent  the  hard  and  fast  rule  which  now  pre- 
vails. Fraud  and  collusion  often  lead  to  the  sale  of  vast  estates 
before  the  proprietors  themselves  have  the  smallest  inkling  of  the 
fact.  The  only  resource  then  left  to  the  victims  is  to  move  the  Dis- 
trict Courts  to  set  aside  the  sales,  but  as  substantial  irregularities 
have  to  be  proved,  the  chances  of  a  reversal  are  few  indeed.5  A 
simple  direction  from  the  Board  of  Revenue  to  the  revenue  col- 
lectors against  the  strict  enforcement  of  this  law,  even  if  it  should  be 
considered  advisable  to.  retain  it  on  the  Statute  Book,  may  in  some 
degree  benefit  the  people.  The  collectors  should,  in  cases  of  default, 
be  required  to  give  notice  to  the  proprietors ;  and  grace  of  a  fort- 
night or  a  month  should  be  allowed.  A  few  simple  rules  to  this 
effect  would  amply  answer  the  requirements  of  the  case. 

A  change  in  the  land-laws  of  the  country  seems  to  be  engaging 
the  attention  of  the  Indian  Government  at  the  present  moment.  It 
is  to  be  hoped  that  the  Permanent  Settlement  will  be  made  appli- 
cable to  all  India.6  The  system  of  periodical  settlement,  whatever 
its  advantage  from  a  fiscal  point  of  view,  keeps  the  mind  of  the 
people  in  a  state  of  perpetual  ferment.  The  proprietors  never  feel 
secure  in  the  enjoyment  of  their  estates,  and  their  tenants  continue 
in  as  great  a  state  of  unrest  as  they.  The  Permanent  Settlement,  in 
spite  of  all  that  has  been  said  against  it,  has  proved  on  the  whole 
beneficial  to  Bengal.  In  those  parts  where  periodical  settlements 

5  The  perverseness  of  English  Moffussil  j  udges  frequently  causes  great  hardships. 
People  go  to  court  in  quest  of  justice.     They  are  turned  back  with  what  untrained 
administrators  call  Law.     In  one  case,  which  occurred  only  a  short  time  ago  in  the 
District  of  Shahabad,  a  large  family  of  Rajpoots  were»sold  out  of  their  hearth  and 
home  under  peculiarly  severe  circumstances.     They  had  mortgaged  their  homestead 
lands  to  a  money-lender,  who  took  out  execution  on  a  decree  which  he  obtained 
against  them  and  which  declared  that  the  mortgaged  properties  were  primarily  liable 
for  the  judgment-debt.     At  the  time  of  execution,  the  judgment  debtors  had  in 
deposit  in  the  Subordinate  Judge's  Court  a  large  sum  of  money,  and  they  applied 
to  the  District  Judge  that  the  decretal  amount  might  be  paid  out  of  that  sum.     They 
also  begged  for  time  to  arrange  matters  with  the  creditor,  who,  on  his  side,  was  not 
unwilling  to  come  to  terms.     But  the  District  Judge  was  inexorable,  his  view  of  the 
law  being  that  the  debt  was  to  be  satisfied  by  the  sale  of  the  mortgaged  properties 
in  accordance  with  the  terms  of  the  decree.     And  so  the  properties  were  put  up  to 
sale,  and  knocked  down  for  a  quarter  of  their  value. 

6  Should  the  value  of  land  increase  in  any  part  independently  of  any  agency  em- 
ployed by  the  landlords  or  tenants,  Government  can  easily  share  in  the  accruing  ad- 
Vantage  by  a  well-devised  system  of  local  taxation. 


1880.     SOME  INDIAN  SUGGESTIONS  FOR  INDIA.        977 

have  been  introduced,  the  condition  of  the  people  compares  un- 
favourably with  that  of  Bengal.  The  extension  of  the  Permanent 
Settlement  over  the  whole  of  India  would  save  the  people  from  the 
continual  molestation  to  which  they  are  now  exposed,  and  probably 
would  prove  the  greatest  boon  which  could  be  conferred  on  a  nation. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  time  seems  to  have  arrived  when  the  Indian 
Government  should  make  up  its  mind,  in  spite  of  the  opposition 
evinced  in  certain  quarters,  to  confer  transferable  rights  on  the 
Ryots,  bona-fide  kdshtkars,  holding  occupancy  tenures.  Care  should, 
however,  be  taken  to  prevent  the  peasantry  from  being  bought  out 
or  swamped  by  speculative  Vakeels  or  greedy  Bunniahs.  Prior  to 
the  Act  X.  of  1859,  justly  regarded  as  the  Magna  Charta  of  the 
Ryots,  they  were  more  or  less  at  the  mercy  of  the  landlords.  It  is 
possibly  true  that  the  Act  of  1859  to  some  extent  affected  the  Ze- 
mindars injuriously  ;  and  it  may  be  unreservedly  admitted  that  the 
Ryots  as  a  rule  are  not  so  '  child-like '  as  they  are  occasionally  repre- 
sented to  be.  Child-like  Ryots  are  as  difficult  to  find  in  India  as 
elsewhere.  Considering,  however,  the  enormous  advantages  possessed 
by  the  landlords  for  the  enforcement  of  their  rights,  it  would  hardly 
be  fair  to  go  back,  as  the  desire  seems  to  be,  to  the  old  state  of 
things.  The  landowning  interest  is  strongly  represented  in  the 
Councils.  The  Zemindars  have  easy  access  to  the  governing  classes  ; 
their  views  are  everywhere  listened  to  with  consideration.  The 
voice  of  the  Ryot  remains  unheard  and  unheeded  until  he  calls 
attention  to  his  existence  by  some  revolting  deed  of  agrarian 
violence.  It  is  simply  absurd  to  talk  of  the  mischiefs  likely  to  ensue 
to  the  Ryot  were  he  to  obtain  transferable  rights.  Human  nature 
and  self-interest  would  in  the  end  assert  themselves,  and  insure  his 
safety  from  the  evils  predicted.  Whilst  affording  every  facility  to  the 
landowners  to  realise  their  rents,  and  insuring  them,  in  every  possible 
way,  the  enjoyment  of  their  rights,  Government  should  not  overlook 
the  interest  of  the  Ryots.  Subinfeudation,  with  the  concomitant 
evil  of  rack-renting,  should  be  strictly  put  a  stop  to.  Absenteeism 
should  be  discouraged,  and  the  Zemindars  .should  be  required  to  deve- 
lopc  greater  interest  in  agricultural  pursuits  and  agricultural  im- 
provements. At  the  same  time,  a  genuine  desire  should  be  promoted 
amongst  the  Ryots  for  improving  their  material  condition  ;  and  this 
can  be  attained  only  by  giving  them  such  an  interest  in  the  soil  as 
would  be  heritable  as  well  as  transferable.  Some  scheme  should 
also,  if  possible,  be  devised  for  rendering  assistance  by  Government 
loans,  or  the  establishment  of  agricultural  banks,  to  landowners  and 
Ryots  really  anxious  to  improve  their  lands. 

The  Vernacular  Press  Act  and  the  Arms  Act — the  need  of  both 
of  which  still  remains  unintelligible  to  common  apprehension — it  is 
to  be  hoped  will  soon  be  repealed.  The  arguments  against  the 
Vernacular  Press  Act  are  familiar  to  the  British  public.  But  the 


978  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  June 

Arms  Act  requires  a  brief  mention.  This  measure  applies  exclu- 
sively to  the  native  population.  Europeans  and  Eurasians,  are 
exempted  from  the  operation  of  the  Act.  In  fact  it  proceeds 
upon  the  general  assumption  of  the  disloyalty  of  the  natives  of 
India.  A  few  men  here  and  there  are  specially  exempted  from  this 
category,  but  the  spirit  of  the  Act  implies  a  national  censure.  What- 
ever may  have  been  the  necessity  for  a  measure  to  prevent  arms  of 
precision  reaching  the  frontier  tribes,  a  law  which  assumes  the  dis- 
loyalty of  the  nation  as  a  body  can  hardly  fail  to  create  surprise  and 
discontent. 

These  suggestions  are  offered  in  the  hope  that,  at  a  time  when 
the  affairs  of  India  are  engaging  public  attention  in  England  more 
than  at  any  other  period  in  its  history,  they  might  prove  of  some 
interest  to  those  statesmen  to  whom  has  been  entrusted  the  duty  of 
settling  the  lines  upon  which  India  shall,  in  future,  be  governed. 
The  writer  has  tried  in  these  pages  to  represent  the  views  of  the 
Indian  nation  without  regard  to  the  interest  of  any  class  or  creed.  "He 
has  purposely  abstained  from  touching  on  those  questions  which  are 
likely  to  give  rise  to  controversies  leading  to  no  practical  result, 
dealing  only  with  matters  on  which  there  is  a  consensus  of  opinion 
among  the  people  of  India.  Should  these  remarks  prove  to  be  of  any 
use  in  evoking  the  sympathy  of  the  British  public  in  behalf  of  that 
country,  the  object  of  this  paper  will  have  been  amply  achieved. 

AMEER  ALT. 


1880.  979 


OUR  NATIONAL   ART    COLLECTIONS    AND 
PROVINCIAL   ART  MUSEUMS. 


THERE  are,  I  think,  special  reasons  why  public  attention  should  at 
this  time  be  turned  towards  the  subject  of  our  National  Museums, 
both  imperial  or  metropolitan  and  provincial. 

No  doubt  dealing  with  this  question  suggests  taking  into  account 
the  expenditure  of  considerable  sums  of  public  money,  and  it  is 
scarcely  necessary  to  say,  that  in  these  early  days  of  emergence  from 
a  prolonged  period  of  financial  depression  and  political  uncertainty, 
this  particular  consideration  must  be  a  somewhat  unwelcome  one. 

Every  now  and  then,  however,  whether  the  time  be  convenient  or 
not,  periods  occur  when  by  the  force  of  circumstances  new  departures 
must  be  taken.  The  country  is  committed  to  the  maintenance  and 
development  of  existing  imperial  collections,  and  also  to  the  system 
of  extending  these  benefits  to  the  great  centres  of  provincial  life 
and  culture,  and  there  are  unmistakable  signs  that  this  latter 
question  will  soon  take  a  prominent  position  amongst  the  social 
topics  of  the  day.  It  must  not  be  forgotten  that  already  the 
State  has  founded  museums  and  galleries  in  Dublin  and  Edinburgh, 
and  that  it  has  also  taken  a  significant  step  in  the  upholding 
and  management  of  the  Bethnal  Grreen  Museum ;  it  is  in  conse- 
quence not  to  be  wondered  at  that  many  other  great  provincial 
centres  should  also  consider  themselves  entitled  to  direct  pecuniary 
and  other  assistance,  in  the  formation  and  support  of  art  and  science 
collections.  In  some  cases  already  splendid  structures  have  been 
erected,  at  the  sole  cost  of  the  localities,  and  long  ranges  of  vacant 
galleries  are  awaiting  the  acquisition  of  the  costly  and  well-chosen 
specimens,  which  can  alone  render  these  institutions  other  than  a 
mockery  and  a  snare.  Such  rare  and  costly  specimens,  however,  are 
just  what  local  endeavour  finds  itself  almost  powerless  to  procure. 
The  questions  then  of  how  far  the  State  is  already  committed,  and 
what  the  country  at  large  expects  it  to  do,  in  regard  to  the  fostering 
of  provincial  .museums,  are  ripe  for  discussion,  and  will  inevitably 
force  themselves  into  notice. 

In  the  present  inchoate  condition  of  provincial  expectation  more 


980  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  June 

especially,  there  is  perhaps  even  some  danger  lest  crude  schemes 
should  be  entertained  to  which,  even  with  an  almost  unlimited  com- 
mand of  imperial  resources,  the  State  could  not  properly  give  its 
sanction,  and,  on  the  other  hand,  unless  well-considered  principles 
of  action  are  put  forward,  the  Government  is  not  unlikely  to  drift 
into  a  course  of  ill-directed  and  intermittent  assistance  to  local  in- 
stitutions, certain  in  the  long  run  to  entail  great  expense  to  the 
country  without  any  clear  prospect  of  adequate  return.  The  question 
is  in  reality  a  great  and  intricate  one — service  will  at  all  events  be 
rendered  in  endeavouring  to  confine  its  discussion  within  the  bounds 
of  reasonable  possibility. 

The  fact  should  be  kept  in  view  that  great  progress  has  already 
been  made  in  the  matter  of  State  aid  to  provincial  museums,  that  ad- 
ministrative machinery  to  that  end  has  been  created,  and,  in  one  at 
least  of  our  national  art  establishments,  definite  modes  of  assistance 
have  now  become  customary ;  it  is  therefore  mainly  a  question  of 
improving  and  extending  this  action,  and  not  of  modifying  in  any 
sweeping  manner  the  status  of  the  existing  central  institutions,  which 
must  be  the  practical  channels  of  conveyance  of  all  such  assistance. 

A  brief  and  necessarily  discursive  preliminary  survey  of  the  pre- 
sent state  and  mutual  relations  of  these  imperial  museums,  will  per- 
haps be  the  best  means  of  entering  on  the  intricate  questions  before 
us.  In  this  manner,  light  will  be  thrown  on  the  special  difficulties, 
shortcomings,  and  the  lack  of  concert  amongst  these  establishments 
themselves  ;  such  incidental  illustration  moreover  will  doubtless  tend 
to  bring  down  vague  and  impracticable  aspirations,  which  are  likely 
enough  to  arise  in  the  provinces,  to  the  practical  level,  at  which  safe 
and  certain  work  is  to  be  done. 

I  purpose  then  to  pass  rapidly  in  review  the  present  state  of  our 
three  great  national  art  establishments,  namely,  the  British  Museum, 
the  National  Gallery,  and  the  South  Kensington  Museum. 

The  first  named,  if  only  as  the  oldest  and  most  deeply  rooted  in- 
stitution of  the  three,  demands  our  attention  in  the  outset — special 
reasons  moreover  suggest  its  being  taken  first  in  order.  The  proxi- 
mate removal  of  the  Natural  History  Collections  from  Great  Kussell 
Street,  for  instance,  and  their  installation  in  the  new  edifice  at  South 
Kensington,  will  in  itself  be  an  occurrence  of  great  moment ;  the 
elimination  of  these  sections  will  leave  the  museum  in  possession  of  a 
range  of  empty  galleries,  the  reoccupation  of  which  will  probably 
bring  about  great  shifting  and  changing  in  other  departments  of  the 
establishment — and  from  this  cause  alone  questions  of  points  of  con- 
tact and  other  relations  with  the  great  art  collections  at  South  Ken- 
sington will  in  all  probability  be  brought  to  an  issue.  It  is  to  be 
hoped  that  this  change  will  practically  result  in  the  complete  elimina- 
tion of  the  science  element  from  the  general  scheme,  or  province  of 
the  British  Museum,  and  that  the  new  Natural  History  Museum  will 


1880.  ART  COLLECTIONS  AND  MUSEUMS.  981 

have  the  status  of  an  entirely  distinct  and  separate  institution,  to  be 
managed  by  men  of  science  under  the  immediate  authority  of  a 
Government  Department  or  Minister  of  State.  Here,  however,  in  the 
outset,  let  me  disclaim  in  the  strongest  manner  any  appearance  of 
wishing  to  meddle  in  science  matters ;  it  is  for  the  men  of  science  to 
assert  themselves  and  take  up  the  public  affairs  of  their  several  de- 
partments. Art  and  Science  form  two  sufficiently  distinct  branches  of 
culture,  and  in  my  opinion  a  successful  and  orderly  administration  of 
the  affairs  of  both,  so  far  as  State  action  is  concerned,  will  be  best 
promoted  by  complete  separation.  If  it  were  not  that  hitherto  all 
questions  of  our  national  dealings  with  art  and  science  have  been  so 
needlessly  mixed  up  and  interwoven,  I  should  carefully  avoid  all  allu- 
sion to  the  science  element  in  our  museum  systems. 

Founded  shortly  after  the  middle  of  the  last  century,  the  British 
Museum  has  grown  up  like  many  other  institutions  of  this  country, 
with  but  little  preconceived  design  ;  its  somewhat  fortuitous  growth 
indeed  has  been  likened  more  than  once  to  that  of  the  British  Con- 
stitution itself;  its  history  however  has  been  unlike  that  of  the  body 
politic  at  large  in  one  important  respect,  in  that  it  has  as  yet  almost 
escaped  reform.  It  is  perhaps  too  much  to  say  that  the  British 
Museum  has  fallen  behind  the  age,  but  it  can  scarcely  be  denied  that 
there  is  something  in  the  atmosphere,  as  it  were,  surrounding  it,  which 
savours  more  of  the  last  century  than  of  the  bracing  tone  of  the  pre- 
sent day.  In  spite,  however,  of  anomalies  and  shortcomings,  the 
machine  has  worked  and  continues  to  work  with  but  little  friction ; 
but  it  would  neither  stop  nor  fall  to  pieces,  if  measures  of  reform  as 
complete  in  their  way  as  those  which  have  repeatedly  invigorated  the 
country  at  large,  were  applied  to  it.  One  generally  admitted  grievance, 
perhaps  the  main  root  of  evil,  is  that  the  governing  body  of  the 
British  Museum  is  too  numerous,  and  is  encumbered  with  practically 
non-efficient  members,  especially  in  the  class  of  ex-officioand  'family' 
trustees. 

The  body  of  trustees  of  the  British  Museum  consists  of  fifty 
noblemen,  great  ecclesiastics,  and  gentlemen,  for  the  most  part  hold- 
ing office  for  life.  There  might  perhaps  be  some  justification  for  the 
retention  of  a  certain  number  of  ex-officio  trustees,  if  the  rest  of  the 
body,  nominated  or  '  elected '  by  the  Government,  were  to  consist  of 
professional  specialists,  men  of  paramount  eminence  in  letters,  science^ 
or  art,  but  in  such  nominations  another  principle  has  been  usually 
followed — it  has  been  found  convenient,  or  at  all  events  by  the  force 
of  things  it  seems  to  have  become  habitual,  to  bestow  these  appoint- 
ments, as  a  kind  of  honorary  distinction,  only  on  persons  of  high 
social  status  or  official  position.  It  is  true  that  some  ostensible 
deference  to  the  principle  of  fitness  has  usually  been  shown 
inasmuch  as  the  recipients  have  generally  been  distinguished  by  the 
possession  of  at  least  some  especial  tincture  of  literature,  science,  or 
VOL.  VII.— No.  40.  3  U 


982  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  June 

art,  as  the  case  might  be ;  but  it  is  no  disparagement  to  the  elected 
trustees  to  say,  that  as  a  rule  they  have  been  only  dilettanti,  and  that 
any  benefit  that  could  have  accrued  to  the  institution  by  reason  of 
their  several  specialities  would  have  been  a  hundredfold  greater  from 
the  class  I  have  indicated.  In  regard  to  the  family,  i.e.  Hereditary 
Trustees,  it  is  hard  to  perceive  a  single  argument  in  favour  of  their 
retention.1 

Any  one  conversant  with  the  working  of  English  Boards  and 
*  Trusts '  in  general  will  have  no  difficulty  in  comprehending  what 
must  have  been  the  general  nature  of  the  action  of  such  a  body — it 
has  in  fact  been  slow,  cumbrous,  somewhat  narrow-minded  and 
unprogressive. 

The  Trustees  of  the  British  Museum  as  a  corporate  body  have 
had  very  much  the  status  of  an  '  imperium  in  imperio,'  and  their 
relations  with  the  Government  of  the  country,  though  direct,  have 
been  comparatively  slight ;  it  is  especially  important  to  note  that 
under  this  system  responsibility  to  Parliament  has  been  reduced  to  a 
minimum. 

It  is  scarcely  necessary  to  say  that  most  other  countries  possess  a 
Minister  of  Education,  in  whose  department  all  matters  of  public 
museums  and  state  aid  to  science  and  art  naturally  fall ;  but  in 
England  accident,  or  temporary  convenience  has  alone  determined  to 
which  particular  Ministerial  Department,  the  supreme  direction  of 
such  institutions  should  be  committed. 

In  the  case  of  the  British  Museum,  the  Treasury  seems  to  have 
been  the  chief  governing  power,  and  the  Prime  Minister  of  the  day 
and  the  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer,  the  authorities  who  have  been 
in  direct  communication  with  the  Trustees.  Probably  almost  the 
only  action  of  these  great  ministers  of  state  has  been  the  work  of 
supervising  and  sanctioning  the  annual  parliamentary  estimates  and 
occasional  special  grants,  which  furnish  the  sinews  of  war  to  the 
establishment.  These  ministers,  and  indeed  nearly  all  the  principal 
political  heads  of  governing  departments,  are,  it  is  true,  during  their 
tenure  of  office,  ex-officio  members  of  the  British  Museum  Trust — 
but,  as  may  be  imagined,  the  connexion  of  these  high  officials  with 
the  institution  has  been  usually  little  more  than  nominal. 

In  past  times  it  would  seem  that  the  real  governing  power  fell 
mainly  into  a  few  hands.  Prominent  amongst  these  acting  trustees, 
singularly  enough,  the  ecclesiastical  ex-officio  members,  in  particular 
the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  seem  to  have  tacitly  acquired  a  certain 

1  The  British  Museum  Trust  consists  of  fifty  members  as  follows :  twenty-five 
official  trustees,  one  trustee  appointed  by  the  Crown,  and  nine  '  family '  trustees. 
Amongst  the  ex-officio  trustees  are  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  the  Bishop  of 
London  the  Speaker  of  the  House  of  Commons,  the  Lord  President  of  the  Council,  the 
First  Lord  of  the  Treasury,  the  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer,  the  Lord  Privy  Seal, 
the  First  Lord  of  the  Admiralty,  the  Lord  Chancellor,  the  Lord  Chief  Justice,  and 
the  other  principal  law-officers  of  the  Crown. 


1880.  ART  COLLECTIONS  AND  MUSEUMS.  983 

administrative  headship.  A  perceptible  bias  seems  from  this  cause 
indeed  to  have  been  given  to  the  entire  status  of  the  institution,  for 
whilst  prominence  has  always  been  given  to  the  old  established  but 
limited  fields  of  culture,  tacitly  recognised  by  the  Church  and  its 
closely  allied  establishments  the  Universities,  entire  categories  in 
the  domains  of  both  Art  and  Science  have  been  only  feebly  represented, 
or  have  remained  entirely  excluded  from  the  Museum  scheme. 

These  categories  nevertheless  are  perhaps  just  those  which  now 
concern  the  world  and  English  people  in  particular  the  most  closely. 

It  has  happened  then,  that  the  British  Museum,  failing  to  concern 
itself  with  departments  of  culture  for  the  illustration  of  which,  by 
means  of  public  collections,  popular  demands  have  arisen,  has  gradually 
somewhat  lost  its  paramount  status,  and  in  response  to  these  demands 
other  national  institutions  have  sprung  up  around  it,  some  adminis- 
tered directly  by  ministerial  departments  without  the  assistance  of 
Boards  of  Trustees. 

Of  these  new  growths,  the  South  Kensington  Museum  has  been  by 
far  the  most  vigorous  and  successful.  By  its  rapid  development,  the 
intrinsic  value  of  its  acquisitions,  and  the  direct  practical  relations 
which  it  has  established  with  the  country  at  large,  that  institution  ha* 
indeed  now  become  in  some  sense  a  rival  of  the  older  establishment. 
Such  however  is  the  force  of  national  tendencies,  and  so  closely  in 
consequence  do  systems  of  government  repeat  themselves  in  this 
country,  that  this  latter  institution,  as  yet  little  more  than  a  quarter 
of  a  century  old,  has  already  fallen  into  a  state  of  confusion  almost  as 
great,  and  is  beset  with  almost  as  many  difficulties  and  anomalies  as 
the  older  establishment.  Moreover,  in  consequence  of  the  creation 
of  this  museum,  new  complications  and  perplexities  have  arisen  ;  there 
are  already  in  fact  embarrassing  points  of  contact,  and  numerous 
matters  wherein  these  two  great  establishments  do,  and  must  of 
necessity,  on  their  present  footing,  somewhat  clash,  overlap,  and  even 
run  the  risk  of  competing  with  each  other. 

One  of  the  most  important  facts,  the  consideration  of  which 
cannot  in  any  case  be  long  delayed,  is  this,  that  whereas  since 
1851,  when  the  era  of  international  exhibitions  commenced,  and  the 
country  at  large  became  alive  to  the  necessity  of  increased  art  culture, 
a  system  of  extending  in  a  direct  and  practical  manner  the  benefits  of 
metropolitan  collections  to  the  provincial  and  other  centres  through- 
out the  empire,  has  been  fully  organised  under  the  auspices  of  South 
Kensington,  the  British  Museum  has  all  the  time  held  entirely  aloof 
from  the  work. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  that  institution  has  not  in  any  way  aided  in 
the  establishment  of  provincial  collections — it  has  lent  no  support  to 
the  formation  of  the  special  exhibitions,  which  have  now  become  so 
frequent  and  popular — it  has  done  nothing  in  the  matter  of  the  dis- 
tribution of  superfluous,  or  duplicate  specimens,  and  it  has  never  lent 

3u2 


984  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  June 

from  its  own  resources,  or  assisted  in  the  circulation  of  specimens 
on  loan,  to  provincial  museums,  or  schools  of  art.  A  universal  feeling 
of  dissatisfaction  at  this  apathetic  attitude  has  in  consequence  arisen 
throughout  the  country  ;  so  strong  indeed  and  unreasoning  has  this 
feeling  become,  more  especially  as  it  is  in  great  measure  based  on 
imperfect  knowledge  of  the  case,  that  it  is  not  unlikely  to  be  pushed 
to  excess. 

Let  us  now  pass  from  the  question  of  the  British  Museum  to  that 
of  the  institution  next  in  order  as  regards  date  of  creation,  if  not  of 
actual  importance, — the  National  Gallery.  This  institution  has  now 
been  in  existence  somewhat  more  than  half  a  century,  and  although 
but  a  shadow  of  what  it  might  have  been  made,  it  has  nevertheless 
attained  proportions  not  unworthy  of  a  great  nation.  Its  relatively 
slow  growth  in  the  most  prolific  soil  and  the  most  propitious  atmo- 
sphere, so  to  speak,  that  has  ever  existed  in  any  age  or  country,  must 
nevertheless  be  pointed  out ;  it  is  in  fact  a  striking  commentary  on 
the  inefficiency  of  the  machinery  hitherto  devised  for  the  management 
of  our  national  collections.  Like  the  British  Museum,  the  National 
Gallery  has  from  the  first  been  governed  by  a  board  of  trustees, 
nominated  by  the  Crown,  through  the  direct  agency  of  the  Trea- 
sury; but  the  trust  consists  of  fewer  individuals  than  that  of  the 
British  Museum,  and  it  is  not  encumbered  with  ex-officio  members  ; 
the  nominations,  however,  are  for  life,  so  that  there  has  been  no 
power  of  getting  rid  of  inefficient  or  non-acting  members.2  As  in 
the  parallel  case,  the  trustees  have  always  been  noblemen  and  gentle- 
men of  high  social  or  official  position,  amateurs  of  art.  The  execu- 
tive staff  has  also  been  a  very  limited  one,  a  director  and  a  secretary 
only,  and  these  officers  have  been  appointed  by  the  Government 
direct,  i.e.  by  the  Treasury,  and  not  by  the  Board  of  Trustees,  as  in  the 
case  of  the  British  Museum.  Here,  however,  the  principle  of 
deference  to  constituted  authority  and  precedent,  rather  than  that  of 
inherent  fitness  for  office,  has  again  come  into  play,  and  certainly  not 
to  the  advantage  of  the  State.  The  successive  directors  have  been 
usually  chosen  from  amongst  members  of  the  Royal  Academy,  per- 
haps on  the  supposition,  by  no  means  well  founded,  that  the  actual 
practice  of  art  is  likely  to  be  the  best  guarantee  for  the  knowledge  of 
its  technical  development  and  the  power  of  critical  judgment  of  its 
monuments.  The  results  of  this  organisation,  in  general,  have  been 
chronic  feebleness,  timidity,  and  a  blundering  fitfulness  more  fatal 
than  all.  Several  of  the  directors  have  been  old  men  of  failing 
powers,  aged  academicians,  put  in  office  when  the  real  work  of  their 

2  The  trustees  of  the  National  Gallery  are  only  six  in  number,  but  latterly  even 
this  small  number  has  been  practically  reduced.  Two  of  the  most  efficient  members 
of  the  trust  having  accepted  high  offices  under  the  Crown,  one  as  an  Ambassador  and 
the  other  as  a  Colonial  Governor,  were  necessarily  absent  during  their  tenure  of  office 
abroad  :  one  of  these  gentlemen  is  indeed  still  absent  at  his  post.  For  five  or  six 
years  therefore  there  were  only  four  acting  trustees.  At  present  there  are  five. 


1880.  ART  COLLECTIONS  AND  MUSEUMS.  985 

lives  was  over ;  need  it  be  said  that  all  energetic  action  or  timely 
development  has  been  impossible  under  such  a  system  ? 

The  limits  of  jurisdiction  of  the  National  Gallery  have  hitherto 
received  no  extension ;  what  the  institution  professed  to  take 
cognisance  of  or  to  do  fifty  years  ago  it  does  at  present,  neither 
more  nor  less.  This  being  so,  it  is  scarcely  necessary  to  say  that, 
like  the  British  Museum,  this  institution  has  never  yet  made  the 
slightest  movement,  or  assisted  in  any  way  in  the  work  of  forwarding 
provincial  endeavour,  and  that  consequently  the  same  dissatisfaction 
exists  throughout  the  country  in  respect  to  it. 

Many  things,  however,  which  the  National  Gallery  ought  to  have 
done  have  been  realised  in  other  quarters.  At  South  Kensington,  for 
instance,  commencing  more  than  twenty  years  ago  with  the  Sheep- 
shanks bequest,  a  rival  National  Grallery  of  modern  art  has  been 
created.  Moreover  as  the  National  Grallery  entirely  ignored  one  of 
the  most  important  branches  of  English  art, — water-colour  painting 
— the  energetic  managers  of  the  former  institution  went  out  of  their 
way  to  supply  the  deficiency.  This,  however,  should  not  have  been, 
for  it  is  evident  there  can  be  no  real  gain  to  the  nation  from  a 
divided  and  dual  action  of  this  kind,  involving  as  it  does  a  needless 
waste  of  power.  The  fine  art  collections,  that  is,  the  pictures, 
drawings,  and  certain  categories  of  engravings  at  South  Kensington, 
whether  they  continue  to  be  housed  there  or  not,  should  obviously  be 
transferred  to  the  keeping  of  the  National  Gallery,  but  not,  be  it  said, 
without  ample  guarantees  that  the  special  uses  now  made  of  these 
collections  by  those  in  whose  charge  they  at  present  are,  will  be  con- 
tinued and  further  developed  in  the  same  directions. 

The  National  Gallery  again  should  reclaim  its  own  from  another 
concurrent  power,  the  British  Museum.  All  reasons  of  logical 
congruity,  fitness  and  convenience  indicate  that  the  '  Print  Eoom  '  as 
it  is  called,  i.e.  the  special  department  of  the  British  Museum  which 
takes  cognisance  of  the  original  drawings  of  the  ancient  masters,  the 
etchings  of  great  painters,  and  engravings  in  general,  should  be  trans- 
ferred bodily  to  the  National  Gallery. 

These  classes  of  works  of  art  have  no  necessary  relation  to  the  bulk 
of  the  other  collections  of  the  British  Museum,  consequently  there 
are  no  roots  or  filaments,  as  it  were,  extending  into  the  main  ground 
of  that  establishment,  which  might  be  injured  by  the  severance  r  as  it 
is,  what  can  be  less  defensible  on  any  grounds  of  ordinary  common 
sense  than  the  arrangement  by  which  the  original  drawings  by  great 
masters,  in  some  cases  the  first  studies  and  sketches  for  celebrated 
pictures  by  the  same  hands,  actually  preserved  in  the  National 
Gallery,  are  kept  stored  away  in  portfolios  in  the  British  Museum  ? 

Fortunately  from  the  nature  of  the  collections  in  question,  the 
transfer  of  domicile  and  keeping  would  involve  but  little  trouble 
and  expense.  When  this  change  is  effected,  however,  a  great  and 


986  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  June 

important  extension  of  action  will  be  required  from  this  special  depart- 
ment ;  for  gatherings  in  this  section  could  be  made  more  fully  and 
extensively  useful,  and  to  contribute  more  directly  to  the  assistance 
of  provincial  museums  and  art  institutions,  than  perhaps  any  other.3 
This  section  has  indeed  a  great  field  before  it. 

It  must  not  be  thought  ungracious  towards  the  Eoyal  Academy, 
to  which  the  country  is  sensibly  indebted  for  its  institution  of  loan 
exhibitions  of  the  works  of  ancient  masters,  to  suggest  that  this  work 
should  in  some  shape  or  other  be  carried  on  by  the  National  Gallery 
also ;  for  it  is  certain  that  a  careful  and  judicious  system  of  the 
reception  of  pictures,  &c.,  on  loan  from  private  possessors  would 
be  of  public  advantage  in  many  obvious  ways — there  is  indeed  no 
real  obstacle  in  the  way  of  immediate  commencement  in  that 
direction.  Such  a  system  has  long  been,  in  operation  at  South 
Kensington,  and  there  is  perhaps  no  reason  why,  even  if  it  were 
adopted  at  the  National  Gallery,  it  should  be  entirely  discontinued  at 
the  former  place. 

But  for  all  these  things  the  governing  body  of  the  National 
Gallery  must  be  changed,  or,  at  all  events,  aroused  from  its  accus- 
tomed torpor. 

The  principal  cause  of  the  formation  of  the  South  Kensington 
Museum  was  the  acquisition,  by  purchase  or  gift,  of  specimens  from 
the  Universal  Exhibition  of  1851 ;  but  the  nucleus  of  an  Industrial 
Art  Museum  existed  previously,  in  the  miscellaneous  gatherings  of 
the  old  Government  School  of  Design.  The  two  collections  were 
brought  together  in  1852,  and  under  the  title  of  the  '  Museum  of  Orna- 
mental Art,'  they  were  temporarily  housed  at  Maryborough  House. 

At  the  period  in  question,  all  kinds  of  ideas  and  schemes  were  rife 
for -the  further  extension  of  art  culture  throughout  the  country,  more 
especially  with  reference  to  the  improvement  of  taste  in  manu- 
factures. The  Government  '  School  of  Design,'  as  it  was  then  called, 
had  already  been  in  existence  for  several  years,  and  branches  were 
established  in  most  of  the  chief  provincial  towns.  Much  controversy 
and  uncertainty  of  purpose,  however,  had  attended  the  early  develop- 
ment of  that  institution.  Crude  notions  were  prevalent  that  the 
right  way  to  improve  British  manufactures  was  by  teaching  workmen, 
designers,  and  manufacturers,  what  was  vaguely  termed  '  ornamental 

8  Since  the  above  was  written,  an  important  series  of  duplicate  specimens  of 
ancient  engravings  and  etchings  has  been  selected  from  the  '  Print  Room  '  Collections, 
and  actually  sold  by  auction  (in  April  of  this  year),  on  the  premises  of  the  British 
Museum  itself.  The  sale  of  duplicate  specimens  from  time  to  time  has  indeed 
always  been  customary  at  the  British  Museum.  But  the  utterly  defenceless  nature 
of  this  course  of  procedure  at  tlic  present  day  is  evinced  in  the  strongest  manner  by 
the  fact  that  for  years  past  the  Soiith  Kensington  Museum  has  systematically  de- 
voted a  considerable  part  of  its  resources  to  the  purchase  of  analogous  specimens  for 
the  purpose  of  circulation  to  Schools  of  Art  and  Provincial  Museums  :  so  that  whilst 
one  great  National  Museum  has  been  selling,  the  other  has  been  buying  the  very 
same  class  of  specimens.  Comment  on  these  facts  is  unnecessary. 


1880.  ART  COLLECTIONS  AND  MUSEUMS.  987 

design,'  in  some  direct  and  compendious,  but  heretofore  unknown 
manner,  which  should  dispense  with  the  usual  lengthy  course  of 
methodic  education  in  art.  And  it  was  also  conceived  that,  as 
regards  the  improvement  of  the  public  taste  in  general,  a  speedy 
revolution  might  be  brought  about  by  the  accumulation  of  a  mass 
of  fine  models  of  style  of  all  countries  and  periods,  and  their  com- 
parison with  the  most  hideous  modern  productions,  exhibited  side  by 
side  with  them.  Finally  the  meaningless  and  absurd  term  '  practical 
art '  was  invented  as  a  concrete  designation  for  these  nebulous 
doctrines. 

One  amusing  development  of  this  phase  of  public  thought  will 
be  recollected,  in  what  was  soon  dubbed  the  '  Chamber  of  Horrors.' 
At  the  Marlborough  House  temporary  museum,  an  attempt  was 
practically  made  to  establish,  as  it  were,  a  standing  tribunal  of  taste ; 
specimens  of  current  art  manufactures,  of  more  or  less  outrageous 
ugliness,  were  put  side  by  side  with  other  examples  of  ancient  or 
contemporaneous  oriental  origin,  supposed  to  offer  special  points  of 
instructive  contrast.  The  results,  however,  were  not  satisfactory,  for 
setting  aside  the  angry  reclamations  of  indignant  manufacturers 
whose  productions  were  thus  gibbeted,  the  British  public  showed  a 
most  conservative  leaning  towards  the  old  accustomed  *  horrors,'  or  at 
best  treated  the  experiment  as  a  somewhat  incomprehensible  joke. 
This  crude  and  ridiculous  episode  at  any  rate  served  to  show  that 
there  was  no  royal  road  to  the  acquisition  of  good  taste  in  art. 

In  all  this,  nevertheless,  there  was  a  vein  of  reason  and  common 
sense — the  end  in  view  was  definite  and  practical,  and  the  mere  fact 
of  the  increased  attention  awakened  in  the  country  to  the  subject  of 
art-culture  was  a  great  gain.  It  was  perceived,  moreover,  that  art 
was  substantially  one,  that  there  were  no  real  lines  of  demarcation 
betwixt  what  was  termed  '  high  art '  and  industrial  art.  The  real 
province  and  functions  of  public  museums  and  galleries  became 
better  understood,  and  there  was  a  general  perception  that  these 
institutions  had  heretofore  been  made  to  move  in  set  lines  of  direc- 
tion on  too  rigid  and  narrow  bases.  When  it  was  considered,  for 
instance,  what  the  collections  of  the  British  Museum  could  do  in  the 
way  of  directly  assisting  designers  and  manufacturers,  it  was  found 
to  be  comparatively  little,  for  the  art  collections  of  that  Institution 
stopped  short  at  the  periods  of  classical  antiquity,  and  the  world's 
activity  in  the  field  of  art,  for  fifteen  hundred  years  at  least,  was 
simply  ignored.  But  other  countries,  notably  our  nearest  neighbour 
and  rival,  France,  had  already  recognised  the  importance  of  an 
adequate  representation  of  mediaeval  and  more  recent  art,  and  a 
special  collection,  the  Musee  de  Cluny  in  Paris,  had  been  formed  to 
take  cognisance  of  numerous  branches  of  art,  which,  as  in  our  own 
country,  had  hitherto  been  thought  unworthy  of  the  serious  attention 
of  persons  of  high  classical  culture,  or  of  the  State.  The  great  success 


988  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  June 

and  popularity  of  the  Musee  de  Cluny  undoubtedly  gave  a  strong 
bias  to  public  taste  in  this  country,  and  the  necessity  for  the  national 
representation  of  modern,  i.e.,  mediaeval  and  more  recent,  art  was 
universally  recognised.  At  this  time,  then,  as  the  result  of  this 
general  consensus,  the  question  arose  as  to  how  and  under  what  juris- 
diction the  national  short-comings  in  this  field  should  be  remedied. 

Should  the  British  Museum  take  up  the  thread  and  make  an 
entirely  new  departure  in  this  direction,  or  should  the  work  be  done 
by  some  other  and  independent  organisation?  The  question  was 
soon  resolved.  The  governing  body  of  the  British  Museum  had 
shown  no  signs  of  sympathy  with  the  Exhibition  of  1851,  or  the 
movements  to  which  it  gave  birth,  and  it  remained  wrapped  up  in  its 
accustomed  exclusiveness.  The  work,  then,  naturally  fell  into  the 
province  of  the  newly  established  institution,  the  early  title  of  which 
— 'The  Museum  of  Ornamental  Art' — indicated,  although  somewhat 
indirectly,  its  special  field. 

It  must  be  remarked,  however,  that,  in  the  beginning,  the 
Government  of  the  day  had  certainly  no  special  intention  of  founding 
a  new  institution  of  the  high  status  of  the  British  Museum,  and  conse- 
quently there  was  no  question  of  thenceforward  formally  restricting 
the  province  of  the  latter  establishment  within  the  definite  limits, 
which  it  seemed  itself  to  have  marked  out.  It  would,  nevertheless, 
obviously  have  been  a  logical  and  convenient  arrangement  to  have 
thenceforward  confined  the  jurisdiction  of  the  British  Museum,  in 
the  art  department,  to  the  representation  of  the  '  antique '  or  '  classi- 
cal '  periods  only,  and  to  have  handed  over  the  few  miscellaneous 
specimens  of  medieval  and  more  recent  origin,  which  it  had  only 
casually  acquired,  to  the  new  institution ;  then  to  have  given  the 
latter  a  clear  and  definite  mission,  that  of  taking  up  the  illustration 
of  art  and  antiquities  at  the  terminal  period  of  the  British  Museum 
scheme,  and  to  have  carried  it  down  to  the  present  time,  so  that  a 
continuous  chain  of  art-illustration  might  have  been  established. 
No  such  methodic  plan,  however,  was  adopted,  and,  to  this  day,  no 
fixed  rules  have  been  laid  down  in  this  matter  for  the  guidance  of 
either  the  British  Museum  or  South  Kensington. 

In  any  case,  by  the  force  of  circumstances,  perhaps  more  than 
from  any  definite  preconceived  design,  a  vast  establishment  has 
rapidly  grown  up,  the  vacant  ground  has  been  occupied,  and  a 
National  Museum  of  Mediaeval  and  Modern  Art  has  been  created  at 
South  Kensington,  which  has  now  no  rival  in  Europe. 

During  the  last  five  and  twenty  years,  however,  the  British 
Museum,  in  its  turn,  has  not  been  entirely  inactive  in  this  special 
field.  As  there  was  no  inhibition  in  respect  to  its  collecting  speci- 
mens in  the  sections  of  mediaeval  and  more  recent  art,  though  mainly 
as  the  result  of  gifts  and  bequests,  mediaeval  art-collections,  though 
far  less  extensive  and  complete  than  the  analogous  gatherings 


1880.  ART  COLLECTIONS  AND  MUSEUMS.  989 

at  South  Kensington,  have  been  formed  at  the  British  Museum,  so 
that  practically  the  nation  now  possesses  two  national  collections  of 
the  same  nature.  No  harm  has  as  yet  been  done  by  this  concurrent 
action — if  there  has  been  rivalry,  there  has  been  no  antagonism,  and 
the  nation  is  all  the  richer  in  art  treasures  ;  but  it  is  perhaps  time 
that  this  state  of  things  should  cease. 

There  has  been  less  excuse  for  what  might  almost  seem  like  re- 
taliatory action  on  the  part  of  South  Kensington  ;  that  establishment 
had  really  no  sufficient  justification  in  trespassing  on  the  field  so  well 
and  completely  occupied  by  the  British  Museum — namely,  antique 
art,  yet  from  time  to  time  collections  of  specimens  in  that  category  of 
considerable  extent  have  been  acquired  by  it.  It  is  not  necessary  to 
dwell  on  the  circumstances  under  which  these  deviations  from  the 
recognised  province  of  South  Kensington  have  from  time  to  time 
taken  place.  The  ostensible  reasons  alleged  in  defence  of  this  action 
are,  however,  noteworthy ;  they  are — that  as  the  South  Kensington 
Museum  is  not  only  a  great  fixed  metropolitan  institution,  but  also 
the  recognised  purveyor  and  feeder  of  the  country  at  large — one  of  its 
constant  functions  being  the  circulation  of  works  of  art  on  loan  to 
provincial  museums — and,  as  for  this  purpose,  specimens  of  antique 
art,  as  well  as  those  of  more  recent  epochs,  were  required,  it  was 
necessary  to  purchase  them  for  this  special  end.  More  especially  so 
as  the  British  Museum  could  neither  transfer  specimens  from  its 
collections  to  South  Kensington  for  this  purpose,  nor  undertake  the 
work  of  circulation  itself.  I  have  intimated,  however,  that  this  was 
not  a  tenable  ground  of  procedure  ;  all  action  in  that  direction  has, 
however,  now  ceased. 

Unquestionably  the  rapid  development  and  the  success  of  the 
South  Kensington  undertaking  must  be  mainly  ascribed  to  the 
energetic  personality  of  its  first  promoters.  It  will  probably  be 
pointed  to  hereafter  as  the  most  substantial  achievement,  and  the 
best  monument  of  the  great  Prince,  whose  zealous  and  enlightened 
advocacy  was  for  a  long  time  the  mainspring  of  its  support.  Indivi- 
dual zeal  and  activity  were  the  motive  powers  from  the  first ;  whether 
these  qualities  were  of  the  nature  of  temporary  forces,  only  destined  to 
do  their  work  and  give  place  to  other  more  methodic  and  settled 
influences,  remains  perhaps  to  be  seen. 

In  any  case,  the  old  system  of  management  of  museums  was  broken 
through  and  a  new  one  established.  The  new  museum  was  managed 
by  salaried  officials  working  under  the  immediate  control  of  a 
Ministry  of  State,  instead  of  by  a  board  of  practically  irresponsible 
trustees.  A  direct  chain  of  responsibility  was  thus  established, 
beginning  with  the  humblest  official,  and  ending  with  the  highest 
power  in  the  State. 

Parliamentary  authority  was  in  consequence  enabled  to  exert  its 
due  influence,  and  certainly  there  has  never  been  any  lack  of  interest 


990  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY.  June 

in  the  establishment  shown  in  that  quarter,  or  in  that  of  the  other 
great  power,  the  press.  Publicity,  in  short,  has  always  given  to 
South  Kensington  a  healthy  stimulus  and  a  more  vigorous  life. 

The  basis  of  the  museum  was  from  the  first  essentially  popular ; 
its  object  was  to  instruct  and  refine  the  masses,  as  much  as  to  respond 
to  the  requirements  of  the  artist  or  the  connoisseur ;  but  this 
did  not  imply  any  lowering  of  its  relative  status  as  a  National 
Collection — it  did  not  mean  that  works  of  a  less  rare  and  excellent 
character  should  be  indiscriminately  amassed,  and  deemed  good 
enough  for  the  people  at  large ;  in  other  words,  that  a  somewhat 
rough  and  ready  second-class  collection  should  be  formed,  mainly  to 
delight  the  gaping  crowd,  whilst  in  the  back-ground,  overshadowing 
it  in  stately  isolation,  another  vast  establishment  of  the  same  nature 
should  continue  to  be  kept  up,  but  on  a  superior  level,  for  the  use  or 
delectation  of  the  select  and  fastidious  few.  Whatever  may,  in  some 
quarters,  have  been  the  vague  ideas  at  one  time  entertained  on  this 
subject,  the  matter  has,  during  the  last  few  years,  been,  conclusively 
settled  in  favour  of  the  larger  and  more  liberal  museum  policy. 
Tacitly  but  assuredly  the  new  ideas  and  practices,  carried  out  at 
South  Kensington,  are  being  adopted  and  imitated  throughout  the 
world  ;  and  there  can  be  little  doubt  that  the  popular  forces  at  work 
in  this  country,  will  so  re-act  upon  both  the  British  Museum  and  the 
National  Gallery,  as  to  direct  their  future  action,  more  or  less,  in 
the  lines  marked  out  by  the  younger  and  more  enterprising  institu- 
tion. The  writer,  however,  is  no  partisan,  and  is  by  no  means 
prepared  to  give  unqualified  and  indiscriminate  approval  to  the 
doings  of  South  Kensington.  Unquestionably  some  things  have  been 
accomplished  by  that  institution  which  in  one  way  or  other  will  have 
to  be  undone — crude,  hasty,  impracticable  schemes  have  been 
repeatedly  launched,  the  only  result  of  which  has  been  the  useless 
expenditure  of  large  sums  of  public  money,  and  the  collections  have 
been  encumbered  with  a  great  deal  of  useless  and  incongruous  matter, 
some  of  it  utter  misleading  rubbish.  It  has  indeed  been  admitted 
in  the  outset,  that  reforms  are  now  perhaps  as  much  needed  in  the 
younger  as  in  the  older  institution. 

But  with  all  this,  the  work  accomplished  by  the  South  Kensington 
Museum  has  been  a  great  and  durable  one,  and  the  reasons  of  its 
existence  are  patent  and  undeniable. 

The  principal  extensions  of  the  action  of  museums  brought  about 
by  South  Kensington,  now  that  they  have  been  substantially  realised, 
appear  simple  and  obvious  enough ;  but  it  is  just  such  reforms  and 
innovations  which,  for  one  reason  or  another,  are  often  the  most 
obstinately  resisted  and  the  most  persistently  decried.  It  will  be 
desirable  to  briefly  indicate  the  nature  of  the  principal  new  features 
of  the  South  Kensington  scheme. 

In   the  first   place   the   essentially  modern   idea   of  temporary 


1880.  ART  COLLECTIONS  AND  MUSEUMS.  991 

exhibitions,  that  of  gathering  together  works  of  art  and  general 
interest,  on  loan,  taken  hold  of  from  the  first  at  South  Kensington, 
has  fructified  and  expanded  to  an  extent,  the  importance  of  which  it 
is  impossible  to  overrate.  In  addition  to  the  formation  from  time  to 
time  of  special  exhibitions,  practically  it  has  been  found  possible  to 
supplement  and  illustrate  the  permanent  art  treasures  of  the  State  by  a 
standing  collection,  though  composed  of  fluctuating  and  varying 
matter,  the  extent  and  intrinsic  value  of  which,  at  any  given  time, 
are  practically  bounded  only  by  the  greater  or  less  activity  and  intel- 
ligence of  the  official  managers  of  the  institution. 

In  this  way  the  enormous  accumulation  of  works  of  art  of  all 
kinds,  in  the  possession  of  the  Crown,  of  corporations,  and  societies, 
the  ancestral  gatherings  of  the  nobles  and  gentry  of  the  land,  and 
the  rich  collections  of  amateurs  and  connoisseurs,  are  made  available 
for  the  delight  and  instruction  of  everybody.  It  is  needless  to  say 
that  this  could  only  have  been  accomplished  by  an  authorised 
administration  in  which  everybody  has  confidence,  and  to  which 
treasures  of  untold  value  could  be  confid3d  with  the  assurance  of 
absolute  safety. 

The  slightest  reflection  will  show  what  a  boon  this  is  to  the 
country.  In  this  way  practically  the  humblest  citizen  has  a  share  in 
the  entire  Art  wealth  of  the  community,  every  remarkable  treasure 
of  Art  brought  to  these  shores  by  the  wealthy  collector  is  a 
gain  to  him,  for  sooner  or  later  it  is  pretty  sure  to  find  its  way  to 
public  exhibition.  How  many  possessors  of  fine  works  of  Art  are 
there  indeed,  who  have  themselves  never  beheld  their  own  treasures 
adequately  displayed,  till  they  have  seen  them  hung  on  the  walls,  or 
carefully  arranged  in  the  glazed  cases,  of  South  Kensington. 

The  system  is  one  in  fact  which  answers  the  purpose  of  all  parties, 
and  the  success  already  achieved  is  probably  but  an  earnest  of  far 
greater  development.  The  growing  liberality  and  enlightenment  of 
mankind  have  indeed  already  made  it  perceptible  that  the  highest  en- 
joyment, and  the  greatest  profit  accruing  from  the  acquisition  and 
possession  of  fine  works  of  Art,  are  not  to  be  obtained  from  the  silent 
hoarding  and  hiding  away  of  such  treasures,  but  their  continuous  and 
effective  display  to  rich  and  poor,  learned  and  unlearned  alike. 

Coincident  with  the  reception  of  works  on  loan  moreover,  even  in 
the  earliest  days  of  the  formation  of  the  Museum,  there  was  com- 
menced a  system  of  lending,  or  circulating  its  own  treasures  through- 
out the  provinces.  The  Government  Schools  of  Art  were  at  first  the 
only  authorised  recipients  of  these  loans,  but  as  years  went  on,  and 
as  local  museums  and  galleries,  usually  in  connection  with  the  Art 
schools,  were  founded,  and  as  temporary  specia  lexhibitions  were  fre- 
quently organised  throughout  the  country,  this  action  was  liberally 
extended,  so  that  at  the  present  time  the  privilege  of  obtaining  loans 
of  specimens  from  South  Kensington,  or  through  its  agency,  may  be 


992  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  June 

said  to  be  enjoyed  by  any  and  every  public  institution  or  association, 
temporary  or  otherwise,  offering  sufficient  guarantees,  throughout  the 
kingdom.  Usually  the  nucleus  lent  by  South  Kensington  becomes 
the  heart  and  mainspring,  as  it  were,  of  such  provincial  exhibitions — 
and  in  many  cases  alone  renders  them  possible.  So  great  and  so 
rapidly  growing  indeed  is  the  amount  of  business  of  this  kind  which 
the  South  Kensington  administration  is  now  called  upon  to  transact, 
that  it  has  rendered  necessary  a  numerous  special  staff  of  officers,  and 
the  most  complete  and  extensive  appliances  ;  and  whatever  fault  may 
be  found  with  other  matters  of  South  Kensington  management,  there 
can  be  no  doubt  of  the  efficiency  and  excellent  organisation  of  this 
department.  Precious  works  of  art  of  all  kinds  and  dimensions, 
fragile  and  minute,  or  cumbrous  and  unwieldy  as  the  case  may  be, 
are  in  fact  now  daily  culled  from  the  collections  of  the  Museum  itself, 
or  from  those  of  private  owners,  sent  off  to  all  parts  of  the  kingdom, 
and  in  due  time  collected  again  and  brought  back  to  London  and  re- 
turned to  their  proper  places  of  deposit,  with  an  ease,  celerity,  and 
safety  which  might  almost  be  compared  with  the  circulation  of  books 
from  a  lending  library. 

Not  less  important  than  the  reception  of  loans  and  the  circulation 
of  works  of  art,  is  their  reproduction  by  casting  and  moulding,  photo- 
graphy, hand-copying,  etc.  The  work  already  accomplished  in  this 
direction,  although  it  has  been  somewhat  intermittent,  and  has  been 
characterised  to  some  extent  by  conspicuous  mistakes  and  failures,  has 
yet  been  very  considerable  in  amount.  The  foundations  at  all  events 
have  been  laid  for  systematic  and  greatly  extended  action  in  this 
matter.  The  reasons  which  will  necessitate  this  increased  action  will 
be  dwelt  upon  hereafter;  they  lie  at  the  very  root  of  my  argument — 
for  the  present  it  will  be  sufficient  to  allude  in  a  general  manner  to 
what  has  been  done.  Until  the  present  generation,  plaster  casts  of 
antique  statues,  generally  confined  to  a  few  stereotyped  models  and  a 
limited  series  of  casts  of  ornamental  details  for  the  use  of  architects, 
formed  the  sum  and  substance  of  all  plastic  productions  to  be  ob- 
tained. Copies  of  a  few  celebrated  pictures  in  Continental  galleries, 
generally  the  same  hackneyed  types  repeated  ad  nauseam,  and 
engravings  of  a  more  or  less  inaccurate  style,  afforded  but  a  meagre 
representation  of  pictorial  art,  whilst  the  arts  decorative,  to 
which  so  much  consideration  is  now  being  paid,  were  represented 
only  in  a  few  costly  illustrated  works,  mainly  of  an  architectural 
character. 

The  Apollo  Belvedere,  the  Venus  dei  Medici,  the  Corinthian 
capitals  of  Jupiter  Stator,  a  few  Gothic  crockets  and  finials,  the 
Madonna  della  Sedia  or  Guide's  everlasting  Beatrice  Cenci,  Stuart's 
Athens,  and  Hamilton:s  Greek  Vases — such  were  the  well-worn  types 
of  our  own  early  days.  But  the  world  has  been  opened,  as  it  were, 
within  the  last  five-and-twenty  years  ;  entirely  new  classes  of  art  pro- 


1880.  ART  COLLECTIONS  AND  MUSEUMS.  993 

ductions  have  risen  into  public  estimation,  a  vast  number  of  galleries, 
museums,  architectural  monuments,  etc.  have  become  accessible. 
Everybody  travels,  sketches,  and  collects,  and  at  the  same  time  mar- 
vellous discoveries  of  science  have  enabled  new  machinery  of  un- 
limited power  and  adaptability  to  be  brought  to  bear  in  the  special 
field  of  reproduction.  Photography,  the  electro-deposit  process, 
chromo-lithography  and  a  host  of  other  inventions,  have  at  last 
rendered  possible  the  most  admirable  and  perfect  copies  of  all  kinds 
of  art  objects,  to  be  made  and  brought  within  reach  of  the  humblest 
student  or  the  slenderest  purse — the  prospect  is  vast,  and  the  field  as 
yet  comparatively  untrodden. 

It  has  been  an  object  at  South  Kensington  to  obtain  casts  and 
other  reproductions  of  the  most  notable  treasures  of  Continental 
museums  and  galleries,  of  monuments  in  situ  in  churches,  palaces, 
etc.,  and  in  general  to  secure  the  best  possible  representation  of  those 
great  masterpieces  of  art,  the  originals  of  -which,  or  their  like,  can 
never  be  acquired ;  this,  with  the  primary  intention  of  rendering 
the  museum  collections  more  complete  and  instructive,  but  also  ia 
order  further  to  multiply  these  same  types  for  the  use  of  other  public 
institutions  or  for  individuals. 

The  principal  original  specimens  in  its  own  possession  have  also 
been  reproduced  with  the  like  intentions,  and,  lastly,  well  considered 
arrangements  have  been  made,  by  which,  without  in  any  way  trench- 
ing on  the  legitimate  province  of  outside  trade,  the  public  are  enabled 
to  purchase  these  reproductions  of  every  description  at  fixed  reason- 
able tariff  rates.  It  need  scarcely  be  pointed  out  that  the  one 
essential  requisite  for  the  success  of  this  system  is  that  guiding 
knowledge,  judgment  and  taste  in  selection,  by  which,  as  by  unerring 
instinct,  that  which  is  bad,  merely  curious,  or  trivial,  shall  be  elimi- 
nated and  left  out  of  count  in  this  work  of  multiplying,  as  it  were,  the 
world's  highest  art.  The  enterprise  is  no  doubt  a  most  arduous  and 
difficult  one,  but  the  end  is  noble  and  of  the  highest  moment ;  it  is 
the  bringing  home  to  the  masses  of  the  land  the  means  and  appliances 
of  high  art-culture,  the  promotion  of  a  great  social  force,  by  the  help 
of  which  coming  generations  of  this  country  will  be  powerfully 
assisted  in  holding  their  own  in  the  race  with  the  other  ancient 
nations,  and  to  escape  being  overwhelmed  by  the  surging  population 
and  brute  wealth  of  »ew  worlds. 

It  will  be  thought  perhaps  from  the  foregoing  statements  and  re- 
marks, that  the  writer  is  entirely  hostile  to  the  system  of  manage- 
ment of  museums  by  Boards  of  Trustees — but  such  is  far  from  the 
case ;  and  a  word  or  two  in  conclusion  on  this  may  not  perhaps  be 
out  of  place.  On  the  contrary,  the  writer  believes  that  generally 
speaking  this  system  is  the  best  possible  one  for  this  country,  and 
that  in  the  long  run  all  our  national  science  and  art  institutions  will 
be  so  assisted.  Certain  fundamental  alterations  in  the  constitution 
of  these  bodies  as  heretofore  organised  will,  however,  be  necessary. 


994  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY.  June 

They  are  briefly :  firstly,  the  abolition  of  all  ex-officio  and  *  family ' 
trustees  ;  secondly,  the  appointment  of  all  trustees  for  definite  stated 
periods,  and  not  for  life  ;  thirdly,  the  association  in  the  trusts,  with 
persons  of  high  social  or  political  position,  of  eminent  professional 
authorities  in  their  appropriate  specialities;  and  lastly,  the  aug- 
mentation of  the  relative  position  and  power  of  the  permanent 
officials  on  whom  the  real  work  of  museums  is  incumbent.  Boards 
of  trustees,  in  short,  should  have  the  status  of  official  advising  bodies 
to  the  directors  and  custodians  of  our  museums,  and  not  that  of  their 
absolute  masters. 

It  would  be  interesting  to  trace  back  and  further  illustrate  the 
special  influences,  which  pervaded  and  modified  the  general  culture  of 
this  country,  at  the  respective  epochs  of  the  foundation  of  the  three 
great  national  collections  under  consideration,  and  to  show  how  dis- 
tinctly the  characteristics  of  these  initial  forces  have  been  impressed 
on  the  collections  which  have  gradually  been  accumulated — it  would 
throw  a  strong  light  on  their  anomalies  and  shortcomings,  and  illus- 
trate in  an  instructive  manner  the  general  reasons  of  existence  of 
these  institutions  at  the  present  moment ;  this,  however,  would  furnish 
matter  for  a  volume. 

It  is  at  all  events  very  important,  now  that  we  have  arrived  at  a 
period  when  the  growing  population  and  requirements  of  this  country 
and  of  the  colonies  even,  have  necessitated  the  creation  of  museums 
and  galleries  of  art  in  every  great  provincial  centre,  that  definite  and 
intelligible  principles  should  be  laid  down  for  at  least  any  action 
which  the  State  is  to  exercise  in  regard  to  them.  Even  the  most  un- 
compromising partisan  of  one  or  other  of  the  great  imperial  estab- 
lishments would  surely  hesitate  to  hold  his  own  institution  up  as  a 
model  for  any  new  creation  of  the  like  nature. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  provincial  movers  in  such  matters  cer- 
tainly require  intelligent  aid  and  guidance,  if  their  efforts,  which  in 
in  any  case  will  continue  to  be  made,  are  to  result  in  anything  better 
than  the  gathering  together  of  crude  accumulations  of  incongruous 
matter,  calculated  rather  to  lower  and  vitiate  the  public  taste  than  to 
raise  and  refine  it. 

It  must  be  borne  in  mind  also,  that  the  persons  for  whom  they 
mainly  purvey  are  in  great  measure  exempt  from  the  old  associations, 
predilections  and  prejudices,  which  have  pervaded  and  modified  for 
good  or  evil  the  great  imperial  institutions,  and  also  that,  from  the 
mere  force  of  things  (the  impossibility  for  instance  of  again  forming 
certain  classes  of  collections,  simply  because  specimens  are  no  longer 
to  be  procured),  provincial  museums  must  in  any  case  be  made  to 
follow  different  lines  of  direction  from  those  of  the  old  established  in- 
stitutions. What  may  be  reasonably  aimed  at  by  provincial  museums, 
and  in  what  manner  the  state  can  practically  assist  them,  however, 
will  furnish  matter  for  another  article. 

J.  C.  EOBINSON. 


1880.  995 


PA  MI  LIAR   CONVERSATIONS  ON  MODERN 

ENGLAND. 

II. 

4  WHAT  are  you  doing  here  ? '  said  a  friend,  who  found  me  taking 
notes  out  of  some  periodicals  in  the  great  hall  of  the  Athenseum  Club. 
4  You  are  surely  not  collecting  materials  for  your  French  History  in 
England  ? ' 

4  Perhaps  I  might  do  worse,'  I  answered ;  4  at  present,  however,  I 
am  not  busy  with  the  France  of  Louis-Philippe.  I  have  opened  a 
parenthesis  in  my  work  just  now,  and  am  studying  German  history 
of  the  sixteenth  century.' 

4  How  so  ?  '  asked  my  friend,  a  half-continentalised  Englishman. 
4  Are  there  any  special  documents  to  be  found  in  England  ?  And,  if 
so,  would  they  be  hidden  in  the  monthly  or  weekly  papers  ?  ' 

4  Not  precisely,  I  should  think.  Besides,  you  know  that  I  have 
no  great  faith  in  documents,  though  I  respect  them  and  even  use 
them,  albeit  with  great  caution.  Have  I  not  always  maintained 
against  my  parchment-worshipping  countrymen  that  the  one  all- 
important  source  of  history  is  life?  You  must  see  and  hear  the  people 
who  make  history.  All  the  books  and  despatches  are  dead  for  us  if 
we  cannot  read  them  by  the  light  of  life.  Great  geniuses  alone  possess 
the  second  sight  which  discovers  life  long  ago  extinct,  as  they  alone 
have  the  creative  power  which  makes  it  revive  for  others.  Even  they, 
however,  had  better  confine  themselves  to  contemporary  history  or  to 
times  near  to  them,  of  which  the  living  tradition  is  not  yet  vanished$ 
as  almost  all  the  great  ancients  did.' 

( What  are  you  aiming  at  in  all  this  ? '  my  friend  replied  ;  4  and 
what  has  it  to  do  with  your  studying  Luther's  times  and  country  in 
our  England  of  1879?' 

( The  nexus  is  simple  enough,  as  it  seems  to  me.  Is  not  England 
the  only  country  in  Europe  where  the  passions,  interests,  and  ideas 
which  animated  the  contemporaries  and  countrymen  of  Luther  are 
still  living  ?  Is  it  not  the  only  country  where  people  still  read  and 
listen  to  discussions  upon  questions  of  theology  and  ritual  which  have 
long  become  things  of  the  past  on  the  Continent  ? ' 

4  Very  much  as  it   is  the  only  country,'  interrupted  my  friend, 


996  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY.  June 

1  where  people  already  busy  themselves  about,  and  show  an  interest  in, 
biological  matters  which  have  not  yet  begun  to  exist  for  the  Con- 
tinent. I  always  wonder,  when  I  come  back  to  my  country,  to  see 
that,  after  the  weather,  the  two  things  which  are  most  talked  of  in 
English  society  are  the  surplice  and  candle  question,  or  the  problem 
of  bracing  air  or  relaxing  air,  clay  soil  or  gravelly  soil — both  pre- 
occupations which  seem  not  even  to  exist  for  you  foreigners.' 

'  You  see  then  what  I  mean,'  I  answered.  '  To  have  a  living  idea 
of  what  his  forefathers  felt  when  they  fought  for  this  is  or  this  means, 
a  continental  of  to-day  must  come  to  this  island.' 

t  Pretty  much  as  an  Englishman  must  now-a-days  go  to  the 
Continent  if  he  wishes  to  understand  how  people  could  cut  each  other's 
throats  a  hundred  years  ago  for  the  suspensive  veto  or  the  absolute 
veto.  We  English  are  at  a  loss  to  comprehend  intelligent  men  on 
the  Continent,  who  know  their  history  as  well  as  we  do,  and  fight  for 
the  scrutin  de  liste  or  for  a  hundred-and-twentieth  law  on  the 
press,  as  if  such  forms  had  not  proved  entirely  irrelevant  for  the 
essence  of  political  life.  Or  had  we  in  this  country  no  true  re- 
presentation of  the  nation  before  1832  ?  Was  not  our  press  the 
freest  in  the  world  in  spite  of  law  texts  more  Draconian  than  those 
of  any  state  on  the  Continent,  just  as  your  philosophical  thought  in 
Germany  moves  as  freely  as  if  consistory  and  synod  never  existed  ?  ' 

'  Maybe  you  are  right,'  I  replied.  '  I  am  sometimes  myself 
afraid,  lest,  while  discussing  political  forms  and  letters  so  eagerly,  we 
should  lose  the  little  political  sense  we  have,  just  as  certain  English 
devotees  seem  to  me  to  have  lost  a  good  deal  of  Christian  spirit  in 
disputing  about  questions  of  dogma,  constitution,  and  costume.' 

'  Hush  !  This  really  is  not  the  place  to  talk  a  fond  about  all  that. 
But  come  and  let  us  have  a  good  chat  "  with  our  feet  under  the 
table,"  as  the  French  have  it,'  and  I  had  almost  added,  '  our  backs  to 
the  fire,'  so  chilly  and  damp  is  the  season.  '  Come  and  dine  with  me, 
a  la  fortune  du  pot,  if  you  have  no  engagement.' 

'  What  will  your  wife  say  if  you  bring  a  guest  home  without  giving 
her  notice,  and  a  guest,  too,  in  morning-dress  ? ' 

'  Never  mind.  I  shall  have  to  fight  that  out.  You  had  better 
accept  at  once.  It  is  perhaps  the  only  chance  you  will  have,  be- 
fore you  leave,  of  enjoying  a  good  old  English  joint  and  after-dinner- 
talk  over  a  glass  of  claret.' 

My  friend  was  so  full  of  the  subject  I  had  touched  upon,  that  he 
did  not  even  wait  till '  the  cloth  was  removed,'  to  bring  the  conversa- 
tion again  to  the  point  where  we  had  left  it  at  the  Club.  '  Are  you 
not,  as  a  true  German,'  he  resumed, '  somewhat  rash  in  generalisation  ? 
Is  not  the  theological  interest  you  spoke  of  limited  in  this  country  to 
very  small  circles,  or  at  any  rate  to  such  circles  as  do  not  represent 
the  movement  of  English  thought  ?  ' 

'  I  have  believed  so  more  than  once,'  I  answered ;  '  but  when  I  see 


1880.  MODERN  ENGLAND.  997 

an  author  like'Greorge  Eliot  devote  whole  volumes  to  such  questions, 
or  when  I  read  in  books  of  to-day  written  by  men  of  to-morrow  that 
people  "  are  still  discussing  Bishop  Butler's  Analogy"  and  that  the 
questions  at  issue  in  that  famous  book  "  are  still  unsettled,"  I  begin 
to  doubt.  With  us  such  questions  were  settled  long  ago,  I  am  tempted 
to  tell  Mr.  John  Morley  when  he  thus  compares  Burke's  thesis  to 
that  of  Bishop  Butler.  Besides,  is  there  not  in  the  very  animosity  with 
which  English  freethinkers  of  the  late  Professor  Clifford's  type,  for 
instance,  speak  of  Christianity,  something  which  proves  that  the 
enemy  is  not  yet  dead  ?  Our  materialists  are  much  coarser,  but  also 
much  less  bitter,  than  your  stern  English  philosophers,  who  have  some- 
thing of  the  acrimony  of  the  French  "  philosophes "  of  the  past 
century,  which  proves  that  the  struggle  is  not  yet  over ;  and  they 
bring  into  the  very  defence  of  free-thought  something  of  the  Puritan 
spirit  of  their  forefathers.  Have  not  some  of  them  even  made  a  new 
dogmatic  creed  out]of  their  anti-christian  convictions  ?  Have  they  not 
still  the  old  spirit  of  proselytism  which  characterises  the  English 
religion,  always  bent  upon  action,  when  the  religion  of  other  nations 
is  content  with  contemplation  ?  You  are  evidently  not  yet  arrived  at 
the  stage  of  indifference  towards  Christianity  which  we  have  reached 
on  the  Continent,  and^in  Germany  particularly,  although  the  progress 
towards  it  since  the  Essays  and  Reviews  seems  to  me  prodigious. 
Who  would  find  anything  dangerous  in  them  to-day,  I  wonder  ?  Yet 
it  is  scarcely  fifteen  years  since  they  were  written  and  set  the  whole 
of  England  in  commotion.  Nevertheless  I  do  not  think  that  the 
Ohurch  interest  will  die  out  in  England  so  soon  as  on  the  Continent, 
where  it  has  only  retained  a  political  importance,  where  even  that  is 
vanishing  in  the  purely  Protestant  countries :  our  children  in  the 
schools  scarcely  know  whether  their  playfellows  are  of  another  de- 
nomination than  themselves.  It  is  otherwise  in  England.  You  were 
once  already  far  advanced  on  the  road  to  indifference,  when  the  Evan- 
gelical movement  gave  new  life  to  religious  passion  and  drove  you 
almost  further  from  tolerance  than  you  had  been  in  the  time  of  the 
saints.  I  mean  inner  tolerance  of  course,  not  outward  toleration, 
which  is  nowhere  more  firmly  established  than  in  England.' 

'  If  I  understand  rightly  what  you  mean  by  that  inner  tolerance 
in  which  we  are  deficient  here,  I  would  rather  call  it  religious  indif- 
ferentism,'  my  friend  objected. 

1 1  am  not  so  sure  that  you  would  be  right  in  doing  so,'  I  replied 
*  I  have  known  really  pious  people,  both  Catholic  and  Protestant, 
French  and  German,  who  lived  not  only  peacefully  with  heterodox 
friends,  but  even  without  thinking  them  blind  and  deaf  to  the  light 
and  voice  of  evidence,  still  less  mad  or  wicked,  because  they  did  not 
hold  the  same  religious  views  they  themselves  held.  And  the  same 
inner  tolerance  of  religious  belief  I  have  seen  in  absolute  freethinkers. 
Of  course,  such  mild  and  innerly  tolerant  people  are  also  to  be  found 
VOL.  VII.— No.  40.  3  X 


998  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  June 

in  England ;  but  I  have  had  the  bad  luck  to  meet  many  who  were 
noi  of  this  class,  who  simply  considered  those  who  did  not  share  their 
convictions  as  lost  souls.  And  I  must  say,  I  found  the  dissenters  in 
that  respect  almost  worse  than  the  members  of  the  Church  of 
England — nay,  Unitarians  themselves,  whose  whole  faith  seems  based 
on  rationalism,  spoke  in  my  presence  of  freethinkers  and  Trinitarians 
as  of  equally  dangerous  enemies  of  Christianity.' 

1  Don't  you  indulge  an  illusion  if  you  think  that  similar  intole- 
rance does  not  exist  on  the  Continent  ?  Look  at  the  French  episcopate, 
the  German  Oberkirchenrath.  Is  there  not  even  more  than  inner 
intolerance  in  them  ?  ' 

4  Surely  enough.  But  this  spirit  is  entirely  limited  to  the  clergy 
in  Germany  ;  it  is  wholly  political  in  France.  If  nothing  is  rarer 
among  the  German  laity  than  religion,  nothing  is  more  general 
among  them  than  religiosity  or  pious  reverence.  For  as  our  en- 
lightenment in  the  past  century  was  not  a  struggle  of  rationalism 
against  religion,  but  a  peaceful  development  of  the  latter,  a  con- 
tinuous purifying  and  simplification  of  it  under  the  influence  of 
speculative  philosophy — as  pietism  took  away  from  religion  what  was 
too  rigid  in  the  orthodox  belief — as  the  moral  philosophy  of  the  fol- 
lowing period  despoiled  pietism  of  what  was  too  ecstatic  in  it — as  the 
Herderian  influence  widened  Christianity  more  and  more  into  a  sort  of 
humanism — as  finally  Kant  gave  it  its  lasting  foundation,  not  in  rea- 
son, not  in  tradition,  but  in  conscience — so  our  creed,  even  with 
free-thinkers,  has  nothing  hostile  to  religion,  nay,  deems  itself  rather 
a  continuation,  a  last  expression  of  religion,  than  a  negation  thereof. 
As  for  our  clergy,  there  is — shall  I  say  still  or  again  ? — a  great 
deal  of  zealotism  ;  but  you  must  not  compare  our  clergy  and  its  influ- 
ence with  yours,  which  holds  such  a  high  social  position,  which  is 
such  a  vast  element  of  English  society,  and  which  we  may  well  envy 
you  in  many  respects.  Wherever  you  go  in  England,  in  town  or 
country,  to  dinner  or  shooting  parties,  you  everywhere  meet  the  clergy- 
man and  his  family.  Now  I  ask  you,  who  know  the  Continent  so  well, 
how  often  have  you  met  a  German  Pfarrer  or  a  French  priest  in 
society,  let  alone  sports  or  entertainments  ?  They  form  a  caste  apart. 
Their  small  means  and  conventional  usage  forbid  them  to  take  part 
in  any  elegant  amusement,  and  the  low  culture,  still  more  the  low 
extraction,  of  most  of  the  French  and  Italian  priests  in  our  days 
maintains  an  invisible  barrier,  even  when  they  are  admitted  into 
society.  They,  after  all,  keep  to  their  business  and  their  guild.  You 
see  them  in  church,  at  school,  by  the  bed  of  the  sick,  and  in  the  garret 
of  the  poor,  with  wonderful  devotion  and  self-abnegation.  The  only 
worldly  interest  they  share  with  us  is  the  political  one ;  but  they 
work  for  it  among  the  peasants,  the  labourers,  the  women.  What 
properly  constitutes  the  nation,  i.e.  the  cultivated  middle  class,  comes 
into  no  contact  whatever  with  them,  whilst  they  recruit  themselves 


1880.  MODERN  ENGLAND.  999 

out  of  that  class  in  England,  and  remain  by  marriage  and  social  inter- 
course constantly  in  relation  with  it.' 

'I  have  indeed  observed  that  difference,'  my  friend  rejoined. 
'But  I  explained  it  rather  by  external  than  internal  reasons. 
"With  us  the  Church  has  retained,  with  the  army  and  law,  the  privilege 
of  remaining  a  genteel  career,  because  she  has  kept  her  wealth,  whilst 
the  Reformation  in  Germany,  the  Eevolution  in  France,  has  despoiled 
the  clergy  and  left  them  as  poor  as  the  mice  in  their  churches.  It  is 
this  wealth  and  the  facilities  offered  them  of  receiving  their  educa- 
tion at  the  two  aristocratic  universities  of  the  country  in  the  company 
of  gentlemen,  that  have  preserved  for  them  a  social  position  which 
they  have  not  in  France  and  Germany,  and  which  they  could  not 
maintain  if  it  were  granted  them.' 

'  Whatever  may  be  the  reasons  of  the  social  superiority  of  your 
clergy  to  ours,  it  exists,  and  the  consequences  are  most  important. 
Your  clergy  being  far  more  refined  and  much  more  au  courant  of  the 
most  modern  and  most  secular  trains  of  thought,  they  become 
naturally  more  latitudinarian  than  ours,  which  accounts  for  the  great 
number  of  Broad  Churchmen  who  have  happily  survived  in  England ; 
but  it  is  natural  also  that  sooner  or  later  their  opinions  should  come 
into  conflict  with  their  calling.  To  silence  the  doubts  which  may 
arise,  I  see  them  either  looking  to  the  refined  enjoyments  of  literary 
epicurism,  or  devoting  themselves  with  great  zeal  to  the  practical 
duties  of  their  office.  Now  this  ours  certainly  do  with  the  same  zeal 
both  in  France  and  Germany;  but  they  cannot  have  the  refining  influ- 
ence your  clergymen  exercise.  It  is  not,  therefore,  any  theological 
sympathy  that  makes  me  feel  how  much  we  on  the  Continent  are  in 
want  of  a  body  of  men  like  your  clergy.  Our  own  parish  priests  and 
parsons  are  excellent  men,  but  they  neither  possess  the  means,  nor 
are  they  in  a  position  to  undertake  the  work,  that  yours  do.  The 
residence  in  almost  every  English  village  of  a  gentleman  whose  duty 
it  is  to  mix  with  the  poor,  and  who  is  yet  entirely  independent  of 
them,  is  an  incalculable  advantage.  During  an  occasional  residence 
in  several  English  villages  I  have  been  surprised  to  find  how  well 
the  clergyman  fills  this  position,  what  assistance  he  is  able  to  give  to 
the  struggling,  and  I  am  convinced  that  it  is  chiefly  owing  to  his 
ministration  that,  in  spite  of  their  somewhat  abnormal  position  and 
the  noisy  declamation  of  agitators,  there  is  so  little  real  discontent 
among  your  agricultural  labourers.' 

4  This  is  only  one  side  of  the  question,  and,  after  all,  not  the  one  by 
which  our  clergy  differ  most  from  yours  ;  what  seems  to  me  much  more 
important  is  that,  with  the  social  position  and  the  national  education, 
our  clergy  retain  naturally  enough  that  all-important  coherence  with 
national  life  which  yours  on  the  Continent  seem  to  have  lost  so  utterly. 
With  you,  indeed,  they  form  everywhere  a  nation  in  the  nation  ;  with 
us  they  are  one  with  the  nation.' 

3x2 


1000  THE   NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  June 

'  Precisely  so  ;  but  don't  you  see  that  this  tends  to  maintain  in 
English  society  an  interest  in  Church  questions  which  we  no  longer 
have  on  the  Continent?  There  must  be,  besides,  another  deeper 
reason  for  that  interest.  For  I  see  that  poor  dissenting  ministers 
have,  if  not  the  same  social  position  as  clergymen  of  the  Church 
of  England,  at  least  the  same  influence,  the  same  incessant  inter- 
course with  the  higher  middle  classes  of  this  country ;  and,  above 
all,  I  see  the  laymen  here  take  up  religious  questions  with  a  zeal 
and  fervour  unknown  to  us.  Look  at  the  lukewarm  and  awkward 
attitude  of  the  laymen  in  our  last  synod  in  Berlin.  You  at  once 
saw  that  they  were  strangers  in  heart  to  the  whole  matter  at  issue  ; 
and  you  see  that  already  there  is  a  question  of  turning  them  out 
again.  Our  young,  zealous,  and  orthodox  clergy  prefer  to  be  alone.' 

4  But  surely  there  has  been  a  great  show  of  piety  among  your 
government  officials  in  these  last  forty  years ;  and  would  you  have 
had  the  new  sects  of  the  Deutschkatholiken,  the  Free  Communities, 
the  Old  Catholics,  if  there  were  so  much  indifference  as  you  say  ? ' 

(  Now,  in  my  turn,  to  remind  you  of  the  superficiality  of  those 
movements.  We  may  still  live  to  see  how  that  artificial  vegetation 
of  pietism,  half  hypocrisy,  half  self-deception,  which  sprang  up  at 
the  accession  of  Frederick  William  the  Fourth  in  1 840,  and  which 
lives  only  with  difficulty  since  that  sovereign's  death,  will  die  com- 
pletely out  with  a  new  reign,  as  the  Saints  died  out  after  the  restora- 
tion of  the  Stuarts.  And  as  for  the  new  sects,  well,  what  is  cha- 
racteristic of  them  is  that,  three  or  four  years  after  their  birth,  they 
are  virtually  no  longer  sects  ;  German  Catholics,  Free  Communities, 
Old  Catholics  have  simply  become  latitudinarians,  if  not  Christians 
a  la  Schleiermacher,  who  did  not  even  think  (rod  and  the  im- 
mortality of  the  soul  necessary  elements  of  religion — which  did 
not  prevent  him  from  remaining  for  long  years  the  highest  eccle- 
siastical authority  of  Germany.  No,  believe  me,  the  religious  ques- 
tion on  the  Continent  has  reference  only  to  the  position  of  the  Church 
towards  the  State,  not  to  its  dogmas  nor  even  religious  feeling  ;  nay, 
outward  forms  and  ceremonies  are  little  observed,  provided  people 
admit  the  hierarchical  authority.  The  restoration  of  authority  is  the 
only  aim  and  only  interest  both  in  the  Catholic  Church  and  in  the 
Protestant.  It  is  the  only  surviving  principle  of  positive  religion ; 
and  if  the  Pope  to-morrow,  the  OberJdrchenrath  the  day  after  to- 
morrow, were  to  declare  that  the  sun  turns  round  the  earth,  the 
whole  clergy  and  all  the  laymen,  who  use  the  clergy  as  an  instrument 
for  social  and  political  conservatism,  would  accept  the  decision,  as 
the  dogma  of  1870  was  accepted.  For  no  atheist  can  be  more  in- 
different to  dogmatical  questions  than  the  average  of  the  continental 
clergy  and  clerical  laity.  Obedience  is  the  only  religious  idea  which 
is  still  living  on  the  Continent,  and  can  it  be  called  a  religious  idea  ? 
Now,  this  was  not  the  case  in  Luther's  and  Calvin's  times,  this  is  not 


1880.  MODERN  ENGLAND.  1001 

yet  the  case  in  England.  The  battle  against  sin,  the  revelation, 
both  the  historical  and  the  inner  daily  renewed  one,  damnation  and 
salvation,  the  real  presence  of  our  Lord  in  the  Holy  Supper,  all  these 
are  questions  which  are  still  living  here,  which  are  still  sources  of 
excitement  for  people  ;  and  even  the  adversaries  of  the  Church  still 
think  themselves  obliged  to  combat  such  theories.' 

'  I  am  afraid,'  my  English  friend  resumed  after  some  reflection, 
1  that  you  will  be  greatly  undeceived  when  once  you  have  seen  a  little 
further  into  our  religious  life.  Of  course  it  is  more  intense  here 
than  anywhere  else  in  Europe,  but  it  is  very  different  from  what  it 
was  in  Germany.  Nay,  I  think  it  never  was  quite  of  the  same 
nature  as  the  continental  movement  in  Luther's  times.  Not  only 
had  the  English  Reformation  a  more  political  and  national  character 
from  the  beginning  than  yours,  but  the  religious  spirit  embodied  in 
our  Protestant  sects  was  different.  The  element  of  speculation  and 
imagination,  so  prominent  in  Luther  himself,  the  high  intellectual 
culture  and  the  tolerant  spirit  of  a  Melanchthon,  left  their  stamp  on 
the  whole  of  German  Protestantism ;  Calvin's  logical  dogmatism  on 
the  French.  In  England  the  episcopal  constitution  surviving  the 
Reformation,  the  rich  endowments  which  numerous  sees  and  livings 
retained,  the  class  to  which  many  clergymen  belonged  by  birth,  and 
finally  the  important  part  played  by  the  episcopate  in  the  Upper  House, 
left  the  Church  of  England  something  of  the  aristocratical  character 
Catholicism  had  in  the  middle  ages,  and  which  has  steadily  given  way 
to  papal  absolutism  ever  since  the  Council  of  Trent ;  whilst  the 
German  Protestant  clergy,  principally  recruited  from  the  lower  middle 
classes,  directly  subordinate  to,  and  mostly  paid  by,  the  State — a 
bureaucratical,  not  a  parliamentary  State — became  soon  a  body,  or 
rather  an  army,  of  ecclesiastical  officials,  exceedingly  independent  in 
the  sphere  of  thought,  but  humble  servants  of  the  greater  or  smaller 
potentates  of  Germany.' 

'  Besides,  there  was  no  such  thing  as  a  Germany,'  I  added,  *  and  con- 
sequently no  national  Church  would  grow  there  like  that  which  for 
a  time  almost  alone  represented  Protestantism  in  this  island.  Our 
Protestantism  was  not  even  Prussian  or  Saxon,  while  yours  was  above 
all  things  English.  As  for  the  other  sects,  which  then  and  afterwards 
were  formed  in  England,  they  moved,  it  is  true,  in  a  lower  social 
sphere,  but  they  were  either  democratic  in  their  tendencies  like  the 
Puritans  and  Presbyterians,  or  outside  the  classic  culture  like  the 
Baptists  and  Quakers, or  they  were  pure  rationalists  like  the  Unitarians. 
They  all  laid  a  great  stress  on  the  constitutional  question,  they  all 
had  a  practical  or  philanthropic  bent.  In  all  these  respects  they  form  a 
strong  contrast  to  Lutheranism,  which  was  an  anti-democratic  religion, 
having  for  its  basis  and  nucleus  a  highly  cultivated  middle  class,  a 
contemplative,  nay  speculative  faith,  as  far  from  idolatry  as  it  was 
from  iconoclastic  passion,  from  rationalism  as  from  mysticism.' 


1002  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  June 

'  But  was  not  Luther  himself  inclined  to  imperious  fanaticism  and 
subject  to  ecstatic  raptures  ?  Did  not  the  Minister  Anabaptists  bear  a 
close  resemblance  to  our  Independents  ?  Are  not  your  pietists  and 
Moravian  Brethren  a  Gferman  version  of  our  Methodists  ? ' 

'  Undoubtedly  much  of  Luther's  haughty  intolerance  may  have 
been  left  in  Lutheranism  ;  it  was,  however,  powerfully  counterbalanced 
by  the  Melanchthonian  spirit  of  conciliation  ;  and  the  necessity  it  was 
under  of  living,  as  it  were,  in  a  mixed  marriage  with  Catholicism  after 
the  Thirty  Years'  War,  as  well  as  the  horror  of  religious  strife  this  war 
left  behind  it,  acted  as  strong  restraints  on  pious  zeal.  As  for  the  mys- 
tic raptures  of  Luther,  do  not  forget  how  they  were  counterbalanced  by 
his  healthy,  sensuous,  and  veracious  nature.  The  Anabaptists,  on  the 
other  hand,  were  conquered  forthwith,  and  never  succeeded  in  govern- 
ing the  Grerman  nation  for  a  single  day,  as  your  Puritans  did  England. 
And  as  for  the  Methodists,  I  might  reverse  your  words ;  they 
are  rather  an  English  translation  from  the  Gferman  than  the  contrary. 
Wesley  came  fifty  years  after  Spener  and  Fraucke ;  he  learned  the 
chief  article  of  his  creed  from  their  followers,  and  the  first  Methodist 
society  was  established  fifty  years  after  the  first  Moravian  brotherhood. 
Now  this  chronology  is  not  indifferent.  If  you  have  a  political 
advance  on  us  of  half  a  century,  we  have  a  religious  start  before  you 
of  the  same  length  of  time  at  least.  And  there  is  a  circumstance 
which  doubles  that  start  of  half  a  century.  Our  pietistic  movement 
came  before  our  philosophical  emancipation  and  our  literary  renova- 
tion. Your  evangelical  movement  came  after  the  golden  age  of 
your  philosophy.  It  was  a  reaction  of  the  poor  in  spirit  against  the 
intellectual  aristocrats  of  Locke's  and  Hume's  type.  It  was  also  a 
reaction  against  the  latitudinarianism  reigning  in  England  in  the  first 
half  of  the  past  century.  It  took  place,  finally,  whilst  a  literary  revo- 
lution was  going  on.  That  great  intellectual  change,  indeed,  which 
so  broadly  distinguishes  the  latter  years  of  the  last  century  and  the 
commencement  of  the  present  from  the  period  that  immediately 
preceded  them,  was  nowhere  felt  more  strongly  than  in  England. 
It  revolutionised  all  your  thoughts  and  feelings ;  it  created  a  new 
literature  amongst  you ;  but  unfortunately  it  embodied  itself  in  no 
new  philosophy.  You  had  attained  a  new  point  of  view  which  suggested 
new  speculative  questions.  Our  transcendentalism  was  an  attempt 
to  grapple  with  these,  and,  whatever  its  absolute  value  may  have  been, 
there  can  be  no  question  of  the  important  and  beneficial  influence 
.which  it  exercised  over  our  Gferman  culture.  "The  narrowness  and 
comparative  fruitlessness  of  the  English  movement,"  says  one  of  the 
most  trustworthy  of  your  historians,  Mr.  Leslie  Stephen,  "  when  set 
beside  contemporary  Gferman  thought,  is  generally,  and  perhaps 
rightly,  thought  to  show  that  an  unsatisfactory  philosophy  may  be 
better  than  no  philosophy  at  all."  Kant's  constructive  philosophy  was 
indeed  the  ark  which  safely  bore  the  progenitors  of  a  new  age  across 


1880.  MODERN  ENGLAND.  1003 

the  stormy  and  tiirbid  flood  by  which  the  past  was  for  a  time  over- 
whelmed. Some  of  our  literary  heroes,  such  as  Herder  and  Goethe, 
sought  and  found  refuge  in  Spinoza ;  but  of  those  young  men  whose 
minds  were  strong  and  daring  enough  to  wrestle  with  the  vital  interests 
of  their  period,  there  was  scarcely  one,  unsheltered  by  the  new  philo- 
sophy, who  did  not  suffer  either  an  intellectual  or  a  moral  shipwreck.' 

4 1  am  well  aware,'  my  friend  rejoined,  '  that,  in  an  age  of  religious 
scepticism,  philosophy  gains  an  intense  practical  interest.  So  it  was  in 
Seneca's  and  Epictetus'  times ;  so  in  Kant's.  It  furnishes  many,  who 
have  no  intention  of  devoting  their  lives  to  speculative  inquiry,  with  a 
point  of  view  from  which  they  can  contemplate  the  world,  with  a  firm 
spiritual  basis  on  which  to  build  up  their  lives,  with  a  moral  standard 
and  ethical  motives.  But  to  do  this  it  must  satisfy  both  the  heart  and 
the  understanding  of  its  adherents.  It  must  fire  their  enthusiasm 
and  at  the  same  time  so  convince  their  intellects  that  they  have  as 
little  doubt  of  its  authority  as  the  believer  feels  with  respect  to  the 
articles  of  his  creed.  This,  you  say,  transcendentalism  was  to  Germany 
in  a  period  which  in  some  respects  closely  resembles  that  through 
which  we  are  passing.  I  understand  that  Hume's  scepticism  and  the 
Deism  of  a  Chubb  could  not  be  as  much  to  Byron  and  Shelley.  The 
first  pioneers  of  German  enlightenment  already  appealed  to  the 
heart  as  much  as  to  the  understanding.  No  wonder  that  their  ideal 
was  embodied  in  the  mild  and  wise  type  of  Lessing's  Nathan ;  ours 
spoke  to  the  understanding  alone,  and  Pope's  Essay  on  Man  was 
not  precisely  fit  to  take  the  place  of  a  religious  ideal.  However, 
instead  of  such  a  quieting  and  elevating  philosophy,  we  had  in  England 
a  great  religious  movement ' 

4  Which  seems  to  me  to  have  increased  a  thousandfold,'  I  inter- 
rupted, '  the  dangers  of  the  period  on  which  you  are  entering.  We 
had  already  left  behind  us  for  a  long  time  the  mystical  period  of 
pietism  when  we  formed  our  new  lay  creed  or  Weltanschauung.  In 
England  the  doubt  which  is  only  now  beginning  to  spread,  and  of 
which  I  hear  tlut  it  has  already  passed  beyond  the  great  centres  of 
thought  and  is  making  itself  felt  even  in  secluded  country  places  and 
among  the  lower  middle  class,  which  lias  so  long  remained  thought- 
proof — awakening  doubt,  I  say,  comes  to  you  without  transition  and 
preparation,  thanks  to  the  Evangelical  movement,  which  has  broken 
the  historic  thread  between  Hume's  thought  and  that  of  your  thinkers 
of  to-day.  The  change  itself,  of  course,  I  do  not  regret ;  that  has 
long  appeared  inevitable  to  all  who  have  an  eye  to  read  the  signs  of 
the  times.  In  fact,  if  you  had  not  abandoned  your  strict  and  some- 
what prosaic  orthodoxy,  you  must  have  descended  from  the  high 
place  you  have  so  long  occupied  in  the  intellectual  republic  of  Europe. 
But  I  had  hoped  the  revolution  of  feeling  would  be  very  gradual,  and 
that  you  would  have  been  safely  provided  with  a  new  spiritual  dwelling- 
place  before  the  old  one  crumbled  to  pieces.' 


1004  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  June 

'  This,  unfortunately,'  said  my  friend,  '  has  not  been  the  case. 
Thence  a  great  discrepancy  in  our  religious  views,  which  you  have 
not  in  yours.  Your  development,  as  you  just  remarked,  has  been  a 
quite  regular  one  from  rigid  orthodoxy  to  religious  enthusiasm,  from 
religious  enthusiasm  to  a  religious  sympathy,  and  from  that  to  absolute 
indifference  as  to  positive  religion.  With  us,  on  the  contrary,  the 
admirable  pacific  development  of  old  England  in  the  last  century  has 
been  violently  interrupted  ;  we  have  been  thrown  back  by  a  hundred 
years,  and  the  defenders  of  secular' science,  who  might  have  taken  off 
their  hats'  reverently  to  Christ  and  Christianity,  as  Locke  and  even 
Hume  did,  as  yours  generally  do,  are  obliged  to  attack  them,  if  they 
do  not  want  to  be  oppressed  themselves,  not  by  laws  and  policemen, 
but  by  social  convention.  Hence  it  comes  that  there  are  two  camps  in 
England,  when  there  is  only  one  faith  in  all  the  cultured  classes  of 
Germany.' 

1  This,  of  course,'  replied  I, '  accounts  for  much  in  what  puzzles  me 
most  about  England,  viz.,  the  way  in  which  the  country  seems  to  be 
split  up  into  classes.  I  do  not  mean  socially — that  is  a  matter  of  course 
— but  intellectually  as  well.  When  I  read  any  of  your  modern  books 
or  dip  into  any  of  your  leading  reviews,  I  find  the  same  tone  of  thought 
there  that  characterises  the  best  modern  culture  of  the  Continent, 
although  it  is  sometimes  shriller  than  with  us.  Nay,  in  some  branches 
of  intellectual  activity  England  seems  to  me  greatly  in  advance.  When 
I  meet  my  English  friends,  I  find  them  animated  by  a  similar  spirit, 
except  perhaps  that  the  memory  of  a  late  emancipation  lends  an  addi- 
tional piquancy  to  some  biblical  jest.  They  are  enlightened,  far- 
sighted,  tolerant,  and  the  pleasantest  of  companions,  because  their 
interests  are  wider  than  those  of  most  of  our  own  professors,  whose 
thoughts  are  a  little  too  apt  to  run  in  fixed  grooves.  Yet  I  can  hardly 
take  up  one  of  your  newspapers  without  finding  an  account  of  some 
revival  meeting,  or  other  outburst  of  religious  fanaticism,  which  re- 
calls the  darkest  period  of  the  middle  ages.  Do  not  armies  of  salvation 
still  parade  your  towns  with  banners  of  blood  and  fire  ?  And  such 
extravagancies  seem  to  excite  neither  surprise  nor  indignation.  If 
by  chance  I  get  into  conversation  with  a  travelling  Englishwoman 
who  does  not  belong  to  the  circle  of  my  London  friends,  I  generally 
find  that  she  knows  nothing  of  the  works  which  are  the  glory  of  your 
literature.  Shakespeare,  she  tells  me,  is  indecent,  and  Byron  immoral, 
nor  does  she  seem  to  know  much  more  than  myself  of  those  living  poets 
about  whom  some  of  you  are  so  enthusiastic.  I  have  learned  to  con- 
sider myself  fortunate  if  she  does  not  add  that  it  will  be  no  comfort 
to  me  on  my  death-bed  to  remember  that  I  have  read  the  novels  of 
Sir  Walter  Scott.  On  the  other  hand  she  is  probably  quite  ready  to  fix 
the  exact  date  of  the  day  of  judgment,  or  eager  to  convince  me  that 
the  Anglo-Saxon  race  is  lineally  descended  from  the  ten  lost  tribes  of 
Israel.  In  a  word,  I  find  myself  face  to  face  with  an  intellectual  world 


1880.  MODERN  ENGLAND.  1005 

which  seems  a  perfect  chaos,  perhaps  only  because  I  cannot  grasp  the 
secret  of  its  order.' 

'  Do  not  forget,'  my  friend  interrupted,  '  that,  while  with  you  only 
the  cultured  classes  go  abroad  for  pleasure,  the  greater  wealth  of  the 
lower  middle  class  in  England  enables  also  the  uneducated  to  indulge 
in  foreign  travel.' 

'  Maybe ;  but  such  a  woman  evidently  spends  more  time  in 
reading  than  any  German  professor's  wife  or  daughters,  and  I  know 
of  no  class  in  Germany  that  could  furnish  similar  characters.  Do 
not  mistake  me.  There  is  enough  ignorance  and  narrow-mindedness 
among  us,  quite  as  much,  perhaps,  as  in  England,  though  it  shows 
itself  rather  in  political  and  social  than  in  religious  and  purely  in- 
tellectual matters.  But  that  only  explains  what  I  am  saying. 
England  is  still  aristocratic.  In  the  State  and  society  your  cultured 
classes  continue  to  lead,  and  their  influence  is  felt  everywhere ;  but 
they  seem  to  have  no  hold  on  the  mental  and  spiritual  life  of  the 
nation  at  large,  however  absolute  may  be  their  sway  in  the  higher 
circles.  Otherwise  the  vagaries  of  Moody  and  Sankey  would  be  im- 
possible in  the  country  of  Darwin,  Huxley,  and  Tyndall.' 

'  They  we. re  American,  you  forget.' 

'  Yes,  but  their  audiences  were  English.  Now,  with  us,  the 
reverse  of  all  this  is  true.  The  representatives  of  our  highest  culture 
proved  their  political  incapacity  in  1848,  and  ever  since  they  have 
behaved  so  clumsily  that  the  nation  no  longer  trusts  them.  The 
result  of  this  want  of  confidence,  together  with  the  absence  of  the 
restraining  influence  of  an  organised  public  opinion  on  matters  re- 
lating to  the  government  of  the  country,  is  that,  now  we  have  a  man 
of  unquestioned  capacity  at  our  head,  the  great  mass  of  the  people 
will  follow  him  in  any  course  that  he  may  adopt,  and,  all  things 
considered,  they  seem  to  me  to  be  obeying  a  healthy  instinct"  in  doing 
so.  But  in  religious  matters  our  people  allow  themselves  to  be  in- 
directly led  by  those  who  possess  the  highest  intellectual  culture. 
Ever  since  our  professional  classes  have  abandoned  church-going 
and  prayer-reading,  our  lower  middle  classes  have  followed  their 
example,  and,  in  spite  of  many  exceptions  in  both  classes,  indifference 
to  religious  forms,  if  not  to  religion,  is  the  rule  in  Germany.  Whether 
this  is  a  good  or  a  bad  thing  I  leave  to  your  judgment.  As  for  our 
working  classes,  and  particularly  the  peasantry,  things  lie  quite 
differently,  and  I  should  very  much  like  to  know  something  about 
that  class  in  England ;  but  all  I  hear  about  them  is  fragmentary  and 
self-contradictory.  It  seems,  in  fact,  to  be  gathered  from  popular 
novels;  and  though  I  know  several  Englishmen  who  can  furnish 
me  with  the  fullest  information  as  to  the  native  races  of  India 
and  various  negro  tribes,  there  is  not  one  of  my  acquaintance  who 
can  tell  me  how  a  Manchester  artisan  thinks  and  feels.  The 
few  mechanics  whom  I  have  met  in  German  workshops  have  always 


1006  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY.  June 

interested  me.  They  were,  of  course,  brimful  of  British  prejudice,  and 
looked  down  with  the  most  contemptuous  indifference  on  us  and  all 
our  ways.  But  they  were  manly  and  independent,  and,  as  I  have  been 
told,  intelligent  and  honest  workmen.  Those  with  whom  I  have 
spoken  have  always  been  free-thinkers ;  but  their  scepticism  seemed 
to  belong  to  the  eighteenth  century,' with  its  rationalistic  and  some- 
what iconoclastic  tendencies,  rather  than  to  the  nineteenth,  with  its 
respect  for  all  psychical  phenomena  and  its  firm  belief  in  historical 
development.' 

'  How  should  it  be  different  ? '  said  my  friend.  '  Are  they  not 
Westerners,  i.e.  heirs  to  the  enlightenment  which  you  have  just  now 
characterised  ?  And  is  not  the  spirit  of  the  nineteenth  century  which 
you  describe  of  German  origin  ?  How  then  should  they  have  anything 
of  that  religious  awe  for  the  incomprehensible  which  with  you  has 
survived  the  death  of  positive  religion  ?  Besides,  I  am  not  so  sure 
that  your  half-million  of  Socialists  in  Berlin,  Chemnitz,  &c.,  have  not 
feelings  near  akin  to  those  of  our  emancipated  workmen.' 

'Naturally  enough,'  I  answered,  'German  Socialism  being  an  insipid 
imitation  of  French  Communism.  Its  philosopher  is  La  Mettrie,  its 
martyr  Marat,  its  hero  Babceuf,  their  brethren  and  allies  are  the  French 
communards.  There  is  absolutely  nothing  original,  nothing  Grerman 
in  it.  They  are  the  pupils  of  the  French  revolutionary  school,  precisely 
as  what  you  just  called  the  nineteenth  century  in  England,  your  poets, 
certain  of  your  historians  and  art-critics  of  the  day,  are  indirect, 
perhaps  unconscious,  pupils  of  the  German  romantic  school.  Such  a 
foreign  influence,  which  does  not  entirely  coalesce  with  the  national 
stream  of  culture,  and  remains,  as  it  were,  a  separate  current,  seems 
to  me  always  a  misfortune,  which  must  in  the  end  be  injurious  to 
those  who  follow  the  one  or  the  other  current.  Already  your  poetry 
seems  to"  me  to  have  lost  at  least  a  part  of  that  strong  masculine 
directness  of  treatment  which  used  to  be  its  distinguishing  excellence, 
and  to  possess  rather  the  delicate  grace  of  an  exotic  than  the  healthy 
vigour  of  a  native  plant.  But  in  this  I  know  you  differ  from  me.' 

'This  intellectual  isolation  of  our  various  classes,'  my  friend 
resumed  after  a  short  pause,  '  is  certainly  the  result  of  many  causes. 
The  centralisation  of  our  social  life  may  have  a  great  deal  to  do  with 
it ;  but  it  is  also,  partly  at  least,  owing  to  the  character  of  our  Church. 
Our  clergy  are — you  stated  it  yourself — far -more  refined  than  yours, 
though  I  doubt  whether  they  are  more  learned ;  but  this  very  re- 
finement, if  it  brings  them  into  closer  contact  with  the  gentry  and  the 
higher  middle  class,  separates  them  to  a  certain  degree  from  their 
humbler  congregations,  and  thus,  whilst  it  makes  them  eminently 
qualified  for  the  practical  duties  of  their  office,  unfits  them  for  the 
more  important  work  of  educating  mentally  those  who  are  so  far 
below  them.  On  the  Continent  I  have  seen  the  village  priest  or 
parson  live  as  a  peasant  among  peasants.  He  shares  their  interests, 


1880.  MODERN  ENGLAND.  1007 

their  cares,  their  amusements,  he  has  often  grown  up  among  them, 
and,  if  he  is  a  Protestant,  his  wife  is  frequently  chosen  from  their 
midst.' 

'But  at  the  same  time,' I  interposed,  'he is  an  educated  man,  who 
has  passed  through  a  course  of  mental  discipline,  and  this  fact  is  always 
recognised  and  respected  by  his  associates.  His  influence  is  a  constant 
check  upon  intellectual  and  religious  vagaries,  and  his  daily  contact 
with  the  realities  of  practical  life  is  generally  sufficient  to  restrain 
any  inclination  of  his  own  in  a  similar  direction.  He  is  seldom 
either  a  saint  or  a  genius,  and  his  manners  might  seem  strange  in  a 
drawing-room ;  but  he  is  in  general  a  most  estimable  man,  and  he 
occupies  an  important  place  in  the  scale  of  our  national  culture. 
Your  clergymen  are  doubtless  more  pleasant  associates,  and  no  one 
who  has  seen  an  old  English  church  and  vicarage  would  wish  to  mar 
their  beauty  or  disturb  their  quiet.  I  have  no  doubt,  too,  that  the 
great  majority  of  your  clergy  possess  far  stronger  religious  convictions 
and  a  deeper  earnestness  than  ours ;  but  the  whole  condition  of 
England  shows  that  they  have  failed  in  doing  what  ours  have  done — 
that  is,  in  preventing  the  spread  of  an  ignorant  and  morbid  religious 
fanaticism.' 

'  And  yet  the  whole  fanaticism  you  regret  arose  within  the 
borders  of  the  Church,  and  John  Wesley  was,  as  truly  as  Burke  or 
Wordsworth,  an  agent  in  the  great  change  of  thought,  or  rather  in- 
tellectual position,  which  marked  the  close  of  the  last  century.' 

'  I  have  long  considered  him  as  such,'  I  replied,  '  and  I  think  I 
understand  what  came  to  pass  in  such  souls  as  his  and  Count  Zinzen- 
dorf 's,  but  I  cannot  believe  that  such  intense  inner  life,  that  anything 
approaching  their  feelings,  still  exists  among  their  followers.  I  do 
not  question  their  sincerity,  they  doubtless  pass  through  the  process 
they  describe,  but  it  is  not  this  they  teach,  it  is  not  thus  they  live.' 

'  However  that  may  be,'  said  my  friend,  '  the  teachings  of  our 
Methodists  are  certainly  the  result  of  those  of  Wesley,  and  his  work 
was  very  similar  to  that  of  Eousseau,  though  done  in  another  field  and  in 
a  different  way.  Both  reasserted  the  emotional,  side  of  our  nature, 
but  in  doing  so,  were  apt  to  overestimate  the  value  of  mere  feeling  ; 
and  I  think,  if  you  review  the  history  of  the  Evangelical  movement, 
you  will  find  that  its  most  admirable  representatives  have  always 
been  men  whose  nature  impelled  them  to  action,  and  who  therefore 
found  in  their  temperament  a  corrective  of  their  creed. 

'  To  me,'  I  said,  '  it  seems  that  what  lent  Wesley's  teaching  its  real 
power  was  that  it  revived  the  Teutonic  idea  in  a  time  when  it  seemed 
almost  submerged  in  England.  I  mean  the  earnestness  with  which  he 
insisted  on  the  conviction  that  what  a  man  is  is  more  important  than 
what  he  does  or  even  what  he  thinks.  Is  it  not,  in  another  form, 
Kant's  and  Schopenhauer's  teaching  of  the  liberty  of  the  "  intelligible 
character  "  and  the  non-liberty  of  the  "  empiric  character  "  ?  Is  it 


1008  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  June 

not  what  our  philosopher  meant  when  he  thus  analysed  that  sense  of 
sin  which  to  him  too  was  the  commencement  of  all  true  moral  life  ?  "  I 
see  plainly  that  these  actions  are  the  necessary  result  of  my  nature  ; 
but  I  see  also  that  they  are  wrong,  and  it  is  therefore  clear  that  my 
nature  is  not  what  it  ought  to  be."  ' 

'  I  am  afraid  Wesley's  class-leaders  would  have  been  astonished 
to  learn  that  they  were  so  profound  metaphysicians,'  my  friend 
exclaimed  ;  '  for,  at  best,  Methodism  was  only  the  Wertherism  of  the 
uncultivated.  It  did  and  does  satisfy  the  imagination  of  a  large 
class  of  my  fellow-countrymen ;  but  it  took  no  hold  of  that  intel- 
lectual aristocracy  which  in  Germany  became  a  prey  to  the  Wer- 
therian  epidemic,  and  the  artistic  side  of  the  German  movement  was 
totally  wanting  in  the  English  one.  That  it  has  never  convinced  the 
higher  understanding  of  our  nation  is  clear  from  the  fact  that  it  has 
never  embodied  itself,  as  even  anabaptism  did,  in  any  work  that  can 
be  numbered  among  the  treasures  of  our  literature.  George  Eliot's 
picture  of  Dinah  in  Adam  Bede  is  drawn  from  the  outside,  and  re- 
sembles in  so  far  Goethe's  study  of  your  own  pietism  in  his  Confessions 
of  a  Beautiful  Soul.  But  there  is  no  work  like  your  Jung-Stilling's 
autobiography  or  our  Bunyan's  Pilgrim's  Progress  written  from  within 
the  belief,  if  I  may  say  so.' 

'  There  is  perhaps  another  respect,'  I  observed,  '  in  which  the 
progress  of  Methodism  may  have  been  even  more  injurious  to  your 
national  life.  A  man  who  is  absorbed  by  a  great  passion  cares  little 
for  anything  that  cannot  be  brought  into  connection  with  it.  It 
disturbs  the  even  flow  of  the  current  of  thought  which  is  supremely 
interesting  to  him.  Thus  both  the  philosopher  and  the  artist  fre- 
quently withdraw  from  the  hurry  and  bustle  of  politics  or  of  society, 
and  they  have  a  perfect  right  to  do  so.  Nay,  we  all  acknowledge  the 
greatness  of  a  life  which  is  centred  in  one  ideal  and  devoted  to  a  single 
end.  It  has  a  completeness,  an  sesthetical  unity,  which  impresses  the 
imagination,  and  it  doubtless  affords  the  man  who  leads  it  a  satisfaction 
that  he  would  vainly  seek  in  a  multiplicity  of  interests  or  amusements. 
No  one  can  deny  this  greatness  of  character  to  John  Wesley,  or  be 
surprised  that  he,  for  his  own  part,  rejected  all  the  amusements  and 
much  of  the  business  of  the  world.  But  as  soon  as  any  one,  not  con- 
tent with  practising  such  renunciation  for  himself,  enforces  it  as  a 
moral  duty  upon  others,  it  becomes  dangerous,  unless  he  is  content  to 
adopt  an  entirely  ascetic  creed,  to  seclude  his  followers  in  a  monastic 
solitude,  and  to  prescribe  to  them  the  regular  duties  and  exercises  of  a 
religious  community,  such  as  the  mediaeval  orders  or  even  that  of  our 
Moravian  brotherhood.  Otherwise  he  deprives  them  of  the  simple 
joys  of  life  without  being  able  to  supply  them  with  that  all-absorbing 
interest  which,  in  his  own  case,  more  than  makes  amends  for  the  loss. 
I,  for  one,  am  convinced  that  it  was  Luther's  worldliness  which  has  left 
to  our  Lutheranism  the  width  and  the  human  sympathy  which  distin- 


1880.  MODERN  ENGLAND.  1009 

guish  it  from  all  other  Protestant  sects.     The  man  who  has  left  the 
"  Table  Talk  " — who  declared  that 


Em  Zotchen  in  Ehren 
Soil  Niemand  verwehren — • 

who  was  of  opinion  that 

Who  loves  not  woman,  wine  and  song, 
Will  be  a  fool  bis  whole  life  long — 

must  leave  another  stamp  upon  the  creed  of  his  followers  than 
John  Wesley,  in  spite  of  all  his  greatness.  True,  in  Wesley's 
own  writings  there  is  but  little  of  that  morbid  introspection  which 
is  so  characteristic  of  his  adherents,  because  his  feelings  were  not 
left  to  prey  upon  themselves,  but  found  an  immediate  expression  in 
action,  inlongjourneys,  in  frequent  preaching,  in  the  establishment  and 
organisation  of  his  societies.  His  work  left  him  no  time  either  for 
worldly  amusements  or  for  a  sentimental  cultivation  of  his  emotions. 
Still  his  was  an  exclusively  religious  life.  Politics,  art,  sensuous  en- 
joyment, he  disdained — nay,  considered  injurious  to  the  inner  life  he 
wanted  to  awake  in  his  followers.  These  had  not  his  all-absorbing  work 
to  do,  and  yet  the  common  amusements  and  interests  of  their  class — 
everything,  in  a  word,  that  could  withdraw  their  attention  even  for  a 
moment  from  a  life  of  intensely  self-conscious  feeling — were  forbidden 
them.' 

'  I  think  you  are  right  in  this,'  my  friend  rejoined.     '  Nay,  this 
prohibition  is  perhaps  the  only  explanation  of  the  extraordinary  fact 
that,  while  to  Wesley,  as  to  all  Christians,  the  highest  ethical  condi- 
tion appears  to  be  one  of  entire  self- surrender  and  self-forgetfulness, 
nowhere  will  you  find  so  unblushing  a  worship  of  self,  so  frai  k  an 
insistence  on  personal  emotions,  likings,  and  opinions,  as  among  his 
most  earnest  and  sincere  followers.     Most  of  them,  however,  belonged 
to  the  class  that  are  obliged  to  labour  for  their  daily  bread.    They  could 
not  therefore  withdraw  from  the  business  of  life,  and  their  religious 
teachers  were  obliged  to  permit,  and  even  to  insist  upon,  diligence  in 
a  worldly  calling  as  a  duty.     The  result  is  that  strange  unwritten  code 
which  so  large  a  section  of  our  middle  class  obeys — a  code  which 
encourages  the  utmost  self-seeking  in  business  matters,  and  which  is 
ready  to  excuse  even  sharp  practice  as  long  as  it  is  successful,  which 
sanctions  also  high  feeding,  but  which  dreads  the  unhallowed  influence 
of  art  and  condemns  the  theatre,  the  ball-room,  and  the  hunting-field, 
everything,  in  fact,  that  has  for  its  aim  strength,  agility,  or  grace.    All 
this  may  have  been  far  enough  from  Wesley's  intention,  and  yet  it  has 
been  the  most  definite  result  of  his  teaching.     On  the  other  side  you 
must  confess  that  England  has  been  quite  changed  by  the  indirect 
influence  of  his  doctrine,  that  our  whole  moral  life  has  become  purer 
and  more  earnest.' 


1010  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  June 

*  I  am  not  so  sure  of  all  that,'  said  I.     '  You  know  my  fundamental 
conviction,  that  nations,  like  individuals,  change  very  little ;  that  great 
men  certainly  give  sometimes  a  new  direction  to  the  faculties  and  pro- 
pensities of  a  nation,  but  do  not  create  nor  awake  those  faculties  and 
propensities ;  that,  finally,  great  men  are  quite  as  truly  the  outcome 
and,  as  it  were,  the  fruits  of  national  growth  and  development,  as  the 
average  types  of  a  nation.     Earnestness  has  always  been  an  eminently 
English  quality,  and  you  remember  Sterne's  delightful  remarks  on  the 
'  land  of  gravity.'   A  sort  of  sound  selfishness,  together  with  a  clinging 
to  a  strong  outward  rule,  seems  to  me  equally  English.     Besides,  if 
a  deep  change  has  been  made  in  the  English  character,  it  was  more 
than  a  century  before  Wesley.     Do  you  not  find  almost  all  the  cha- 
racteristics of  the  Methodists  in  the   Puritans,    the   Baptists,   the 
Quakers  ?     The  fact  is  that  there   are   two   sides   to   the   English 
character   and    mind,    and  they  come  out  successively   in  English 
history,   both   religious   and   literary.      The  Langlands  are    always 
followed   by  the   Chaucers,  the   Shakespeares  by  the  Miltons,   the 
Commonwealth  by  a  Restoration.     The  great  men  only  bring  out 
one  of  the  two  sides,  both  of  which  are  in  the  English  nature.     It 
certainly  was  not  Wesley  who  created  your  Sabbatarianism,  although  he 
may  have  helped  to  introduce  into  the  Church  of  England  a  practice 
which  was  chiefly  observed  by  the  Dissenters.   I  hear  often  that  English 
morals  have  become  better  since  Wesley's  influence   has  made  itself 
felt ;  but  I  have  my  own  doubts  of  the  fact.     You  are  fond  of  com- 
paring your  social  life  of  to-day  with   that  which  Fielding  has  de- 
scribed.    You  seem  to  forget  the  novelist's  manner  and  his  cast  of 
mind.    You  have  grown  so  very  nice  that  you  are  afraid  to  look  facts  in 
the  face  which  nevertheless  exist,  which  your  grandfathers  treated  as 
a  matter  of  course,  and  which  their  Smolletts  and  Sternes  were  free 
to  portray.     Even  Thackeray  thought  himself  obliged  to  make  his 
Arthur  Pendennis  purer  than  the  type  even  now  admits,  and  was  thereby 
guilty  of  an  act  of  hypocrisy  which  Fielding  was  too  much  of  an  artist 
to  commit  in  drawing  the  character  of  Tom  Jones,  although  his 
doings  sometimes  overstep  the  limits  of  what  even  Fielding's  time 
permitted.     How  far  this  is  an  advance  in  the  right  direction  is  a 
question  on  which  there  may  be  very  different  opinions.     I,  for  one, 
am  not  so  convinced  that  Vhypocrisie  est  un  hommage  rendu  a  la, 
vertu.     Believe  me,  there  is  a  good  deal  to  be  said  in  this  and  other 
respects  for  the  old  state  of  things,  the  England  of  Joseph  Andrews 
and  Captain  Booth. 

1  But  even  if  I  granted  that  the  change  is  as  great  as  you  suppose, 
and  that  it  has  been  wholly  beneficial,  why  should  you  attribute  it  to 
the  influence  of  the  Methodists  ?  Everywhere  the  last  hundred  years 
have  wrought  great  changes.  Everywhere  we  lay  a  greater  weight  on 
strictness  of  conduct  than  our  forefathers  in  the  eighteenth  century  did. 
I  have  heard  this  fact  ascribed  quite  as  often  to  the  admirable  family 


1880.  MODERN  ENGLAND.  1011 

life  of  Frederick  William  the  Third  and  Queen  Louise,  Louis-Philippe 
and  Queen  Marie- Amelie,  Queen  Victoria  and  Prince  Albert.  My  own 
conviction  is  that  the  reverse  is  true,  and  that  what  we  take  as  causes 
are  much  rather  effects.  But  let  us  compare  like  with  like.  Of  course, 
if  you  take  English  opinion  as  a  standard,  you  approach  virtue  more 
closely  than  we  do.  If  dancing  is  an  evil  and  Sunday  amusements 
are  a  sin,  we  Germans  are  in  a  bad  way,  and  many  of  you  English 
people  are  beginning  to  tread  in  our  steps ;  but  if  we  take  any  simply 
moral  standard,  I  am  not  so  sure  that  your  pious  people  excel  us  in- 
difFerentists.  I  will  not  speak  of  your  great  cities,  for  such  large 
congregations  of  men  generate  evils  of  their  own ;  and  we  will  put 
Berlin  aside,  because  the  sudden  extension  that  necessarily  followed  on 
its  becoming  the  capital  of  the  Empire,  has  given  rise  to  a  state  of 
things  which  we  regret  and  trust  will  be  transitory.  But  take  one  of 
your  small  towns  that  has  felt  the  Evangelical  movement  most  deeply, 
and  ask  yourself  whether  the  ethical  feeling  is  really  higher  and 
purer  there  than  in  one  of  ours  of  the  same  size,  whicli  will  in  all 
probability  be  quite  indifferent  in  religious  matters.' 

'  The  comparison  is  very  difficult,'  my  Englishman  replied, 
'  because  the  circumstances  are  so  different,  and  it  is  so  impossible 
to  estimate  the  comparative  value  of  good  qualities.  It  may  be 
national  prejudice,  but  I  think  you  will  find  in  England  a  stronger 
sense  of  the  misery  of  the  poor  and  a  greater  readiness  to  help  them.' 

'  No  one  who  knows  England,'  I  said,  t  will  call  in  question  the 
sincerity  of  that  feeling  and  the  liberality  of  your  charity.  Nay,  I 
have  always  thought,  when  I  saw  your  societies  for  the  protection  of 
animals,  your  subscriptions  for  public  disasters,  your  generosity  in 
private  cases,  above  all  the  indignation  aroused  in  England  by  the 
sight  of  cruelty,  that  your  superiority  lies  not,  as  Kant  had  it,  in  your 
earnestness,  but  in  that  virtue  which  Schopenhauer  represented  as  the 
source  of  all  morality — pity.  I  will  not  deny  that  the  Evangelical 
movement  may  have  contributed  to  quicken  your  consciences  in  this 
very  important  matter ;  but  you  must  also  remember  that  the  misery 
of  your  poor  is  greater,  and  that  it  assumes  more  startling  forms.  In- 
difference to  the  sufferings  of  others  is  caused  far  more  frequently  by 
dulness  of  the  imagination  than  by  hardness  of  heart.  Your  middle 
classes  have  realised  more  fully  than  ours  in  Grermany  and  Italy  the 
wretchedness  of  those  who  stand  below  them,  and  this  is  a  great  gain. 
But  it  is  principally  physical  evil  that  they  understand  and  pity.  They 
have  little  sympathy  for  ideal  interests  that  do  not  assume  a  religious 
form,  and  so  there  is  too  often  a  touch  of  sentimentality  in  their  very 
compassion.  They  forget  that  religion  is  by  no  means  the  only  object 
for  which  each  of  us  ought  to  be  ready  not  only  to  bear  but  also  to 
inflict  pain,  and  that  it  is  important  to  impress  upon  the  conscience 
of  the  masses  the  fact  that  there  are  other  things  they  should  hold 
dearer  than  their  ease,  their  pleasure,  nay,  than  life  itself.  The 


1012  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  June 

English  mind  has  always  had  a  philanthropic  bent,  as  I  have  said 
before ;  but  the  influence  of  Bentham's  school  has  given  this  bent  a 
more  and  more  utilitarian  form.  We  continentals,  French  as  well  as 
German,  may  sometimes  err  in  underestimating  the  suffering  which 
we  might  relieve,  though  it  must  always  form  an  integral  portion  of 
human  life ;  or  at  least  we  are  apt  not  to  think  of  it  unless  it  is  brought 
near  to  our  sight.  The  poor  man  whom  we  do  not  know  is  much  too 
often  for  us  an  abstract  being  that  does  not  touch  us,  and  often  nous 
croquons  notre  Ghinow,  or  at  least  let  him  perish,  much  too  easily. 
But  do  not  you  now  and  then  allow  the  tears  of  pity  to  blind  you  to 
the  more  heroic  element  which  is  a  necessary  part  of  all  healthy 
morality  ?  You  know  that  if  I  say  you,  I  mean  the  English  of  to-day, 
not  those  of  former  times.' 

4  We  are  drifting  into  a  subject  I  had  rather  not  discuss,'  my 
friend  answered.  '  Nor,  to  tell  the  truth,  do  I  think  that  we  should 
arrive  at  any  very  satisfactory  results  if  we  were  to  follow  out  your 
comparison  between  the  middle  classes  of  England  and  the  Continent. 
You  were  speaking,  when  I  interrupted  you,  of  the  injury  the  Evan- 
gelical movement  had  inflicted  on  its  adherents  by  withdrawing 
them  from  the  pleasures  of  the  world.' 

6  If  the  adherents  alone  had  suffered,  the  matter  would  not  be  so 
serious,'  I  continued.  '  They  find  in  their  religious  services  a  con- 
genial recreation  ;  and  though  I  must  confess  I  dislike  that  mixture 
of  amatory  and  devotional  feeling  which  is  inevitable  when  church  or 
chapel  is  the  chief  place  in  which  both  sexes  meet,  I  acknowledge 
that  this  is  a  mere  matter  of  taste.  I  have  always  had  a  strong 
dislike  even  to  Mme.  Gruyon's  sensual  mysticism,  in  spite  of  the  grace- 
ful veil  French  taste  threw  over  it.  Moreover,  a  popular  religious 
movement  always  exercises  an  influence  on  a  large  number  of  persons 
who  cannot,  in  any  strict  sense,  be  considered  its  adherents.  First 
there  are  the  children  and  dependents  of  believers,  and  then  that 
large  class  who,  without  holding  any  very  distinct  theological  tenets, 
allow  their  lives  to  take  the  colouring  of  those  of  their  more  earnest 
neighbours.  These  begin  to  consider  the  things  improper  which  the 
zealots  denounce  as  wrong,  and  the  word,  on  their  lips,  implies  the 
strongest  possible  condemnation.  Then,  when  such  a  large  body  of 
public  opinion  has  been  created  as  the  Evangelical  party  in  England 
can  command,  the  leaders  of  other  sects  and  parties  are  too  apt 
to  submit  to  it.  They  do  not  consider  amusement  a  sin  ;  but  it  is 
unpleasant  to  be  thought  less  scrupulous  and,  by  implication,  less 
earnest  than  their  neighbours.  As  it  is  not  a  matter  of  conscience  with 
them  to  attend  the  theatre  or  to  go  out  hunting,  do  they  not  some- 
times give  up  the  pleasures  they  believe  to  be  harmless,  and  look 
upon  their  own  want  of  moral  courage  as  a  sacrifice  which  they  make 
-to  avoid  wounding  the  feelings  of  their  weaker  brethren  ? 

'All  this,  I  know,  hardly  affects  the  life  of  any  part  of  your  cul- 


1880.  MODERN  ENGLAND.  1013 

tured  classes,  except  the. clergy;  but  with  the  poor  the  matter  is  very 
different.  Have  they  any  other  recreation  besides  the  public-house  ? 
This,  of  course,  our  working  men  frequent  as  well,  and  still  more 
than  yours  ;  but,  as  it  is  for  them  a  place  of  quiet  gathering,  seldom 
of  riot,  as  they  don't  stand  round  the  bar  for  drinking's  sake  alone, 
but  sit  down  to  a  regular  chat,  our  gentlemen  and  clergy  do  not 
think  it  advisable  to  interfere  with  their  enjoyment  as  yours  often  do. 
Besides,  remember  the  other  opportunities  of  friendly  intercourse  which 
our  peasants  enjoy — the  singing  and  gymnastic  clubs  of  the  men,  the 
spinning  rooms  of  the  women  (though  they  unfortunately  are  dying 
out),  the  frequent  festivals  and  Kirmessen,  fairs  and  social  gather- 
ings— and  then  you  will  realise  the  dulness  of  an  English  farm 
labourer's  life.  I  speak  of  the  country  because  the  relations  of  man  to 
man  are  clearer  and  more  personal  there,  and  the  amusements  simpler 
and  less  costly.  But  what  I  have  said  of  the  peasantry  is  true  of 
every  class  of  our  society ;  recreation  is  universally  acknowledged  as  a 
necessity,  and  it  is  allowed  for  in  every  family  budget.' 

'  Does  it  not  sometimes  upset  the  budget  ? '  my  friend  drily  asked. 
'  When  I  see  your  poorest  patresfamilias  of  the  middle  class  spend 
their  shilling  every  night  at  the  Wirthshaus,  their  wives  meeting  at 
afternoon  coffees  with  innumerable  cakes,  their  daughters  out  at 
Landpartieen  twice  a  week,  their  sons  parading  at  the  universities 
in  high  boots — when  I  think  of  all  the  Badekuren,  the  Swiss  and 
Italian  tours  of  your  professors  and  judges,  who  live  on  three  hundred 
pounds  a  year,  I  ask  myself  whether  there  will  ever  be  an  accumu- 
lated wealth  in  Germany  approaching  from  afar  that  of  your  thrifty 
French  neighbours.' 

*  You  are  undoubtedly  right  in  what  you  say,  and  I  by  no  means 
intend  to  hold  up  our  people  as  a  model.  I  only  wanted  to  remind 
you  of  the  excess  of  dreariness  in  the  provincial  life  of  England  as 
soon  as  you  leave  the  circles  of  the  gentry  with  their  afternoon  teas, 
their  lawn-tennis,  their  archery,  boating,  shooting,  &c.  The  contrast 
of  this  animated  life  perhaps  makes  the  dreary  existence  of  the  shop- 
keeper, the  artisan,  the  peasant,  and,  above  all,  the  factory  workman, 
appear  still  drearier.  This  question  of  amusements  is  besides  a 
secondary  question,  and  I  myself  believe  that  the  need  of  them  is 
now  generally  recognised  in  England.  What  I  argued  was  that  the 
Evangelical  movement,  which  some  even  of  your  freethinkers  praise 
so  warmly,  has  in  fact  greatly  increased  the  dangers  of  an  intellectual 
crisis.  For  a  large  section  of  your  middle  classes,  religion  is  the  one 
ideal  interest,  and  religious  services  are  their  only  recreation.  This 
has  produced  a  type  of  character  which  I  cannot  admire  in  spite  of 
all  my  partiality  for  everything  English  ;  but  that  is  a  mere  matter 
of  taste.  What  is  certain  is  that  doubt  must  come  to  them  at  last. 
It  approached  them  once  already  in  Priestley's  and  Paine' s  times ; 
by  all  I  can  hear,  it  is  spreading  very  rapidly  now.  What  will  be  the 
VOL.  VII.— No.  40.  3  Y 


1014  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  June 

result  when  they  lose  at  once  all  their  amusements  and  all  that  has 
lent  their  lives  a  higher  interest  ? ' 

'But  don't  you  think  the  High  Church  movement  will  attract  the 
middle  classes  more  and  more,  and  afford  them  an  infinitely  wider 
range  and  a  more  salutary  kind  of  spiritual  "  amusement,"  as  you 
irreverently  call  it,  than  the  more  sober  service  of  the  Low  Church 
and  certain  dissenting  sects  ?  Does  it  not  speak  more  to  the  imagina- 
tion and  to  the  sense  for  art  which  is  hidden  in  each  of  us  ? ' 

'  I  know  very  little  ahout  it,'  I  answered.  '  Methodism  inter- 
ested me  because  I  also  looked  upon  it  as  a  phase  of  Wertherism, 
and  so  I  made  it  a  subject  of  study  which,  though  anything  but  ex- 
haustive, seemed  to  me  at  last  to  occupy  more  time  than  the  in- 
tellectual importance  of  the  subject  deserved.  In  as  far  as  your  High 
Church  divines  have  insisted  on  conduct  rather  than  emotion,  I  should 
certainly  consider  their  teaching  a  step  in  the  right  direction ;  nay, 
the  assertion  of  an  external  rule  of  life  and  the  importance  attributed 
to  ceremonies  may  be  a  necessary  and  wholesome  corrective  of  the 
morbid  introspection  of  the  Evangelicals.  If  it  was  well  that  Wesley 
should  teach  that  what  a  man  is  is  of  more  moment  than  what  he 
does,  the  time  has  now  come  for  dwelling  on  the  truth  that  what  he 
does  is,  after  all,  of  more  consequence  than  what  he  feels.  In  as  far, 
then,  as  the  Tractarian  movement  has  been  confined  within  the  limits 
of  your  Church,  I  have  no  doubt  its  influence  has  been  salutary.  Will 
you  excuse  me  for  adding  that  it  is  also  profoundly  uninteresting  to 
any  but  an  Englishman  ?  Methodism  was  at  least  cosmopolitan  in 
principle  ;  but  this  seems  something  like  a  patriotic  claim  for  a 
private  right  of  way  to  the  kingdom  of  heaven.  In  such  matters  we 
are  all  inclined  to  suppose  we  have  a  right  to  be  numbered  among 
the  most  favoured  nations.' 

'  From  another  point  of  view,  nevertheless,'  my  friend  argued, 
1  Tractarianism  must  be  interesting  even  to  a  foreigner,  as  it  is  the 
path  by  which  many  Englishmen  of  high  culture  and  intelligence, 
others  of  high  birth  at  least,  have  returned  to  the  Catholic  Church. 
Some  such  revival  of  the  old  belief  seems  to  be  a  necessary  effect  of 
the  spread  of  free  thought  in  Protestant  countries,  where  there  is  no 
high  philosophy  nor  religiosity  (i.e.  religious  feeling  needing  no 
forms)  to  take  the  place  of  positive  religion.  You  37ourselves  passed 
through  a  period  when  such  conversions  were  common  under  the  in- 
fluence of  the  Eomantic  school,  whose  members,  it  is  true,  had  almost 
all  been  sceptics  before  they  embraced  the  Roman  faith,  more  out  of  a 
predilection  d?  artiste — it  is  A.  W.  Schlegel's  own  expression — than  out 
of  a  deeper  conviction.  The  thing  seems  to  me  clear  enough.  The 
Eeformation  was  founded  on  the  assertion  of  the  supreme  value  of  the 
Bible,  modified  by  an  occasional  appeal  to  the  personal  religious  ex- 
perience of  the  believer  ;  when  the  belief  in  both  is  shaken,  it  must 
seem  to  a  certain  order  of  minds  that  the  old  question  as  to  the 


1880.  MODERN  ENGLAND.  1015 

existence  of  a  continuous  and  authoritative  revelation  in  the  Church 
is  reopened.  You  of  course  believe  that  that  question  has  been 
quietly  shelved  by  later  developments  of  thought,  and  what  you  see 
and  respect  in  the  various  forms  of  Protestantism  is  not  any  dogmatic 
or  ceremonial  system,  but  the  process  by  which  the  human  mind  has 
passed  slowly  and  safely,  i.e.  without  hindering  philosophical  thought 
and  scientific  research,  and  without  destroying  religious  feeling,  into 
complete  mental  liberty.  But  this  is  because  you  have  had  a  specu- 
lative philosophy  which  has  become  the  property  of  all  the  highly 
cultivated.  To  our  orthodox  Protestant  modern  history  appears  in 
a  very  different  light ;  and  when  he  perceives  what  a  mass  of  incon- 
sistencies the  creeds  of  all  the  reformed  churches  contain,  he  may 
well  be  attracted  by  that  Rome  which,  whatever  her  other  faults 
may  have  been,  is  always  logical  and  self-consistent,  and  can  only  be 
successfully  combated  by  an  attack  upon  the  principles  on  which  all 
dogmatic  theology  rests.  We  rationalists ' 

'  You  call  yourself  a  rationalist  then  ?  '  I  interrupted. 

'  All  Englishmen  who  no  longer  fully  accept  a  religious  creed  are 
more  or  less  rationalists  ;  and  the  moderate  among  us  look  upon  Pro- 
testantism as  more  reasonable  than  Catholicism  only  because  it  deals 
less  in  marvels  and  mysteries.  The  rationalistic  element  that  it  contains 
is  welcome  to  us,  because  it  is  a  distinct  approach  to  our  own  point 
of  view,  and  we  hardly  realise  how  entirely  it  has  destroyed  the  whole 
spiritual  and  intellectual  foundation  of  the  more  positive  part  of  the 
creed.  This  was  no  difficulty  for  believers  of  the  sixteenth  and 
seventeenth  centuries.  They  did  not  pique  themselves  on  logic  and 
consistency  ;  they  had  the  pretension,  and  the  well-founded  pretension, 
to  have,  not  loosened,  but  knit  more  closely,  the  ties  of  religion. 
They  gave  themselves  out  not  for  innovators,  but  for  restorers  of  the 
old  true  faith  ;  they  lent  new  life  to  Christianity  by  deepening  its 
sense,  by  penetrating  the  individual  more  fully  with  it,  and  they  cared 
little  for  an  inconsistency  more  or  less.  Not  so  an  orthodox  Protes- 
tant of  our  days,  who  has,  malgre  lui,  undergone  the  influence  of  two 
centuries  of  rationalistic  science  and  literature.  When  he  perceives 
the  want  of  logic,  he  is  driven,  if  he  is  a  man  of  honesty  and  mental 
power,  to  an  examination  of  the  first  principles,  and  then,  we  must 
confess,  there  is  much  in  the  Catholic  point  of  view  to  attract  him. 
To  take  only  one  example.  From  his  earliest  childhood  he  has  been 
accustomed  to  seek  in  nature  and  the  life  around  him  the  traces  of  a 
creating  and  directing  hand ;  and  this  habit  has  become  so  instinc- 
tive that  he  at  first  finds  it  almost  as  difficult  to  conceive  of  the 
world  being  purposeless  as  of  its  being  causeless.  So  deeply  is  this 
mode  of  thinking  ingrained  in  some  minds  that  many,  who  have 
distinctly  renounced  the  idea  that  being  has  any  aim  or  meaning 
which  our  reason  can  comprehend,  find  the  old  questions  returning  to 
them,  in  hours  of  weakness,  pain,  and  sorrow,  with  a  force  that  it  is 

3  YZ 


1016  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY.  June. 

difficult  to  resist.  It  requires  two  or  three  generations  of  freethinkers, 
such  as  you  have  had  in  Germany,  to  make  men  entirely  calm  and 
reasonable,  and  we  must  not  be  surprised  if  in  the  meanwhile  some  of 
the  noblest  and  most  logical,  together  with  some  of  the  weakest- 
minded  Protestants,  seek  a  refuge  in  the  Church  of  Rome.' 

1 1  perfectly  understand  those  conversions,'  I  replied,  '  and  I  think 
you  might  have  entered  besides  on  the  fact  that  the  Catholic  Church 
affords  the  freest  scope  to  religious  enthusiasm,  without  ever  allowing 
herself  to  be  guided  by  it ;  on  her  recognition  of  the  highest  culture  as 
long  as  it  does  notimpugnher  teaching;  on  her  aesthetical  charm;  onher 
consecration  of  the  simplest  acts  of  life ;  on  the  surprise  that  an  ordinary 
Protestant  feels  when  he  first  realises  the  unity  and  self-consistency  of 
her  creed,  the  mystical  meanings  of  her  services,  and  the  strange  power 
they  have  of  supplying  all  the  common  wants  of  our  inner  nature.  Now 
all  these  great  advantages  seem  to  me  to  result  from  the  fact  that  this 
Church  is,  as  we  Germans  say,  an  organism — that  it  has  grown  and  not 
been  made.  It  is  the  outcome  and  the  expression  of  the  highest  aspira- 
tion and  the  heart-break  of  well  nigh  two  thousand  years.  It  is  a  phase 
of  development  which  we  have  to  leave  behind  us,  which  the  strongest 
races  have  already  left ;  but  for  my  own  part,  if  the  adherents  of  the 
Church  will  permit,  I  desire  to  do  so  only  with  gratitude  and  reverence. 
Still  we  must  remember  that  all  this  greatness  and  splendour  depend 
on  the  theory  of  a  continuous  revelation,  on  the  infallibility  of  the 
Church.  This  is  the  central  dogma  that  lends  stability  to  all  the  rest, 
because  it  implies  the  whole  principle  of  authority,  i.e.  the  very 
raison  d'etre  of  the  Catholic  Church.  If  you  can  accept  it,  the  whole 
system  follows  as  a  matter  of  course.  You  must  go  in,  like  Pascal, 
for  the  whole  wager,  yes  or  no  ;  for  if  you  reject  it,  you  gain  nothing 
by  adopting  certain  parts  of  her  ritual  and  teaching.  These,  when 
separated  from  the  great  unity  of  which  they  form  a  part,  lose  most 
of  their  meaning  and  the  whole  of  their  efficacy.  They  only  add  a 
new  discordant  element  to  a  structure  that  is  already  incongruous 
enough.  Thus  a  belief  in  the  peculiar  spiritual  gifts  and  position  of 
the  clergy  is  an  essential  part  of  the  Roman  doctrine  and  discipline ; 
but  there  every  personal  assumption  is  held  in  check  by  other  parts 
of  the  organisation,  the  celibate,  and  the  ever  present  influence  of  the 
hierarchy.  To  insist  on  the  supernatural  claims  of  the  priesthood,  and  at 
the  same  time  to  set  the  episcopal  authority  at  nought  and  to  allow  them 
to  divide  their  homage  between  a  living  wife  and  the  bride  of  Christ, 
is  not  even  to  advance  in  the  direction  of  Rome,  but  to  establish  a  new 
and  monstrous  form  of  Church  government.  The  same  is  true  of  con- 
fession, which  your  ritualists  seem  to  have  adopted.  I  understand  its 
great  value  for  the  sinner ;  but  nothing  seems  to  me  more  clear  than 
that,  if  under  modern  social  conditions  it  is  to  be  permitted  at  all,  it 
can  only  be  to  a  celibate  clergy.  Your  ritualistic  priests,  you  say,  are 
for  the  most  part  unmarried,  and  consider  it  their  duty  to  remain  so. 


1880.  MODERN  ENGLAND.  1017 

But  this  is  at  most  a  private  resolution ;  it  is  not  a  law  of  your  Church  ; 
still  less  has  it  become  an  instinct  of  your  people.  If  you  talk  with 
Catholics,  you  will  find  that  they  regard  any  sexual  connection  with  a 
priest  with  a  horror  very  similar  to  that  we  feel  with  respect  to  incest. 
Nevertheless  history  has  proved  that  this  sentiment  is  not  sufficiently 
strong  to  prevent  the  abuse  of  the  confessional ;  and  even  this  safe- 
guard is  entirely  wanting  in  Protestant  England.  Do  not  imagine 
that  I  wish  to  suggest  that  there  is  any  danger  your  High  Church 
clergy  should  favour  such  abuses.  They  are  honourable  and  high- 
minded  men,  with,  I  doubt  not,  the  purest  intentions.  But  they  are 
men,  and,  if  married,  they  must  have  superhuman  strength  to  keep 
the  confessional  secret  from  their  wives ;  and  even  unmarried,  they 
are  always  innovators,  and  it  is  not  uncharitable  to  suppose  that  if 
they  succeed  in  establishing  their  position  in  your  Church,  their  suc- 
cessors may  have  less  of  that  earnest  and  ardent  faith  which  keeps 
men  pure  in  the  midst  of  temptations.  I  see  besides,  by  what  you  said 
a  moment  ago  in  explanation  and  excuse  of  the  conversions  to  Catho- 
licism in  England,  that  you  are  not  such  an  inveterate  rationalist  and 
utilitarian  as  you  profess  to  be.  I  almost  thought  you  looked  upon 
religion  as  a  perhaps  necessary  evil,  and  respected  the  Churches  chiefly 
as  institutions  for  checking  and  deadening  the  devotional  sentiment.' 

'  For  keeping  it  in  its  proper  channels,  you  might  have  said,'  replied 
my  friend,  4  and  preventing  it  overflowing  and  laying  waste  all  the  rest 
of  life.  Nor  do  I  look  upon  religion  as  an  evil.  It  was  our  natural 
nourishment  in  an  earlier  stage  of  our  development.  But  I  confess  I 
think  the  child  is  now  old  enough  to  be  weaned,  and  am  glad  to  see  it 
taking  to  spoon-meat,  though  content  that  the  change  should  be  gradual. 
If  I  have  any  preference  for  the  Catholic  Church,  it  is  because  she  re- 
minds me  more  of  a  natural  mother  and  less  of  a  hired  nurse  than  any 
of  her  rivals.  Besides,  I  am  not  so  alarmed  for  the  fate  of  our  culture 
as  you  Germans  seem  to  be,  because  of  some  loud  conversions  to,  or 
the  still  louder  boasts  of,  that  faith.  The  general  movement  of 
modern  thought  is  too  distinctly  in  a  secular  direction  for  us  to  fear 
any  lasting  danger  from  such  conversions  and  such  boasts.' 

4 1  quite  share  your  confidence,'  I  replied, '  but  is  there  not  another 
danger  ?  Do  not  forget  that  your  whole  culture  is  a  Western  cul- 
ture, i.e.  a  rationalistic  one  at  the  bottom,  not  a  speculative  one  like 
ours.  Is  it  not  probable  that,  if  what  the  representatives  of  secular 
science  cannot  but  consider  as  systematised  nonsense  is  preached  with 
the  intention  of  stifling  all  free  research,  if  Eoman  Catholicism  becomes 
more  and  more  powerful  in  England,  they  will  turn  against  the 
religious  spirit  itself  with  the  animosity  and  intolerance  which  charac- 
terise the  continental  freethinkers  in  wholly  Catholic  States  such  as 
Italy  and  Spain  ?  Catholicism  there  has  become  a  thing  very  diffe- 
rent from  what  it  is  now  in  England,  where  it  has  still  all  the  freshness 
of  a  new  creed.  The  religion  of  the  continental  Eoman  Catholic  has 


1018  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  June 

indeed  degenerated  into  a  thing  quite  external.  There  is  nothing 
fervent  about  it :  all  the  idealism  which  you  Northerners  lend  to  the 
Italian  poor  in  their  churches  is  mere  fiction.  Eeligion  is  a  habit 
which  accompanies  life,  but  does  not  penetrate  it,  does  not  even 
influence  it.  The  brigand  who  is  on  the  point  of  committing  murder 
invokes  the  Virgin,  and  the  girl  or  the  unfaithful  wife  who  has  just 
been  to  the  confessional  gives  a  rendezvous  to  her  lover  in  the  church. 
The  service  itself  is  not  a  serious,  grave  thing,  an  opportunity  for  col- 
lectedness,  but  a  gay/ete,  the  occasion  of  merriment,  the  ceremonies  are 
mechanical  customs  which  never  awaken  thought  in  any  of  those  who 
conform  to  them.  Things  are  somewhat  better — or  worse — in  Belgium 
and  France,  Austria  and  Bavaria ;  still  it  is  only  a  difference  of  degree. 
Even  those  who  hate  religion  hate  it  for  extra-religious  reasons ;  and  this 
is  the  point  I  wanted  to  come  to.  These  reasons  are  intellectual  or  poli- 
tical. The  leaders  of  the  scientific  movement,  in  spite  of  their  implicit 
belief  in  the  survival  of  the  fittest,  think  that  the  fittest  ought  not  to 
fold  his  arms  because  he  is  confident  he  will  have  the  best  of  it  in  the 
long  run ;  that  he  ought  to  struggle,  not  only  by  the  invincible 
weapon  of  scientific  evidence,  but  also  by  attacking  the  enemy  of 
light  directly,  to  leave  him  no  unnecessary  advantage  in  the  struggle, 
to  take  away  from  him  the  schools  in  which  he  drills  the  minds  of 
the  young  and  makes  them  unfit  for  original  thought  and  personal 
observation.  On  the  other  side  the  political  liberals  declare  war  on 
the  Church  as  an  extra-national  and  almost  always  conservative  power, 
and  their  followers,  as  well  as  those  of  the  thinkers,  naturally 
exaggerate  their  principles,  often  without  measure  and  taste,  always 
without  reverence.  A  coarse  irreligious  tone  is  introduced  into  this 
warfare,  and  the  spirit  of  tolerance  quite  vanishes.  This  does  not  pre- 
vent their  calling  the  priest  in  articulo  mortis  and  asking  his 
absolution,  for  at  the  bottom  of  their  hearts  they  have  never  been 
entirely  free.  Now,  I  am  afraid  of  something  similar  for  England  if 
ever  Eoman  Catholicism  should  again  get  hold  of  her.  But  even 
without  that  highly  improbable  eventuality  :  given  the  rationalistic 
turn  of  your  secular  culture  both  in  the  eighteenth  and  the  nineteenth 
century,  the  more  your  Protestantism  externalises  itself,  the  more  you 
will  be  exposed  to  that  contrast  between  the  two  extremes  which  we 
witness  in  the  Catholic  nations  of  the  Continent.' 

'  That  is  precisely  why  I  myself,'  said  my  friend,  '  look  upon  the 
spread  of  religious  scepticism  amongst  us  beyond  those  classes  whose 
lives  are  devoted  to  philosophical  and  scientific  inquiry  as  an  unmixed 
evil.  To  demand  that  the  peasant  and  the  artisan  shall  form  his  own 
opinion  in  such  matters  is  to  ask  him  to  pronounce  judgment  in  a  case 
on  which  he  neither  knows  the  law  nor  can  understand  the  evidence. 
After  a  period  of  doubt,  perplexity,  and  mental  pain  is  passed,  he  will 
receive  the  new  teaching  as  he  did  the  old,  simply  on  authority,  and 
his  science  will  then  be  as  confused  as  his  theology  now  is ;  but  the  one 


1880.  MODERN  ENGLAND.  1019 

little  window  by  which  he  has  hitherto  looked  out  upon  the  infinite 
will  be  closed  to  him.  Yet-  it  is  in  its  presence  alone  that  our  highest 
nature  lives  and  moves  and  has  its  being.  Every  true  workman  in 
any  intellectual  field  is  brought  constantly  into  contact  with  it.  He 
lives  perpetuall}7  in  the  presence  of  eternal  law,  and  is  thus  made 
conscious  at  once  of  his  personal  littleness,  and  of  the  power  to  grasp 
and  follow  out  its  manifold  manifestations.  He  may  not  recognise 
that  there  is  anything  devotional  in  his  awe ;  he  may  not  call 

L'amor  die  muove  il  sole  e  1'altre  stelle 

by  the  name  of  God ;  but  he  feels  that  he  is  subject  and  yet  akin  to 
it.  Now  this  is  the  element  in  science  that  can  never  be  popularised, 
and  so  our  intellectual  conceptions  lose  their  highest  virtue  in  the 
process  by  which  they  are  adapted  to  an  undisciplined  understanding, 
and  what  is  a  great  truth  to  the  teacher  is  to  the  hearer  a  mere  fact.' 

'This  is  undoubtedly  the  case,'  replied  I,  'in  a  Catholic  country, 
and  it  would  be  so  in  any  country  whei'e  Protestantism  became  a  quite 
mechanical  worship  and  found  itself  face  to  face  with  pure  rationalism. 
Not  so  in  nations  like  the  Greek,  who  never  lost  the  faith  because 
they  never  had  it,  and  who  lived  entirely  and  contentedly  in  the 
present  without  thinking  of  the  future  life.  Nor  is  it  so  in  nations 
like  the  German,  who  have  outgrown  their  faith  instead  of  turning 
round  against  it,  and  whose  secular  culture  has  never  been  a  purely 
rational  one.  With  us  that  part  of  the  middle  and  lower  classes  who 
have  not  been  exposed  to  the  rationalistic  and  democratic  influence 
which  has  spread  all  over  the  world  since  the  great  French  Revolu- 
tion, simply  follow  the  lead  of  the  intellectual  classes.  They  have 
become  entirely  indifferent  to  religious  forms,  and  they  give  not  even 
a  name  to  their  deity.  They  neither  accept  nor  reject  any  theological 
creed ;  they  simply  pay  no  attention  to  such  things.  And  I,  for  one, 
belong  to  a  class  and  a  generation  of  Germans  in  which  the  theo- 
logical sense  is  entirely  atrophied  ;  just  as  I  have  no  ear  for  music,  I 
have  no  organ  for  religious  forms,  and  so  I  keep  away  from  church 
for  the  same  reason  that  I  avoid  concerts.  And  that  is  precisely 
why  I  am  so  curious  to  know  something  about  the  faculty  which  was 
so  developed  in  our  forefathers  of  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth 
centm'ies.' 

'  But  if  you  are  really  so  devoid  of  that  organ  yourself,  had  not 
you  better  give  up  writing  history  altogether,  or  at  any  rate  confine 
yourself,  as  you  have  done  in  the  past,  to  the  history  of  countries  and 
times  where  theology  is  dead  ?' 

'  Perhaps  you  are  right,  and  I  will  think  it  over ;  but  it  is  mid- 
night, and  for  a  man  who  confesses  himself  a  rationalist,  and  another 
who  has  no  sense  for  theology,  it  seems  to  me  we  have  talked  enough 


about  religion.' 


KAEL  HILLEBEAND. 


1020  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  June 


A   PROGRAMME   OF  REFORMS  FOR 
TURKEY. 

THE  central  principle  of  the  policy  of  the  late  English  Ministry  in 
regard  to  the  Eastern  Question  was  to  preserve  the  existence  of  the 
Turkish  Government.  Lord  Beaconsfield  aimed  at  maintaining  the 
independence  and  integrity  of  the  Turkish  empire.  As  a  fact, 
Turkey  was  consolidated  by  depriving  it  of  its  most  useful  port 
and  basis  of  operations  in  war  in  Asia  Minor,  and  of  its  wealthiest 
provinces  in  Europe. 

The  fatal  error  which  underlay  this  policy  was  that  it  implied 
the  support  of  the  Turkish  race  against  the  Christian  races  of 
the  empire.  It  would  not  be  fair  to  say  that  this  result  was  de- 
finitely contemplated.  The  intention  was  simply  to  support 
Turkey  against  Kussia,  but  in  supporting  the  Turkish  Government 
it  became  necessary,  as  the  price  of  such  support,  to  disregard  the 
misgovernment  of  the  Christian  races.  As  has  often  been  shown, 
every  element  that  is  progressive  in  Turkey  is  Christian.  The  Turks 
took  possession,  in  the  fifteenth  century,  of  the  country  in  Europe 
most  advanced  in  civilisation,  destroyed  almost  every  trace  of  this 
civilisation,  and  when  they  quit  it  will  leave  the  country  the 
least  advanced  in  civilisation  in  Europe.  History  will  record  of 
them,  that  while  they  have  held  absolute  sway  they  have  not  contri- 
buted either  to  the  country  or  the  world  a  single  acquisition  of  value. 
Nothing  in  art,  or  science,  or  literature,  or  industry,  or  commerce, 
has  been  taught  by  them  to  the  world.  Not  a  road,  or  great  public 
building,  or  any  material  work  of  importance,  will  be  left  to  show 
that  they  were  in  Europe  for  four  centuries  and  a  half.  The  Turkish 
population  has  given  no  sign  whatever  that  it  possesses  the  capability 
of  advancement  in  civilisation,  while  the  Christian  populations  have 
given  many  such  signs.  A  hundred  tests  might  be  applied  to  show 
that  that  is  the  case.  Take,  however,  two. 

Throughout  Bulgaria  and  the  provinces  inhabited  by  the  Greeks 
there  have  existed  for  many  years  schools,  maintained  by  the  voluntary 
contributions  of  the  resident  inhabitants  and  gifts  from  patriotic 
fellow-countrymen  resident  outside  Turkey.  These  schools  have  so  far 
succeeded  that  it  is  an  exception  to  find  a  young  male  Greek  or  Bul- 
garian who  is  unable  to  read  and  write.  The  school-houses  are 


1880.  REFORMS  FOR  TURKEY.  1021 

throughout  the  country  the  most  prominent  buildings,  and  the  desire 
for  education  has  kept  them  well  filled.  These  schools  have  not  only 
received  no  aid  from  the  Turkish  Government,  but  have  been  esta- 
blished and  maintained  in  many  cases  in  spite  of  the  Government. 
In  Constantinople,  the  Greeks  have  done  much  also  for  the  higher 
education  of  girls  and  boys.  Two  noble  institutions,  the  Pallas  and 
Zappeon,  give  the  best  education  that  can  be  obtained  by  girls  in 
Turkey,  with  the  exception  perhaps  of  one  or  two  American  schools. 
The  excellent  example  set  by  a  wealthy  American  citizen,  Mr.  Kobert, 
the  founder  of '  Eobert's  College,'  one  of  the  conspicuous  objects  for 
the  traveller  on  the  Bosphorus,  has  had  the  effect  of  stimulating  the 
Greeks  and  Bulgarians  to  exertion  in  favour  of  a  higher  education  for 
boys.  The  Greek  Syllogos  in  Constantinople,  and  its  branches  in  various 
parts  of  the  empire,  are  working  systematically  at  the  archaeology  of 
the  empire.  Everywhere  Greeks  and  Bulgarians  are  actuated  by  great 
zeal  for  education.  The  same  remark  applies  also  to  the  Armenians 
of  the  empire.  Now  what  are  the  Turks  doing  in  this  direction  ? 
The  answer  is,  simply  nothing  at  all.  Their  fathers  have  done 
without  education,  why  should  they  trouble  themselves  about  it  ? 

Perhaps  the  Turk  is  not  altogether  without  excuse  in  this  matter. 
The  method  of  teaching  and  the  inherent  difficulties  of  Turkish 
written  characters  are  so  great  that  it  takes  a  boy  eight  or  ten  years 
to  learn  to  read  as  well  as  a  Greek  or  Bulgarian  would  do  in  his  own 
language  in  two  or  three.  This  difficulty  in  learning  his  language 
has  to  be  taken  into  account  in  estimating  what  chances  a  Turk 
has  in  making  progress  compared  with  those  of  the  Greek  population. 
Midhat  Pasha  wished  to  prohibit  the  learning  of  Bulgarian  on  the 
express  ground  of  this  difficulty  in  learning  to  read  and  write 
Turkish.  A  Turkish  child  had  no  chance,  in  Midhat's  view,  of  com- 
peting with  a  Bulgarian  child,  in  consequence  of  the  facility  with 
which  the  latter  could  learn  to  read  and  write.  His  remedy,  how- 
ever, was  to  level  down  instead  of  to  level  up.  AH  Suavi,  and  some 
of  the  men  who  formed  what  was  called  the  Young  Turkey  Party, 
felt  the  difficulty,  and  proposed  to  write  the  language  in  Koman 
characters.  The  movement,  however,  never  had  a  chance  of  success, 
though  the  fact  that  there  are  at  this  moment,  and  have  been  for 
years,  newspapers  published  in  Constantinople  written  in  Turkish 
with  Greek  characters,  and  others  with  Armenian  characters,  shows 
that  a  change  of  the  kind  presents  no  inherent  difficulties. 

This,  however,  is  only  one  of  the  reasons  why  the  Turkish  popu- 
lation is  not  so  far  advanced  in  the  way  of  education  as  the 
Christian.  The  real  reason  is  to  be  found  elsewhere  :  in  difference  of 
race,  and  especially  in  what  makes  the  fundamental  difference  between 
the  two  sets  of  people,  the  home  training  of  children  under  Christian 
fathers  and  mothers,  and  the  home  training  of  children  under  fathers 
and  mothers  kept  apart  by  Moslemism.  The  practical  result  is  that 


1022  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  June 

the  Moslem  has  no  desire  for  education,  and  has  not  the  means  of  ob- 
taining it  if  he  had.  When  he  has  acquired  a  knowledge  of  his 
written  language,  he  finds  little  worth  reading.  His  language  opens 
to  him  no  original  sources  of  literature,  and  what  there  is  he  deci- 
phers rather  than  reads.  Hence  foreign  literature  is  a  sealed  book  to 
him.  The  notion,  for  example,  of  having  a  novel  of  Thackeray  or 
Macaulay's  History  translated  into  Turkish,  and  read  for  pleasure,  is 
ludicrous  to  any  one  who  has  seen  the  amount  of  care  and  labour 
involved  in  reading.  There  are  probably  very  few  Turkish  scholars 
who  can  glance  through  a  newspaper  with  the  same  facility  with 
which  an  average  school-boy  of  twelve  can  glance  through  an  English 
newspaper.  The  important  fact,  however,  is  that,  from  whatever 
cause,  the  Turk  has  never  shown  that  he  feels  any  need  for  European 
culture. 

A  second  and  perhaps  better  test  of  the  respective  capabilities 
for  civilisation  of  the  governing  and  governed  races  may  be  found 
by  looking  at  the  condition  of  those  countries  which  have  freed 
themselves  from  the  Turkish  yoke.  Eoumania  at  the  extreme  north, 
and  Greece  at  the  extreme  south,  of  the  Balkan  peninsula,  are  in  this 
condition.  The  original  condition  of  Wallachia  and  Moldavia  was 
until  well  on  into  this  century  a  byword  among  travellers.  Rou- 
mania  is  now  rapidly  becoming  a  huge  garden.  The  fleet  of  English 
steamers  which  pass  through  the  Bosphorus  is  largely  occupied  in 
taking  to  Europe  the  Indian  corn  and  other  grain  of  Eoumania,  while 
a  considerable  portion  finds  its  way  up  the  Danube  to  Austria. 
Bucharest,  the  capital,  aspires  to  be  a  little  Paris,  and  a  stranger  put 
down  there  at  night  might  well  make  the  mistake  of  supposing  that 
he  was  in  Paris.  Everywhere  there  are  signs  of  rapid  progress  and 
improvement.  The  houses  are  well-built,  the  streets  wide,  well- 
paved,  and  clean.  Judged  even  by  Western  standards,  the  city  is  a  fine 
one.  Compared  with  Constantinople,  it  represents  a  high  state  of 
civilisation.  At  the  other  end  of  the  Balkan  peninsula  is  Greece. 
The  comparison  between  Athens  and  Constantinople  is  altogether  in 
favour  of  the  former.  Its  streets  are  well-paved  and  kept  clean.  Its 
houses  have  an  appearance  of  tidiness,  and,  unlike  those  in  Constan- 
tinople, do  not  suggest  that  everything  is  falling  into  decay.  The 
general  impression  left  by  Athens  is  that  of  a  town  which  is  growing 
quickly  and  is  under  a  good  municipal  government.  Other  towns  in 
Greece  show  similar  progress.  Patras  is  fast  rising  into  import- 
ance, and  a  glance  on  successive  visits  to  Syra  has  shown  on  every 
occasion  that  the  city  has  grown  larger. 

I  entirely  agree  with  the  remark  of  Mr.  Grant  Duff  that  the  Greeks 
still  have  much  to  do.  But  they  are  making  even  rapid  progress. 
Every  year  increases  the  extent  of  land  brought  under  cultivation, 
the  quantity  of  goods  manufactured  in  Greece,  the  amount  of 
shipping  under  the  Greek  flag.  Such  is  the  love  of  their  country 


1880.  REFORiVS  FOR   TURKEY.  1023 

shown  by  the  Greeks,  that  I  believe  there  is  considerable  danger 
lest  the  gifts  of  the  wealthy  merchants  towards  charity  schools,  hos- 
pitals, the  university,  and  similar  public  institutions,  should  do  more 
harm  than  good.  That  which  is  important  to  remember  about 
Athens  is,  however,  not  what  it  ought  to  be,  but  rather  what  it  is,  and 
what  it  was  half  a  century  ago.  While  I  write  I  have  before  me 
Sketches  of  the  War  in  Greece,  published  in  1827  and  written  by  Mr. 
Green,  at  that  time  our  Consul  for  the  Morea.  Like  Mr.  Blunt  and 
Mr.  Michel  now,  this  Consul  was  utterly  out  of  harmony  with  the 
people  amongst  whom  he  resided,  and  acted  as  if  he  believed  it 
his  duty  to  do  all  he  could  for  the  Turkish  oppressor  and  against  the 
oppressed  struggling  to  be  free.  The  British  Consul  in  Turkey,  as  a 
rule,  has  felt  it  his  duty  to  recognise  the  Turk  as  the  incarnation  of 
everything  that  is  right  and  the  Greek  Rayah  of  everything  that  is 
wrong.  Those  who  have  read  such  books  as  these  Sketches  find  Greece 
described  as  the  most  wretched  part  of  Turkey.  Its  inhabitants  are 
incapable  of  civilisation.  Athens  is  a  collection  of  huts.  The  Greeks, 
who  had  proved  their  descent  by  deeds  as  heroic  as  those  of  Greece 
in  her  best  days,  are  described  as  cowards,  as  certain  to  be  defeated, 
and  as  guilty  of  the  worst  of  crimes  in  daring  to  revolt.  Yet  these 
people,  incapable  of  civilisation,  occupying  the  most  backward  portion 
of  the  peninsula,  have  produced  the  Greece  of  to-day,  have  reformed 
their  language,  and  will  soon  contribute  to  Europe  a  valuable  element 
in  literature.  Greece  in  1880  is  as  far  advanced  beyond  Turkey  in 
1880  as  she  was  behind  Turkey  in  1830.  The  truth  is  that  the 
Turkish  government  acts  like  a  dead  weight  upon  a  spring.  Take 
away  the  weight,  and  the  spring  begins  at  once  to  exert  its  force. 
Take  away  Turkish  rule,  and  all  experience  shows  that  the  races 
which  have  been  kept  under  begin  immediately  to  rise. 

The  mistake,  therefore,  of  the  late  Government  consisted  in  ally- 
ing itself  with  the  non-progressive  rather  than  with  the  progressive 
elements  of  the  empire.  Of  course  the  idea  was  that,  as  the  Turkish 
Government  was  the  only  one  which  existed,  it  was  the  only  one  with 
which  an  alliance  could  be  made,  and  that,  as  the  Turkish  Govern- 
ment was  wanted  in  order  to  constitute  a  barrier  against  Russia,  it 
must  be  accepted  with  all  its  faults.  The  mistake  consisted  in  over- 
looking the  fact  that  side  by  side  with  the  Turkish  Government  was 
rapidly  growing  another  power  inevitably  destined  to  take  its  place. 
To  support  the  non-progressive  against  the  progressive  element  was 
surely  bad  statesmanship.  It  led,  fortunately,  to  the  establishment  of 
an  independent  Bulgaria,  to  which  before  long  must  be  added  the 
Southern  Bulgaria  which  it  pleased  Lord  Beaconsfield  to  call  Eastern 
Roumelia,  and  it  will  lead  to  an  increase  in  the  territory  belonging 
to  Greece.  With  the  exception,  however,  of  these  results,  which 
were  certainly  not  aimed  at  by  the  late  Government,  it  has  made  the 
condition  of  the  rest  of  the  population,  Christians  and  Turks  alike, 


1024  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  June 

worse  rather  than  better.  The  question  now  of  first  importance  is 
how  that  condition  may  be  improved. 

Before  considering  what  are  the  measures  which  it  is  desirable 
that  a  Liberal  Government  should  strive  to  carry  out,  it  is  worth 
while  to  ask  what  is  the  source  of  the  evils  from  which  Turkey  is 
suffering.  One  of  the  most  obvious  of  these  evils  is  the  isolation 
•which  belongs  to  each  of  the  different  races  of  the  empire.  The  Turk 
has  shown  no  power  whatever  of  assimilation.  Greeks,  Bulgarians, 
Armenians,  Turks,  Jews,  Geeks,  exist  side  by  side  with  each  other, 
mechanically  mixed,  but  never  combined  into  one  people.  They 
unite  only  in  common  hatred  of  the  Turkish  Government,  which 
is  at  once  powerful  to  do  them  harm  and  powerless  to  do  them 
good.  It  is  this  powerlessness  or  weakness  of  the  Turkish  Go- 
vernment which  constitutes  the  greatest  difficulty  in  the  way  of 
reform.  At  a  distance  the  refusal  of  the  Turk  to  accept  all  or 
any  of  the  reforms  urged  by  Sir  Henry  Layard  looks  simply  like 
persistent  obstinacy.  In  truth  it  is  quite  as  much  weakness  as  un- 
willingness. Turkish  administration  is  so  bad  that  hardly  any- 
thing can  be  accomplished  by  it.  The  Government  is  a  weak 
despotism,  the  weakness  of  which  is  shown  in  every  department 
of  the  State.  The  Sultan  cannot  trust  any  of  his  ministers,  and  has 
lately  taken  to  examining  the  detail  of  every  measure  proposed,  down 
to  the  regulations  of  the  cafes  chantants.  No  minister  dares  take 
the  responsibility  of  any  act.  If  a  person  were  to  undertake  to  carry 
out  a  work  of  public  utility  at  his  own  expense,  the  ministers  would 
spend  months  before  they  would  venture  to  take  the  responsibility  of 
giving  the  necessary  permission.  I  know  of  such  a  work  which  a 
wealthy  philo-Turk  made  a  present  of  to  the  Government,  and  about 
which  his  agent  lost  months  in  getting  it  accepted. 

So,  too,  in  the  courts  of  law,  the  weakness  is  worse  than  the  corrup- 
tion. The  Turks  possess  some  judges  who  are  quite  sufficiently  well 
educated  for  their  position,  Greeks  and  Armenians  who  have  received 
their  education  in  France  or  elsewhere,  and  with  whom  no  fault  is 
to  be  found  for  want  of  honesty ;  but  their  dread  of  responsibility, 
arising  from  the  fact  that  they  are  always  liable  to  be  dismissed  if  they 
give  a  decision  against  the  protege  of  a  minister  in  power,  or  a  palace 
favourite,  makes  them  despicably  weak.  The  one  thing  which  is  easy 
to  obtain  in  a  Turkish  court,  as  in  every  other  department  of  the 
Turkish  Government,  is  delay.  It  has  no  doubt  been  difficult  for  the 
Turkish  ministers  to  resist  the  pressure  brought  to  bear  by  Sir  Henry 
Layard  for  reforms  in  Asia  Minor,  but  it  has  been  still  more  difficult  to 
yield  to  it  when  yielding  meant  opposition  and  intrigue  on  the-  part 
of  others  belonging  to  the  governing  class.  Turkish  ministers  have 
assured  me  that  more  than  half  their  time  was  occupied  in  intriguing 
to  keep  themselves  in  office,  and  that  if  they  carried  out  this  or  that 
reform  the  penalty  would  inevitably  be  loss  of  office.  Khair-e-din 


1880.  REFORMS  FOR   TURKEY.  .     1025 

and  Caratheodory  Pashas  drew  up  a  programme  of  reforms,  and  would 
only  consent  to  hold  office  on  condition  that  they  were  allowed  to 
carry  this  programme  into  execution.  They  were  supported  .by . 
England,  and  in  a  sort  of  fashion  by  the  Sultan  too.  But  the  whole 
ring  of  pashas  was  against  them,  and  the  palace  was  too  weak  to  act 
against  the  ring.  Weakness  characterises  everything  with  which  the 
Government  has  to  do,  and  is  on  the  whole  even  more  mischievous 
than  the  universal  corruption.  Sentences  are  delayed  for  years. . 
Judgments  are  not  executed.  Laws  are  constantly  set  at  defiance. 
During  the  last  half-dozen  years,  certainly  not  less  than  six  Imperial 
decrees  have  prohibited  the  wearing  of  arms  in  the  streets  of  Con- 
stantinople. One  or  two  foreigners  have  been  arrested  for  carrying 
them,  but  hundreds  of  Croats,  Circassians,  Kurds,  and  other  barbarians 
belonging  to  the  most  dangerous  class^  walk  about  the  streets  of 
Stamboul  and  Galata,  many  of  them  with  their  belts  like  small 
armouries,  well  filled  with  knives,  cartridges,  or  other  deadly  weapons. 
Weakness,  then,  is  the  principal  charge  to  be  brought  against  the 
Turkish  Government.  Assuming  that  the  wish  to  reform  existed,  all 
the  energy  of  the  Government,  if  unaided  by  Europe,  is  powerless  to 
carry  such  reform  into  effect.  And  here  it  is  well  to  note  that,  had 
the  Turks  been  able  to  carry  out  reforms,  abundance  of  careful 
measures  already  exist  in  the  Turkish  Statute-book.  Enough  labour 
has  been  expended  by  the  representatives  of  the  Powers,  and  by  the 
Turkish  governing  class,  on  the  formation  of  Constitutions,  Hatti 
Houmayouns,  Imperial  Firmans,  and  laws  generally,  to  fit  out  half- 
a-dozen  States.  Had  the  wish  and  the  power  to  govern  well  existed, 
it  would  be  unnecessary  to  ask  now  for  any  reform  worth  speaking  of. 
The  need  is  for  better  administration  rather  than  for  better  laws. 
Nowhere  are  Pope's  lines  more  applicable  than  in  Turkey : 

For  forms  of  government  let  fools  contest ; 
Whate'er  is  best  administered  is  best. 

The  Turkish  machine  of  government  is  in  want  of  steam,  and 
cannot  be  made  to  go  unless  steam  can  be  supplied.  To  drop 
metaphor,  what  is  wanted  is  to  substitute  strength  for  weakness  and 
a  government  which  can  govern  for  one  which  cannot ;  and  the  chief 
problem  in  regard  to  Turkey  is  how  best  this  can  be  done.  Readers 
of  English  newspapers  and  periodicals  have  been  deluged  with  proofs 
of  the  maladministration  of  Turkey  and  the  corruption  of  its  govern- 
ment. The  corruption  comes  in  great  part  from  its  weakness.  There 
is  no  central  authority  strong  enough  to  punish  bribery,  or  to  reward 
those  who  govern  well.  The  man  who  has  a  post  under  Government 
has  come,  in  public  opinion,  to  be  regarded  as  a  fool  if  he  does  not 
add  to  his  income  by  taking  bribes.  If  he  holds  an  important  post, 
and  leaves  it  without  having  added  considerably  to  his  fortune,  he  is 
regarded  as  haying  had  his  chance  and  missed  it.  The  corruption  is 


1026  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  June 

so  general  that  it  might  be  laid  down  as  a  rule,  to  which,  of  course, 
there  are  a  few  exceptions,  that  from  the  Grand  Vezir  down  to  the 
door-keeper  of  the  smallest  Medjlis  every  man  has  to  pay  to  obtain 
office,  and  takes  payment  when  he  is  in  office.  When  this  is  done 
in  the  higher  offices,  of  course  the  example  is  imitated  in  the  lower 
ones.  But  the  point  is  that  there  is  no  power  which  steps  in  to 
prevent  or  to  punish  such  corruption.  Take  the  case  of  the  so-called 
courts  of  justice.  The  judges,  in  ^pite  of  half-a-dozen  decrees  to  the 
contrary,  are  removed  whenever  they  do  that  which  is  against  the 
wish  of  the  so-called  minister  of  justice.  Their  position  is  of  the 
most  precarious  kind.  If  they  lose  their  posts  as  judges,  they  lose 
their  means  of  livelihood.  If  the  Minister  of  Justice  therefore  wants 
— as  it  is  notorious  that  recent  Ministers  of  Justice  have  wanted — 
to  protect  some  person  against  whom  an  action  has  been  brought,  a 
hint  given  to  the  judges  before  whom  the  case  is  tried  is  usually 
sufficient  to  at  least  cause  delay  ;  and  as  delay  of  justice  means  denial 
of  justice,  the  result  arrived  at,  even  in  the  case  of  judges  who  wish 
to  be  honest,  is  very  often  denial  of  justice.  In  other  words,  the 
system  of  corruption  in  courts  of  law  springs  from  the  weakness  of 
the  Government  in  not  being  able  to  prevent  the  corrupt  conduct  of 
the  Minister  of  Justice,  while,  on  the  other  hand,  this  corruption 
reacts  on  the  judges,  and  makes  them  weak  even  where  they  would 
like  to  be  honest.  It  would  be  easy  to  give  many  instances  of  this 
weakness  on  the  part  of  the  Turkish  courts,  even  of  the  best  of  them — 
the  tribunals  of  commerce  in  Constantinople.  In  a  case  within  my 
knowledge  a  number  of  Manchester  creditors  have  been  for  nearly 
twelve  years  endeavouring  to  obtain  judgment  in  a  matter  which  an 
English  court  would  have  settled  in  a  single  day.  It  is  notorious 
that  the  defendants,  who  are  Ottoman  subjects,  have  been  able  to 
buy  the  protection  of  powerful  ministers ;  and  notwithstanding  the 
utmost  pressure  of  both  the  English  ministries  that  have  been  in 
power  since  1870,  the  judges  have  been  afraid  to  give  the  order  for 
the  payment  of  the  amount  due.  Weakness  is,  in  fact,  here  as 
everywhere  throughout  Turkey,  the  chief  source  of  the  evils  from 
which  the  empire  is  suffering. 

In  seeking  the  remedy  for  this  evil  the  late  Government  made  the 
mistake  of  supposing  that  its  influence  would 'be  sufficiently  strong 
with  the  Turkish  pashas  to  induce  them  to  carry  out  reforms.  No 
greater  mistake  could  have  been  made.  It  is  due  to  Sir  Henry 
Layard  to  say  that  if  any  one  could  have  persuaded  the  Turks  to  carry 
out  reforms,  he  could  have  done  so.  He  went  to  Constantinople  with 
the  firmest  belief  in  the  capacity  of  the  Turk.  He  had  a  higher 
admiration  for  the  Moslem  and  a  greater  dislike  for  the  Christian 
races  than  even  the  Turk  himself.  Above  all  he  believed  that  the 
Turk  had  a  genius  for  government.  He  represented  a  Power  which 
he  sincerely  believed  to  be  the  only  one  determined  upon  preserving- 


1880.  REFORMS  FOR   TURKEY.  1027 

the  integrity  of  the  Ottoman  Empire.  When  the  Treaty  of  Berlin 
was  signed,  no  man  could  have  worked  harder  than  he  did  to  persuade 
the  Turks  to  carry  out  the  scheme  of  reforms  which  probably  he  had 
had  a  certain  share  in  suggesting.  The  English  Gendarmerie  officers 
were  to  divide  the  country  among  them,  and  to  provide  security  for 
life  and  property.  Foreign  judges  were  to  be  stationed  in  certain 
places  to  show  how  law  ought  to  be  administered.  Inspectors  of 
finance  were  to  reduce  to  order  the  chaos  of  Turkish  financial  ad- 
ministration. Reforms  of  every  kind  were  to  be  immediately  put  in 
hand.  Sir  Henry  Layard's  reputation  was  pledged  to  the  carrying  of 
them  into  effect.  Not  one  single  reform,  however  small,  has  he  suc- 
ceeded in  inducing  the  Turks  to  execute.  By  the  exercise  of  per- 
tinacity in  season  and  out  of  season  he  succeeded  in  removing  one  or 
two  officials  from  their  position,  but  such  officials  received  immediately 
after  some  especial  mark  of  their  sovereign's  favour.  That  a  reform 
should  be  proposed  by  the  representative  of  England  has  been 
sufficient  during  the  last  two  years  to  excite  the  determination  that  it 
should  not  be  carried  out. 

The  reason  of  such  a  state  of  mind  in  the  Turk  is  not  far  to 
seek.  The  Turk  knows  that  his  day  draws  to  a  close  in  Europe, 
but  Asia  Minor  he  regards  as  peculiarly  his  own.  Though  in  a 
moment  of  weakness  he  consented  to  allow  England  to  accept 
the  protectorate  of  Asia  Minor,  he  now  attaches  a  very  different 
meaning  to  the  word  than  he  did  when  he  so  consented  to  it.  At  first 
he  understood  simply  that  by  the  cession  of  Cyprus  he  had  obtained 
the  consent  of  England  to  fight  in  Asia  Minor  against  Eussia  if  need 
be.  He  has  now  fully  persuaded  himself  that  England  has  obtained 
the  protectorate  of  Asia  Minor  in  order  to  come  to  the  ownership. 
The  result  is  that  in  every  proposition  submitted  by  England  for 
reform  in  Turkey  he  suspects  a  move  to  make  the  obtaining  of  the 
ownership  the  easier.  When  it  is  remembered  that  the  Turk  is  an 
Asiatic,  and  utterly  uneducated,  it  will  be  seen  how  naturally  such  a 
suspicion  takes  a  firm  root  in  his  mind.  The  mistake  was  double. 
It  consisted  in  supposing  that  the  Turks  had  strength  enough  to  carry 
out  the  reforms  suggested,  and  in  thinking  that  England  alone  was 
powerful  enough  to  lead  the  Turks  into  the  required  path.  One  Power 
alone  cannot  do  so,  and  the  Turkish  Government  as  it  exists  is  not 
strong  enough,  even  if  it  were  willing,  to  carry  out  reforms  of  itself. 

In  seeking,  therefore,  for  the  remedy,  English  statesmen  may 
take  warning  from  the  action  of  the  late  Government,  and  should 
seek  to  substitute  the  united  action  of  Europe  for  the  isolated  action 
of  England.  If  England  intends  to,  act  alone,  she  will  make  as  dis- 
astrous a  failure  in  Turkey  as  she  has  done  during  the  last  two 
years.  The  central  point  of  Turkish  statesmanship  is  to  play  off 
one  Power  against  another.  It  is  notorious  that  Turkish  statesmen 
have  played  this  game  lately  with  the  most  perfect  success.  Owing^ 


1028  THE  NINETEENTH    CENTURY.  Jim 

to  a  variety  of  circumstances,  the  Eussian  Embassy  in  Constantinople 
has  scarcely  attempted  to  exert  any  influence  on  Turkish  policy 
during  this  period.  But  one  might  fairly  anticipate  that  all  the 
influence  which  Russia  could  use  would  be  employed  to  oppose  Eng- 
lish influence,  when  it  was  ostentatiously  declared  that  British  in- 
terests were  to  be  the  principal  object  kept  in  view,  and  British 
influence  the  sole  influence  brought  to  bear  in  obtaining  changes  in 
Asia  Minor.  Such  a  policy  of  isolation  is,  however,  not  only  likely 
to  be  opposed  by  our  enemies  (if  Russia  is  to  be  counted  as  one),  but 
has,  to  a  considerable  extent,  alienated  our  friends.  We  have  no 
interest  in  Turkey  which  is  incompatible  with  the  interests  of  France, 
but  our  policy  of  the  last  two  years  has  caused  France  gradually  to 
draw  away  from  joint  action  with  England  in  the  East.  It  is  not 
too  much  to  say  that  if  the  late  policy  had  been  continued  with  the 
same  results  a  year  or  two  longer,  it  would  have  launched  us  in  a 
sea  of  open  hostility  with  France.  The  commencement  of  the 
alienation  was  the  secret  and  discreditable  negotiations  for  the 
Cyprus  Treaty,  which  treaty  the  French  Ambassador  asserts  was 
obtained  after  he  had  received  a  formal  denial  that  any  cession  of 
territory  was  in  contemplation.  It  is  no  secret  in  Constantinople 
that  the  French  ambassador  holds  the  belief  that  no  concession  what- 
ever will  be  granted  to  England  in  Asia  Minor  ;  and  he  is,  rightly  or 
wrongly,  credited  with  the  wish  to  oppose  any  such  concession.  So 
long  as  the  Turkish  pashas  know  that  they  have  the  sympathy,  if 
not  the  open  support,  of  every  European  minister,  and  especially  of 
the  representative  of  France,  in  opposing  English  demands,  so  long 
they  are  certain  to  oppose  them. 

The  first  point,  therefore,  in  the  Liberal  programme  will  be  to 
bring  the  united  action  of  Europe  to  bear  upon  the  pashas.  The 
history  of  the  Berlin  Memorandum,  and  still  more  of  the  Constantinople 
Conference,  shows  that  it  is  possible  to  obtain  such  joint  action.  Every 
country  has  an  interest  in  obtaining  good  government  in  Turkey.  The 
scheme  of  reforms  agreed  to  by  the  Powers  at  the  Constantinople 
Conference — that  is,  as  it  was  accepted  by  their  representatives,  and 
before  it  was  cut  down  with  the  object  of  inducing  the  Turk  to  accept 
it — would  not  only  have  averted  the  war,  but  would  have  done  very 
much  to  improve  the  position  of  all  the  inhabitants  in  the  empire. 
The  important  point  now  is  to  recover  the  union  among  the  Powers 
which  had  then  been  obtained.  Nor  does  it  seem  to  me  that  this 
ought  to  be  a  difficult  task. 

Probably  the  greatest  obstacle  to  united  action  will  come  from 
Austria,  especially  if,  as  is  generally  believed,  she  was  to  have 
pushed  on  to  Salonica  this  year,  with  a  view  sooner  or  later,  and 
with  the  consent  of  Lord  Beaconsfield,  of  going  to  Constantinople 
itself.  It  is  worth  while  to  note,  in  passing,  that  the  settled  convic- 
tion, at  the  various  embassies  and  legations  in  Constantinople,  is 
that  this  was  Lord  Beaconsfield's  solution  of  the  Eastern  question. 


1880.  REFORMS  FOR   TURKEY.  1029 

One  of  the  ablest  of  the  Turkish  ministers  has  persistently  assured 
me  that  he  never  believed  Lord  Beaconsfield  was  desirous  of  reforms 
in  Turkey,  and  this  because  he  had  some  other  idea  in  view.  The 
fact  that  the  only  ambassador  who  has  been  on  entirely  good  terms 
with  Sir  Henry  Layard  has  been  the  Austrian,  points  also  to  the  same 
conclusion,  and  perhaps  it  was  from  the  same  point  of  view  that  Lord 
Salisbury  found  in  the  rumoured  Austro-Germanic  alliance  'glad 
tidings  of  great  joy.' 

To  return  to  the  question  of  united  action  among  the  Powers, 
there  could  be  little  doubt  that  if  it  could  be  once  again  obtained, 
Turkey  can  be  guided  or  forced  into  the  way  of  reform.  Of  course 
it  is  possible  that  she  will  refuse  any  programme,  as  she  did  in  1877. 
But  it  must  be  remembered  that  she  then  refused  because  she  had 
the  assurance  of  Lord  Beaconsfield  that  in  no  case  would  England  use 
coercion.  In  other  words,  she  refused  because  she  believed  that 
England  wished  her  to  refuse,  and  would  support  her  in  case  Russia 
wished  to  enforce  the  demands  of  Europe. 

No  such  mistake  would  be  likely  to  occur  again.  The  complete 
panic  into  which  the  Sultan  and  the  pashas  have  been  thrown  by  the 
triumph  of  Mr.  Gladstone  shows  how  completely  they  have  realised 
that  the  policy  of  Lord  Beaconsfield  has  been  abandoned.  The  Turks 
maybe  obstinate,  but  they  are  not  mad,  and  would  not  therefore 
refuse  to  accept  the  demands  of  united  Europe.  Of  course,  if  they 
became  mad,  coercion  would  have  to  be  used ;  that  is  to  say,  a  detach- 
ment from  the  fleets  would  have  to  be  sent  into  the  Bosphorus  and 
Dardanelles  to  threaten  the  palace,  to  prevent  a  soldier  passing  from 
Asia  into  Europe,  and  the  question  would  be  settled  probably  without 
firing  a  shot. 

Granted,  however,  that  the  Powers  are  united,  what  changes  for 
the  benefit  of  the  people  of  Turkey  ought  they  to  insist  upon  ?  They 
have,  as  we  have  seen,  to  substitute  a  government  which  shall  be 
fairly  strong  for  one  which  is  hopelessly  weak.  They  have  to  con- 
tend with  two  despotisms  :  one,  the  weak  despotism  of  the  palace 
and  the  pashas,  which  misgoverns  the  country  ;  and  the  other,  the 
more  powerful  despotism  exercised  by  the  Moslem  population, 
wherever  it  exists,  against  the  Christian  population.  They  have  to 
provide  security  for  life  and  property ;  to  provide  a  police  which 
shall  not  be  in  league  with  the  thieves,  and  law  courts  which  shall 
administer  justice.  They  will  have  to  do  something  to  set  in  order 
the  finances  of  the  country,  and  to  prevent  a  huge  portion  of  the 
revenues  being  swallowed  up  in  the  bottomless  pit  of  palace  extrava- 
gance. They  have  to  do  these  things,  too,  in  such  a  way  that  they 
may  not  unnecessarily  prolong  Moslem  rule,  but  render  in  the  future 
the  transition  as  easy  as  possible  from  the  present  rule  to  one  which 
will  compare  favourably  with  that  which  exists  in  other  European 
States. 

VOL.  VII.— No.  40.  3  Z 


1030  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  June 

For  the  solution  of  these  problems  the  Treaty  of  Berlin  will 
form  a  sufficiently  good  basis  of  action.  Article  23  will  be  parti- 
cularly valuable,  and,  if  the  Powers  insist  upon  its  being  loyally 
carried  into  execution,  will  almost  of  itself  provide  all  that  is  wanted. 
In  this  article  the  Sublime  Porte  binds  itself  to  introduce  throughout 
the  whole  of  European  Turkey,  with  the  exception  of  Eastern  Rou- 
melia,  where  a  separate  constitution  was  provided,  constitutions 
(reglements  organiques)  analogous  to  those  established  in  the  Island 
of  Crete  in  1868,  but  which  have  been  there  systematically  violated. 
These  constitutions  are  to  be  adapted  to  local  wants.  Special  com- 
missions are  to  be  appointed,  in  which  the  native  element  is  to  be 
largely  represented,  to  work  out  the  details  of  the  new  constitutions 
for  each  province.  The  constitutions  so  drawn  up  are  to  be  submitted 
to  the  examination  of  the  Sublime  Porte,  which  is  bound  before 
promulgating  them  to  take  the  advice  of  the  European  commission 
appointed  for  Eastern  Roumelia. 

Something  has  been  done  towards  the  carrying  out  of  this  article,  but 
not  much.  The  Council  of  State  has  drawn  up  certain  projects,  but 
the  native  element  has  not  been  consulted,  and  what  the  Council  of 
State,  which  is  at  once  the  most  corrupt  and  the  most  obstructive 
body  in  Turkey,  has  done  will  require  most  probably  to  be  done  over 
again.  Moved,  however,  by  the  result  of  the  elections  in  England, 
the  Porte  in  the  last  week  of  April  invited  the  Powers  to  name  their 
representatives  to  examine  the  projects  so  drawn  up.  Very  much 
indeed  will  depend  upon  the  action  of  the  Commissioner,  Lord 
Edmund  Fitzmaurice,  named  by  England  to  take  part  in  this  work. 
On  the  one  side  the  Porte  will  do  its  utmost  to  bring  the  whole  of 
the  revenues  to  Constantinople,  and  to  leave  everything  in  the 
provinces  as  little  changed  as  possible. 

No  one  who  knows  anything  of  the  Turkish  Government  can  suppose 
that  it  really  wishes  to  give  anything  like  autonomous  government  to 
Macedonia  and  Thrace.  The  separate  government  of  Mount  Lebanon 
was  obtained  in  consequence  of  the  massacres  at  Damascus  and  the 
mountains,  that  of  Crete  after  the  rebellion,  that  of  Eastern  Roumelia 
after  Batak.  The  Cretan  constitution  has  remained  almost  a  dead 
letter.  We  may  feel  sure  that  Turkey,  as  far  as  possible,  will  cause  the 
constitutions  of  Macedonia  and  Thrace  also  to  remain  dead  letters. 
The  pashas  have  great  and  well-deserved  confidence  in  their  power  of 
making  promises  and  breaking  them.  When  the  Constantinople 
Conference  proposed  to  grant  self-government  to  Bulgaria,  the  repre- 
sentatives of  the  Porte  objected  on  the  ground  that  the  Sultan  was 
unwilling  to  grant  certain  reforms  to  one  part  of  his  empire,  and  not 
to  the  others,  and  wished  to  extend  the  same  great  benefits  and  privi- 
leges to  the  whole  of  his  subjects  alike.  No  one  ought  to  need 
assurance  that,  when  this  statement  was  made,  all  that  was  intended 
was  to  issue  a  few  more  paper  constitutions,  in  the  sure  hope  that 


1880.  REFORMS  FOR   TURKEY.  1031 

they  might  soon  be  disregarded  like  the  Hatti  Houmayouns  and  the 
other  Imperial  Hatts.  If,  however,  local  self-government  can  be 
granted  to  Macedonia  and  Thrace  in  such  a  manner  that  the  Porte 
cannot  bring  it  to  nought,  many  of  the  evils  there  existing  may  be 
got  rid  of.  The  constitution  of  Crete,  chosen  as  a  model,  is  a  very 
fair  one.  Its  weakness  consists  in  the  fact  that  there  is  nothing 
which  makes  it  self-working.  In  other  words,  it  would  be  good  if 
the  Porte  wished  it  to  work,  but  it  has  broken  down  because  the 
Porte  has  not  so  wished,  and  because  too  much  power  was  left  by  it 
to  the  central  and  too  little  to  the  provincial  government. 

The  61st  Article  of  the  Treaty  of  Berlin  binds  the  Porte  to  realise 
without  further  delay  the  reforms  and  ameliorations  needed  in  the 
provinces  inhabited  by  the  Armenians,  and  to  guarantee  the  security 
of  the  people  against  the  Circassians  and  Kurds,  and  allows  the 
Powers  to  watch  over  the  measures  taken  for  this  purpose.  The 
Turks  have  scandalously  neglected  to  adopt  a  single  measure  to 
ameliorate  the  condition  of  the  Armenians.  The  Kurds  and  Cir- 
cassians have  increased  rather  than  diminished  their  ravages.  It  has 
been  the  duty  of  correspondents  to  send  home  from  Constantinople 
sickening  and  weary  stories  of  the  robberies  of  cattle  and  of  every- 
thing else  belonging  to  the  Armenians.  The  terrorism  has  been  so 
great  that  the  agriculturists  have  been  afraid  to  visit  their  fields,  and 
large  areas  of  land  formerly  cultivated  by  Armenians  no  longer  pro- 
duce anything  whatever.  The  very  seed-corn  of  the  cultivators  has 
in  many  cases  been  stolen  by  their  savage  enemies,  the  result  being 
a  famine  of  a  terrible  character,  for  which  the  Turkish  Government  is 
quite  as  much  responsible  as  the  dry  ness  of  last  season.  The  poor 
Armenians  have  been  steadily  emigrating  to  Kussia,  sometimes  to 
save  what  little  property  they  had  acquired,  and  sometimes  because 
they  were  literally  driven  from  their  homes  by  the  Kurds  whom  the 
Government  has  made  no  attempt  to  keep  down.  Accounts  of 
robberies,  murders,  violations  of  women,  and  the  taking  away  into 
slavery  of  girls,  have  been  contained  in  almost  every  letter  that  has 
come  from  Armenia  during  the  last  two  years.  Independent  Euro- 
pean observers  in  Armenia  believe  that  the  Turks  are  desirous  of 
driving  the  Armenians  out  of  their  country,  and  that  the  Kurds  and 
the  Circassians  are  encouraged  to  dispossess  the  Christian  population. 
There  are  many  thousands  of  Circassians  and  Kurds  who  live  by 
preying  upon  the  Armenians.  Not  one  single  step  has  been  taken 
to  lessen  the  miseries  of  these  hardworking  people.  They  are  allowed 
to  be  robbed,  violated,  and  dispossessed  simply  because  they  are 
Christians.  The  question  of  what  ought  to  be  done  to  meet  their 
condition  is  not  one  of  very  difficult  solution.  All  that  they  want  is 
to  be  let  alone,  and  to  have  security  for  their  lives  and  property.  The 
best  way  to  obtain  such  security  would  be  to  establish  a  gendarmerie 
officered  by  Europeans.  The  only  police  force  which  at  present  exists 

3z2 


1032  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  June 

consists  of  zaptiehs,  who  are  Mussulmans  to  a  man.  Their  traditions 
are  bad.  They  are  weak,  corrupt,  and  fanatically  opposed  to  the 
Christian  part  of  the  population. 

What  is  required  is  the  formation  of  a  new  force,  chosen  indiscrimi- 
nately from  Christians  and  Mussulmans,  and  under  European  officers. 
The  Irish  Constabulary  force,  or  the  Indian  police,  would  furnish  a  good 
model.  I  have  very  little  doubt  that  many  of  my  readers  will  be  under 
the  impression  that  such  a  force  already  exists  under  the  command  of 
Baker  Pasha.  This  is  unfortunately  a  mistake.  Correspondents  have 
been  misled  from  time  to  time  into  sending  statements  to  England 
which  may  have  induced  people  to  believe  that  either  Baker  Pasha 
himself  or  a  large  portion  of  his  officers  had  been  employed  in  the  for- 
mation of  a  gendarmerie.  Whatever  the  Turks  have  done  in  this  direc- 
tion has  been  with  the  intention  of  blinding  Europe.  Not  a  single 
body  of  gendarmes  has  been  formed,  and  the  police  of  the  country  is 
distinctly  worse  than  what  it  was  three  years  ago.  When  an  outcry 
was  made  after  the  massacres  of  Bulgaria  about  the  necessity  for  a 
police  force,  consisting  of  Christians  and  Mussulmans  alike,  the 
Government  appointed  Baker  Pasha,  making  at  the  time  a  flourish 
about  the  determination  they  had  taken  to  establish  the  necessary 
force.  When  the  outcry  in  England  still  increased,  the  Turks  suddenly 
authorised  Baker  Pasha  to  appoint  gendarmerie  officers,  and  eighteen 
were  immediately  sent  for.  This  is  now  nearly  three  years  ago. 
These  officers,  we  were  told,  were  to  have  provinces  allotted  to  them, 
and  were  at  once  to  be  set  to  work  to  arrange  a  gendarmerie  in  each. 
Not  one  of  these  gendarmerie  officers  has  ever  been  set  to  work  about 
the  business  which  he  went  out  to  do.  It  is  not  the  fault  of  the 
officers  themselves  that  they  Lave  not  been  employed.  They  are 
drawing  their  salaries  for  doing  nothing,  but  have  long  since  come 
to  the  conclusion  that  the  Turkish  Government  has  not  the  slightest 
intention  of  making  use  of  their  services.  Several  of  them  are,  I 
have  no  doubt,  exceedingly  well  fitted  by  their  Indian  or  other 
especial  experience  for  the  task  they  went  out  to  Constantinople  to 
accomplish ;  but  they  have  been  kept  in  enforced  idleness.  Baker 
Pasha,  after  elaborating  a  careful  scheme  of  gendarmerie,  was  left 
unemployed  until,  on  account  of  his  own  persistency  and  the  full 
pressure  of  the  English  Government  and  the  English  Ambassador, 
he  was  sent  up  into  Asia  Minor  to  report  upon  the  reforms  necessary. 
In  other  words,  he  was  sent  out  of  the  way,  so  that  he  might  no  longer 
bother  the  Government  with  his  requests  to  be  allowed  to  organise 
the  gendarmerie. 

The  gendarmerie  force,  however,  is  not  needed  for  Armenia  only, 
but  for  the  whole  of  Asia  Minor  and  for  European  Turkey.  The 
condition  of  even  the  district  of  Adrianople,  where  the  Turks  after 
the  Treaty  of  Berlin  made  a  spasmodic  attempt  to  organise  a  local 
government  which  should  compare  favourably  with  that  of  Eastern 


1880.  REFORMS  FOR   TURKEY.  1033 

Koumelia,  is  one  of  complete  anarchy.  Seventeen  murders  in  fourteen 
days  for  a  district  of  the  size  of  Yorkshire,  with  crimes  of  violence  of 
every  other  kind,  is  the  return  just  to  hand  while  I  am  writing.  The 
central  government  orders  the  taxes  to  be  sent  to  Constantinople 
which  should  go  to  the  local  servants.  Soldiers  and  zaptiehs  left 
unpaid  are  making  common  cause  with  highway  robbers.  Crowds  of 
refugees  are  left  by  this  government,  which  cannot  govern,  to  settle 
the  question  of  the  survival  of  the  fittest  with  as  little  interference  as 
would  take  place  in  an  African  tribe  of  savages.  The  wrongdoer, 
whether  Moslem  or  Christian,  is  protected  by  his  own  people  openly. 
Foreign  officers,  who  would  almost  necessarily  be  Christians,  would, 
unless  they  were  distinctly  bad  men,  .very  soon  effect  a  change. 
Having  chosen  their  police  indifferently  from  the  Moslem  and 
Christian  populations,  they  would  probably  be  able  in  twelve  months 
to  make  life  and  property  more  secure  than  it  has  been  in  Turkey 
for  a  generation,  and  an  esprit  de  corps  would  soon  be  developed 
among  the  new  body  which  would  enable  it,  under  the  guidance  of 
European  officers,  to  get  rid  of  tbe  traditions  of  corruption  and  in- 
justice connected  with  the  present  zaptieh  force.  The  despotism  of 
the  Moslem  part  of  the  population  towards  the  Christian  would  find 
its  most  effective  remedy  in  the  presence  of  a  gendarmerie  which 
would  repress  crime  committed  by  a  Mohammedan  rapidly  as  as  that 
committed  by  a  Christian.  Into  the  details  of  the  organisation  of 
such  a  force  this  is  not  the  place  to  enter,  but  one  point  should  be 
carefully  kept  in  view,  namely,  that  the  new  police  force  should  have 
nothing  whatever  to  do  with  the  collection  of  taxes.  Of  course,  if 
public  order  were  disturbed  by  the  refusal  to  pay  taxes,  it  would  have  to 
interfere,  but  its  essential  business  should  be  the  preservation  of  order. 
Side  by  side  with  the  establishment  of  the  gendarmerie  under 
foreign  officers  there  will  need  a  reform  of  the  tribunals.  It  will  be 
useless  to  run  a  thief  or  a  murderer  down  if  he  is  to  be  tried  before 
a  court  which  shall  acquit  him  because  the  person  injured  has  only 
been  a  Christian.  Here,  again,  we  come  upon  one  of  the  many  re- 
forms which  have  been  often  formally  decreed,  and  as  often  altogether 
disregarded  and  the  promise  allowed  to  remain  a  dead  letter.  It 
would  be  curious  to  know  how  many  times  the  announcement  has 
been  made  in  the  English  newspapers  that  a  Firman  has  been  issued 
by  which  Christian  evidence  is  to  be  received  in  the  law  courts,  or  by 
which  Christians  were  to  be  on  an  equality  with  Mohammedans.  Not- 
withstanding official  despatches  announcing  such  reforms,  no  progress 
whatever  has  been  made  in  carrying  them  into  effect ;  and  during 
the  present  year  Said  Pasha,  the  Grand  Vezir,  has  taken  a  step  in 
defiance  of  the  promises  solemnly  given  to  Europe,  which  can  only 
be  regarded,  like  the  retention  of  the  notorious  Hafuz  in  office  as  the 
minister  of  police,  as  being  intended  to  show  his  contempt  for  the 
wishes  of  Europe.  He  has  ordered  that  the  president  in  each  civil 


1034  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY.  June 

and  criminal  tribunal  shall  be  a  Hakim,  that  is,  a  student  whose  only 
training  has  been  in  the  teaching  of  the  Khoran.  His  judgment  is 
final.  In  other  words,  in  spite  of  every  promise,  the  great  mass  of 
the  legal  business  of  the  country  is  to  be  entrusted  to  men  who  have 
no  knowledge  of  what  Europeans  understand  by  law,  and  whose  con- 
ception of  justice,  even  when  they  are  perfectly  honest,  is  what  we 
should  regard  as  the  most  pronounced  partiality. 

"While  the  establishment  of  the  Gendarmerie  should  be  directed 
as  a  whole  from  Constantinople,  I  would  suggest  that  the  officers  in 
command  of  districts  should  be  instructed  as  far  as  possible  to  act  in 
concert  with  the  provincial  authorities.  Quite  sufficiently  good  men 
might,  I  believe,  be  found  to  act  as  magistrates  and  judges.  All  that 
would  be  required  would  be  to  abolish  about  two-thirds  of  the  posts 
at  present  occupied  by  men  acting  in  such  capacity,  and  to  give  an 
increased  salary  to  the  best  men  remaining.  The  judicial  staff,  like 
the  staff  of  every  other  department 'of  the  Ottoman  Empire,  is  largely 
overcrowded.  The  Turks,  very  rarely  engaging  in  commerce,  are 
nearly  all  either  agriculturists  or  servants  of  the  State.  Offices  have 
been  created  for  them  without  there  being  the  least  need  for  their 
services.  An  English  local  post-office  or  magistrate's  court  doing  the 
same  amount  of  work  as  the  Turkish  post-office  or  law  court  would 
certainly  not  have  more  than  one-third  of  the  number  of  men.  The 
result  is  not  merely  that  the  work  is  ill  done,  and  the  responsibility 
divided,  but  that  the  officials  themselves  receive  such  a  pittance 
as  places  them  under  a  strong  temptation  to  receive  bribes.  Where 
there  are  so  many  useless  men  about  a  court  or  public  office, 
there  is  little  likelihood  that  care  will  be  taken  about  the  character 
or  conduct  of  the  officials.  It  happens,  therefore,  that  if  a  Pasha 
wants  to  do  a  favour  to  one  of  his  dependents,  or  the  relations  of  a 
member  of  his  harem,  the  person  to  be  favoured  is  made  a  judge  or 
an  usher,  or  given  some  other  public  employment.  At  the  present 
moment,  there  are  Pashas  and  Beys  in  Constantinople  who  have  quite 
a  number  of  servants  to  whom  they  give  no  pay,  but  who  serve  them 
on  the  understanding  that  when  their  masters  are  in  power  they  will 
receive  public  appointments.  Probably,  no  department  in  Turkey 
has  suffered  more  from  this  species  of  abuse  than  the  law  courts. 
There  are  numbers  of  men  who  are  publicly  pointed  at  as  owing  their 
promotion  to  the  fact  that  they  Avere  this  man's  servant  or  a  connec- 
tion of  one  of  the  wives  of  that  Pasha,  or,  what  is  perhaps  a  commoner 
case  still,  have  been  employed  in  disgraceful  work  for  the  Pasha. 
Lord  Salisbury  hit  on  the  right  remedy  for  this  state  of  things,  when 
he  recommended  that  inspectors  of  tribunals  should  be  appointed  for 
the  whole  of  Asia  Minor.  His  mistake  was,  to  suppose  that  the 
Turkish  Government  was  likely  to  carry  out  the  proposal  unless 
forced  to  do  so.  A  dozen  European  inspectors  of  tribunals  ought  to 
be  able  to  select  the  best  judges,  and  by  reporting  all»cases  of  flagrant 
miscarriage  of  justice  to  Constantinople  to  get  rid  of  the  most  iniqui- 


1880.  REFORMS  FOR   TURKEY.  1035 

tous  judges,  and  the  most  crying  evils  of  the  present  system.  It 
is  quite  useless,  however,  to  think  that  other  than  European  in- 
spectors would  be  sufficient.  What  is  wanted,  is  to  give  the  people 
confidence  in  the  administration  of  justice.  Bentham's  remark,  that 
it  is  of  more  consequence  that  justice  should  seem  to  be  purely 
administered,  even  than  that  it  should  be  so  administered,  is 
especially  applicable  to  Turkey.  Neither  Turks  nor  Christians 
have  any  confidence  whatever  in  the  purity  of  the  judge.  There  are 
judges  in  Constantinople  who  are  at  once  able  and  honest,  but  the 
presumption  in  Turkey  is  distinctly,  that  if  a  man  be  a  judge  he  is  a 
receiver  of  bribes.  No  such  belief  exists  in  regard  to  the  leading 
Consular  Courts  in  Constantinople.  The  result  is  that,  in  Turkey 
itself,  the  people  see  one  set  of  courts  belonging  to  the  Government 
under  which  they  live,  which  they  believe  to  be  impure,  and  another 
set  belonging  to  the  foreigners  living  in  their  midst,  which  they  be- 
lieve to  be  pure.  Give  these  people  native  inspectors  of  law  courts, 
and  they  would  not  believe  in  any  beneficial  change ;  give  them 
foreign  inspectors,  and  they  would  anticipate  a  change  for  the  better. 

So  far  every  proposition  which  I  have  suggested  has  the  express 
support  of  the  Treaty  of  Berlin.  The  eighteenth  protocol  supplies 
another  weapon,  which  may  be  found  more  important  than  that 
furnished  in  any  article  of  the  treaty  itself.  The  representatives  of 
England,  France,  and  Italy  presented  a  joint  declaration,  which  was 
accepted  by  Eussia,  Austria,  and  Germany,  and  which  recommended 
to  the  Porte  the  appointment  in  Constantinople  of  a  financial  com- 
mission composed  of  experts  named  by  their  respective  Governments. 
The  special  object  of  this  commission  is  to  examine  the  claims  of 
Turkish  bondholders,  and  to  propose  the  best  means  for  satisfying 
their  just  claims  conformably  with  the  financial  interests  of  the  country. 
The  interests  of  the  speculators  in  Turkish  stock  are  not  entitled  to- 
an  overwhelming  amount  of  consideration.  But  the  financial  com- 
mission called  to  examine  and,  as  far  as  possible,  satisfy  their  claims 
may  be  made  use  of  by  the  Powers  to  an  almost  unlimited  extent. 

Without  looking  to  ultimate  causes  it  may  be  said  that  the 
financial  condition  of  the  country  is  the  cause  of  its  greatest  imme- 
diate evils.  Taxes  are  extorted  from  the  people  in  a  cruel  fashion, 
and  in  such  an  unproductive  way  that  it  would  certainly  be  a  liberal 
estimate  to  say  that  two-thirds  of  the  taxes  levied  find  their  way  into 
the  national  exchequer.  Industries  have  been  altogether  wiped  out 
by  the  taxes  placed  upon  them.  Carpet  manufacture  is  decreasing. 
The  production  of  tiftik,  the  wool  of  the  Angora  goat,  which  consti- 
tutes perhaps  the  speciality  of  the  country,  has  been  lessened  by  the 
foolish  method  of  taxation  during  the  last  two  years.  The  lighter 
kinds  of  tobacco  are  much  worse  than  formerly,  and  better  tobacco 
can  be 'had  in  Syra  or  Athens  than  in  Constantinople.  The  arrange- 
ments of  the  Turkish  Custom  Houses  and  those  for  the  collection  of 
taxes  generally  are  so  bad  that  robbery  takes  place  everywhere.  There 


1036  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  June 

are  numbers  of  brokers  in  Constantinople  who  will  undertake  to  land 
goods  on  receiving  five  per  cent,  of  their  value,  paying  themselves 
incidental  expenses,  and  the  eight  per  cent,  duty  due  to  the  Govern- 
ment, out  of  the  five.  The  story  told  by  Sir  Drummond  Wolff  of 
his  wishing  to  pay  the  fair  duty  on  goods  sent  to  him  in  Constanti- 
nople, but  of  his  being  unable  to  find  any  one  to  do  the  operation  fairly, 
is  one  which  can  be  matched  by  every  one  who  has  had  experience 
with  the  Turkish  Custom  House.  Of  course  a  man  who  is  desirous 
of  paying  the  fair  amount  to  the  Government,  and  who  has  been  put 
to  all  sorts  of  inconvenience  in  so  doing,  naturally  finds  it  easier  to 
pay  a  quarter  of  the  amount  of  the  duty  to  the  officer  and  get  his 
goods  passed  through,  and  so  be  at  rest.  While  the  Turkish  Govern- 
ment is  robbed  by  its  own  servants  and  does  not  receive  the  amount 
of  taxes  which  is  collected,  the  robbery  is  perhaps  still  greater  on  the 
amount  of  money  paid  out.  As  a  rule  no  contract  is  made  with  the 
Government  in  which  the  contractor  is  not  forced  to  share  his  profits 
with  one  or  more  officers  of  the  Government.  Naturally  this  means 
that  the  Government  has  to  pay  the  value  of  the  goods  supplied  plus 
the  amount  which  has  to  be  paid  to  its  own  officials.  The  system 
infects  every  one  who  has  anything  to  do  with  the  contract,  from  the 
Pasha  who  signs  it  on  behalf  of  the  Government,  down  to  the  weigher 
who  keeps  tally  of  the  amount  supplied.  Everywhere  there  is  thus 
an  extravagance  of  expenditure  which  in  any  other  country  would  be 
serious,  but  which  in  Turkey  has  proved  ruinous.  The  greatest  circle 
of  extravagance  is  of  course  the  Palace,  upon  whose  expenditure  there 
was  until  lately  no  control  whatever,  so  long  as  money  was  to  be  found 
in  any  department. 

Probably  the  easiest  way  to  strike  at  this  extravagance,  and  to  set 
the  finances  of  the  country  in  order,  would  be  to  appoint  the  finan- 
cial commission  contemplated  in  the  eighteenth  protocol.  If  this 
commission  can  be  endowed  with  the  power  of  the  purse — that  is,  if, 
in  addition  to  recommending  what  ought  to  be  done,  the  Powers 
were  to  insist  upon  its  recommendations  being  carried  into  effect — 
much  might  be  effected.  The  first  result  would  be  to  strike  at  the 
extravagance  of  the  Palace.  Until  this  is  done  all  financial  arrange- 
ments for  Turkey  are  useless.  No  Budget  can  be  formed,  because  no 
Grand  Vezir  can  measure  or  control  the  requirements  of  the  Palace. 
It  must  be  noted  also  that  under  the  present  system  the  only  object 
of  Turkish  ministers  is  to  provide  for  themselves  and  for  the  needs  of 
the  present  moment.  Their  great  financial  aim  is  to  stave  off  pre- 
sent payment  and  provide  for  actual  needs,  without  the  slightest 
regard  to  the  future.  No  nation  could  long  survive  the  contracting 
of  debts  at  such  ruinous  rates  and  on  such  ruinous  terms  as  those  on 
which  Turkey  has  contracted  during  the  last  two  or  three  years. 
But  the  essential  point  to  observe  is  that  the  Turkish  Ministers  do 
not  appear  to  feel  any  interest  in  bringing  about  a  better  financial 
condition.  Their  one  idea  of  finance  is  to  bring  up  every  piastre 


1880.  REFORMS  FOR  TURKEY.  1037 

which  can  be  exacted  from  the  provinces  to  the  capital,  and  to  stave 
off  all  present  payments.  A  financial  Commission  which  should  take 
charge  of  the  revenues  of  the  country,  and  composed  of  men  not 
liable  to  be  dismissed  because  they  would  refuse  the  demand  of  the 
Palace  for  money  whenever  money  existed  in  the  national  chest,  would 
effect  wonderful  changes  in  Turkey,  and  would  perhaps  be  the  most 
effectual  weapon  for  breaking  down  the  despotism  of  the  Palace. 

Outside  the  measures  suggested  by  the  Treaty  of  Berlin  there 
remains  another  which  seems  to  me  well  worthy  of  the  consideration 
of  English  statesmen.  So  far  the  proposals  I  have  mentioned  con- 
sist of  the  establishment  of  local  self-government  in  those  parts  of 
Turkey  for  which  such  local  government  is  not  already  provided  by 
the  Treaty  of  Berlin,  of  a  gendarmerie  under  European  officers  for 
the  security  of  life  and  property,  of  inspectors  of  the  law  courts,  and 
of  a  financial  commission.  It  may  be  objected  that  the  three  latter 
measures  amount  practically  to  putting  the  government  of  the  Sultan 
into  commission.  But  as  these  proposals  have  already  been  recom- 
mended by  Europe,  it  may  be  taken  for  granted  that  there  exists  no 
valid  reason  against  so  putting  the  government  into  commission. 

Still  it  is  not  desirable  that  any  State  should  remain  with 
such  a  composite  government.  The  government  of  Turkey  is 
already,  from  the  point  of  view  of  jurisprudence,  a  legal  curiosity. 
There  are  sixteen  or  seventeen  Imperia  within  the  great  Impe- 
rium  called  the  Turkish  Empire.  In  other  words,  the  traveller  in 
Constantinople  may  find  himself,  by  a  fiction  of  law,  in  English, 
French,  German,  or  any  other  European  territory  in  the  course  of  a 
single  day.  Such  a  system  would  be  intolerable  in  any  civilised 
State.  When  General  Grant  was  in  Constantinople  some  two  years 
ago,  I  heard  him  explain  how  unjust  he  had  felt  it  to  be  that  there 
should  exist  American  courts  in  Turkey  for  American  citizens.  He  had 
asked  himself  how  Americans  would  like  to  have  Turkish  courts  in  New 
York  or  Washington ;  but  the  General  was  careful  to  explain  that, 
after  having  travelled  through  the  Turkish  Empire  from  Alexandria 
to  Constantinople,  he  had  seen  that  existence  would  be  impossible  for 
foreigners  if  such  privileges  were  not  claimed  for  them. 

To  appoint  a  financial  commission  and  to  adopt  the  other  measures 
suggested  would  be  no  doubt  still  further  to  reduce  the  power  of  the 
Sultan.  Those  who  believe  that  his  power  should  at  the  earliest  oppor- 
tunity be  put  an  end  to,  have  a  good  deal  to  say  in  favour  of  their 
scheme.  But  they  are  usually  met  with  the  retort,  Who  is  to  supply 
the  place  of  the  Turk  ?  The  answer  is,  not  a  foreign  State,  and  cer- 
tainly not  Russia  ;  not  a  series  of  European  commissions,  but  the  people 
of  the  country,  Greeks,  Bulgarians,  Turks,  Armenians,  and  Albanians. 
Mr.  Grant  Duff  would  accept  this  answer,  and  would  suggest  the  ap- 
pointment of  a  European  prince.  Other  statesmen  will  probably  be 
unwilling,  unless  forced  to  do  so,  to  bring  about  the  violent  change 
which  such  a  proposal  contemplates. 


1038  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  June 

Whether,  however,  such  a  change  will  come  without  much  delay 
into  the  region  of  practical  politics,  all  will  agree  that  it  is  desirable 
that  the  government  of  the  country  should  at  the  earliest  day  be 
placed  in  the  hands  of  the  people  of  the  country.  For  this  purpose 
I  would  suggest  that  as  soon  as  possible  an  imperial  chamber  should 
be  formed,  containing  representatives  from  Macedonia,  Thrace,  and 
the  districts  of  Asia  Minor  to  the  west  of  Armenia.  It  should  be 
the  object  of  the  Powers  to  make  this  chamber  the  real  sovereign  autho- 
rity of  the  country.  They  would  find  in  it  the  best  security  for  the 
carrying  out  of  reforms.  Neither  the  English  embassy  nor  all  the 
embassies  combined  can  superintend  the  execution  of  reforms  in  detail. 

The  great  danger  in  the  future,  as  in  the  past,  will  be  that  reforms 
will  be  promised  and  forgotten,  and  that  the  Turkish  Government  will 
not  have  sufficient  force  to  carry  them  into  effect.  A  chamber  would 
supply  the  necessary  force.  The  one  called  together  by  Midhat, 
though  intended  probably  to  be  merely  a  blind  to  Europe,  gave  some 
remarkable  signs.  There  was  nothing  like  freedom  of  election  in 
the  choice  of  members.  Many  of  them  were  Government  servants, 
and  it  is  difficult  to  imagine  a  chamber  called  together  under  circum- 
stances less  likely  to  clothe  the  members  with  real  power.  The 
president  of  the  chamber  was  Ahmed  Veffik  Pasha,  who  endeavoured  to 
treat  the  independent  members  like  so  many  school-boys.  But  popular 
government  even  under  such  unfavourable  circumstances  soon  began  to 
exert  its  power.  Those  who  from  day  to  day  watched  its  progress,  be- 
lieved at  first  that  the  chamber  would  be  quite  powerless.  The  members, 
however,  soon  began  to  feel  that  they  had  a  public  opinion  behind  them, 
and  spoke  out  manfully,  and  some  weeks  before  it  was  dismissed  it  had 
become  a  common  remark  in  Constantinople  that  the  chamber  would  end 
by  getting  rid  of  the  pashas,  or  the  pashas  by  getting  rid  of  it.  As  might 
perhaps  have  been  expected,  the  latter  result  was  the  one  arrived  at. 
The  experiment,  nevertheless,  showed  that  the  representatives  of  the 
peoples  of  Turkey  have  considerable  aptitude  for  parliamentary  govern- 
ment. They  were  dismissed  because  they  began  to  inquire  into 
maladministration  and  corruption,  and  because  the  pashas  saw  that 
their  iniquities  would  be  exposed,  unless  they  got  rid  of  the  chamber. 

If  the  European  Powers  mean  to  combine  to  obtain  reforms  in 
Turkey,  they  would  find  their  most  natural  support  in  a  chamber 
representing  the  wishes  of  the  people.  The  whole  population  is  dis- 
gusted with  the  incapacity  of  its  rulers,  and  the  principal  danger  to 
be  apprehended  from  the  calling  together  of  a  chamber  representing 
the  people  is,  that  it  might  be  disposed  to  march  too  fast  in  getting 
rid  of  the  men  who  have  for  so  many  years  ill-governed  the  country, 
if  the  chamber  felt  that  it  had  the  support  of  Europe  behind  it,  and 
could  not  be  dismissed  at  the  whim  of  the  Sultan.  While,  on  the 
other  hand,  it  was  on  its  good  behaviour  in  order  to  receive  the 
support  of  the  Powers,  it  might,  I  think,  be  trusted  at  once  to  do  its 
work  efficiently,  and  not  to  change  more  than  what  needs  changing. 


1880.  REFORMS  FOR   TURKEY.  1039 

If  Europe  is  to  coerce  Turkey  at  all,  a  chamber  seems  to  me  the  in- 
stitution best  worthy  of  attention.1 

If  a  workable  chamber  can  be  formed,  there  will  grow  up  in  that 
part  of  the  Balkan  peninsula  still  acknowledging  the  rule  of  the 
Sultan,  and  in  Western  Asia  Minor,  a  State  which  is  bound  in  time 
to  become  Christian,  but  of  which  for  the  present  the  Sultan  might 
continue  to  be  the  head.  There  are,  it  seems  to  me,  distinct  ad- 
vantages to  be  claimed  for  the  maintenance  of  these  countries  under 
a  rule  which  is  neither  Greek,  Bulgarian,  nor  Turkish.  The  Bul- 
garian race  occupies  both  Bulgaria  and  Eastern  Koumelia,  and  no 
useful  purpose  has  been  served  by  dividing  their  territory  into  two 
parts.  In  the  same  way  Greece  and  the  southern  portion  of  Mace- 
donia, as  well  as  Thessaly  and  Epirus,  are  alike  inhabited  by  one  race. 
But  in  Macedonia  and  Thrace,  Creeks,  Bulgarians,  and  Turks  are  so 
intermingled,  and  the  Porte  has  played  its  game  of  setting  Greeks 
against  Bulgarians  and  Bulgarians  against  Greeks  so  well,  that  per- 
haps the  wisest  course  is  to  place  neither  of  these  three  races  under 
the  dominion  of  the  other.  So,  too,  in  Asia  Minor  and  a  few  of  the 
islands  of  the  Archipelago.  The  majority  of  the  islands  are  purely 
Greek,  and  must  sooner  or  later  belong  to  Greece.  But  in  some  few 
of  the  islands,  and  in  Asia  Minor  west  of  Angora,  the  Greeks,  Arme- 
nians, and  Turks  are  so  mixed  together  that  here  again  it  would  be 
unfair  to  put  Greek  under  the  government  of  Turk  or  Turk  under 
the  government  of  Greek.  From  Trebizond  right  round  the  western 
and  southern  shores  of  Asia  Minor  the  Greeks  exist,  as  they  have 
always  done,  in  great  numbers.  Smyrna,  with  the  exception  of 
Constantinople,  is  the  city  which  contains  the  largest  Greek  popula- 
tion. In  the  interior  the  Turks  are  more  numerous.  But  the  whole 
district  might  well  be  under  the  rule  of  a  chamber  at  Constantinople. 

The  choice,  it  seems  to  me,  lies  between  putting  the  government 
of  the  Sultan's  territory  into  commission  and  the  enforcing  of  such  a 
scheme  as  I  have  suggested.  The  latter  has  the  advantage  of  being 
easier  to  carry  into  execution,  of  avoiding  a  violent  revolution,  and 
of  providing  a  fit  successor  for  the  existing  Ottoman  rule.  If  Turkey 
can  be  thus  transformed,  it  may  remain  for  future  statesmen  to  bring 
about  a  confederation  of  the  Balkan  States  and  of  Asia  Minor  which 
will  constitute,  if  such  should  ever  be  needed,  the  natural  and  the 
strongest  barrier  against  the  progress  of  Kussia  southwards. 

Constantinople  :  May  1880.  EDWIN  PEARS. 

1  I  have  omitted  Armenia,  Syria,  and  Arabia  from  the  list  of  districts  which 
should  send  representatives  to  the  chamber.  These  countries  are  so  remote  that 
probably  it  would  be  found  better  to  apply  to  them  the  other  reforms  already  enu- 
merated, and  to  give  them  a  government  rather  after  the  model  which  at  present 
ought  to  exist  if  Turkish  laws  were  carried  out — a  model  not  much  unlike  that  upon 
•which  we  work  in  India.  It  is  unnecessary  to  say  that  the  constitution  of  a  chamber 
would  require  great  care.  I  am  myself  inclined  to  think  that  the  representation 
should  be  confined,  for  some  time  at  least,  to  the  towns  only. 


1040  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  June 


LANDSCAPE  PAINTING. 


THE  appreciation  of  the  beauty  of  inanimate  Nature  has  its  origin 
in  an  advanced  period  of  civilisation.  The  sense  of  human  beauty, 
connected  as  it  is  with  the  most  universal  of  passions,  probably 
developed  itself  long  before  the  historical  period ;  it  is  certain  that  in 
the  earliest  times  of  which  we  have  any  information  this  sense 
manifested  itself  in  painting  and  sculpture.  But  the  sense  of  natural 
beauty,  independent  as  it  is  of  human  passion,  was  of  far  later  birth 
and  slower  growth.  It  probably  originated  in  the  association  of 
certain  natural  scenes  with  man's  comfort  and  enjoyment.  The  land- 
scapes of  the  Odyssey — as  has  been  pointed  out  by  Mr.  Ruskin — 
consist  chiefly  of  fountains,  meadows,  gardens,  shady  groves.  The 
garden  of^Alcinous  is  very  much  of  a  kitchen  garden,  containing  rows 
of  pear-trees,  apple-trees,  fig-trees,  olive-trees,  and  vines  laden  with 
grapes,  together  with  beds  of  vegetables,  chiefly  leeks,  planted  between 
them.  I  speak  of  the  description  of  the  garden  by  Homer,  not  by 
Pope.  There  is  indeed  in  the  Iliad  a  fine  picture  of  a  starlit  night 
by  way  of  background  to  an  encamping  host,  in  which  'Lhe  sharp  effect 
is  given  of  the  ship's  prows,  and  the  rocky  peaks  cut  out  against  the 
sky ;  and  Homer  applied  to  mountains  the  epithet '  shadowy,'  indi- 
cating that  he  saw  them  not  as  they  are  found  to  be  when  approached, 
but  as  they  appear  at  a  distance,  their  favourite  aspect  with  the 
painter.  But  there  seems  no  ground  for  believing  that  Homer,  or 
indeed  any  of  the  ancient  Greeks,  rose  to  an  adequate  appreciation 
of  Nature's  own  proper  beauty,  independently  of  association  with 
man's  comfort  and  convenience. 

Nor  did  the  Romans  advance  in  this  respect  much,  if  at  all,  beyond 
the  Greeks. 

Lucretius  could  enjoy  the  green  turf,  the  spring  flowers,  and  the 
frolicking  lambs,  in  spite  of  the  difficulty  of  determining  the  precise 
form  of  atoms  of  which  these  objects  were  composed.  Horace  espe- 
cially enjoyed  his  Falernian  under  the  shade  of  an  arbutus,  on  the 
bank  of  a  rivulet,  and  looked  with  some  satisfaction  on  the  view  from 
Tibur  and  Baias.  Virgil  was  more  appreciative  of  landscape.  His 
•Qeorgics  and  his  Eclogues  abound  with  pretty  rural  scenes,  some  of 


1880.  LANDSCAPE  PAINTING.  1041 

them  doubtless  borrowed  from  Theocritus.  He  had  an  eye  for  the 
cloud-shadows  sweeping  across  the  mountains,  for  the  lengthening 
evening  shades,  for  the  smoke  curling  from  the  distant  farms  ;  and  in 
the  jfEiieid,  describing  the  wooded  bay  in  which  the  Trojan  fleet 
was  concealed,  has  certainly  suggested  a  beautiful  landscape.  Still 
his  rural  scenes  are  but  accessory  to  his  shepherds  and  shepherdesses ; 
and  his  bay  in  the  African  coast  is  but  a  background  to  the  fleet.  The 
love  of  landscape  by  the  most  poetical  and  artistic  of  the  Romans 
appears  but  faint  compared  with  our  own. 

I  cannot  find  that  mountain  scenery,  which  has  most  attractions 
of  all  for  many  people,  ever  found  any  favour  with  the  ancients.  As 
gardens  and  groves  were  associated  with  enjoyment,  so  rocks  and 
mountains  were  associated  with  hardship,  discomfort,  toil,  cold,  and 
hunger ;  and  are  accordingly  abused  in  good  set  terms.  They  are 
rugged,  steep,  barren,  inhospitable,  toilsome,  stormy,  in  short,  every- 
thing that  is  inconvenient  and  disagreeable,  the  epithet  quoted  from 
Homer  being,  I  believe,  quite  exceptional.  Dido  in  her  fury  can 
think  of  nothing  worse  to  which  to  compare  ./Eneas  than  Caucasian 
rocks  ;  the  world  had  to  grow  much  older  before  the  Caucasus  could 
be  explored  and  painted  for  its  beauty.  A  painter  of  mountain 
scenery  among  the  ancients,  if  he  had  been  possible,  would  probably 
have  been  considered  mad.  But  neither  mountain  scenery  nor  any 
other  was  painted.  In  Pliny's  gossiping  account  of  all  the  painters 
and  pictures  he  had  ever  seen  or  heard  of — the  pictures  being  for 
the  most  part  battle-pieces  and  mythological  subjects — I  do  not 
think  that  a  description  of  one  landscape,  properly  so  called,  is  to  be  • 
found.  The  only  painter  he  mentions  who  can  be  called  in  any  sense 
a  landscape  painter  is  one  Ludius,  who  in  the  time  of  Augustus 
painted  on  walls  '  villas,  porticos,  groves,  hills,  fish-ponds,  boats, 
and  donkey- chaises,  in  short,  anything  you  pleased  to  order.'  But 
Pliny  evidently  regards  Ludius  with  a  good  deal  of  contempt.  The 
few  attempts  at  landscape  among  the  paintings  of  Pompeii  indicate 
ignorance  of  the  first  principles  of  the  art. 

I  think  we  shall  not  be  wrong  in  concluding  that  the  art  of 
landscape  painting  as  now  practised  was  an  art  unknown  to  the 
ancients. 

Nor  did  it  appear  early  in  the  renaissance  of  art.  Figure  painting 
culminated  in  Michael  Angelo  and  Eaphael  nearly  a  century  before 
the  birth  of  Claude,  who  may  perhaps  be  regarded  as  the  earliest  of 
landscape  painters  proper.  It  is  true  that  Titian  and  other  great 
Venetians  had  painted  before  him  fine  landscapes  as  backgrounds  to 
figures,  but  few,  if  any,  landscapes  complete  in  themselves,  having 
for  their  sole  or  main  object  the  representation  of  inanimate  nature, 
trhirlandajo  had  painted  some  formal  trees  and  buildings.  Domeni- 
chino  and  Annibale  Caracci  had  painted  better  landscape  backgrounds. 
Rubens  had  also  painted  some  good  landscapes,  to  which,  however,  he 


1042  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  June 

did  not  give  the  best  of  his  mind,  a  little  before  Claude's  time. 
Rembrandt  bid  likewise  painted  some,  powerful  in  ligbt  and  shade. 
But  the  art  had  never  been  systematically  taught  or  studied ;  and 
Claude,  of  whom  Mr.  Euskin  has  finely  said  that  he  first  put  the 
sun  in  the  heavens,  had  in  a  great  measure  to  invent  it.  Salvator 
Rosa,  the  Poussins,  and  other  Italian  painters  were  his  younger  con- 
temporaries. (I  am  aware  that  Claude  and  the  Poussins  are  usually 
assigned  to  the  French  school ;  but  I  cannot  help  thinking  that, 
having  regard  to  their  subjects,  they  more  properly  belong  to  the 
Italian.)  Cuyp,  Both,  Hobbema,  Ruysdael,  Vandervelde,  and  other 
Dutch  painters,  soon  followed  ;  but  they  painted  independently,  and 
must  also  be  taken  to  have  in  a  great  measure  invented  their  art  for 
themselves. 

Landscape  painting  is,  then,  a  new  art,  and  I  venture  to  think 
that  it  is  not  even  yet  sufficiently  appreciated  or  completely  mastered. 

The  extent  to  which  it  was  esteemed  in  England  towards  the  close 
of  the  last  century  may  be  gathered  from  the  following  extract  from 
the  Lectures  of  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds. 

After  speaking  of  the  grand  historical  style,  he  proceeds  : — 

As  for  the  various  departments  of  painting  which  do  not  presume  to  make 
such  high  pretensions,  there  are  many.  None  of  them  are  without  their  merit, 
though  none  of  them  enter  into  competition  with  this  universal  presiding  idea  of 
the  art.  The  painters  who  have  applied  themselves  more  particularly  to  low  and 
vulgar  characters,  and  who  express  with  precision  the  various  shades  of  passion  as 
they  are  exhibited  by  vulgar  minds  (such  as  we  see  in  the  works  of  Hogarth), 
deserve  great  praise ;  but  as  their  genius  has  been  employed  in  low  and  confined 
subjects,  the  praise  which  we  give  must  be  as  limited  as  its  object.  The  merry- 
making and  the  quarrelling  of  the  boors  of  Teniers,  the  same  sort  of  productions  of 
Brouwer  or  Ostade,  are  excellent  in  their  kind.  .  .  .  This  principle  may  be  applied 
to  the  battle-pieces  of  Borgognone,  the  French  gallantries  of  Watteau,  and  even 
beyond  the  exhibition  of  animal  life  to  the  landscapes  of  Claude  Lorraine,  and  the 
sea-views  of  Vandervelde. 

Truly  sublime  is  the  condescension  with  which  landscape  painting 
is  patronised,  as  ranking  not  much  below  that  vulgar  art  which  depicts 
the  merry-making  and  the  quarrelling  of  boors  ! 

I  had  the  curiosity  to  look  out  '  Landscape  Painting  '  in  the  last 
edition  of  the  Encyclopaedia  Britannica,  published  in  1860,  and  on 
finding  it  was  referred  to  the  article  '  Painting.'  (The  edition  now 
being  published  has  not  yet  reached  the  letter  P.)  Throughout  the 
whole  article,  consisting  of  eighty  pages,  not  a  dozen  sentences  are 
devoted  to  landscape.  Some  casual  mention  occurs  of  Claude,  and  I 
think  of  Salvator  and  the  Poussins.  No  reference  is  made  to  the  land- 
scape painters  of  the  Dutch  school ;  not  a  word  is  said  about  Turner. 
Turner  had  lived  and  died  without  producing  the  slightest  impression 
on  the  writer,  who  evidently  considered  landscape  art  beneath  his  notice. 

Before  Mr.  Ruskin's  Modem  Painters  there  was  not,  as  far  as  I 
am  aware,  any  work  of  the  slightest  consequence  on  landscape  paint- 


1880.  LANDSCAPE  PAINTING.  1043 

ing  in  this  or  any  other  language.  In  short,  landscape  was  regarded 
as  an  inferior  branch  of  art,  and  is  to  some  extent  so  regarded  still. 
The  Eoyal  Academicians  would  seem  so  to  regard  it,  if  we  may  judge 
by  the  extent  to  which  it  is  represented  among  them.  I  speak  of 
Academicians,  not  of  Associates. 

It  may  not  be  altogether  uninteresting  to  inquire  whether  the 
opinion  that  the  painting  of  landscape  is  an  inferior  branch  of  art  is 
or  is  not  well  founded. 

I  will  put  aside  some  of  the  greatest  of  all  paintings,  the  figures 
in  the  Sistine  Chapel,  the  Madonna  di  San  Sisto,  the  Transfiguration, 
and  a  few  others,  such  as  we  are  not  likely  to  see  again,  for  some  time 
at  least,  and  will  address  myself  to  landscape  painting  as  compared 
with  what  Sir  Joshua  calls  '  history  painting,'  and  portraiture,  for 
both  of  which  he  claims  a  far  higher  place. 

The  aim  of  the  historical  painter  is  to  impress  the  imagination 
by  representing  human  action  and  passion  as  expressed  by  the  human 
face  and  figure.  It  would  be  doing  historical  painting  no  injustice 
to  describe  its  ultimate  object  as  the  expression  of  the  sublime  and 
beautiful.  The  object  of  portrait  painting  is  not  merely  to  make  a 
likeness,  though  to  make  a  good  likeness  is  by  no  means  a  common 
or  an  easy  achievement,  but  to  depict  as  much  intelligence,  grandeur, 
or  beauty  as  is  to  be  found  in  the  best  expression  of  the  sitter. 
What  is  the  object  of  the  landscape  painter  ?  It  is  also  to  express 
the  sublime  and  beautiful,  as  seen  in  the  face  of  Nature — in  her 
features  of  plain,  mountain,  forest,  river,  sea,  and  sky,  ever  varying 
in  expression,  as  they  are  lit  by  sunshine,  or  dimmed  by  mist,  or 
darkened  by  storm.  Is  the  sense  of  the  sublime  and  beautiful  to 
which  the  landscape  painter  addresses  himself  an  inferior  faculty  to 
that  which  is  addressed  by  the  painter  of  history  or  portraits  ?  Why  ? 
In  what  respect  ?  Why  is  the  mental  state  which  is  impressed  by 
the  mountain,  the  lake,  the  sunshine,  the  storm,  and  by  well-painted 
representations  of  them,  a  lower  state  than  that  which  is  impressed 
by  a  picture  of  Alfred  burning  the  cakes,  or  the  murder  of  Eizzio,  or 
the  battle  of  Trafalgar,  or  a  portrait  of  George  the  Third,  or,  if  it  is  pre- 
ferred, of  Charles  the  First  ?  What  is  the  test  by  which  the  relative 
altitudes  of  these  states  of  mind  is  to  be  measured?  Is  it  that  which 
necessarily  implies  the  higher  intelligence  and  culture  ?  Assuming 
this  test,  there  can  be  no  question  that  less  intelligence  and  culture 
are  required  for  some  appreciation  at  least  of  historical  and  portrait 
painting  than  are  required  for  the  appreciation  of  landscape.  Men 
are  affected  by  historical  and  portrait  painting  in  comparatively 
barbarous  times,  before  the  feeling  for  landscape  could  possibly  have 
arisen.  Virgil  is  guilty  of  no  anachronism  in  representing  .^Eneas  as 
deeply  moved  by  the  historical  paintings  in  the  Carthaginian  temple 
of  the  battles  of  the  Greeks  and  Trojans,  and  Priam  in  the  tent  of 
Achilles  ;  but  Virgil  would  have  been  guilty  of  a  gross  anachronism 


1044  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  June 

if  lie  had  represented  JEneas  as  capable  of  appreciating  a  landscape 
painting,  supposing  such  a  painting  to  have  been  then  possible,  of 
seeing  grandeur  or  beauty  or  anything  but  discomfort  in  mountains 
or  clouds,  or  anything  more  than  convenience  in  the  most  beautiful 
scenes.  Virgil  himself  did  not  attain  to  the  poetry  of  landscape ; 
this  was  reserved  for  the  higher  culture,  the  deeper  thought,  and 
more  original  observation  of  Wordsworth. 

Even  in  this  our  day  the  appreciation  of  historical  and  portrait 
painting  is  a  more  common,  not  to  use  Sir  Joshua's  expression,  a 
more  'vulgar,'  faculty  than  that  of  landscape.  Many  a  worthy 
Englishman  will  gaze  with  intense  interest  on  a  picture  of  the  battle 
of  Waterloo,  and  will  admire  a  portrait  by  Sir  Joshua  Eeynolds,  who 
has  no  eye  for  a  landscape,  real  or  painted ;  and  is  capable  of  regard- 
ing the  grandest  aspects  of  sky  from  no  other  point  of  view  than  their 
probable  effect  on  the  crops.  Nay,  I  have  heard  educated  men,  even 
men  pretending  to  knowledge  of  art,  gravely  maintain  that  there  is 
nothing  picturesque  in  the  Alps ! 

If  invidious  comparisons  are  insisted  on,  the  landscape  painter 
may  fairly  maintain  that  he  appeals  to  the  higher  sentiment,  born 
later  in  the  world's  life,  the  offspring  of  a  more  advanced  civilisation. 
He  may  further  maintain  that  the  kind  of  landscape  art  which  deals 
least  with  what  is  termed  '  human  interest,'  which  seeks  to  impress 
the  imagination  by  the  majesty  of  cloud  and  mountain  form,  and  the 
sublimity  of  immeasurable  space,  which  lifts  the  mind  above  man 
and  his  concerns,  to  the  contemplation  of  (rod  through  the  grandest 
scenes  of  Nature,  appeals  to  the  highest  intelligence  of  all. 

But  I  deprecate  invidious  comparisons.  There  is  sublimity  in 
the  human  countenance,  in  human  action  and  passion.  There  is 
sublimity  in  Nature.  Who  shall  determine  which  sublimity  is  the 
sublimer  ?  It  may  be  said,  '  The  human  face  and  form  express  the 
soul  of  man ;  must  not  the  representation  of  them  be  higher  art  than 
the  representation  of  mere  insensate  matter?.'  Those  who  believe 
the  soul  of  man  to  be  the  only  spirit  in  the  universe  may  concede 
this :  but  if  there  be  a  Creator  of  man  and  Nature,  and  if,  as  poets 
and  painters  love  to  think,  the  sublime  and  beautiful  in  Nature  may 
be  regarded  as  in  some  sense  manifestations  of  the  divine  mind, 
gladdening  and  elevating  our  poor  intelligences,  surely  nothing  can 
be  worthier  of  the  highest  art.  In  truth,  the  artist,  who  by  words, 
or  by  forms,  or  by  colours,  or  by  sounds,  conveys  to  us  grand  or 
beautiful  ideas,  is  a  public  instructor  and  benefactor.  Among  such 
instructors  and  benefactors  I  will  not  attempt  to  draw  up  a  table  of 
precedence.  I  desire  no  more  than  to  enter  my  protest  against  the 
depreciation  of  a  branch  of  painting  which  I  hold  to  be  the  true 
strength  of  the  English  school,  and  to  record  my  obligation  to  the 
eloquent  writer  who  first  claimed  its  place  for  landscape  art,  who  first 
explained  its  principles,  and  told  its  history. 


1880.  .    LANDSCAPE  PAINTING.  1045 

But  it  must  be  admitted  that  landscape  painting  has  not  so  far 
advanced  as  has  painting  of  the  figure,  and  that,  pace  Turner 
and  Ruskin,  it  has  not  yet  produced  its  Raphael  or  its  Michael 
Angelo.  Nor  is  this  surprising  when  we  consider  that  the  one  art  is 
scarcely  three  hundred  years  old,  whereas  the  other  is  more  than 
three  thousand !  Moreover,  the  latter  art  has  many  advantages  in 
practice  over  the  former.  The  figure  can  be  painted  indoors,  the 
model  can  be  posed,  the  drapery  can  be  hung  on  the  lay-figure,  the 
light  can  be  adjusted,  the  effect  can  be  chosen  and  reproduced.  The 
landscape  painter  is  dependent  on  the  weather.  He  is  perpetually  on 
the  defensive  against  his  enemies — the  sun,  the  wind,  the  rain,  and 
the  gnats.  He  is  scorched  and  blown  about,  and  wetted  and  bitten. 
The  aspect  of  Nature  is  ever  changing.  In  the  most  settled  weather, 
what  was  in  light  in  the  morning  is  in  shade  in  the  afternoon ;  but 
the  weather  is  seldom  settled,  seldomest  where  the  scenery  is  most 
picturesque.  Clouds  and  mist  sweep  across  the  scene  ;  the  sun  plays 
at  hide-and-seek  ;  effects  the  most  various,  each  more  beautiful  and 
fleeting  than  the  last,  dazzle  and  confound  the  artist.  The  best 
point  of  view  is  often  difficult  to  attain.  "When  he  has  attained  it, 
he  is  often  unable  to  sit  or  stand  with  comfort.  Indeed,  some 
robustness  and  physical  endurance  are  required,  which  are  apt  to  fail 
after  middle  life,  whereupon  the  artist,  having  to  fall  back  upon  his 
old  stock  of  ideas  without  acquiring  new,  commonly  reproduces  them 
with  less  and  less  freshness  and  truth,  falls  into  mannerism,  and 
deteriorates.  There  is,  however,  apparently  a  law  of  compensation 
which  sustains  him  in  his  decadence — the  worse  he  paints,  the  further 
he  recedes  from  Nature,  the  more  his  mannerisms  become  developed, 
the  more  fervid  usually  is  the  worship  of  his  admirers.  There  has 
been  comparatively  little  school  or  academy  teaching  of  landscape, 
which  must  be  in  a  great  measure  learnt  out  of  doors ;  and  yet  it  is 
not  an  art  which  can  be  brought  to  perfection  in  one  lifetime,  or  in 
many.  A  long  series  of  Umbrian  painters,  ending  with  Perugino ; 
another  series  of  Florentine  painters,  from  the  earliest  Renaissance, 
Pisano,  Cimabue,  Giotto,  Masaccio,  Grhirlandajo,  and  others,  led  up 
to  Raphael,  who  would  not  have  been  possible  without  them.  Claude 
had,  as  we  have  seen,  in  the  Darwinian  sense,  no  ancestors,  but 
created  himself.  It  would  have  been  no  less  than  a  miracle  if  he  had 
become  the  Raphael  of  landscape. 

To  attempt  a  history  even  in  outline  of  landscape  art,  or  a  review  of 
its  different  schools,  would  obviously  exceed  the  limits  of  this  article. 
With  respect  to  the  French-Italian  school,  headed  by  Claude,  the 
Poussins,  and  Salvator,  I  content  myself  with  saying  that  I  subscribe 
to  most  of  what  has  been  written  of  them  by  Mr.  Ruskin.  Claude 
painted  very  well  only  sunlight.  He  had  little  feeling  for  the  grand, 
as  distinguished  from  the  beautiful ;  his  foregrounds  were  bad ;  his 
trees  often  conventional ;  his  cows  abominable.  Salvator's  rocks  were 
VOL.  VII.— No.  40.  4  A 


1046  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  June 

ill-drawn ;  in  short,  he  drew  nothing  very  well.  The  Poussins  unduly 
darkened  their  foregrounds  and  middle  distance  in  order  to  bring 
them  out  into  stronger  relief  against  the  sky  (it  should,  however,  be 
borne  in  mind  that  the  blackness  of  the  foregrounds  of  old  pictures  is 
in  some  measure  attributable  to  repeated  varnishing).  They  thought 
that  the  effect  of  sunlight  was  to  be  rendered  by  dark,  undefined 
shadows,  instead  of  by  grey  shadows,  sharp-edged,  and  were  guilty  of 
numerous  other  blunders  and  delinquencies.  I  have  only  to  say  on 
behalf  of  the  artists  that,  considering  they  had  to  invent  a  new  art,  I 
am  more  inclined  to  be  grateful  to  them  for  what  they  have  done 
than  to  blame  them  for  their  shortcomings,  though  I  freely  acknow- 
ledge the  good  service  Mr.  Ruskin  has  rendered  in  dissipating  many 
venerable  delusions.  As  for  those  ignorant  connoisseurs  who  have 
been  in  the  habit  of  praising  the  old  masters  of  landscape  at  the 
expense  of  far  better  modern  painters,  I  have  no  desire  to  shelter 
them  from  his  just  indignation. 

He  appears,  however,  somewhat  less  than  just  to  the  Dutch 
landscape  school,  which  arose  about  the  same  time,  and  forms  a  series 
of  true  and  original  painters  of  landscape,  though  not  of  the  highest 
order,  on  the  whole  more  faithful  to  Nature  than  the  French  and 
Italian  schools.  It  may  well  be  conjectured  that  their  pictures  were 
brighter,  and  in  every  respect  better,  before  dirt  and  many  layers  of 
varnish  had  given  them  that  '  tone  '  which  so  delights  the  eye  of  the 
connoisseur.  Landscape  art  appears  to  have  a  good  deal  degenerated 
all  over  Europe  towards  the  end  of  the  seventeenth  and  far  into  the 
eighteenth  century,  and  to  have  been  in  some  danger  of  dying  out ; 
but  in  the  latter  part  of  that  century,  and  during  the  present,  it  has 
more  than  regained  its  own,  and  England  may  take  the  principal 
credit  for  its  revival.  Wilson,  who  may  be  called  the  earliest  of  our 
landscape  painters,  imported  from  Italy  the  manner  of  Claude,  and 
produced  many  pretty  landscapes,  agreeably  coloured,  though  for  the 
most  part  somewhat  feeble  and  conventional,  indicating  insufficient 
study  of  Nature.  Gainsborough,  more  vigorous,  but  not  more 
accurate,  painted  in  a  broad  dashing  manner  what  I  should  venture 
to  call  rather  sketches  than  pictures.  Both  these  painters  deserve 
honour  as  the  chief  founders  of  the  English  school,  though  I  cannot 
help  thinking  that  most  of  their  works  would  now  be  deservedly 
rejected  at  the  Academy. 

Crome,  Cotman,  and  others  of  what  is  termed  the  Norwich  school 
were  better  painters,  though  too  much  affected  by  the  traditions  of 
umber,  which,  under  the  auspices  of  Sir  George  Beaumont,  for  a  long 
time  embrowned  English  landscape.  Constable  was  a  powerful  and 
original  painter,  excellent  in  his  careful  work,  though  often  coarse 
and  careless,  and  so  mannered  as  to  be  easily  imitable.  Unless  I  am 
much  mistaken,  a  very  few  years  ago  a  spurious  Constable  was  con- 
spicuously hung  in  an  exhibition  of  pictures  by  old  masters  at  Bur- 


1880.  LANDSCAPE  PAINTING.  1047 

lington  House  ;  so  was  a  spurious  Turner,  which  had  been  painted 
by  a  young  artist  a  few  months  before.  On  Constable's  style  is  sup- 
posed to  be  in  a  great  measure  founded  a  new  French  school  of  land- 
scape, about  which  something  will  be  said  hereafter.  Space  permits 
only  mention  of  the  names  of  Stanfield,  perhaps  the  greatest  of 
marine  painters,  though  his  genius  was  not  confined  to  that  class 
of  subject ;  of  Calcott,  of  Creswick,  of  Eoberts,  of  Bonnington,  of 
Miiller  (little  recognised  in  his  short  lifetime),  of  Linnell  (still 
happily  among  us),  of  Collins,  of  Morland,  each  of  whom  has  done 
much  to  advance  landscape  art  and  the  reputation  of  the  English 
school. 

Turner  is  by  general  consent  the  greatest  of  landscape  painters. 
Whatever  may  be  the  future  of  the  art,  to  whatever  perfection  it  may 
be  carried,  his  advent  must  always  be  an  important  epoch  in  its 
history.  Availing  himself  of  all  that  was  known  before  he  vastly  ex- 
tended the  field  of  knowledge,  he  ranged  over  all  Nature,  none  of 
whose  aspects  was  alien  to  him,  and  conquered  new  worlds  for  art. 
Yet  I  by  no  means  subscribe  to  the  blind  adoration  of  his  worshippers. 
In  his  early  days  he  studied  from  Nature  elaborately  and  minutely, 
and  this  study  always  stood  him  in  good  stead.  I  venture,  however, 
to  think  he  would  have  done  well  to  renew  that  study  from  time  to 
time  in  later  life,  and  that  he  suffered  from  not  renewing  it.  In  his 
later  pictures,  when  he  gave  freest  range  to  his  imagination,  his 
drawing  somewhat  failed,  his  colouring  still  more,  and  he  became  un- 
true to  Nature. 

But  it  may  be  asked,  '  What  is  truth  to  Nature  ? '  A  difficult 
question,  some  attempt  to  answer  which  must  be  made. 

It  is  a  trite  observation,  that  imitation  is  not  the  object  of  art,  and, 
in  a  sense,  a  true  one,  though  sometimes  obscured  by  hazy  writing. 
To  select  for  imitation  a  piece  of  Nature,  which  admits  of  being  imi- 
tated, without  reference  to  composition  or  effect,  is  to  make  a  study, 
not  a  picture.  Nor  is  deception  the  object  of  art.  The  old  story  of 
the  birds  pecking  at  the  painted  grapes  certainly  illustrates  somewhat 
crude  ideas  on  the  subject.  Mr.  Ruskin  declares  that  the  grapes  must 
have  been  very  ill-painted,  and  denounces  all  exact  representation  of 
Nature  as  low  art.  It  is  but  just  to  him,  however,  to  say  that  many 
passages  may  be  found  in  his  writings  maintainingprecisely  the  reverse. 
Whether  a  picture  be  or  be  not  deceptive  depends  less  on  itself  than 
on  its  surroundings.  A  portrait  hung  on  a  wall  cannot  be  deceptive — 
it  is  plainly  impossible  for  a  man  to  be  where  the  figure  is,  and  further 
the  realism  of  the  portrait,  however  great,  is  subdued  by  the  greater 
realism  and  force  of  the  surrounding  objects — greater  in  proportion 
as  Nature's  light  is  stronger  than  the  artist's  white  paint.  But  re- 
move the  picture  from  its  frame,  pose  the  figure  where  a  man  might 
naturally  stand,  by  a  disposition  of  curtains  or  otherwise  dim  every- 
thing around  it,  concentrating  a  strong  light  upon  it,  and  most  good 

4  A2 


1048  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  June 

portraits  will  become  in  a  great  degree  deceptive,  none  more  so  than 
those  of  Velasquez  or  Rembrandt.  By  such  means  panoramas  and 
dioramas  are  made  deceptive ;  indeed  the  simple  process  of  looking 
through  a  tube  excluding  the  frame  and  all  other  objects,  gives  a 
picture  some  appearance  of  reality — a  good  painting  of  a  bas-relief  in 
a  proper  light  must  be  deceptive.  The  modern  painter  of  fruit  and 
flowers  desires  not  to  deceive  birds  or  men,  but  to  convey  the  beauty 
of  his  subject  by  the  best  disposition  of  forms  and  colours.  Assuming 
his  conception  and  general  treatment  of  his  subject  to  be  good,  will 
it  be  gravely  contended  that  he  can  paint  his  grapes  too  like  real 
grapes,  and  must  make  them  look  a  little  unnatural  lest  the  birds 
should  peck  at  them  ?  The  power  of  imitation,  which  may  under 
certain  circumstances  amount  to  deception,  and  is  in  truth  neither 
more  nor  less  than  quite  accurate  drawing  and  colouring,  is  the  foun- 
dation of  all  artistic  excellence,  without  which  no  poetical  or  imagina- 
tive superstructure  can  stand.  It  is  a  power  possessed  by  but  few, 
and  sneered  at  by  many  who  are  unable  to  appreciate  or  attain  it. 

There  are  people  who  talk  and  write  as  if  every  aspect  of  Nature 
could  be  perfectly  imitated,  provided  the  artist  would  but  condescend 
to  do  so  ;  they  insist,  however,  that  he  ought  not  so  to  demean  him- 
self, because  all  imitation  is  beneath  the  dignity  of  high  art,  which  is 
concerned  with  expressing  the  ideas  of  the  artist,  infinitely  finer,  as 
they  are,  than  anything  in  Nature.  Indeed  there  are  some  art  critics 
who  run  down  every  picture  which  does  not  contain  some  element  of 
unlikeness  to  Nature.  The  truth  is,  that  while  many  natural  forms 
and  surfaces  admit  of  almost  exact  imitation,  there  are  certain 
aspects  of  Nature,  and  these  the  finest,  altogether  above  and  beyond 
imitation.  Has  not  every  one  of  us  been  struck  from  time  to  time 
by  effects  of  Nature,  most  commonly  seen  about  the  hours  of  sunrise 
or  sunset,  which  have  impressed  us  with  a  sense  of  overpowering  and 
transcendent  beauty  altogether  beyond  the  reach  of  art — which,  if 
they  could  be  literally  imitated  and  transferred  to  canvas,  would  put 
to  shame  every  picture  and  extinguish  whole  galleries  ?  To  speak 
with  contempt  of  the  imitation  of  such  scenes  is  sheer  ignorance  and 
presumption — the  imitation  of  them  is  above,  not  below,  the  highest 
art.  They  are  for  the  most  part  transient,  and  will  not  wait  to  be 
painted ;  nor  could  they  be  if  they  would :  they  have  a  brilliancy 
and  force,  combined  with  a  subtlety  and  delicacy,  not  to  be  attained 
by  the  rude  and  imperfect  materials  with  which  the  painter  works. 
It  should  be  remembered  that  Nature  has  colours  compounded  of 
sunlight  not  to  be  found  on  his  palette.  But  these  effects,  stored  in 
his  memory,  become  food  for  his  imagination,  which  is  worth  little 
unless  fed  by  such  food  drawn  plentifully  and  freshly  from  Nature. 
He  may  compose  and  combine  recollected  effects  with  advantage,  but 
the  more  realistic  his  painting — in  other  words,  the  more  nearly  it 
approaches  the  forms  and  colours  of  Nature — the  greater  will  be  the 


1880.  LANDSCAPE  PAINTING.  1049 

effect ;  for  it  should  be  always  borne  in  mind  that  in  the  power  of 
impressing  the  imagination — his  highest  aim — Nature  is  greater 
than  he,  and  that  only  by  obeying  her  can  he  command.  I  have 
used  the  word  '  realistic,'  which  I  am  aware  is  an  abomination  to 
many  persons  who  regard  '  the  real '  as  something  antagonistic  to  the 
•*  ideal.'  There  is  no  such  antagonism  ;  they  work  together  in  perfect 
harmony,  and  their  harmony  is  the  triumph  of  art.  Dante  and 
Shakespeare  were  at  once  the  most  imaginative  and  realistic  of  poets. 
How  terribly  real  is  most  of  the  Inferno  !  How  terribly  real  is  the 
ghost  scene  in  Hamlet !  The  Madonna  di  San  Sisto  of  Kaphael  would 
impress  us  less  were  not  the  ideal  beauty  of  the  Virgin  combined 
with  the  form  of  a  real  and  breathing  woman,  well  modelled, 
perfectly  symmetrical,  natural  in  its  attitude,  with  drapery  disposed 
in  natural  folds,  standing  out  from  the  background  rounded  and 
solid ;  not  a  mere  flat  piece  of  colour,  such  as  now  seems  to  be  regarded 
by  a  certain  school  as  the  highest  art. 

The  term  '  realism  '  must  not  of  course  be  understood  as  excluding 
composition  in  a  picture,  or  requiring  the  artist  to  paint  precisely 
what  he  sees  before  him  in  a  given  space  at  a  given  time.  Nature  is 
seldom  so  accommodating  as  to  present  to  us  a  complete  picture 
which  can  be  enclosed  in  a  rectangle,  separated  from  its  surroundings, 
transferred  to  canvas,  and  put  into  a  frame.  To  remove  an  incon- 
venient tree  or  rock,  to  bring  others  into  the  picture  which  lie 
beyond  it,  to  shift  the  foreground,  which  may  often  be  done  by  a 
slight  change  of  position,  is  dealing  with  the  accidents  rather  than 
with  the  essentials  of  the  scene,  and  is  no  violation  of  truth  to 
Nature.  Greater  liberties  may  at  times  be  taken  with  advantage, 
though  much  caution  should  be  observed  in  dealing  with  mountain 
forms  which  are  usually  far  finer  than  anything  the  artist  can  invent. 
The  effects  of  sky,  however,  perpetually  changing  as  they  are,  and 
thereby  influencing  the  landscape  by  gleaming  lights  and  passing 
shadows,  always  afford  a  wide  field  for  imagination  based  on  know- 
ledge, and  a  prosaic  scene  may  be  poeticised  by  recollected  or  possible 
effects.  Still  it  must  always  be  remembered,  that  whatever  is  worth 
painting  is  worth  painting  truly,  and  that  at  the  least  all  objects  meant 
to  be  clearly  seen — that  is,  not  obscured  by  mist,  or  darkness,  or  dis- 
tance— should  be  painted  with  fidelity ;  the  trunk  and  branches  of 
the  tree  should  be  properly  articulated,  the  rock  should  be  properly 
stratified,  and  look  hard  and  solid;  if  the  foreground  be  of  grass,  it 
should  look  like  grass,  if  of  heather  it  should  look  like  heather — it 
should  never  be  a  mere  tricky  combination  of  colours,  still  less  should  it 
be  a  smudge.  The  same  observations  apply  in  a  great  degree  to  land- 
scapes which  may  be  called  wholly  imaginary,  such  as  Turner's 
*  Building  of  Carthage,'  and  his  '  Garden  of  the  Hesperides,'  two  of 
the  best  of  his  imaginative  works.  In  the  latter  the  dragon  is  finely 
conceived  and  painted.  He  derives  much  of  his  terror  from  the 


1050  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  June 

realistic  manner  in  which  he  is  vertebrated,  and  scaled,  and  legged, 
and  winged,  so  as  to  resemble  a  possible  megalosaurus. 

It  is  scarcely  necessary  to  say  that  realism  consists  in  the  render- 
ing, not  merely  of  the  obvious  truths  of  nature  which,  as  it  were, 
stare  us  in  the  face,  but  of  those  more  recondite  and  subtle,  but  not 
less  important  truths  of  form,  colour,  and  tone  which  only  reveal  them- 
selves slowly  to  patient  study.  At  the  same  time  over-subtlety  and 
over-refinement,  a  fastidious  preference  for  what  is  recondite  over 
what  is  patent  to  the  profane  vulgar,  may  be  a  fault  in  art,  as  it  is 
in  literature,  leading  to  affectation  and  coxcombry  of  style. 

To  apply  these  observations.  Many  of  Turner's  pictures  fail  in 
truth  both  of  drawing  and  of  colouring.  Some  of  his  most  famous 
Italian  pictures  are  marred  by  an  ill-drawn  fir,  conspicuously  placed, 
showing  how  far  he  had  deteriorated  in  tree  drawing  since  he  painted 
'Crossing  the  Brook.'  His  rocks  are  often  poorly  drawn,  far  inferior 
to  Stanfield's,  as  appears  in  some  faithful  engravings  published  by 
Mr.  Euskin  (altogether  alio  intuitu\  in  which  the  rocks  have  some- 
what the  appearance  of  feather-beds.  His  figures,  which  were 
presentable  in  his  early  days,  when  he  painted  4  A  Frosty  Morning,' 
became  latterly  quite  intolerable.  Mr.  Euskin  of  course  defends 
them,  and  denounces  the  ignorance  of  those  who  would  desire  them 
to  be  made  out  and  emphasised.  Figures  are  often  the  better  for 
not  being  made  out  or  emphasised,  but  as  far  as  they  are  shown  they 
should  at  least  resemble  possible  human  beings,  and  not  fantastic 
monsters.  The  falsity  of  the  colour  of  some  of  Turner's  later 
pictures,  which  cannot  be  adequately  pointed  out  without  the 
pictures  being  before  -one,  may  be  described  in  general  terms  as 
consisting  mainly  in  a  preponderance  of  red  and  yellow  together  with 
some  too  positive  blue.  Great  as  Turner  undoubtedly  was,  he  has 
not  so  completely  succeeded  in  combining  the  real  with  the  ideal 
as  to  make  it  impossible  to  conceive  that  a  greater  than  Turner  may 
arise. 

It  is,  by  the  way,  worthy  of  note,  that  Turner,  as  far  as  I  am  aware, 
very  rarely,  if  ever,  painted  a  bit  of  positive  green,  such  as  the  green 
of  grass  and  meadow  and  some  kinds  of  foliage,  at  no  great  distance 
from  the  eye — a  beautiful  colour  in  nature,  beautiful  in  a  picture  if 
used  with  discretion,  and  at  the  present  time  effectively  employed  by 
the  best  landscape  painters.  Turner,  with  all  his  originality,  seems 
never  to  have  succeeded  in  completely  emancipating  himself  from 
the  traditions  of  the  brown  school.  Nothing  indicates  more  the 
indiscriminating  character  of  Mr.  Euskin's  admiration  than  his  fail- 
ing to  notice  this. 

Turner's  aberrations  were  after  all  those  of  genius,  and  he  is  fine 
even  in  his  falseness  ;  but  it  is  difficult  to  speak  with  equal  indul- 
gence of  other  kinds  of  offences  against  truth  to  Nature. 

There  is  a  description  of  falseness  which  may  not  inaptly  be  called 


1880.  .      LANDSCAPE  PAINTING.  1051 

the  tricky  style  of  drawing  and  painting,  ever  the  delight  of  the  draw- 
ing-master as  distinguished  from  the  artist.  The  late  Mr.  J.  D. 
Harding  was  the  king  of  drawing-masters,  and  in  his  works  the  most 
conspicuous  examples  of  this  style  are  to  be  found.  Artificial  rules  of 
form  and  colour  are  laid  down,  to  which  Nature  must  be  made  to 
conform  whether  she  will  or  not.  A  certain  class  of  lines  require 
lines  of  a  certain  other  class  to  counteract  them ;  there  must  be 
antagonism  of  colour,  a  cold  blue  cloud  must  be  opposed  by  a  brown 
chalet,  or  something  warm ;  the  light  must  be  taken  into  the  picture 
in  a  certain  way,  and  taken  out  of  it  in  a  certain  other  way,  &c. 
The  use  of  some  of  these  rules  is  not  denied,  provided  they  are  our 
slaves,  and  not  our  masters ;  but  the  Hardings  would  bind  us  with 
them  hand  and  foot.  An  excellent  specimen  of  a  painting  altogether 
according  to  rule,  is  or  was  lately  to  be  seen  in  Messrs.  Agnew's 
collection  in  Old  Bond  Street,  entitled  '  The  Well-horn  and  Wetter- 
horn,'  by  J.  1).  Harding.  The  forms  of  these  mountains,  among  the 
finest  in  the  world,  are  not  good  enough  for  Mr.  Harding.  They  are 
accordingly  produced,  elongated,  elevated,  depressed,  and  improved 
out  of  all  likeness  to  themselves ;  fantastic,  non-existent  waterfalls,  pre- 
ternaturally  green,  leap  about  the  picture;  a  brown  stump  is  invented 
for  the  express  purpose  of  contrasting  with  a  blue  mist ;  cold  green 
brambles  relieve  themselves  against  yellow  grass  ;  rocks,  brown,  red, 
blue,  and  grey,  are  scattered  about  in  what  is  supposed  to  be 
picturesque  confusion ;  with  the  effect  of  vulgarising  one  of  the 
finest  scenes  in  the  Alps.  Elijah  Walton  is  an  offender  of,  the  same 
class.  Seeking  to  improve  the  Swiss  mountains  by  exaggeration  of 
form  and  forced  unnatural  colouring,  he  succeeds  in  making  them  look 
small  and  poor.  A  well-known  school  of  landscape,  commonly  called 
the  Dusseldorf  school,  though  it  has  produced  good  painters,  is  some- 
what open  to  the  charge  of  aiming  at  tricky  and  theatrical  effect. 

The  modern  French  school  of  landscape,  headed  by  Corot, 
Daubigny,  Dupres,  Dyas,  and  others,  has  the  merit  of  some  originality 
and  some  truth.  Speaking  of  the  school  generally,  its  main  ob- 
ject seems  to  have  been  to  evade  the  difficulties  of  landscape  paint- 
ing, by  confining  itself  in  a  great  measure  to  some  few  aspects  of 
Nature  which  are  most  easily  rendered  on  canvas.  It  ignored 
difficult  and  complicated  forms,  such  as  test  the  artist's  powers  of 
hard  drawing  and  knowledge  of  perspective,  in  rocky  and  mountain- 
ous scenes — indeed  it  ignored  all  careful  drawing  whatever — it 
ignored  in  a  great  measure  space  and  distance ;  it  ignored  in  a 
great  measure  sunlight ;  it  ignored  altogether  the  brilliancy  and  the 
variety  of  Nature's  colouring,  being  content  for  the  most  part  to  re- 
present a  small  portion  of  her  in  a  grey  and  sombre  garb.  Great 
indeed  is  the  change  from  Turner's  boundless  range  over  all  earth, 
and  sea,  and  sky,  to  a  school  whose  centre  was  Paris,  and  whose 
radius  seldom  extended  beyond  Fontainebleau.  I  do  not  say  that 


1052  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY.  June 

Nature  is  not  beautiful  in  a  grey  and  sombre  garb,  or  that  she  should 
never  be  so  painted  ;  nor  do  I  deny  the  merit  of  a  school  which  has 
found  and  shown  the  picturesque  in  common  scenes,  and  what  would 
have  doubtless  appeared  to  most  of  the  old  masters  dull,  unpaintable 
effects ;  but  I  protest  against  such  painting  being  considered  the 
be-all  and  the  end-all  of  landscape  art. 

Corot,  who  may  be  taken  as  the  representative  artist  of  the 
school,  painted  poetically  and  with  sentiment  a  phase  of  Nature 
little  painted  before  him,  which  may  be  termed  the  phase  of  haze, 
and  greyness,  and  mystery  ;  his  colouring,  though  pitched  at  a  key 
somewhat  lower  than  Nature's,  is,  as  far  as  it  goes,  true,  harmonious, 
and  expressive  of  a  certain  kind  of  atmospheric  effect.  Whether  his 
pictures  are  improved  by  the  introduction  of  poorly-drawn  fauns, 
dryads,  and  other  classical  persons,  ill  adapted  to  northern  fogs,  may 
perhaps  be  questioned.  Mystery  is  certainly  a  powerful  factor  in 
landscape,  used  by  Nature  with  great  effect ;  but  Nature  is  seldom  or 
never  all  mystery.  In  a  hazy  wooded  landscape — Corot's  favourite 
scene — you  see  in  the  natural  foreground  delicately  articulated 
branches,  weeds,  and  ferns,  beautiful  in  form,  and,  though  subdued 
in  colour,  perfectly  made  out,  giving  value  to  the  mystery  beyond. 
You  see  at  some  distance  trunks  of  trees  still  more  subdued  in 
colour,  but  firm  and  solid,  without  a  particle  of  indecision.  Corot 
makes  out  no  form ;  all  his  lines  are  undecided,  wavy,  blurred.  '  He 
represents  foliage  shaken  by  the  wind,'  say  his  admirers.  Aspens 
might  be  appropriately  so  represented ;  but  Corot's  oaks  are  as  wavy 
and  undecided  as  his  aspens,  and  his  rocks  are  as  soft  as  sand-heaps. 
In  short,  Nature  draws  as  well  as  colours.  Corot  chooses  to  ignore 
that  she  draws,  and  is  content  to  paint  one  phase  of  her  colouring. 
There  is  some  difficulty  in  placing  an  artist  so  borne  among  the 
masters  of  landscape. 

Some  of  Corot's  later  pictures,  in  which  he  almost  lost  sight  of 
Nature,  seem  quite  valueless,  indeed  worse ;  for  they  have  bred  a 
swarm  of  imitators  who  simply  reproduce  and  exaggerate  his  defects. 
Daubigny  had  a  far  wider  scope,  and  at  one  time  towered  above  the 
school.  Some  of  his  early  landscapes,  painted  from  the  fresh  study 
of  Nature,  seem  to  me  almost  perfect ;  but  some  years  before  his 
death,  when  he  probably  painted  only  in  his  studio,  he  became  care- 
less, coarse,  and  blotty.  I  believe  that,  according  to  a  law  before 
indicated,  his  later  pictures  are  those  most  admired  by  his  disciples. 
It  seems  strange,  that  whereas  the  French  painter  expends  the  ut- 
most care  and  elaboration  in  the  rendering  of  every  object  indoors,  no 
sooner  does  he  go  out  than  he  seems  to  think  the  most  random  touch, 
the  most  careless  smear,  good  enough  for  Nature. 

But  perhaps  I  am  speaking  of  a  school  in  some  measure  passed. 
The  French  salon  certainly  now  gives  some  evidence  of  a  new  de- 
parture, promising  better  results. 


1880.  LANDSCAPE  PAINTING.  1053 

Mention  must  not  be  omitted  of  our  own  water-colour  school, 
unique  as  it  is,  and  without  a  rival.  The  familiar  names  occur  of 
Copley  Fielding,  De  Wint,  Cox,  Prout,  and  above  all  Turner, 
supreme  in  water  as  in  oil,  not  unworthily  succeeded  by  the  present 
generation — Frith,  Davison,  Topham,  Dodson,  Naftel,  Jackson,  Syer, 
Collingwood  Smith,  and  a  host  of  others.  Water-colour  has  in 
some  respects  a  charm  beyond  that  of  oil ;  it  has  its  own  peculiar 
lightness,  airiness,  and  freshness.  Delicate  effects  are  suggested  by  a 
wash,  when  the  same  colour  similarly  laid  on  in  oils  would  look 
opaque  and  heavy.  For  expressing  some  of  Nature's  truths,  water- 
colour  has  the  advantage ;  yet  for  expressing  the  whole  truth,  and  for 
large  pictures,  it  is  not  comparable  to  oil.  We  are  satisfied  with  less 
finish  on  the  part  of  the  water-colour  painter  than  we  expect  from  the 
oil  painter — much  on  the  principle  that  to  whom  more  is  given  from 
him  will  more  be  required.  Cox  appears  to  stand  at  the  head  of  the 
water-colour  school,  Turner  excepted.  He  certainly  had  the  merit  of 
painting  certain  aspects  of  nature,  somewhat  limited  in  number,  with 
great  truth  of  colour,  and  possessed  that  gift  of  genius  which  consists 
in  revealing  the  beauty  of  common  things,  such  as  a  breeze  sweeping 
over  grass.  But  I  must  enter  my  protest  against  the  adoration  of 
Cox,  as  I  have  against  the  adoration  of  Turner.  Some  of  Cox's  later 
works  are  mere  careless  blotches  to  which  he  did  not  give  his  mind — 
without  drawing  (in  drawing  he  was  never  strong),  without  atmo- 
spheric effect  (in  this  he  was  strong) — in  truth  nothing  more  than  a 
jumble  of  mountain  and  cloud,  the  latter  as  solid  as  the  former,  having 
no  appearance  of  vapour,  or  indeed  of  anything  but  dirty  paint.  And 
yet  these  worthless  smears  fetch  fabulous  sums,  the  price  of  many 
excellent  pictures. 

The  truth  must  be  told.  Many  large  buyers  of  pictures  are 
wholly  ignorant  of  art,  and  in  the  hands  of  dealers,  who  have  their 
reasons  for  running  up  or  down  this  or  that  artist.  Nor  are  many  of 
the  art-critics  in  the  newspapers  and  periodicals  more  trustworthy 
guides  than  the  picture  dealers.  Indeed  I  have  more  confidence  in 
the  judgment  of  the  educated  public,  as  far  as  landscape  art  is  con- 
cerned, than  in  that  of  the  professed  art-critics. 

The  education  of  the  public  in  landscape  has  advanced  with 
extraordinary  rapidity  in  the  present  century.  Its  teachers  have 
been  poets  as  well  as  painters,  and  increased  facilities  of  locomotion 
have  aided  the  instruction.  People  now  travel  not  only  to  see  men 
and  cities,  but  landscapes.  The  most  picturesque  parts  of  the  United 
Kingdom,  as  well  as  of  the  Continent,  are  inconveniently  crowded. 
The  love  of  mountain  scenery  sends  hundreds  to  the  Rocky  Moun- 
tains and  the  Himalayas,  tens  of  thousands  to  Switzerland,  and  has 
founded  half-a-dozen  Alpine  Clubs.  You  see  the  best  scenery  dotted 
with  white  umbrellas,  and  the  efforts  of  the  amateur  are  at  the  least 
attended  with  the  result,  if  with  no  other,  of  his  acquiring  some 


1054  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  June 

acquaintance  with  the  difficulties  of  art,  and  some  appreciation  of  its 
successes.  Surely  intelligent  persons  observing  and  loving  Nature 
must  be  capable  of  judging  to  some  extent  whether  she  is  well  or 
ill  painted. 

Undoubtedly  there  are  art-critics,  of  wide  knowledge  and  sym- 
pathies, more  capable  than  the  public  of  judging  pictures.  But 
there  are  art-critics  who  have  much  to  unlearn  before  they  are  capable 
of  judging  as  well.  There  are  those  who,  possessing  some  acquaint- 
ance with  galleries  and  treatises  on  art,  have  never  read  the  '  books  in 
the  running  brooks,'  and  try  pictures  not  by  Nature's  standard,  but 
by  arbitrary  rules  which  they  have  crammed  and  are  unable  to  apply. 
There  are  those  who  belong  to  cliques,  and  see  each  through  the 
spectacles  of  his  clique.  There  are  those  who  pique  themselves  on 
relishing  only  what  is  '  caviare  to  the  general,'  and  rejoice  in  that 
superiority  which  rises  to  the  admiration  of  what,  to  minds  on  a  lower 
level,  seems  ugliness  and  affectation.  In  short,  the  present  state  of  art- 
criticism  is  not  satisfactory,  and  I  regard  it  as  an  advantage  to  art  that 
an  appeal  lies  from  the  critics  to  the  public,  which  has  often  justly  re- 
versed their  verdict.  Of  course  the  public  taste  is  not  infallible,  or 
beyond  the  influence  of  fashion  ;  yet  in  the  long  run  it  has  a  strong 
tendency  to  discriminate  between  the  genuine  and  the  spurious. 
Educated  persons  are  beginning  more  and  more  to  ask  themselves, 
not  whether  a  picture  is  after  the  manner  of  Turner  or  of  Cox,  nor 
what  art-critics  or  professors  say  about  it,  but  whether  it  conveys  to 
their  minds  the  sublimity  or  the  beauty  of  Nature.1 

1  Since  writing  the  above,  I  have  read  Mr.  Poynter's  Lectures,  lately  published,  in 
which  occur  the  following  passages  : — 

'  The  broad  external  facts  of  Nature  are  patent  to  everybody.  An  ignorant  person 
discovers  in  a  landscape  picture  that  moonlight  is  represented,  for  he  sees  the  moon 
in  the  sky,  the  reflection  in  the  water,  the  light  catching  the  roofs  of  the  houses  and 
the  tops  of  the  trees,  and  the  candle-light  shining  through  the  windows.  The  picture 
may  be  the  veriest  daub,  without  a  single  point  given  correctly  ;  but  the  fact  of  the 
moonshine  is  made  clear,  and  the  unpractised  observer  gazes  with  fond  admiration 
on  what  he  considers  a  miracle  of  faithful  painting.  .  .  .  And  so  a  mass  of  work, 
better  no  doubt  than  the  very  bad  I  have  just  quoted  as  an  example,  is  accepted  by 
the  public  as  being  admirably  true,  which,  though  rendering  cleverly  unimportant 
things,  is  thoroughly  false  in  all  points  where  a  real  artistic  insight  is  necessary.' 
Elsewhere  Mr.  Poynter  says  :  '  It  is  almost  impossible  for  the  best  artist  of  these  days 
to  free  himself  from  the  feeling  that  his  best  work  is  in  some  way  put  forward  for 
criticism,  and  until  he  can  do  this  there  is  not  much  chance  of  his  attainment  of  a 
better  style.' 

I  think  that  Mr.  Poynter  overdoes  his  contempt  for  the  public,  at  least  for  the 
more  educated  part  of  it,  in  supposing  them  to  delight  only  in  false  and  coarse  daubs, 
and  to  be  wholly  insensible  to  the  refinements  of  painting.  Those  refinements  may 
be,  and  I  believe  are,  appreciated  in  their  effect,  and  missed  if  absent,  by  numbers 
who  have  not  technical  knowledge  enough  to  be  aware  how  the  effect  is  produced. 
As  a  matter  of  fact  the  public  have  and  do  for  the  most  part  appreciate  the  best 
pictures  of  the  best  artists  of  the  day,  and  have  sufficient  discernment  to  detect  occa- 
sional bad  work  even  on  the  walls  of  the  Royal  Academy.  Mr.  Poynter  will  himself 
admit  that  with  respect  to  Turner's  later  pictures  the  public  were  right  and 
Mr.  Euskin  was  wrong.  Though  the  opinions  on  art  of  men  so  eminent  as  Mr.  Poynter 


1880.  LANDSCAPE  PAINTING.  1055 

To  return  from  this  digression.  The  more  careful  study  of 
Nature,  the  increasing  habit  of  painting  out  of  doors,  and  perhaps 
may  be  added  photography,  a  valuable  auxiliary  to  art  if  used  with 
discretion,  have  greatly  advanced  the  painting  of  landscape.  More 
accuracy  of  form  has  been  attained,  more  truth  of  colour,  and  many 
time-honoured  conventionalities  have  disappeared.  More  attention 
has  been  drawn  to  the  beauty  of  what  used  to  be  grandly  ignored  as 
the  mere  detail  of  Nature,  beneath  the  notice  of  the  artist,  and 
interfering  with  the  breadth  of  his  effect,  a  beauty  which  did  not 
escape  Wordsworth  when  he  painted  in  his  way  the  mountain  daisy-^- 

The  beauty  of  its  star-shaped  shadow  thrown 
On  the  smooth  surface  of  the  naked  stone. 

Artists  now  condescend  to  paint,  and  to  paint  carefully,  weeds, 
grass,  brambles,  and  ferns,  which  were  '  generalised,'  as  it  is  called, 
that  is  to  say,  not  painted  at  all,  by  most  of  the  old  masters.  Not 
indeed  by  all ;  for  Titian  sometimes  painted  weeds  finely.  The 
historical  painter  never  supposed  himself  exempt  from  the  necessity 
of  from  time  to  time  studying  from  his  models ;  the  landscape 
painter  is  beginning  to  discover  that  study  from  his  models — the 
rocks,  the  rivers,  the  trees— is  no  less  necessary  to  him,  and  that  by 
neglect  of  it  he  deteriorates.  The  effect  of  this  more  conscientious 
study  is  apparent  in  our  exhibitions,  and  in  some  measure  in  those  of  the 
Continent.  Millais's  foreground  in  i  Over  the  Hills  and  Far  Away ' 
is,  I  believe,  better  of  its  kind  than  anything  painted  by  Turner ;  so 
are  Brett's  shingle,  wet  sand,  and  breaking  waves ;  so  are  Vicat  Cole's 
cornfields  ;  so  are  Davis's  cattle  pieces  ;  so  are  Leader's  grass,  gorse, 
and  brambles ;  so  are  Loppe's  glaciers ;  though  none  of  these  artists 
possess  Turner's  extent  of  knowledge,  his  imagination,  and  mastery 
of  effect.  To  these  names  may  be  added  those  of  Grraham,  of 
Hunter,  of  M'Whirter,  of  Smart,  of  M'Callum,  of  Hunt,  of  Henry 
Moore,  of  Oakes,  of  Parton,  of  C.  E.  Johnson,  and  many  more,  some  of 
whom,  perhaps  scarcely  enough  appreciated  in  their  day,  may  possibly, 
when  they  become  old  masters,  be  over-estimated  at  the  expense  of 
their  successors  by  connoisseurs  of  the  future. 

Nor  in  this  country  alone  has  landscape  art  experienced  a  re- 
vival. Good  landscape  painters  have  appeared  in  Norway,  in  Sweden, 
in  Eussia,  and  indeed  throughout  the  greater  part  of  the  Continent. 
America,  too,  can  boast  of  her  Church  and  her  Bierstad,  undaunted 
by  the  Rocky  Mountains  and  Niagara. 

I  must,  however,  be  allowed  to  express  some  regret  that  many  of 
our  landscape  painters  confine  themselves  so  much  to  special  depart- 
ments of  landscape.  Having  achieved  success  in  some  one  field,  the 

will  always  command  respect,  the  claim  apparently  set  up  on  behalf  of  a  few  artists 
to  the  exclusive  right  of  judging  pictures,  together  with  entire  immunity  from  cri- 
ticism for  themselves,  is  as  inadmissible  as  would  be  a  similar  pretension  with 
respect  to  literature  by  a  small  coterie  of  authors. 


1056  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  June 

artist  is  too  much  disposed  to  linger  there,  instead  of  ranging  to 
pastures  new.  There  is  a  tendency  to  too  much  subdivision  in  art. 
Ifc  is  difficult  to  give  a  good  reason  for  a  hard  line  of  demarcation 
between  the  figure  painter  and  the  landscape  painter ;  but  the  fur- 
ther subdivision  of  landscape  painters  into  marine  painters,  moun- 
tain painters,  architectural  painters,  &c.,  seems  positively  injurious, 
limiting  the  artist's  vision  and  narrowing  his  mind.  Every  truth  of 
form  and  colour  is  related  immediately  or  remotely  to  every  other, 
and  the  most  comprehensive  survey  is  necessary  for  a  thorough 
acquaintance  with  myriad-minded  Nature.  When  an  artist  shall  be 
found  to  combine  the  technical  skill  and  power  of  truly  rendering 
particular  scenes,  possessed  by  the  best  painters  of  our  day,  with  an 
imagination  ranging  over  Nature,  and  stored  with  what  is  grand  and 
beautiful  in  all  her  aspects,  then,  and  not  till  then,  will  arise  the 
Michael  Angelo  of  landscape. 

E.  P.  COLLIER. 


1880.  1057 


THE   CONSERVATIVE  PARTY  AND 
THE  LATE  ELECTION. 

A  SEQUEL. 

IN  a  former  article  on  this  subject  it  was  asserted  that  the  result  of 
the  late  general  election  was  a  surprise  to  both  Liberals  and  Conserva- 
tives, and  still  more  so  to  that  great  body  of  the  public  which  cannot 
properly  be  classed  with  either.  It  was  further  suggested  that  the 
gulf  which  in  our  crowded  cities  separates  the  rich  from  the  poor, 
keeping  the  former  in  as  complete  ignorance  of  the  latter  as  if  they 
were  on  another  continent,  might  to  some  extent  explain  the  fact. 
And  I  pointed  out  what  I  conceive  to  be  the  danger  to  be  appre- 
hended from  the  political  action  of  a  class  which  is  so  completely 
hidden  from  our  view,  and  liable  to  such  sudden  impulses.1  It  was 
not  intended  to  place  this  view  before  the  public  as  a  party  view,  or 
to  leave  it  to  be  supposed  that  this  was  all  which  the  Conservative 
party  had  to  say  about  its  own  defeat.  And  I  have  therefore  asked 
permission  to  supplement  my  article  of  last  month  by  some  remarks 
of  a  more  practical  character,  explaining  what  seem  to  Conservatives 
to  have  been  the  actual  efficient  causes  of  the  Liberal  victory. 

Conservatives  believe  that  the  institutions  of  this  country  repre- 
sent a  political  theory  more  conducive  to  the  welfare  of  society  than 
any  which  has  as  yet  been  submitted  to  the  test  of  experience ; 
that  while  individual  freedom  is  secured  by  them,  those  moral  quali- 
ties are  developed  in  the  people  at  the  same  time,  which  are  not  less 
essential  to  national  happiness  than  either  mental  culture  or  material 
prosperity.  They  see  in  this  country  at  the  present  day,  we  will  not 
say  a  party,  but  a  body  of  opinion  hostile  to  these  institutions,  and  in 
favour  of  reforming  them  in  such  a  manner  as  to  provide  rather  for 
their  ultimate  extinction  than  for  their  more  effectual  invigoration. 

1  Since  writing  the  above  I  have  read  a  speech  by  Mr.  Leonard  Courtney  in  the 
House  of  Commons  which  gives  utterance  to  the  same  apprehension.  '  Very  few  of 
them  had  seen  the  three  last  elections  without  feelings  of  anxiety  and  concern.  He 
did  not  like  to  see  these  big  turn-over  majorities:  they  were  unpleasant:  they 
showed  great  instability  in  the  public  mind.' 


1058  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  June 

They  consider  it  their  duty  to  resist  the  progress  of  these  opinions  by 
every  means  at  their  command,  and  to  use  for  that  purpose  all  the 
advantages  which  the  accidents  of  birth,  wealth,  or  rank  may  confer 
upon  them.  When,  therefore,  they  find  themselves  suddenly  de- 
prived of  a  position  which  enabled  them  to  give  effect  to  these  con- 
victions, without  being  forewarned  of  the  event  by  any  such  signs  and 
tokens  as  usually  proclaim  to  governments  the  unpopularity  of  their 
public  policy,  they  are  naturally  led  to  inquire  whether  anything 
else  can  be  in  fault.  They  fail  to  discover  any '  strong  wave  of  popu- 
lar passion,'  any  deeply  marked  resentment  at  what  the  Government 
either  did  or  left  undone,  any  craving  for  organic  change,  any  soreness 
at  neglected  grievances,  adequate  to  explain  this  abrupt  withdrawal 
of  confidence  from  the  Conservative  Administration.  Some  there  was 
of  each,  no  doubt.  But  we  cannot  allow  that  any  change  has  taken 
place  in  the  feeling  of  the  country  towards  the  Government  at  all 
corresponding  to  the  present  disparity  of  parties  in  the  House  of 
Commons.  In  support  of  this  assertion  I  may  quote  a  leading  article 
in  the  Times  of  the  4th  of  May  last,  long  after  that  journal  had  given 
in  its  adhesion  to  the  new  order  of  things,  wherein  the  writer  says  : — 

In  the  House  of  Commons  the  minority  -will  insist  upon  its  privilege  of  mature 
deliberation  all  the  more  resolutely,  because  the  result  of  the  recent  elections  was 
not  determined  in  any  appreciable  degree  by  a  popular  cry  for  any  particular  re- 
forms. After  the  general  election  of  1868  the  disestablishment  of  the  Irish 
Church  was  seen  to  have  been  decreed  beyond  challenge  by  the  vast  majority  of 
the  electoral  body.  But  no  project  of  reform  at  present  occupies  such  a  position, 
or  can  be  said  to  have  been  predetermined  by  a  powerful  movement  of  national 
opinion.  No  question  is  to  the  electors  of  our  day  what  Parliamentary  reform  or 
free  trade  was  to  a  former  generation.  Parliament  has,  therefore,  a  much  wider 
scope  for  the  discussion  not  only  of  details,  but  of  principles ;  and  ministers,  how- 
ever great  and  well-disciplined  their  majority  may  be,  are  bound  to  remember 
this.  They  must  be  prepared  to  expound  and  enforce  the  reforms  on  which  they 
axe  bent,  with  much  more  elaboration  and  patience  than  if  the  country  had  pro- 
nounced with  eager  enthusiasm  in  favour  of  their  plans.  It  is  remarkable  that 
the  adverse  verdict  of  the  country,  so  far  as  its  meaning  can  be  interpreted,  was 
not  provoked  by  the  inertness  in  legislation  evinced  by  Lord  Beaconsfield's  govern- 
ment. The  electors  were  not  angry  with  the  late  ministers  because  they  failed  to 
extend  the  franchise,  or  to  reorganise  county  government,  or  to  pass  a  criminal 
code.  What  alarmed  them  was  the  supposed  purposes  of  the  Prime  Minister ; 
what  they  demanded  was  a  change  of  men  rather  than  measures. 

If  this  is  the  state  of  the  case,  some  parentage  must  be  found  for 
the  loss  of  a  hundred  and  nine  seats  other  than  '  the  supposed  purposes 
of  the  Prime  Minister.'  What  the  writer  means  by  this  expression  is 
not  quite  clear  ;  but  if  he  means  Imperialism  and  'jingoism,'  and  so 
forth,  these  ideas  are  thought  to  find  a  congenial  soil  in  the  imagination 
of  the  working  classes,  as  we  have  been  told  over  and  over  again  by  the 
Liberals  themselves.2  The  working  men  were  badly  off,  and  they 

2  See  especially  a  remarkable  article  in  the  Spectator,  May  8. 


1880.  THE  LATE  ELECTION.  1059 

thought  they  might  be  better  off.  This,  with  some  exceptions  here- 
after to  be  specified,  is  the  extent  of  the  positive  hostility  which  the 
late  Government  encountered  at  the  polling-booths.  No  doubt  in  the 
north  of  England  the  feeling  was  extremely  strong ;  and  no  doubt  in 
the  agricultural  districts  a  prejudice  was  abroad  nearly  akin  to  the 
Tory  foxhunter's  in  the  reign  of  George  the  First,  who,  complaining 
to  Addison  of  the  drought,  reminded  him  of '  the  fine  weather  they  used 
to  have  in  Charles  the  Second's  reign.'  The  commercial  and  agricul- 
tural depression  explains  a  great  deal,  but  it  still  leaves  something 
unexplained ;  and  it  is  to  this  portion  of  the  problem  that  the  few 
remaining  pages  which  have  been  kindly  placed  at  my  disposal  are 
now  to  be  devoted. 

In  the  first  place  it  is  almost  unnecessary  to  remark  that  the 
long  possession  of  power  generates  a  good  deal  of  false  security  as 
well  as  of  apathy  in  the  ranks  of  the  dominant  party.  More  es- 
pecially will  this  be  the  case  where  the  people  conceal  their  dissatis- 
faction, and  continue  to  give  to  the  Government  whose  destruction 
they  are  meditating  '  an  effective,  if  lukewarm,  support.' 3  It  is  so 
difficult  to  distinguish  between  an  effective  support  which  is  luke- 
warm, and  an  effective  support  which  is  not,  that  Conservatives  may 
be  forgiven  for  confusing  them.  The  fact  is,  be  the  cause  what  it 
may,  that  this  feeling  of  security  did  prevail  in  a  great  number  of 
constituencies  in  which  the  event  proved  it  to  have  been  false.  The 
Conservatives  were  so  confident  of  their  own  strength  that  they  did 
not  think  it  necessary  to  bring  together  all  their  men  ;  and  it  is  cal- 
culated that  at  least  a  dozen  seats  were  lost  by  this  mistake  alone. 

In  the  second  place  it  is  no  secret  that,  for  some  reason  or  other, 
the  Conservative  party  was  much  less  liberally  supplied  with  funds 
for  the  campaign  than  their  opponents.  Nor  is  it  a  small  matter 
that,  for  want  of  the  necessary  sums  to  assist  men  of  limited  means, 
the  Conservative  party  lost  the  services  of  some  excellent  candidates, 
gentlemen  of  great  ability,  popular  manners,  and  ready  eloquence, 
and  were  obliged  to  content  themselves  with  substitutes  who  had 
little  but  their  purses  to  commend  them. 

Thirdly,  no  doubt,  we  have  to  reckon  with  the  activity  of  Non- 
conformity. Why  it  was  that  the  Dissenters,  as  a  rule,  did  not  exert 
themselves  so  vigorously  in  1874  as  they  have  done  in  1880,  is  a 
question  which  may  be  variously  answered ;  but  no  one  doubts  the 
fact.  Perhaps  the  former  government  of  Mr.  Gladstone  had  disap- 
pointed their  expectations.  Perhaps  they  felt  that  the  '  pear  was 
not  ripe,'  and  that  it  was  no  use  at  that  particular  moment  to  put 
forth  their  full  strength.  They  may  have  felt,  perhaps,  at  the  recent 
elections,  that  now  was  the  time  to  strike  ;  and  that,  if  they  let  slip 
the  present  opportunity,  so  favourable  a  one  for  the  attainment  of 

3  Spectator,  May  8. 


1060  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY.  June 

their  darling  objects  might  not  recur  for  a  generation.  Be  this  as  it 
may,  that  they  threw  themselves  into  the  struggle  with  a  heartiness 
and  vehemence  in  strange  contrast  with  their  former  denunciations  of 
the  political  activity  of  the  clergy,  is  one  of  the  most  notable  features 
of  the  last  election,  and  exercised,  no  doubt,  considerable  influence 
on  the  result.  Not,  perhaps,  all  that  has  been  supposed — for  it  is 
doubtful  how  far  the  great  mass  of  the  ratepayers  are  interested  in 
religious  questions — but  still  an  appreciable,  and  in  certain  instances 
probably  a  determining  influence.  Here,  of  course,  is  a  hostile 
agency,  with  which  the  Conservatives  will  always  have  to  reckon  as 
long  as  the  Church  of  England  survives  to  claim  their  protection  and 
support ;  and  on  this  head  there  is  nothing  further  to  be  said.  I 
will  merely  add  that  the  effective  action  of  the  Nonconformist 
contingent  in  the  late  electoral  battle  should  be  an  additional 
reason  with  every  Conservative  for  strengthening  his  party  at  all 
those  points  at  which  any  weakness  is  discernible,  for  repairing  the 
consequences  of  past  neglect,  and  for  recovering  lost  ground  by  not 
disdaining  the  means  which  originally  won  it.  If  the  whole 
strength  of  the  forces  now  united  against  Conservatism  is  ever  again 
to  be  successfully  combatted,  the  party  must  give  no  odds  by  failing 
to  make  the  most  of  its  resources. 

I  am  assured  in  the  fourth  place  that  the  weekly  newspapers 
which  circulate  among  the  lowest  class  of  voters  are,  almost  without 
exception,  representatives  of  extreme  Kadicalism,  and  that  Conserva- 
tive working-men  ask  in  vain  for  a  weekly  Conservative  journal  to 
enforce  their  principles  ;  while,  fifthly,  it  is  said  that  in  the  counties 
the  existing  Conservative  associations  have  been  found  unequal  to 
the  work  imposed  on  them  since  1867.  I  mention  these  statements 
for  the  consideration  of  others.  I  do  not  know  that  they  are  true  of 
my  own  personal  knowledge. 

Finally,  we  come  to  a  cause  which,  whatever  the  extent  of  its 
operation  in  the  recent  contest,  and  this  doubtless  was  considerable, 
seems  to  me  more  pregnant  with  future  consequences  than  all  the 
others  put  together.  I  mean  the  failure  on  the  part  of  borough 
members  to  cultivate  the  goodwill  of  their  constituents,  and  the 
assumption  that  they  had  only  to  show  themselves  to  be  welcome 
after  six  years  passed  in  neglect  of  the  most  ordinary  courtesies.  I 
could  mention  more  than  a  dozen  seats  the  loss  of  which,  it  seems  all 
but  certain,  was  due  to  the  feeling  so  engendered.  If  a  man  has  an 
attractive  wife  whom  he  systematically  neglects,  while  somebody 
else  in  his  absence  continues  to  pay  her  marked  attention,  we 
know  what  is  likely  to  be  the  result.  And  this  is  just  what  has 
happened  in  the  case  of  many  English  boroughs.  Two  months 
ago  member  after  member  went  back  to  the  constituency  which 
had  returned  him  with  enthusiasm  six  years  before,  but  which  he 
had  hardly  ever  visited  in  the  interval,  to  find  out  that  in  his  absence 


1880.  THE  LATE  ELECTION.  1061 

a  stranger  had  supplanted  him  in  its  affections,  though  the  rela- 
tive strength  of  political  parties  had  been  hardly,  if  at  all,  disturbed. 
This  is  only  another  species  of  that  false  security  which  has 
been  already  described  ;  but  it  is  a  more  dangerous  species,  because 
it  does  not  spring  merely  from  the  over-confidence  engendered  by 
success,  but  betokens  a  radically  erroneous  estimate  of  the  state  of 
public  feeling  which  prevails  in  our  existing  boroughs.  The  old 
constituencies  were  formed  of  much  more  steady  partisans  than  the 
new  ones.  They  had  definite  objects  to  gain  or  definite  positions  to 
defend,  and  were  therefore  less  sensitive  on  the  score  of  personal 
attention  if  their  representative  was  a  man  who  satisfied  them  in 
public  affairs.  But  questions  of  this  nature  sit  very  lightly  on  the 
shoulders  of  the  ratepayer,  if  he  does  not  swing  entirely  free  of  them. 
If  we  except  foreign  politics,  it  would  be  difficult  to  say  what 
convictions  he  has  on  any  great  public  question  sufficiently  decided, 
under  ordinary  circumstances,  to  counteract  a  strong  personal 
preference.  We  do  not  say  this  of  the  whole  body  of  ratepayers ; 
there  are  no  doubt  both  Liberal  working  men  and  Conservative 
working  men  who  hold  by  the  creed  of  their  party  in  all  good  faith. 
But  I  should  fancy  it  is  true  of  the  majority.  And  in  that  case, 
for  any  member  to  rely  simply  on  his  being  a  Conservative  or  a 
Liberal  to  carry  him  triumphantly  over  any  unpopularity  which  his 
personal  demeanour  may  have  occasioned,  is  simple  infatuation. 
Numbers,  however,  did  so,  and  some  startling  disappointments  were 
the  consequence. 

It  is  all  the  more  important  to  bear  this  in  mind,  because  we  must 
remember  that,  in  many  English  country  towns,  what  was  formerly  done 
for  a  Conservative  member  by  the  surrounding  families  he  has  now  in 
great  measure  to  do  for  himself.  Many  of  my  readers  no  doubt  re- 
member well  the  gay  and  bustling  appearance  presented  by  the  old 
market-town  in  the  days,  say,  forty  years  ago,  when  it  was  habitually 
frequented  by  the  neighbouring  gentry  for  objects  of  both  business 
and  pleasure.  The  streets  and  inn-yards  were  thronged  with  their 
carriages  and  servants.  The  shops  were  filled  with  ladies  who 
bought  their  dresses,  their  furniture,  and  their  household  supplies 
almost  exclusively  from  the  local  tradesmen.  The  owner  of  the 
business,  whatever  it  might  be,  the  draper,  the  hosier,  the  ironmonger, 
was  there  to  receive  them  in  full  suit  of  black,  with  spotless  shirt- 
frill  and  cravat.  The  gentlemen  met  in  the  reading-room,  or 
lunched  together  at  the  '  George '  or  the  '  Crown.1  After  meetings 
on  public  business  they  occasionally  dined  at  their  hotel.  They  and 
their  families,  in  short,  were  a  part  of  the  life  of  the  place,  eagerly 
looked  for  and  welcomed,  and  mainly  conducive  to  its  prosperity. 
What  a  contrast  it  presents  now  !  The  carriages  and  horses  are  no 
longer  to  be  seen  in  the  High  Street,  for  the  ladies  do  their  shopping 
elsewhere,  and  the  squire  or  Sir  John  comes  in  and  goes  out  again  by 
VOL.  VII.— No.  40.  4  B 


1062  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  June 

train.  The  character  of  the  shops  themselves  has  entirely  changed. 
Their  principal  customers  are  farmers,  for  the  '  Hall '  or  the  '  House  '  is 
supplied  from  a  London  store.  And  the  same  may  be  said  of  the 
inns,  very  few  of  which  still  retain  any  of  their  old  importance,  or 
rely  on  any  other  guests  than  farmers  and  commercial  travellers. 
The  aristocratic  element,  in  fact,  is  withdrawn  from  the  place,  and  the 
Conservative  borough  member  who  represents  that  element  is  left 
to  fight  his  own  battle  against  antagonistic  local  influences  which,  as 
we  have  seen,  are  often  too  strong  for  him.  I  am  far  from  saying 
that  this  is  universally  the  case ;  but  it  is  frequent  enough  to 
make  a  very  important  difference  in  the  conditions  of  party  warfare. 
It  may  seem  a  small  thing  ;  but  by  any  observer  of  English  country 
life  the  change  in  question  will  be  recognised  as  one  which  has 
already  affected,  and  is  likely  to  affect  still  more,  the  course  of 
provincial  politics.  And  on  this  point  perhaps  I  may  be  allowed  to 
make  a  few  general  observations  in  reference  rather  to  the  future 
than  the  past. 

The  power  of  the  English  aristocracy  was  formerly  direct,  and 
maintained  by  the  exercise  of  authority ;  it  is  now  indirect,  and  must 
be  sustained  by  the  exercise  of  influence.  The  influence  which  they 
can  wield  if  they  choose  is  one  of  those  advantages  which  it  is  their 
duty  to  turn  to  account  in  support  of  the  principles  which  they 
believe  to  be  for  the  public  good.  They  must  fight,  as  their  oppo- 
nents do,  with  the  weapons  which  they  find  in  their  hands ;  and  if 
these  are  allowed  to  grow  rusty,  irreparable  disasters  may  be  in  store 
for  them.  It  is  time  they  began  to  understand  that  they  can  no 
longer  eat  their  cake  and  have  it :  abandon,  that  is,  the  system  whicli 
gave  their  neighbours  an  interest  in  supporting  them,  and  expect 
nevertheless  to  meet  with  exactly  the  same  deference  and  respect 
whenever  they  may  happen  to  require  it.  So  many  changes  over 
which  they  had  no  control  have  already  taken  place  in  their  position 
that  it  behoves  them  to  husband  with  the  greatest  possible  care  the 
resources  which  remain.  Railways  alone  have  done  much  to  lower 
their  importance,  not  so  much,  as  is  sometimes  said,  through  increased 
facilities  for  the  diffusion  of  hostile  ideas  as  by  the  diminution  of  the 
actual  visible  figure  which  they  made  in  the  country,  and  the  ex- 
tinction of  a  numerous  and  thriving  class  dependent  on  them  for  a 
livelihood.  Many  other  causes  might  be  mentioned,  were  this  the 
place  to  introduce  them,  which  have  all  contributed  in  a  greater  or 
less  degree  to  the  result  in  question  ;  and  if  each  one  taken  by  itself 
may  seem  a  contemptible  circumstance  to  influence  the  destinies  of 
an  empire,  all  put  together  constitute  a  source  of  weakness  in  the 
class  best  qualified  to  control  them,  which  it  would  be  extremely 
foolish  to  deride. 

They  must  therefore  set  their  house  in  order  if  they  mean  to 
retain  their  power.    If  this  is  too  much  trouble — if  they  cannot  make 


1880.  THE  LATE   ELECTION.  1063 

some  small  sacrifices  of  time  and  money  and  convenience  for  the  sake 
of  conciliating  opinion  and  redintegrating  old  ties,  '  made  weak  by 
time  and  fate,'  but  still  capable  of  revival ;  if  they  fail  to  comprehend 
that  both  the  sentimental  and  the  commercial  relations  between 
themselves  and  their  neighbours  must  be  sedulously  fostered  and 
developed,  if  the  latter  are  to  be  proof  against  temptations  of  a 
very  palpable  and  solid  kind ;  if  they  will  not  rouse  themselves  in 
earnest,  and  gird  on  their  armour  for  the  battle,  the  character  of 
which  was  so  vividly  described  by  the  present  Prime  Minister  last 
April ;  let  us  hear  no  more  about  Conservatism,  let  us  disband  our 
associations  and  discharge  our  agents,  and  let  the  ship  drift  whither 
it  will.  Or  if  any  there  are,  as  I  believe  there  are,  who  say  to  them- 
selves that  an  aristocracy  takes  a  good  deal  of  killing,  that  they 
have  broad  lands  and  vast  power,  and  that  these  will  bear  some 
buffeting  before  any  real  harm  can  come  of  it,  I  would  merely  recall 
to  their  memories  the  story  of  the  country  gentleman  in  Palestine, 
who  said  much  the  same  thing  to  himself,  and  what  was  said  to  him 
in  reply. 

Addressing  a  public  meeting  in  Midlothian  on  the  3rd  of  April 
last,  Mr.  Gladstone  is  reported  to  have  said  that  the  Liberal  party 
had  great  forces  arrayed  against  it ;  that,  with  the  exception  of  a 
small  minority,  '  they  could  not  reckon  on  the  aristocracy ;  they 
could  not  reckon  on  what  was  called  the  landed  interest ;  they  could 
not  reckon  on  the  clergy  of  the  Established  Church,  either  in 
England  or  Scotland,  subject  again  in  this  case  to  a  few  honourable 
exceptions ;  they  could  not  reckon  on  the  wealth  of  the  country, 
nor  on  the  rank  of  the  country,  nor  on  the  influence  which  rank 
and  wealth  usually  brought.'  Allowing,  for  the  sake  of  argument, 
that  this  description  is  correct — though  a  looker-on  might  have 
supposed  that  it  was  scarcely  true  of  the  Church  of  England — 
we  have  on  the  one  side  numbers  led  by  a  few  men  of  distim> 
tion  both  for  birth  and  intellect,  and  allied  with  the  Dissenting 
interest ;  on  the  other,  both  the  rank  and  property  of  the  country 
united  with  the  Established  Church.  It  has  been  my  object  to 
point  out  that  the  '  influence '  here  spoken  of,  which  rank  and 
property  bring  with  them,  is  what  the  Conservatives  have  to  rely 
upon  in  fighting  for  their  political  opinions.  It  is  an  advantage 
which  they  may  legitimately  employ  ^o  its  utmost  possible  extent ; 
and  on  their  using  it  with  judgment  depends  their  future  position. 
The  working  classes  have  no  dislike  to  it.  We  have  been  told 
by  Mr.  Gladstone  that  they  love  inequality;  and  they  cannot,, 
therefore,  regard  with  much  disfavour  that  relationship  of  the  higher 
to  the  lower  which  involves  the  exercise  of  this  influence.  Besides, ' 
we  have  no  need  to  beat  about  the  bush  for  reasons  to  explain  what  is 
a  patent  fact.  Kank  and  wealth  are  always  popular  in  this  country 
when  accompanied  by  courtesy  and  generosity  ;  and  they  ought 

4  B  2 


1064  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  June 

always  to  be  able  to  retain  upon  their  own  side  a  sufficient  propor- 
tion of  the  people  to  enable  them  to  stand  on  the  defensive  with  a 
certain  prospect  of  success.  No  reasonable  man  can  suppose  that 
Mr.  Gladstone  himself  is  at  heart  an  enemy  to  either ;  but  circum- 
stances may  prove  stronger  than  the  strongest  of  us  ;  and  in  the 
course  of  nature  the  time  cannot  be  far  distant  when  the  leadership 
of  his  own  party  must  pass  into  the  hands  of  other  men — men  of  far 
different  aspirations,  and  nurtured  in  far  other  traditions.  When 
that  time  arrives,  it  is  sincerely  to  be  hoped  that  those  classes  of 
society  which  are  the  natural  leaders  of  nations,  let  the  term  be 
sneered  at  as  it  may,  the  territorial  aristocracy,  the  national  clergy, 
and  the  chiefs  of  our  great  domestic  industries,  may  be  found  firmly 
established  in  the  esteem  and  affection  of  the  people,  and  able  to 
hold  their  own  against  all  the  revolutionary  forces  of  modern  times. 
But  to  insure  this  happy  consummation  no  half  measures  will  suffice. 
The  two  aristocracies,  the  commercial  and  the  territorial,  must  meet 
the  wishes  and  wants  of  the  people  in  a  liberal  and  generous  spirit. 
The  workman  must  have  no  grudge  against  his  master,  or  the  tenant 
against  his  landlord ;  the  peasantry  must  be  satisfied,  even  if  it  is  at 
the  cost  of  economic  theories  ;  for  there  can  be  no  surer  method  of 
consolidating  the  influence  of  the  landed  proprietary  than  by  multiply- 
ing the  race  of  small  occupiers  and,  it  may  be,  of  small  owners,  between 
whom  and  their  wealthier  neighbours  no  social  jealousies  can  arise. 
If  the  aristocracy  will  do  this  of  their  own  accord,  though  it  should 
entail  some  pecuniary  loss,  and  if  the  great  employers  of  manufactur- 
ing labour  will  satisfy  their  own  people,  even  on  the  same  terms,  the 
structure  of  English  society  may  still  remain  substantially  unchanged ; 
our  affections  may  still  be  allowed  to  twine  themselves  round  existing 
institutions  without  fear  of  their  being  suddenly  rooted  up  ;  we  may 
still  be  able  to  gratify  that  '  longing  for  confirmed  tranquillity ' 
which  is  so  powerful  an  instinct  in  human  nature ;  and  under  purer 
and  higher  conditions  the  social  repose  and  happiness  of  the 
eighteenth  century  may  be  reflected  in  the  century  to  come. 

T.  E.  KEBBEL. 


1880.  1065 


THE   CRISIS  IN  INDIAN  FINANCE. 


THE  question  of  Indian  finance  has  become  one  of  vital  importance  for 
the  British  taxpayer. 

In  dealing  with  it  two  points  may  be  assumed  as  axioms : 

(1.)  That  in  case  of  need  England  would  have  to  assist  India. 

(2.)  That  the  limit  of  taxation  in  India  has  been  reached. 

As  regards  the  first,  it  is  enough  to  say  that  financial  bankruptcy 
would  mean  the  complete  collapse  of  our  Indian  Empire.  National 
governments  may  survive  great  financial  catastrophes,  but  a  Govern- 
ment like  ours  in  India,  where  a  mere  handful  of  foreigners  rule 
two  hundred  millions  of  an  alien  race  by  the  prestige  of  moral  supe- 
riority, would  fall  of  itself  under  the  confusion  and  disgrace  of  having 
to  pass  through  the  Insolvent  Debtors'  Court.  Now  it  is  plain,  I  take 
it,  that,  coute  que  coute,  England  does  not  mean  to  lose  its  Indian 
Empire.  It  follows  that,  if  India  cannot  pay  its  way,  England  will 
have  to  come  to  the  rescue,  and,  either  by  contributing  its  money  or 
pledging  its  credit,  avert  such  an  enormous  misfortune  as  the  bank- 
ruptcy of  our  Indian  Empire. 

The  second  point  is  equally  clear.  When  hard  pressed  the  other 
day  to  meet  the  expenditure  caused  by  famine  and  the  fall  of  silver, 
the  Government  of  India,  after  reviewing  all  possible  modes  of  in- 
creasing revenue,  had  to  fall  back  on  two  taxes  so  obviously  objec- 
tionable, that  nothing  but  the  direst  necessity  could  have  led  any 
government  to  adopt  them. 

The  one  was  an  increase  of  the  salt  duty  by  40  per  cent,  in  the 
districts  of  Madras  and  Bombay,  where,  in  the  previous  year,  upwards 
of  a  million  of  souls  were  admitted  to  have  died  of  famine. 

The  other,  the  imposition  of  a  license  tax,  which  virtually 
amounted  to  an  income  tax  of  5  per  cent.,  levied  on  incomes  down  to 
4s.  a  week. 

This  latter  tax  was  estimated  to  produce  only  some  700,OOOZ.  or 
800,OOOL  a  year,  and  it  has  been  found,  as  every  one  who  knew  any- 
thing of  India  predicted,  so  oppressive  and  unpopular,  that  the 
Government  has  been  already  compelled  to  repeal  it  as  to  the  smaller 
class  of  incomes. 

This  amounts  to  a  practical  demonstration  that   the  limit   of 


1066  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  June 

possible  taxation  in  India  has  been  reached,  and  that,  as  regards  the 
revenue  side  of  the  Budget,  there  is  nothing  to  be  hoped  for  but  the 
slow  growth  in  future  years  of  such  of  the  existing  sources  of  revenue 
as  are  susceptible  of  increase.  In  fact  it  would  be  more  correct  to 
say  that  the  limit  of  taxation  has  been  exceeded,  for  the  present 
amount  is  only  kept  up  at  the  expense  of  a  great  deal  of  suffering 
and  unpopularity,  and  our  rule  in  India  would  be  immensely 
strengthened  if  it  were  possible,  by  wise  economy,  to  arrive  at  a  sur- 
plus of  2,000,000?.  and  employ  it  in  reducing  obnoxious  taxation,  as, 
for  instance,  in  totally  repealing  the  license  tax,  and  levelling  the 
salt  tax  down  to  the  old  rate  in  Bombay  and  Madras. 

However,  taking  the  revenue  of  India  as  practically  a  fixed  figure, 
it  is  evident  that  the  financial  problem  turns  entirely  on  the  ques- 
tion of  expenditure. 

Was  the  expenditure  of  India  more  or  less  than  its  revenue 
before  the  Afghan  war,  and  how  has  it  been  affected  by  this  war  ? 

The  first  question  is  easily  answered,  for  we  have  to  deal  with 
actual  results,  and  not  with  mystified  accounts  and  conjectural  esti- 
mates. There  is  an  impression  that  Indian  finance  is  shrouded  in 
such  mystery  that  no  one  can  hope  to  understand  it.  This  is  partly 
true,  for  the  accounts  are  often  framed  apparently  for  the  express 
purpose  of  confusing,  and  are  altered  from  time  to  time  so  as  to  make 
comparisons  of  different  periods  difficult ;  but  any  one  who,  like  my- 
self, has  had  practical  experience  in  these  matters,  knows  that  there 
is  no  inherent  difficulty  in  them,  and  that  it  would  be  just  as  easy  to 
present  the  accounts  of  the  Indian  Empire  in  a  clear  and  intelligible 
form  as  those  of  the  Brighton  Eailway  Company. 

Where,  however,  the  actual  results  of  a  series  of  years  are  summed 
up  in  accomplished  facts  and  figures  which  are  beyond  dispute,  the 
question  of  complexity  of  accounts  disappears.  If  a  man,  at  the 
end  of  five  years,  finds  that  his  debts  are  larger  and  his  balance  at  his 
bankers'  less,  he  may  safely  conclude  that  he  has  been  living  beyond 
his  means.  So  with  a  State ;  if  actual  revenue  has  exceeded  actual 
expenditure,  it  must  show  itself  in  diminished  debt  or  increased 
assets,  or  vice  versa. 

Now  the  actual  position  of  India  up  to  the  close  of  the  year 
1877-78,  which  I  take  as  showing  the  financial  state  before  the  Afghan 
war,  and  in  the  face  of  which  that  war  was  undertaken,  was  as  follows, 
as  shown  by  the  figures  of  official  returns. 

The  net  increase  of  the  debt  of  India  since  1872,  after  making 
the  requisite  corrections  for  debts  paid  off  and  loans  to  native  states 
and  local  bodies  on  the  one  hand,  and  diminished  cash-balances  on 
the  other,  was  in  round  figures  upwards  of  25,000,000?.  In  other 
words,  the  actual  result  of  the  last  five  years  of  peace  budgets  had  been 
an  average  deficit  of  5,000,000?.  a  year. 

But  now  comes  in  what  is  really  the  cardinal  point  in  forming 


1880.          THE-  CRISIS  IN  INDIAN  FINANCE.  1067 

any  estimate  of  the  actual  state  of  Indian  finance.  Of  this  deficit  of 
25,000,000?.,  in  round  figures  20,000,000?.  had  been  spent  on  what 
are  called  '  Productive  Public  Works,' leaving  only  about  5,000,000?., 
or  1,000,000?.  a  year,  as  the  average  deficit  on  ordinary  revenue  and 
expenditure.  Are  these  Productive  Public  Works  really  a  good  asset, 
or  are  they  not  ?  If  they  are,  they  are  a  legitimate  set-off  against 
the  debt  incurred  for  them  ;  and  the  position  of  Indian  finance,  apart 
from  the  Afghan  war,  though  one  of  great  difficulty,  as  might 
be  expected  after  two  such  calamities  had  befallen  it  as  the  recur- 
rence of  famines  and  the  fall  of  silver,  would  have  been  by  no  means 
desperate.  In  fact  it  would  have  been  quite  within  limits  which 
might  have  been  met  by  a  prudent  policy  and  wise  economy,  without 
resorting  to  new  and  unpopular  taxation. 

But  if  the  Productive  Public  Works  are  a  bad  asset,  the  fact  will 
be  indisputable  that  the  settled  policy  of  two  generations  of  great 
Indian  statesmen  was  reversed,  and  the  policy  which  led  to  the  Afghan 
war  initiated  by  Lord  Salisbury  and  Lord  Lytton,  at  a  time  when 
the  financial  condition  of  India  was  one  of  extreme  distress,  and  when 
the  peace  budgets  of  the  previous  five  years  had  resulted  in  an  average 
deficit  of  5,000,000?.  a  year. 

Now  what  do  the  facts  answer  to  this  all-important  question  of 
the  real  money  value  of  the  Productive  Public  Works  ?  All  accounts 
and  estimates  published  in  India  studiously  endeavour  to  conceal  the 
truth  by  mixing  up  both  receipts  and  expenses  of  these  extraordinary 
or  so-called  Productive  Public  Works  with  those  of  guaranteed  rail- 
ways, ordinary  public  works,  local  works,  and  so  on,  until  it  becomes 
difficult  even  for  an  expert  to  unravel  the  true  result  from  such  a 
mass  of  confusion. 

But  the  Statistical  Abstract  of  British  India,  published  by  the 
India  Office  in  London,  gives  the  results  in  a  clear  and  intelligible  form 
in  a  few  lines,  and  here  it  is. 

An  expenditure  of  9,650,000?.  on  works  of  irrigation  during 
ten  years  up  to  1878,  produced  no  net  return  at  all,  but  a  loss  of 
67,000?.  a  year,  being  the  excess  of  working  expenses  and  repairs 
over  gross  receipts;  while  an  outlay  of  14,652,000?.  during  the  same 
period,  on  minor  railways  constructed  by  the  State,  gave  a  net  return 
of  88,000?,  a  year. 

The  net  revenue,  therefore,  derived  from  an  expenditure  of  up- 
wards of  24,000,000?.  in  Productive  Public  Works,  was  21,000?.  a 
year,  or  less  than  2s.  per  100?.  on  the  capital,  which  had  been  raised 
at  an  average  rate  of  4J?  per  cent. 

In  the  face  of  such  a  result  as  this,  how  is  it  possible  to  contend 
that  an  Indian  Budget  is  really  balanced,  while  an  expenditure  of 
millions  on  works  which  give  no  return  is  treated  as  if  it  had  never 
'been  spent,  or  had  been  spent  on  something  which  would  reproduce 
the  money?  These  works  are  no  doubt  very  desirable,  and  good 


1068  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY.  June 

reasons  may  be  given  for  most  of  them,  but  this  does  not  alter  the 
financial  fact  that  the  expenditure  on  them  constitutes  a  real  deficit  of 
money  spent  over  money  received  in  the  course  of  the  year,  which 
must  be  met  by  increased  debt  or  increased  taxation,  just  as  much  as 
if  the  money  had  been  spent  on  fortifications  or  barracks.  This 
brings  us  up  to  the  commencement  of  the  Afghan  war.  Since  then, 
of  course,  everything  has  gone  rapidly  from  bad  to  worse.  The  *  net 
public  debt '  of  India  will  have  been  increased  during  the  last  two 
years  by  upwards  of  1 3,000,000?.,  and  the  deficit  of  actual  expenditure 
over  actual  receipt  will  have  reached  the  formidable  figure  of  7,000,000?. 
a  year,  on  an  actual  net  revenue  of  not  over  40,000,000?.  a  year. 

For  the  present,  however,  I  am  dealing  with  the  state  of  Indian 
finance  as  it  btood  at  the  time  when  the  Afghan  war  was  undertaken. 
When  that  war  was  begun  it  is  impossible  to  deny  the  conclusion  that 
during  the  five  previous  years  of  peace  the  National  Debt  of  India  had 
been  increased  by  25,000,000?.,  being  the  accumulation  for  that  period 
of  actual  expenditure  over  actual  income.  How  was  this  situation 
affected  by  the  Afghan  war  ? 

Suppose  everything  had  turned  out  as  the  Government  hoped  and 
expected,  and  that  the  war  had  terminated  with  the  Treaty  of  Grunda- 
muck,  and  we  had  remained  in  secure  possession  of  our  scientific 
frontier,  with  our  Resident  at  Cabul,  the  financial  result  would  have 
been  as  follows. 

The  first  cost  of  the  war  would  have  been  covered  by  about 
3,000,000?.,  and  the  permanent  additional  military  charge  of  the 
scientific  frontier  would  have  been,  as  a  minimum  figure,  1,000,0002. 
a  year.  This  latter  figure  has  been  established  in  full  detail  by  the 
first  authority  in  the  world  on  such  a  question,  Sir  Henry  Norman, 
and  no  attempt  has  ever  been  made  to  answer  his  arguments  or  to 
impugn  his  estimates. 

This  of  itself  would  have  been  a  formidable  aggravation  of  a 
financial  situation,  where,  apparently,  extensive  reductions,  instead  of 
increased  expenditure,  were  indispensable  to  save  the  Empire  from 
drifting  into  bankruptcy.  And  be  it  remembered  that  in  India 
economy  practically  means  very  much  reduction  of  army  estimates, 
for  so  many  of  the  other  heads  of  expenditure  are  fixed,  that  under 
this  head  alone  is  there  scope  for  any  reduction  large  enough  to  turn 
deficits  of  millions  into  surpluses.  In  the  last  two  years  of  Lord 
Canning's  viceroyalty,  we  turned  a  deficit  of  6,000,000?.  into  a  surplus, 
but  how  was  it  done  ?  The  army  was  reduced  by  150,000  men,  and 
5,000,000?.  out  of  the  6,000,000?.  was  saved  on  the  military  and 
naval  estimates. 

It  cannot  be  wondered  at,  therefore,  that  statesmen  like  Lord 
Lawrence,  Lord  Northbrook,  and  others  practically  acquainted  with 
the  condition  of  our  Indian  Empire,  viewed  the  new  policy  and  the 
commencement  of  the  Afghan  war  with  the  gravest  alarm.  Apart 


1880.  THE  CRISIS  IN  INDIAN  FINANCE.  1069 

altogether  from  the  political  question,  and  from  the  military  advan- 
tages or  disadvantages  of  the  advanced  frontier,  it  seemed  a  most 
serious  step,  to  be  justified  only  by  absolute  necessity,  to  add  thus 
greatly  to  the  financial  burdens  of  India,  and  place  ourselves  in  a 
position  where  increase  of  military  expenditure  was  inevitable. 

But  this  alarm  was  turned  into  positive  dismay  when  it  was  found 
that  the  complications  predicted  by  all  experienced  Indian  authorities 
had  been  realised  even  more  quickly  and  completely  than  they  ex- 
pected, and  that  we  were  involved  in  a  really  great  Afghan  war,  on  a 
scale  requiring  an  army  of  50,000  or  60,000  men,  and  with  no  prospect 
of  any  honourable  solution  by  which  we  could  retreat  promptly  from 
a  false  and  untenable  position. 

It  was  evident  to  every  one  who  had  any  practical  experience  of 
Indian  military  finance,  that  a  war  on  such  a  scale,  with  such  diffi- 
culties of  supplies,  transport,  and  communication,  could  not  be  ex- 
pected to  cost  less  than  8,000,000?.  or  10,000,000?.  for  each  year  it 
lasted.  I  said  so  myself  over  and  over  again  in  the  House  of  Commons, 
and  better  authorities  than  I  am,  such  as  Sir  Henry  Norman  and  Sir 
Greorge  Balfour,  confirmed  the  statement  by  detailed  estimates. 

Under  these  circumstances  it  seemed  certain  that  England  would 
have  to  come  to  the  aid  of  India,  and  that  the  Indian  deficit  would 
be  an  important  element  in  the  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer's  English 
Budget.  Suddenly,  on  the  24th  of  February,  intelligence  was  flashed 
from  Calcutta  by  telegraph,  that  the  Finance  Minister,  Sir  John 
Strachey,  had  made  a  financial  statement  so  unexpectedly  favourable, 
that  it  showed  that  India  was  able  to  pay  the  whole  cost  of  the 
Afghan  war  out  of  current  revenue.  The  detailed  statement,  when  it 
arrived,  more  than  confirmed  this  favourable  anticipation. 

It  showed  an  increase  of  revenue  of  3,021,000?.  over  the  budget 
estimate  of  the  year,  against  an  increased  expenditure  of  only 
1,507,000?.,  including  the  whole  cost  of  the  Afghan  war  and  1,670,000?. 
for  frontier  railways.  Thus,  according  to  Sir  John  Strachey,  '  instead 
of  a  deficit  of  1,395,000?.,  with  which,  when  our  budget  estimates  were 
framed,  we  expected  that  the  present  year  would  close,  our  estimates 
now  show  a  surplus  of  119,000?.' 

This  result  was  arrived  at  by  assuming  the  total  cost  of  the  Afghan 
war  for  the  year  ending  the  31st  of  March  1880,  exclusive  of  the 
frontier  railways,  to  be  3,216,000?.  Startling  as  this  result  appeared 
to  be,  as  the  statement  was  deliberately  made  within  six  weeks  of  the 
close  of  the  financial  year,  it  seemed  difficult  to  suppose  that  there 
could  be  any  material  error  in  the  official  figures.  It  was  not  like  an 
estimate  made  a  year  in  advance  for  a  war  just  begun,  the  duration  and 
contingencies  of  which  no  one  could  foresee  accurately.  It  was  an  esti- 
mate made  by  the  responsible  Finance  Minister,  not  of  future  contin- 
gencies, but  based  on  the  actual  results  of  a  year  of  which  nearly  eleven 
months  had  expired,  and  therefore  when  the  margin  of  uncertainty 


1070  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY.  June 

was  necessarily  reduced  within  very  narrow  limits.  The  Finance 
Minister  must  have  known,  or  if  worth  his  salt  ought  to  have  known, 
the  rate  at  which  money  had  actually  been  going  out  of  the  Treasury, 
and  the  scale,  down  almost  to  the  minutest  detail,  at  which  expendi- 
ture on  •  account  of  the  war  was  going  on.  Under  no  circumstances 
ought  a  Finance  Minister  to  accept  the  estimates  of  military  depart- 
ments, even  when  they  are  prospective,  without  rigid  scrutiny,  and 
satisfying  himself,  as  far  as  he  can,  by  examining  and  cross-examining 
competent  authorities,  and  applying  his  own  common-sense  and  ex- 
perience to  the  matter,  that  the  estimates  which  he  adopts  in  his 
budget  are  fair  and  reasonable  ones  and  likely  to  be  realised  in  the 
result.  But  to  let  such  estimates  run  'on  for  more  than  ten  months 
of  the  year  without  any  attempt  to  check  them  by  any  reference 
either  to  actual  results  or  to  the  plain  conclusions  of  common-sense  is 
simply  inconceivable.  It  is  not  surprising,  therefore,  that  the  sub- 
stantial accuracy  of  Sir  John  Strachey's  statement  was  taken  for 
granted  by  all  but  a  very  few  experts  in  Indian  finance,  who  felt 
instinctively  that  it  could  not  be  true,  and  that  there  must  be  an 
enormous  error  somewhere.  In  the  meantime,  however,  the  Home 
Government  and  the  general  public  were  jubilant.  The  awkward 
question  raised  by  Mr.  Fawcett  whether  England  ought  not  to  con- 
tribute to  the  expenses  of  a  war  undertaken,  in  Lord  Beaconsfield's 
own  words,  for  '  Imperial  objects,'  had  disappeared  or  resolved  itself 
into  a  mere  thesis  of  abstract  justice  instead  of  one  of  practical 
politics.  Sir  Stafford  Northcote  was  free  to  frame  his  budget  without 
reference  to  Indian  considerations,  and  thus  enabled  to  tide  over  a 
general  election  by  renewing  floating  debt  without  imposing  fresh 
taxes.  Those  who,  like  myself,  had  endeavoured  to  open  the  eyes  of 
the  British  public  to  the  real  state  of  Indian  finance,  were  denounced 
as  prophets  of  evil,  and  accused  of  having  made  grossly  exaggerated 
statements  to  serve  party  purposes. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  this  flourishing  statement  of  Sir  John 
Strachey's  came  at  a  time  most  opportune  for  the  Government.  A 
general  election  was  imminent,  and  of  the  test  questions  of  foreign 
policy  upon  which  the  nation  would  have  to  pronounce  a  verdict,  that 
of  the  Afghan  war  was  the  most  awkward.  Upon  other  points 
something  might  be  said  on  both  sides.  It  might  be  argued,  with 
more  or  less  plausibility,  that  by  their  action  throughout  the  Eastern 
'Question  and  at  Berlin,  the  Government  had,  at  any  rate,  asserted  the 
influence  of  England  and  prevented  a  European  war.  Even  as 
regards  the  Zulu  war  it  might  be  said  that  its  result  had  been  to 
remove  what  was  an  impending  danger  for  our  South  African  colonies. 
But  the  Afghan  war  had  been  an  obvious  and  unmitigated  mistake. 
Wishing  to  make  a  '  strong  and  friendly  Afghanistan,'  the  upshot  of 
the  new  policy  had  undeniably  been  to  make  a  weak  and  hostile  one. 
Upon  all  the  points  upon  which  Lords  Salisbury  and  Lytton  had 


1880.  THE  CRISIS  IN  INDIAN  FINANCE.  1071 

taken  upon  themselves  to  overrule  the  experience  of  Lords  Dalhousie, 
•Canning,  Mayo,  Lawrence,  and  Northbrook,  the  verdict  of  facts  had 
decided  against  them.  The  old  statesmen  said,  'If  you  invade 
Afghanistan,  you  will  easily  defeat  any  armed  force  in  the  field,  but 
your  difficulties  will  only  begin  with  your  victories;  you  will  find 
that  you  only  occupy  the  ground  on  which  you  stand,  that  every 
man's  hand  will  be  against  you,  and  that  the  tribes  whom  you  have 
chastised  or  bought  over  to-day  will  harass  your  communications  to- 
morrow.' Is  this  true  or  is  it  not  true  ?  Again,  the  old  statesmen 
said,  '  If  you  attempt  to  force  an  English  resident  on  the  Ameer  at 
Cabul,  his  life  will  not  be  safe  in  the  midst  of  such  a  turbulent  and 
fanatical  population  unless  you  send  an  army  corps  to  protect  him.' 
Lord  Salisbury  and  Lord  Lytton  derided  these  as  old-womanly  no- 
tions, and  said  that  if  you  sent  an  English  resident  to  Cabul,  he 
would  reside  there  as  safely,  and  bring  Afghanistan  within  the 
sphere  of  British  influence  as  securely,  as  if  he  had  been  sent  to 
Hyderabad  or  Baroda.  The  massacre  of  Cavagnari  showed  who  was 
right  and  who  wrong.  I  suppose  there  is  no  sane  man  who,  if  it 
were  possible  to  efface  everything  that  has  been  done  for  the  last  five 
years,  and  go  back  to  the  old  position,  the  old  policy,  and  the  old 
frontier,  would  hesitate  to  do  so. 

In  the  face  of  this  obvious  and  egregious  failure  of  their  Afghan 
policy,  it  was  therefore  an  object  of  the  greatest  importance  for  the 
Government,  on  the  eve  of  a  general  election,  not  to  be  obliged  to 
make  the  British  tax-payer  pay  any  part  of  the  cost  of  the  follies 
which  had  been  committed.  And  Sir  John  Strachey's  statement 
came,  in  the  very  nick  of  time,  to  enable  them  to  attain  this  object. 
'  India  wants  no  aid  from  England  and  would  not  accept  it.  Her 
finances  are  so  flourishing  that  she  is  able  to  defray  the  whole  cost  of 
the  war  out  of  current  revenue,  and  at  the  same  time  reduce  taxa- 
tion.' Such  are  the  confident  assertions  of  the  responsible  minister 
made  within  six  weeks  of  the  close  of  the  financial  year.  What  has 
become  of  them  now  ?  When  the  elections  are  over,  the  Government 
changed,  and  the  truth  can  no  longer  be  concealed,  it  appears  that 
we  have  been  living  in  a  fool's  paradise,  and  that  the  flourishing 
state  of  Indian  finance  is  neither  more  nor  less  real  than  that  of  the 
City  of  Glasgow  Bank  was,  while  its  directors  were  maintaining  the 
price  of  its  shares  by  paying  fictitious  dividends  and  cooking  the 
•accounts. 

On  an  estimate  of  3,216,000?.,  as  the  total  cost  of  the  Afghan  war 
for  the  year  ending  March  1880,  and  2,090,OOOL  for  the  year  1880-1, 
made  after  more  than  ten  months  of  the  year  1879-80  had  elapsed, 
we  find  it  suddenly  admitted  that  the  astounding  error  of  at  least 
4,000,000£.  has  been  discovered.  It  is  really  enough  to  take  away 
the  breath  of  any  man  who,  like  myself,  has  had  official  experiences. 

It  is  simply  impossible  that  an  error  of  even  one  fifth  of  the 


1072  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  June 

amount  could  have  occurred  in  an  estimate  made  under  such  cir- 
cumstances by  any  finance  department  that  I  ever  had  anything  to 
do  with,  either  in  England  or  in  India.  Surely  Sir  John  Strachey 
must  have  watched  the  state  of  his  cash  balances  and  known  from 
week  to  week  what  amounts  had  been  withdrawn,  and  what  bills  or 
drafts  on  the  treasury  had  been  issued  which  he  would  have  to  provide 
for.  It  now  appears,  from  Lord  Hartington's  statement  in  the  House 
of  Commons,  that  the  actual  war  expenditure  of  the  month  of  Febru- 
ary, in  which  month  Sir  John  Strachey  gave  5,306,000?.  as  his 
estimate  of  the  expense  of  the  war  for  two  years,  was  750,000?.,  or 
at  the  rate  of  9,000,000?.  a  year. 

The  attempt  to  throw  the  whole  blame  on  the  military  authorities 
is  as  futile  as  it  is  ungenerous.  Even  in  the  case  of  prospective  esti- 
mates, what  is  the  use  of  a  Finance  Minister  if  he  is  to  accept  any- 
thing which  the  heads  of  the  spending  departments  put  before  him, 
without  satisfying  himself  that  the  estimates  are  fair  and  reasonable? 
And  in  a  case  like  this  it  behoved  him  to  be  specially  careful,  for  he 
must  have  known  that  the  general  opinion  of  experienced  authorities 
both  in  India  and  England  was,  that  the  war  must  inevitably  be  a 
very  expensive  one  and  cost  much  more  than  the  figure  stated  in  the 
estimates.  He  must  have  known  also  that  all  the  causes  now  stated 
as  excuses  for  the  extra  cost,  such  as  the  necessity  of  buying  transport 
and  the  rise  in  wages  and  provisions,  were  necessary  incidents  of  a 
war  upon  such  a  scale  in  such  a  country,  and  that  any  estimates 
which  left  them  out  of  account  were,  on  the  face  of  them,  altogether 
fallacious. 

Even  these  excuses,  however,  fail  in  face  of  the  fact  that  the  esti- 
mate given  in  February  was  one  based  on  past  and  current,  and  not 
on  prospective,  expenditure.  The  thing  is  totally  inconceivable,  and 
the  only  way  in  which  I  can  even  partially  attempt  to  account  for  it 
is  as  follows.  Having  been  a  good  deal  behind  the  scenes  in  these 
matters,  I  have  some  idea  how  they  are  managed.  I  do  not  for  a 
moment  suppose  that  Lord  Lytton  sent  for  Sir  John  Strachey  and 
the  heads  of  the  military  departments,  and  said  to  them  in  as  many 
words  '  You  must  cook  the  accounts  ; '  but  I  have  no  doubt  it  was 
thoroughly  understood  from  top  to  bottom  of  all  the  departments, 
that  the  Government  was  extremely  anxious  to  show  low  estimates  of 
the  cost  of  the  war,  and  that  to  furnish  disagreeable  figures  was  not 
precisely  the  way  to  stand  well  with  the  highest  authorities.  Add  to 
this,  almost  inconceivable  negligence  and  looseness  on  the  part  of  the 
controlling  authority,  and  an  invincible  predetermination  to  accept 
sanguine  views,  and  we  may  possibly  go  a  good  way  towards  account- 
ing for  the  result,  without  being  driven  to  the  disagreeable  alternative 
of  imputing  deliberate  deceit  to  men  of  high  personal  character  and 
honour. 

It  remains  to  consider  the  actual  position  of  the  Indian  Budget 


1880.  THE  CRISIS  IN  INDIAN  FINANCE.  1073 

after  these  extraordinary  disclosures.  The  estimated  surplus  of 
119,0002.  is  at  once  converted  into  a  deficit  of  nearly  4,000,0002.  by 
the  admitted  excess  of  4,000,0002.  in  the  army  estimate.  Is  this 
all  ?  I  fear  not. 

In  the  first  place  the  ominous  words, '  at  least,'  are  inserted  before 
the  4,000,000?.  in  the  confession  of  error.  It  is  quite  possible,  and  I 
am  afraid  only  too  probable,  that  another  1,000,0002.  or  more  may 
have  to  be  added  when  the  accounts  are  finally  closed,  and  that  the 
war  expenditure  actually  going  on  at  the  present  moment  will  turn 
out  to  be  at  the  rate  of  not  less  than  9,000,0002.  or  10,000,0002.  a 
year.  Again,  the  surplus  of  119,0002.  was  only  arrived  at  after 
excluding  an  expenditure  of  3,700,0002.  on  Productive  Public  Works, 
which,  as  I  have  already  shown,  is,  as  far  as  the  immediate  financial 
result  is  concerned,  a  deduction  from  the  cash  balances  requiring  a 
correspondiDg  addition  to  the  debt  of  India,  exactly  as  if  it  had  been 
spent  on  barracks  and  shown  as  a  deficit  in  the  ordinary  budget. 

And,  lastly,  Sir  John  Strachey's  surplus  assumed  an  increase  of 
more  than  3,000,0002.  in  the  revenue  of  the  year  accruing  between 
the  dates  of  his  original  and  of  his  present  Budget  Estimates.  Un- 
fortunately the  revenue  of  India  has  not  been  in  the  habit  of 
advancing  by  such  leaps  and  bounds,  and  an  examination  of  the 
details  affords  too  much  ground  to  fear  that  the  same  sanguine  spirit 
which  led  him  to  under-estimate  so  egregiously  his  expenditure,  may 
have  led  him  to  over-estimate  his  receipts. 

By  far  the  largest  increase,  nearly  2,000,0002.  out  of  3,000,0002., 
is  under  the  head  of  opium.  Now  I  had  occasion,  when  I  was 
Finance  Minister  in  India,  to  study  very  closely  this  question  of 
opium,  which  was  one  of  the  main  stays  of  Indian  finance,  and  as  to 
which  considerable  apprehensions  were  felt.  There  are  three  factors  in 
the  question  of  opium  revenue  :  the  quantity  produced,  which  affects 
the  net  results  by  increasing  or  diminishing  the  amount  which  the 
Government  has  to  pay  to  the  cultivator  for  the  current  crop — the 
quantity  thrown  for  sale  on  the  Chinese  market — and  the  selling 
price. 

It  is  always  possible  to  increase  the  opium  revenue  in  any 
given  year,  by  diminishing  the  production  and  thus  raising  the  sell- 
ing price.  But  this  is  done  at  the  expense  of  the  future,  for  there  is 
a  large  amount  of  native-grown  opium  in  China  of  inferior  quality 
to  ours,  but  which  competes  with  it,  and,  if  the  price  of  the  superior 
article  were  raised  too  high,  would  in  a  short  time  largely  supersede 
it.  Looking  at  it  purely  from  a  financial  point  of  view,  the  problem 
for  an  Indian  Finance  Minister  is  to  keep  the  production  and  price  of 
opium  as  nearly  steady  as  possible,  at  the  level  which  will  give  the 
largest  permanent  revenue  to  the  Indian  Exchequer,  without  going 
so  low  as  to  diminish  the  net  revenue,  or  so  high  as  to  limit  con- 


1074  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  June 

sumption  in  China  and  bring  the  native  opium  into  more  extensive 
use. 

If  we  act  steadily  on  those  principles,  the  experience  of  the  past 
forty  years  has  shown  that  the  opium  revenue  is  a  safe  and,  on  the 
average  of  years,  a  steadily  progressive  one.  The  increased  export 
duty  for  the  Malwar  opium  may  account  for  part  of  the  increase,  but 
I  entirely  fail  to  see  how  an  excess  of  such  magnitude  as  1,900,000?. 
can  have  been  obtained  in  the  short  interval  of  less  than  a  year 
between  the  two  estimates,  without  either  some  fallacy  in  the  accounts, 
or  some  serious  sacrifice  of  the  future  to  the  present,  by  departing 
from  the  sound  principles  of  opium  finance. 

It  is  useless,  however,  to  speculate  without  data  on  what  a  few 
weeks  or  months  will  bring  to  the  test  of  results.  Let  us  rather  take 
the  admitted  results  and  look  the  question  fairly  in  the  face — what  is 
the  actual  financial  position  of  India  ? 

The  admitted  deficit  is  4,000,000?.,  to  which  must  be  added  an 
expenditure  of  3,700,000?.  on  Public  Works  for  1879-80,  which  has 
to  be  provided  for.  This  deficit  of  7,700,000?.  may  be  raised  to 
10,000,000?.  or  upwards,  if  further  errors  are  discovered  either  in  the 
present  estimate  of  war  expenditure,  or  in  the  estimates  of  increased 
revenue. 

A  war  is  going  on  which  is  certainly  not  costing  less  than  600,000?. 
a  month,  the  average  rate  for  last  year  by  the  admitted  estimates. 
Probably  much  more,  and  not  under  800,000?.  a  month,  for  a  much 
larger  force  is  now  employed,  and  the  difficulties  of  transport,  sup- 
plies, camp-followers,  &c.,  are  increasing  every  day  that  the  war 
lasts.  How  long  it  may  last  no  one  can  say,  but  assuming  every- 
thing to  go  well,  and  we  are  able  to  withdraw  our  forces  and  end 
the  war  in  the  shortest  time  possible,  I  fear  that  six  months  must 
elapse  before  we  can  close  up  all  the  accounts  of  the  war,  and  return 
to  a  peace  expenditure. 

The  new  Indian  Government  has  therefore  to  face  an  admitted 
deficit  of  at  least  7,500,000?.,  and  an  expenditure  going  on  at  a  rate 
which,  if  it  lasts  for  the  current  year,  must  inevitably  give  a  very 
large  additional  deficit.  It  has  also  to  provide  for  an  expenditure 
beyond  ordinary  revenue  of  3,000,000?.  at  least  for  Public  Works  for 
the  current  year,  most  of  which  are  in  progress  and  must  be  finished. 

In  other  words,  10,000,000?.  at  the  very  least,  and  probably  much 
more,  has  to  be  found,  somehow  or  other,  in  the  course  of  the  current 
year,  to  carry  on  the  government  of  India.  Where  is  it  to  come  from  ? 
Not  from  the  cash  balances,  which  have  already  been  depleted  to  an 
unusual  and  almost  dangerous  extent.  There  are  only  two  sources 
available,  loans  and  aid  from  England. 

Whatever  is  not  given  by  England  as  a  contribution  to  the  cost 
of  the  war,  must  be  borrowed ;  and  if  England  gives  nothing,  the 
whole  must  be  added  to  the  National  Debt  of  India. 


1880.  THE  CRISIS  IN  INDIAN  FINANCE.  1075 

The  question  of  English  aid  is  one  not  only  of  financial,  but  of 
the  gravest  political  importance.  Our  empire  in  India  is  based  not 
on  bayonets  only,  but  in  a  still  higher  degree  on  moral  ascendency. 
The  natives  of  India  never  can  love  a  ruling  race,  so  alien  from  them- 
selves in  religion  and  social  habits.  But  they  have  been  accustomed 
to  respect  us.  Every  intelligent  Hindoo  feels  the  great  material  advan- 
tages which  India  has  gained  from  British  rule,  and  recognises  that  on 
the  whole  our  government  has  been  just,  firm,  merciful,  truthful,  and 
honestly  desiring  to  act  up  to  the  maxim  of '  governing  India  for  the 
good  of  India.'  When  Lord  Canning  left  India,  this  feeling  was  so 
strong,  that  it  amounted  almost  to  one  of  personal  loyalty  and  aflfec- 
.tion  to  the  Queen  and  the  Viceroy  on  the  part  of  the  native  com- 
munity. But  under  the  inauspicious  regime  of  the  last  five  years 
much  has  been  done  to  shake  it. 

The  word  of  a  Viceroy  has  been  discredited  by  the  despatch  in 
which  Lord  Salisbury  urged  Lord  Northbrook  to  seek  a  pretext  for 
backing  out  of  the  verbal  promise  given  by  Lord  Mayo  to  the  late 
Ameer.  The  obnoxious  famine  taxes,  imposed  under  the  most  sacred 
pledges  of  reserving  them  as  an  insurance  fund  for  that  object  only, 
were  within  a  few  months  employed  in  paying  the  expenses  of  what 
nine  men  out  of  ten  considered  to  be  an  unnecessary  war.  The  im- 
port duties  on  cotton-  manufactures  were  repealed,  obviously  to  con- 
ciliate Lancashire  before  a  general  election,  at  a  time  when  other 
colonies,  such  as  Canada,  had  been  allowed  to  impose  heavy  protective 
duties  on  British  manufactures,  and  when  India  was  in  such  financial 
distress  as  to  have  been  compelled  to  raise  the  salt  duty  in  Madras, 
where  a  million  of  people  had  died  of  famine,  and  to  impose  a 
license  tax  on  incomes  down  to  4s.  a  week. 

And  finally,  rich  England  proposed  to  throw  upon  poor  India  the 
whole  cost  of  a  war  undertaken,  in  the  Prime  Minister's  own  words, 
for  '  Imperial  objects,'  and  in  defiance  of  everything  that  could  be 
considered  as  representative  of  Indian  public  opinion,  whether'shown 
by  the  wisdom  of  great  Indian  statesmen  of  former  days,  by  the 
authority  of  its  greatest  living  statesmen,  such  as  Lord  Lawrence,  or 
by  such  utterances  of  native  opinion  as  were  possible  from  a  muzzled 
press,  and,  such  representative  bodies  as  the  British  Indian  Associa- 
tion, independent  members  of  Council  and  Chambers  of  Commerce.  . 

Native  public  opinion  is  a  rapidly  growing  force,  and  for  the, 
moment  it  is  mainly  directed  towards  questions  of  taxation  and 
finance.  When  Lord  Canning  said  twenty  years  ago,  that  '  danger 
for  danger  he  would  rather  undertake  to  govern  India  with  a  Euro- 
pean army  of  40,000  men  without  the  income  tax  than  with  80,000 
men  with  it,'  he  expressed  a  great  political  truth.  Oppressive  taxation  is 
the  one  thing  to  be  avoided  if  we  wish  to  keep  the  millions  of  our  native 
subjects  contented  with  our  rule.  But  oppressive  taxation  for  objects 
in  which  Indian  have  been  obviously  sacrificed  to  English  interests, 
is  the  one  thing  to  stir  up  a  storm  of  active  unpopularity. 


1076  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY.  June 

A  great  opportunity  presents  itself  to  the  new  Government  of 
really  strengthening  and  consolidating  our  Indian  Empire,  not  by 
costly  wars  for  visionary  objects,  but  by  restoring  its  hold  on  the 
respect  and  esteem  of  its  native  subjects,  by  the  simple  expedient  of 
doing  justice  in  this  matter  of  the  Afghan  war.  The  names  of 
Gladstone,  Bright,  and  Fawcett,  are  known  and  revered  throughout 
India,  and,  if  the  announcement  were  made  that,  from  a  sense  of 
justice  towards  India,  it  is  proposed  that  England  shall  contribute  a 
substantial  share  of  the  cost  of  a  war  which  was  in  effect  one  of  the 
developments  of  the  '  Imperial '  policy  of  an  English  ministry,  I  feel 
certain  that  from  one  end  of  India  to  the  other  a  thrill  of  satisfaction 
would  run  through  the  native  community.  The  memory  of  the 
Salisbury-Lytton  regime  would  pass  away  like  that  of  a  bad  dream, 
and  the  old  feeling  of  faith  in  the  justice,  and  confidence  in  the 
integrity,  of  their  rulers,  would  at  once  revive. 

The  next  thing  must  be  to  terminate  this  wretched  Afghan  war 
almost  at  any  cost,  and  get  back  to  the  old  position  which  we  never 
should  have  left.  In  the  actual  financial  and  political  position  of 
India,  the  best  of  '  scientific  frontiers '  is  one  which,  like  the  old  one, 
can  be  securely  held  by  6,000  men — the  worst,  one  like  the  present, 
which  requires  60,000. 

This  done,  stringent  economy  should  be  enforced  in  every  depart- 
ment, and  even,  if  necessary,  a  certain  moderate  risk  incurred  in 
reducing  the  army  estimates  to  something  like  the  old  figure  of 
15,000,0002.  a  year.  The  construction  of  public  works  must  be 
rigidly  limited  until  the  finances  are  so  far  restored  as  to  show  a  bona 
fide  surplus  of  income  over  expenditure  after  allotting  between 
1,000,0002.  and  2,000,0002.  to  relief  of  some  of  the  more  obnoxious 
taxes.  This  may  be  all  done  with  a  prudent  and  pacific  foreign 
policy,  a  wise  and  firm  government,  and  an  energetic  Finance 
Minister,  in  two  or  three  years  from  the  time  when  the  Afghan  war 
terminates  and  we  return  to  our  old  frontier.  If  we  retain  any  part 
of  the  advanced  frontier,  we  must  reckon  on  its  costing  us  at  least 
1,000,0002.  a  year  extra,  and  entailing  serious  risk  of  finding  our- 
selves involved,  against  our  will,  in  a  series  of  petty  tribal  wars  and 
expensive  complications.  With  this  in  view  I  greatly  fear  that  it 
would  be  impossible  to  reduce  the  army  estimates  to  the  figure 
demanded  by  the  state  of  Indian  finance  unless  we  return  to  the  old 
frontier. 

But  I  trust  to  Mr.  Gladstone,  Lord  Hartington,  and  Lord  Eipon 
to  have  the  strength  of  mind  to  look  the  position  of  Indian  affairs 
fairly  in  the  face,  and  not  shrink  from  retracing  false  steps,  paying 
for  past  follies,  and  making  a  clear  start  for  the  future,  with  an 
Indian  policy  based  on  the  principles  of  *  peace,  economy,  and  justice.' 

If  so,  the  rude  lessons  of  the  Afghan  war  and  of  the  falsified 
estimates  will  not  have  been  taught  in  vain,  and  we  may  look  for  a 


1880.  THE  CRISIS  IN  INDIAN  FINANCE.  1077 

renewed  era  of  prosperity  in  that  magnificent  Indian  Empire,  which 
is  the  greatest  task  imposed  by  Providence  on  this  little  island  of  the 
West  that  so  wonderfully  guides  the  destinies  of  two  hundred  millions 
of  subjects  of  the  British  Crown  in  the  far  East,  and  is  at  the  same 
time  the  noblest  monument  of  the  qualities  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  race 
by  which  such  an  Empire  has  been  founded  and  is  maintained. 

S.  LAING. 


VOL.  VII.— Xo.  40.  40 


1078  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  June 


THE  INDIAN  BUDGET  ESTIMATES. 


IT  is  generally  known  that  an  error,  believed  to  be  of  large  amount, 
has  been  made  in  the  military  estimates  for  the  last  Indian  Budget. 
Serious  misconceptions  have  arisen  as  to  the  real  nature  of  the  error, 
and  even  yet  the  precise  causes  which  have  led  to  it  are  to  a  great 
extent  matter  of  conjecture.  In  these  circumstances,  and  in  the 
absence  of  my  brother,  Sir  John  Strachey,  whose  conduct  has  been 
sharply  called  in  question  in  relation  to  the  matter,  I  have  felt  my- 
self justified  in  doing  that  from  which,  owing  to  my  official  position  as 
a  member  of  the  Council  of  India,  I  should  otherwise  have  abstained— 
namely,  stating  the  facts  so  far  as  they  are  known  to  me,  and  at  the 
same  time  offering  some  explanations  as  to  the  manner  in  which 
the  Indian  finance  estimates  and  accounts  are  prepared,  on  which 
subject  mistakes  are  likely  to  be  made,  as  there  is  an  important 
difference  between  the  English  and  Indian  systems. 

Under  the  English  system,  after  the  estimates  have  been  passed  by 
Parliament,  credits  are  from  time  to  time  opened  as  required,  within 
the  sums  so  voted,  in  favour  of  the  disbursing  departments,  and  directly 
on  these  credits  being  passed  the  amounts  are  treated  as  expenditure, 
and  so  appear  in  the  weekly  returns  published  by  the  Treasury  with 
which  every  one  is  familiar.  At  the  end  of  every  year  supplementary 
estimates  are  presented  to  cover  any  excess  or  unforeseen  expenditure 
which  may  have  become  necessary  since  the  regular  estimates  were 
passed.  The  process  of  audit,  or  of  comparing  the  actual  expenditure 
with  the  sums  voted  by  Parliament,  takes  place  subsequently,  and, 
though  controlled  by  the  House  of  Commons,  never  comes  into  pro- 
minent notice. 

Under  the  Indian  system,  what  is  spoken  of  as  the  expenditure  is 
the  audited  expenditure  only ;  so  that  outlay,  though  actually  incurred, 
which  has  not  been  brought  into  the  audited  accounts  of  the  year,  is 
not  treated  as  expenditure  of  that  year,  but  stands  in  a  suspense 
account,  and  only  appears  as  expenditure  after  it  has  been  audited  in 
the  following  year.  There  is  no  constitutional  authority  in  India 
outside  of  the  executive  government,  corresponding  to  the  House  of 
Commons  in  England,  to  check  the  public  expenditure,  and  the 
'Secretary  of  State  in  Council  in  practice  exercises  only  a  power  of 


1880.  THE  INDIAN  BUDGET  ESTIMATES.  1079 

control  in  such  matters  and  not  of  direct  sanction ;  the  system  under 
which,  after  the  Budget  estimates  are  passed,  treasury  credits  are 
granted  in  India,  is  much  less  strict  than  in  this  country,  and  the 
Government  makes  supplementary  grants  when  they  are  shown  to 
be  necessary,  without  going  through  any  special  forms,  and  there  is 
nothing  corresponding  to  the  English  supplementary  estimates. 

There  is  another  very  important  difference  between  the  two 
countries.  In  India  the  Grovernment  is  its  own  banker,  so  to  speak, 
and  the  Grovernment  of  India  is  moreover  the  banker  of  every  public 
body  in  the  empire,  excepting  only  the  local  municipalities.  The 
Treasury  operations  of  British  India,  which  covers  an  area  almost  as 
large  as  the  whole  of  Europe,  now  involve  the  receipt  and  expenditure 
of  a  revenue  between  sixty  and  seventy  millions  sterling,  leading  to 
disbursements  of  a  much  larger  amount,  and  spread  over  the  country 
and  the  year  in  an  almost  infinite  number  of  transactions.  The  multi- 
plicity of  the  places  where  the  revenue  is  received  and  the  expenditure 
is  incurred  renders  it  necessary  to  maintain  a  large  working  balance 
in  the  treasuries  taken  together,  and  the  utmost  watchfulness  is  re 
quired  to  reduce  to  a  minimum  the  balance  thus  locked  up,  while  at 
the  same  time  providing  for  the  demands  of  the  public  service, 
among  which  the  exact  payment  of  the  Secretary  of  State's  bills  to 
the  extent  of  fifteen  or  sixteen  millions  sterling  yearly  may  be 
specially  noticed.  It  may  confidently  be  said  that  the  success  with 
which  these  arduous  and  responsible  duties  are  performed  by  the 
financial  officers  of  the  Indian  Government  reflects  the  highest  credit 
upon  them.  There  is  nothing  analogous  to  this  class  of  duties  in  the 
British  public  service,  and  without  a  due  appreciation  of  their  pre- 
cise nature,  it  would  be  an  act  of  extreme  presumption  to  judge  un- 
favourably any  temporary  failure  which  may  occasionally  arise  in  their 
discharge  in  exceptional  circumstances. 

I  may  now  proceed  to  state  that  the  error  which  has  been  spoken 
of  refers  to  the  estimated  war  expenditure  which  will  appear  in  the 
accounts  for  the  year  1880-81,  which  began  on  the  1st  of  April  last, 
and  not  to  the  actual  expenditure  for  the  year  which  has  just  closed. 
But,  as  I  shall  proceed  to  show,  though  the  error  in  question,  which 
the  Government  of  India  has  reckoned  at  four  or  five  millions 
sterling,  must  for  the  present  be  treated  as  incident  to  the  estimates 
for  1880-81,  it  appertains,  and  perhaps  to  some  important  extent,  to 
the  expenditure  in  the  last  two  or  three  months  of  1879-80,  the 
accounts  for  which  had  not  been  received  when  the  Budget  was  pub- 
lished. It  is  important  to  notice  this,  for  much  misplaced  invective 
has  been  addressed  to  the  Indian  financial  authorities  for  having 
grossly  miscalculated  expenditure,  of  which  the  actual  accounts  for 
nine  or  ten  months  were  in  their  hands  when  the  Budget  estimate 
was  prepared  in  February  last. 

To  understand  this,  it  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  under  the 

4  C2 


1080  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY.  June 

Indian  system  of  account,  whatever  part  of  the  year's  expenditure  is 
not  audited  on  the  accounts  of  the  year  is  excluded  from  the  final 
accounts  of  that  year,  and  is  thrown  forward  into  the  succeeding  year. 
In  ordinary  times  the  irregularity  thus  caused  is  of  small  practical 
moment ;  the  bulk  of  the  public  expenditure  is  strictly  regulated  by 
fixed  rules,  and  the  charges  which  would  be  challenged  on  audit,  or 
which  from  various  causes  would  be  kept  in  suspense,  are  few  and 
usually  unimportant ;  and  the  charges  of  this  sort  brought  up  from  a 
past  year  are,  on  the  whole,  balanced  by  those  carried  forward  to  the 
following  year.  But  the  position  becomes  very  different  when,  as  in 
time  of  war  or  other  emergency,  such  as  famine,  the  expenditure 
ceases  to  be  thus  regular,  and  the  disbursements  are  to  a  great 
extent  carried  on  under  the  pressure  of  sudden  local  exigencies. 
In  such  circumstances,  simultaneously  with  the  relaxation  of  control 
over  the  expenditure,  the  preparation  of  the  accounts  becomes  diffi- 
cult, punctuality  is  often  rendered  impossible,  the  audit  is  delayed,  and 
a  prompt  statement  of  the  actual  expenditure  becomes  impracticable. 

It  will  be  obvious  that  in  such  circumstances  the  accounts  of  two 
successive  years  may  be  considerably  deranged,  the  expenditure  being 
unduly  diminished  in  the  year  in  which  delay  in  audit  occurs,  and 
to  the  same  extent  unduly  increased  in  that  into  which  the  deferred 
outlay  is  at  last  thrown.  Great  discrepancies  between  the  estimates 
and  the  expenditure  recorded  in  the  accounts  may  thus  arise  from 
causes  wholly  beyond  the  control  of  the  persons  who  have  prepared 
the  estimates ;  and  where  under  emergency  unexpected  charges  of 
considerable  amount  are  incurred  locally  very  late  in  the  year,  so 
that  the  authority  which  frames  the  estimate  was  not  cognisant  of 
them  in  time  to  provide  for  them,  those  estimates  may  be  disturbed 
to  an  extent  which  is  practically  beyond  any  power  of  anticipation. 

There  is  no  reasonable  doubt  that  it  was  mainly  to  an  unfortunate 
combination  of  circumstances  such  as  have  been  thus  indicated  that 
the  miscalculations  in  the  Budget  of  1880-81  are  due.  The  general 
Budget  estimate  being  framed  in  February,  it  becomes  necessary  to 
require  the  submission  of  the  provincial  and  departmental  estimates 
by  the  end  of  December  at  the  latest.  Just  at  this  time,  as  is  well 
known,  events  occurred  at  Oabul  which  had  a  very  important  effect 
on  the  military  operations  in  Afghanistan.  The  measures  taken  in 
consequence  of  these  events  cannot  have  failed  to  produce  a  very 
disturbing  influence  on  the  estimates  prepared  before  their  occurrence. 
It  is  most  probable  that  the  exact  scope  of  those  measures  and  their 
ultimate  cost,  both  of  which  must  from  the  nature  of  the  case  have 
been  largely  left  to  the  discretion  of  officers  on  the  frontier,  only 
became  denned  by  degrees,  and  that  the  large  additional  outlay  they 
involved  first  became  apparent  in  April,  towards  the  end  of  which 
month  the  Government  of  India  reported  its  conclusion  that  the  war 
estimate  for  1880-81  must  be  increased  by  four  or  five  millions. 


1880.  THE  INDIAN  BUDGET  ESTIMATES.  1081 

How  much  of  this  addition  to  the  estimate  is  due  to  expenditure 
actually  incurred  in  the  last  few  months  of  the  year  1879-80,  but 
thrown  forward  into  the  present  year,  as  above  explained,  is  still 
uncertain.  There  is,  however,  little  doubt  that  some  part  of  it,  and 
perhaps  an  important  part,  has  been  thus  caused.  There  is  no  reason 
to  expect  any  important  difference  between  the  final  accounts  of  the 
war  expenditure  for  1879-80  and  the  amount  at  which  it  was  esti- 
mated in  February  last ;  and  it  is  believed  that  the  four  or  five  millions 
which  has  been  named  as  the  excess  will  cover  the  whole  of  the 
additional  charge,  in  whichever  year  it  was  really  incurred. 

To  complete  this  explanation,  it  is  necessary  to  refer  to  the 
system  under  which  the  funds  for  the  military  expenditure  are 
supplied.  The  cash  required  for  the  military  chests  in  the  field  and 
for  the  departments  in  India  is  obtained  from  the  civil  treasuries,  on 
credits  granted  in  accordance  with  the  sanctioned  Budget  estimates 
of  the  year.  But  to  meet  the  exigencies  of  war  expenditure,  advances 
must  be  made  for  the  general  service  of  the  army  when  money  is 
needed.  So  long  as  no  extraordinary  pressure  arises,  and  the  ac- 
counts are  rendered  regularly,  and  the  expenditure  is  confined  to 
objects  which  have  been  duly  sanctioned,  these  advances  are  in  due 
course  written  off  and  pass  into  the  accounts  of  expenditure.  Any 
disturbance  of  this  process  is  followed  by  corresponding  accumulation 
of  advances  and  unaudited  accounts,  and  the  progress  of  the  actual 
expenditure  is  rendered  uncertain.  The  pressure  which  arose  from 
the  measures  taken  at  the  end  of  1879  and  beginning  of  1880,  thus, 
as  it  is  understood,  first  became  apparent  through  the  demands  on  the 
treasuries  of  the  Punjab  from  which  the  cash  for  the  army  in  Afghan- 
istan was  mainly  supplied. 

There  has  been  some  discussion  as  to  the  nature  and  extent  of  the 
relative  responsibility  of  the  military  and  financial  departments  in 
respect  to  the  military  estimates.     So  far  as  the  actual  preparation 
of  these  estimates  goes,  no  question  can  arise.     There  is  a  special 
department  of  military  account  which  is  exclusively  charged  with 
the  whole  duty  of  supervising  the  army  expenditure,  of  controlling 
and  auditing  the  accounts,  and  of  preparing  the  estimates.     The 
operations   of    this  department    are    carried  on  altogether    outside 
and  independently  of  the  financial  department  properly  so  called, 
and  the  last-named  office  merely  exercises  such  a  general  supervision 
over  the  proceedings  of  the  military  account  department  as  is  necessary 
to  secure  regularity  and  conformity  to  general  financial  rules  and 
established  forms  of  account.    The  entire  responsibility  for  the  practi- 
cal operation  of  the  military  account  offices  rests  upon  the  executive 
administrative   department,  known  as  the  Military  Department  (cor- 
responding to  the  English  War  Office),  which  is  placed  immediately 
under  the  military  member  of  the  Governor-Greneral's  Council. 

In  these  circumstances  the  responsibility  of  the  financial   de- 


1082  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  June 

partment  and  of  the  financial  member  of  Council  would  appear  to  be 
limited  to  giving  such  a  consideration  to  the  military  estimates  as 
may  reasonably  be  bestowed  on  results  carefully  prepared  by  a  fully 
competent  and  fully  responsible  independent  authority.  Sir  John 
Strachey's  own  statement  on  this  subject  is  as  follows  :  '  The  estimates 
of  the  cost  of  the  war  must  of  course  be  to  a  great  extent  specula- 
tive ;  but  they  have  been  prepared  with  much  care ;  and  their 
accuracy  up  to  the  present  time  is  highly  creditable  to  Major  ISTew- 
march  and  the  military  department.  There  is  no  reason  to  suppose 
that  they  err  on  the  side  of  being  too  low.' 

It  is  known  that  the  military  member  of  the  Council  of  the 
Viceroy  has  fully  accepted  the  responsibility  for  the  estimates  framed 
in  his  department.  Of  course  such  an  avowal  has  no  necessary  bearing 
on  the  responsibility  which  may  nevertheless  rest  on  the  financial 
department  for  accepting  those  estimates.  But  it  clearly  suggests 
for  consideration  what  would  have  been  the  position  of  the  financial 
member  of  Council  if  he  had  objected  to  the  estimates  either  as  being 
too  high  or  too  low.  It  seems  obvious  that  he  could  not  have  done 
anything  but  accept  them,  unless  he  was  prepared  to  show  in  detail 
that  they  were  erroneous,  which  in  the  very  nature  of  things  he 
could  not  have  done.  The  modification  by  the  financial  department 
of  an  estimate  prepared  by  an  external  departmental  authority,  in 
order  to  bring  the  public  expenditure  within  any  fixed  limits  re- 
quired by  the  Government,  is  what  may  properly  be,  and  has  con- 
stantly been,  enforced.  But  even  in  such  a  case  any  interference  with 
details  would  be  objectionable,  and  the  manner  of  effecting  the  re- 
duction would  be  left  to  the  department  concerned.  In  my  own 
experience  I  have  never  known  such  things  done  otherwise.  The 
preparation  of  the  estimates  for  war  expenditure  stands,  however,  on 
a  wholly  different  basis,  and  it  appears  to  me  inconceivable  that  a 
responsible  financial  minister  could  do  otherwise  than  accept  the  war 
estimates  of  his  military  colleague  without  practically  challenging 
his  competency.  I  shall  be  surprised,  indeed,  to  hear  that  in  such 
circumstances  an  English  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  ever  desired 
to  interfere  with  the  Army  or  Navy  Estimates  because  he  had  some 
floating  idea  that  they  were  either  too  high  or  too  low. 

It  may  be  added  that  though  it  was  resolved  in  February,  in  con- 
sequence of  the  anticipated  favourable  condition  of  the  finances,  to  use 
Sir  John  Strachey's  words,  '  to  endeavour  to  meet  all  the  expected 
demands  in  India,  during  the  coming  year,  without  recourse  to  the 
money  market  for  a  loan,'  yet  he  went  on  to  say  that '  the  estimates  of 
the  home  remittance  and  loan  transactions  are  habitually  presented 
with  expressed  reserve  ;  and  this  reserve  must  be  understood  to  be  this 
year  greater  than  usual ; '  and  the  freest  discretion  to  raise  any  loan 
which  actual  events  might  render  necessary  was  accordingly  explicitly 
reserved  by  him. 


1880.  THE  INDIAN  BUDGET  ESTIMATES.  1083 

Though  with  much  reluctance,  I  am  compelled  to  refer  to  the 
suggestions  that  have  been  made,  that  this  under-estimate  of  the  war 
expenditure  was  due  to  intentional  misrepresentation,  instigated,  if 
not  directed,  by  the  Viceroy  and  Sir  John  Strachey  to  influence  the 
elections.  So  far  as  the  mistake  has  been  the  occasion  of  such  accu- 
sations, it  was  no  doubt  a  great  practical  misfortune  that  it  should 
have  occurred  at  such  a  time.  But  how  any  one,  except  in  a  passing 
moment  of  excitement,  could  have  thought  fit  to  cast  imputations  on 
honourable  men  which  a  very  little  consideration  would  have  shown 
to  be  absurd  in  their  essence,  it  is  not  easy  to  understand,  and  the 
repetition  of  them  now  is  best  treated  by  silence.  There  are  some 
imputations  which  no  man  possessed  of  self-respect  will  descend  to 
deny.  A  conspiracy  in  India  to  frame  what  has  been  described  as  a 
falsified  Budget,  the  exposure  of  which  must  have  followed  in  a  few 
weeks,  in  order  to  influence  elections  which  no  one  foresaw,  through 
the  co-operation  of  hundreds  of  officials  scattered  over  the  country  in 
all  branches  of  the  service,  and  wholly  removed  from  all  interest  in 
English  party  politics,  is  a  flight  of  imagination  which  would  hardly 
have  called  for  notice  if  it  had  not  been  converted  into  a  serious 
accusation. 

I  am  far  from  viewing  lightly  so  considerable  a  failure  as  that  which 
has  taken  place  in  connection  with  these  military  estimates.  But 
being  confident  that  the  officers  of  the  military  department  who 
prepared  them,  and  those  of  the  financial  department  who  accepted 
them,  are  among  the  ablest  and  most  trustworthy  public  servants  in 
India,  I  must  seek  elsewhere  for  the  causes  than  in  culpable  negli- 
gence, incapacity,  or  wilful  dishonesty. 

Some  of  these  causes,  inherent  in  the  mechanism  of  the  system 
on  which  they  were  bound  to  work,  I  have  explained.  But  it  must 
also  be  remembered  that  this  is  the  first  occasion  on  which  war  esti- 
mates on  any  important  scale  have  been  prepared  since  a  regular 
system  of  Budget  estimates  has  been  introduced  in  India,  and  that 
the  departments  concerned  have  never  till  now  passed  through  the 
crucial  ordeal  of  practically  dealing  with  war  expenditure  of  large 
amount,  subject  to  the  strict  system  now  in  force ;  for  the  strict- 
ness of  the  system  is  indeed  established,  paradoxical  as  it  may  at 
first  appear,  by  the  very  early  discovery  of  the  error  and  its  pub- 
lic announcement.  The  habit  of  scrupulously  examining  the  esti- 
mates with  the  desire  of  excluding  from  sanction  all  items  not 
of  absolute  necessity  for  the  efficiency  of  the  service,  which  is  so 
essential  to  secure  economy  in  ordinary  times,  may  very  readily  have 
led  to  an  error,  excusable  in  the  actual  circumstances,  in  the  direction 
of  making  insufficient  provision  for  the  many  unforeseen  causes  of  in- 
creased charge  which  the  casualties  of  war  occasion. 

That,  apart  from  all  personal  considerations,  the  Indian  system  of 
account,  as  I  have  explained  it,  may  increase  the  liability  to  such  an 


1084  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  June 

error  as  has  lately  occurred,  is  not  to  be  denied.  But  it  must  not 
thence  be  too  quickly  inferred  that  the  English  system  has  on  the 
whole  such  real  or  important  advantages  as  would  justify  its  adoption  in 
place  of  the  Indian  system.  Though  the  English  plan  of  taking  the 
credits  made  available  for  expenditure  as  the  true  index  of  the  actual 
expenditure  prevents  any  serious  miscalculation  of  its  amount  as  it 
progresses,  it  does  not  prevent  errors  of  estimate  on  which  the  credits 
are  based,  nor  the  necessity  for  very  large  supplementary  credits  to 
cover  such  errors.  Indeed  it  may  be  doubted  whether  any  system  will, 
in  similar  circumstances,  afford  a  complete  protection  against  error. 

The  general  question  of  the  relative  merits  of  the  two  systems  is  by 
no  means  new  to  persons  conversant  with  practical  Indian  finance, 
and  it  may  be  one  which  calls  for  more  full  consideration  than  it 
has  received ;  but  this  is  not  the  place  to  discuss  it  at  any  length. 
All  that  I  need  now  say  on  the  subject  will  be  contained  in  a  few 
words.  The  existing  Indian  system  has  been  adopted  as  the  natural 
outcome  of  the  old  system  of  commercial  account  followed  under  the 
Company.  The  Budget  system  as  applied  in  India  is  the  work  of  Eng- 
lish financial  authorities,  Messrs.  Wilson  and  Laing  and  Sir  Charles 
Trevelyan.  It  has  been  very  little  changed  of  late  years,  and  the 
whole  of  the  forms  of  account  lie  beyond  the  power  of  Indian 
officials  to  modify  without  the  authority  of  the  Secretary  of  State.  If 
it  has  defects,  they  must  be  rather  attributed  to  English  than  Indian 
influences.  And  it  will,  I  believe,  be  found  that,  though  the  English 
system  has  certain  real  advantages  in  respect  to  the  simple  and  prompt 
exhibition  of  the  public  expenditure,  the  Indian  system  also  has  its 
special  merits,  among  which  is  a  tendency  to  produce  closer  economy 
in  the  actual  expenditure,  and  greater  strictness  in  routine  as  con- 
trasted with  exceptional  outlay. 

Among  its  defects  it  may  be  reckoned  that  the  accounts  aim  at 
too  great  detail,  and  become  difficult  of  apprehension  in  consequence. 
So  far  from  the  Government  of  India  being  open  to  censure  for  any 
desire  to  conceal  its  shortcomings,  it  certainly  errs  rather  in  excessive 
openness.  This  is  partly  consequent  on  its  being  a  dependent  and 
not  a  final  financial  authority.  The  Secretary  of  State  in  Council 
being  the  constitutional  head  of  the  government  of  India,  the  autho- 
rities in  India  are  compelled  to  render  their  accounts  to  him 
in  the  greatest  detail ;  and  the  practice  has  arisen  of  publishing 
them  in  eztenso,  though  they  contain  matters  of  detail  which  in 
England  I  believe  never  go  beyond  the  walls  of  the  Treasury. 

From  the  strong  language  that  has  been  employed  in  relation  to 
this  error  in  the  war  estimates  it  might  have  been  supposed  that 
some  very  serious  evil  had  arisen,  or  was  likely  to  arise,  as  its  conse- 
quence. But  I  can  nowhere  find  any  statement  of  what  this  evil  is, 
or  even  is  supposed  to  be.  If  the  corrected  amount  had  been  entered 
on  the  original  estimates,  the  necessity  for  borrowing,  instead  of 


1880.  THE  INDIAN  BUDGET  ESTIMATES.  1085 

being  alluded  to  only  as  possible,  would  have  been  announced 
positively  in  February,  and  the  present  discussion  would  never  have 
arisen,  for  it  would  not  have  occurred  to  any  one  to  allege  that 
the  necessity  for  a  loan  .to  meet  a  part  of  the  war  charges  in- 
dicated an  unsound  financial  position.  And  that  position  is  iden- 
tical with  the  one  in  which  we  now  are,  with  the  single  exception 
that  the  loan  was  announced  in  May  instead  of  in  February.  No 
practical  inconvenience  has  been  caused  by  the  delay.  Instead  of  it 
being  possible  to  provide  without  borrowing,  as  had  been  anticipated, 
both  for  the  war  and  the  outlay  on  Productive  Public  Works,  it  will 
be  necessary  to  borrow  for  the  Public  Works  in  accordance  with  the 
usual  practice,  and  further  to  borrow  one  or  two  millions  to  assist  in 
meeting  a  war  expenditure  of  about  8£  millions  (of  which  2£  millions 
are  for  railways),  the  residue  being  met  from  the  income  of  the  year 
and  the  treasury  balances.  Nothing  but  unusual  prosperity  could 
have  given  rise  even  temporarily  to  the  idea  that  it  might  be  possible 
to  pay  for  a  war  out  of  the  ordinary  surplus  revenues.  In  fact  the 
Indian  Government  is  in  the  position  of  a  man  who,  having  imagined 
himself  a  millionnaire,  finds  himself  to  be  merely  in  affluent  cir- 
cumstances. Some  disappointment  may  reasonably  be  felt,  but 
beyond  this  the  only  legitimate  feeling  will  be  a  desire  to  inquire 
into  the  merits  of  the  system  under  which  such  an  error  in  the 
estimates  was  possible,  and  into  the  competency  of  those  who  applied 
it,  and  the  degree  of  confidence  that  may  properly  be  reposed  in 
them  in  future.  It  has  been  my  object  in  this  paper  to  give  reasons 
why  neither  the  system  nor  the  officials  are  of  necessity  discredited 
by  the  mere  fact  of  the  occurrence  of  such  an  error,  and  beyond 
this  fact  we  at  present  know  nothing. 

And  here  I  should  have  been  disposed  to  leave  this  matter  in  the 
belief  that  the  general  position  of  Indian  finance,  apart  from  the 
war  (with  the  policy  leading  to  which,  or  its  results,  the  present 
discussion  is  in  no  way  concerned),  would  be  accepted  as  the  test  of 
Sir  John  Strachey's  fitness  for  the  office  he  holds.  But,  as  state- 
ments, which  to  me  at  least  appear  wholly  opposed  to  the  facts, 
continue  to  be  made  on  this  subject,  I  feel  constrained  to  refer  to  it. 

In  the  first  place,  however,  it  is  necessary  to  explain  that  there  is 
a  fundamental  difference  between  the  manner  in  which  certain  critics 
persistently  describe  some  parts  of  the  financial  transactions  of  the 
Government  of  India,  and  the  manner  in  which  those  transactions 
are  treated  by  the  Government  with  the  full  authority  of  the  Secre- 
tary of  State.  These  critics,  among  whom  are  Mr.  Fawcett, 
Mr.  Laing,  and  Sir  George  Balfour,  continue  to  speak  of  the  sums 
spent  from  borrowed  funds  on  Productive  Public  Works  as  though 
they  were  part  of  the  ordinary  expenditure  of  the  year,  and  to  treat 
them  as  creating  a  deficit  in  the  same  sense  as  expenditure  on  ordinary 
administrative  objects  in  excess  of  income  would  create  a  deficit. 


1086  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  June 

The  Government  has  long  declared  that  it  avowedly  borrows  to  supply 
the  funds  for  this  outlay,  which  is  excluded  from  the  accounts 
of  the  ordinary  charges  against  the  revenue  of  the  year,  because  it 
is  in  truth  an  investment  of  capital,  and  not  money  spent  once  for 
all  and  done  with.  It  is  no  part  of  my  present  object  to  discuss  the 
merits  of  this  question,  but  only  to  point  out  that  the  conclusions 
come  to  by  persons  applying  the  terms  they  use  in  such  totally 
different  senses,  have  no  intelligible  reference  to  one  another,  and 
that  what  appear  to  be  violently  discordant  statements  may,  in  truth, 
represent  the  same  facts.  For  my  own  part  I  adopt  the  phraseology 
of  the  public  accounts,  which,  I  may  add,  seems  to  me  to  be  the 
language  of  common  sense  also. 

A  reasonable  test  of  the  general  financial  condition  of  India  during 
the  four  years  of  Lord  Lytton's  viceroyalty  will  be  obtained  from  the 
following  figures.  Excluding  the  charges  for  famine  relief,  which 
are  so  wholly  exceptional  in  their  nature  that  it  has  been  recognised 
by  every  one  that  they  should  be  distributed  over  a  term  of  years,  and 
the  charges  for  war  which  it  could  hardly  be  expected  to  meet  from 
the  ordinary  income,  these  four  years  would  show  surpluses  actual  and 
estimated  as  follows  :  — 

Years  £ 

— 


1879-80     ....     5,104,000    Partly  estimated. 
1880-81     ....     4,782,000    Estimated. 

Total    .         .  14,722,880 

But  to  give  a  correct  idea  of  the  actual  condition  of  India  in  com- 
parison with  what  it  was  eight  or  ten  years  ago,  it  is  necessary  to 
remember  that  in  these  last  four  years  the  charge  from  loss  by 
exchange  suddenly  increased  enormously,  and  has  aggregated  very 
nearly  9,000,000?.  more  than  in  the  four  years  between  1869  and 
1872,  before  which  time  it  had  for  a  long  series  of  years  been  insig- 
nificant ;  so  that  for  purposes  of  comparison  the  whole  surplus  might 
be  reckoned  at  about  23,750,000?.  in  the  four  years  between  1877 
and  1880.  How  far  this  justifies  suggestions  of  financial  mismanage- 
ment every  one  may  judge  for  himself. 

The  loss  by  exchange  is  a  charge  which  clearly  must  be  borne 
by  the  ordinary  revenues  year  by  year.  But  the  famine  and  war 
charges  are  of  a  different  nature. 

In  the  last  four  years  the  famine  charges  have  amounted  together 
to  5,763.195?,  and  the  war  charges,  adding  4,000,000?.  to  the  sum 
entered  in  the  Budget  estimate  for  1880-81,  amount  to  9,982,381?. 
for  military  expenditure  proper,  and  3,940,000?.  for  the  frontier 
railways  ;  together  13,922,381?.  The  surplus  income  of  these  four  years, 
after  meeting  the  whole  of  the  ordinary  current  charges,  including  the 


1880.  THE  INDIAN  BUDGET  ESTIMATES.  1087 

loss  by  exchange,  would  therefore  suffice  to  pay  for  the  whole  of  these 
war  charges  and  800,000£.  from  the  famine  charges.  Kegarding  the 
frontier  railways  as  an  investment  rather  than  a  final  disbursement, 
we  should  find  that  the  surplus  would  meet  the  whole  of  the  famine 
and  regular  war  charges,  with  the  exception  of  about  1 ,000,000£. 

Next  taking  the  item  of  interest  on  debt,  it  will  be  found  that, 
notwithstanding  the  large  outlay  on  productive  works,  the  net  charge 
for  interest  has  only  increased  between  1868-69  and  1879-80  about 
300,000£.  In  the  same  time  the  net  charge  for  railways,  including 
the  guaranteed  interest,  has  been  reduced  from  1,998,700?.  to  286,000?., 
while  the  estimate  for  the  present  year  shows  at  length  a  net  income 
of  about  1,000,000?.,  or  a  virtual  improvement  of  3,000,000?.  in  the 
twelve  years.  On  other  public  works  there  has  also  been  a  sensible 
reduction  of  charge  ;  but  taking  the  railways  alone  the  improvement 
has  been  such  as  to  reduce  the  total  charge  under  the  heads  of  Interest 
and  Eailways  by  more  than  2,000,000?.,  and  at  the  same  time  to 
have  admitted  the  expenditure  of  about  26,000,000?.  of  borrowed 
capital  on  railways,  and  12,000,000?.  on  irrigation  works,  and 
to  have  made  provision  for  fourteen  and  a  half  millions  spent  on 
famine  relief,  and  about  ten  millions  for  the  war.  Debt  is  only  onerous 
to  the  extent  to  which  it  is  liable  to  be  repaid,  or  involves  a  charge 
for  interest ;  and  as  the  public  debt  of  India  is  virtually  only  repayable 
at  the  discretion  of  the  Government,  the  liability  for  interest  is  the 
sole  consideration  of  importance.  So  far  as  the  Indian  debt  is  invested 
in  remunerative  public  works,  it  is  no  more  a  true  debt  than  the  sums 
invested  as  railway  capital  in  this  country ;  and  so  long  as  the  net 
charge  for  interest  does  not  increase,  or  is  met  by  a  corresponding 
addition  to  the  public  income  arising  from  the  investment  of  borrowed 
money,  the  financial  position  remains  perfectly  sound  in  respect  to 
these  transactions.  In  the  present  year,  for  the  first  time,  the  accounts 
show,  what  has  been  long  perfectly  well  known  to  persons  who  are 
acquainted  with  the  facts,  that  the  net  income  from  the  productive 
works  of  India  suffices  to  defray  the  whole  of  the  charges  con- 
nected with  them,  including  interest  on  all  capital,  whether  at  present 
remunerative  or  not,  and  to  yield  in  addition  a  surplus  income. 

Further  I  will  only  add  with  reference  to  the  alleged  decaying 
condition  of  India,  and  to  assertions  that  the  limit  of  taxation  has 
not  only  been  reached  but  exceeded,  that,  so  far  as  I  am  informed 
on  such  subjects,  the  whole  of  the  available  evidence  indicates,  on  the 
contrary,  every  sign  of  increasing  wealth  and  prosperity,  and  that 
there  is  no  undue  pressure  of  taxation.  There  is  no  country,  I  believe, 
the  foreign  trade  of  which  has  been  so  little  affected  injuriously  as 
India  by  the  depression  which  has  been  universal  for  some  years  past, 
and  this  notwithstanding  the  unexampled  famine  which  afflicted 
great  provinces  during  two  of  these  years.  The  continued  growth  of 
exports  and  imports  testifies  to  the  increasing  power  both  of  pro- 


1088  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  June 

duction  and  consumption.  The  rapid  increase  of  railway  income 
gives  undeniable  proof  of  the  simultaneous  development  of  internal 
trade.  The  salt  duties,  which  have  been  described  by  some  as  ruin- 
ously heavy,  have  in  fact  by  their  equalisation  been  reduced  to  130 
millions  of  the  people  and  increased  only  to  47  millions,  with  the 
result  of  a  general  increase  of  consumption  in  the  last  year  of  10  per 
cent,  for  the  whole  country,  and  with  no  reduction  of  consumption 
in  the  provinces  where  the  duty  was  raised.  The  steady  increase  of  all 
the  other  chief  elements  of  the  public  revenue  confirms  these  con- 
clusions, while  the  careful  administration  of  this  revenue  is  shown 
by  the  extremely  small  additions  to  the  ordinary  public  expenditure. 
All  these  results,  it  is  true,  are  not  exclusively  due  to  Sir  John 
Strachey's  management  of  the  finances,  but  they  afford  proof  that 
at  his  hands  the  State  has  received  no  injury ;  and  when  he  leaves 
his  present  post  he  will  have  no  cause  to  fear  comparison  with  the 
ablest  of  his  predecessors  in  respect  to  the  discharge  of  any  part  of  his 
duties. 

EICHARD  STRACHET. 


1880.  1089 


DOCTORS  AND  NURSES. 

I. 

THE  question  raised  by  Miss  Lonsdale  in  her  article,  l  The  Crisis  at 
Guy's  Hospital,'  may  be  left  to  those  who  are  conversant  with  the 
circumstances.  But  when  this  particular  case  has  been  dealt  with 
there  still  remains  the  fact  that  at  other  hospitals  in  and  out  of 
London  similar  difficulties  are  being  encountered.  Speaking  generally, 
the  relation  which  should  exist  between  the  medical  and  the  nursing 
staff  of  a  hospital  is  still  in  controversy,  and  the  benefit  to  be  derived 
from  an  improved  system  of  nursing,  not  only  in  hospitals  but  in 
other  kindred  institutions  and  even  in  private  households,  is  much 
narrowed  and  hampered  in  consequence. 

It  is  to  this  general  question  rather  than  to  Miss  Lonsdale's 
complaints  that  I  desire  to  call  attention.  Beyond  the  region  of 
controversy  we  can  well  afford  to  discuss  the  subject  in  a  j  ;idicial 
spirit.  It  is  but  fair,  indeed,  to  remember  that  the  writer's  dis- 
paraging statements  are  put  forward  in  the  heat  and  excitement  of 
conflict,  and  may  be  partly  excused  on  that  account.  Miss  Lonsdale's 
article  is  in  fact,  although  not,  I  am  sure,  in  intention,  an  indictment 
of  the  medical  profession  in  respect  of  its  attitude  towards  skilled 
nursing.  Doctors,  we  are  told,  are  satisfied  with  the  old  plans,  partly 
because  they  are  unable  to  distinguish  good  nursing  from  bad,  and 
partly  from  a  natural  preference  for  nurses  of  the  old  school  who  tell 
no  tales  outside  as  to  'practices  and  experiments  indulged  in  which 
had  better  not  be  mentioned.'  The  relationship  which  it  is  desired 
to  maintain  between  doctor  and  nurse,  and  the  attitude  of  both 
towards  the  general  public,  are  illustrated  by  Miss  Lonsdale  under 
the  figure  of  a  household  where  the  upper  and  the  under  servants 
have  a  common  interest  in  blinding  the  eyes  of  the  mistress.  A 
further  objection  to  the  presence  of  nurses  of  the  better  class  in 
hospital  wards  is  alleged  to  be  that  refined  women  exercise  a  restraint 
upon  the  words  and  ways  of  doctors,  who,  in  the  absence  of  this 
influence  heretofore,  have  become  accustomed  to  behave  '  exactly  as 
their  natural  disposition  prompted  them.'  Here  indeed,  with  the 
omission  of  some  special  complaints  in  regard  to  Guy's  Hospital,  and 
of  much,  perfectly  just,  commendation  of  modern  nursing,  is  the  sum 
and  substance  of  Miss  Lonsdale's  paper.  Its  main  points,  so  far  as 


1090  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY.  June 

my  present  purpose  is  concerned,  are  these :  First,  that  doctors  are 
poor  judges  of  the  quality  of  nursing,  and,  secondly,  that,  for  reasons 
which  are  hardly  creditable,  they  prefer  bad  nursing  to  good. 

As  to  the  alleged  ignorance  of  medical  men  on  the  subject  of 
nursing  I  will  speak  in  a  moment,  but  it  is  obviously  necessary  at 
the  very  outset  to  insist  that  doctors  do  in  fact,  so  far  as  their  light 
goes,  approve  of  good  nursing  rather  than  bad,  and  prefer  the  new 
system  to  the  old.  This  is  sufficiently  shown  by  the  observation  that 
the  improved  nursing  of  the  London  hospitals  has  been  brought 
about  mainly,  in  some  cases  entirely,  at  the  instigation  and  with  the 
aid  of  the  physicians  and  surgeons.  It  is  proved  further  by  the  fact 
that  doctors  give  their  services  freely  in  lecturing  and  medical 
attendance  at  the  nursing  institutions  attached  to  their  own  hospitals. 
It  is  true  that  when  difficulties  and  disagreements  have  arisen  the 
complaints  have  come  from  the  medical  staff.  From  whom  else 
should  they  come  ?  Nevertheless  in  the  history  of  nursing  reform 
during  the  last  twenty  years  the  hearty  co-operation  of  the  medical 
element  in  our  great  metropolitan  hospitals  has  been  conspicuous. 
With  whatever  feebleness  of  discrimination,  with  whatever  natural 
shrinking  from  near  contact  with  refinement,  doctors  are  really  on 
the  side  of  good  nursing. 

But,  to  return  to  the  general  question,  whence  does  it  arise  that 
with  the  remarkable  improvement  in  the  education  and  special 
training  of  nurses  difficulties  are  continually  arising,  not  in  one 
hospital  but  in  many,  in  the  actual  working  of  the  improved  system, 
the  first  expression  of  dissatisfaction  coming  generally  from  the 
medical  side  ?  One  reason  for  difference  is  indeed  apparent.  With 
the  more  complicated  organisation  a  finer  adjustment  is  needed,  and 
fine  adjustments  are  those  which  are  the  most  easily  disturbed. 
Granting  that  two  separate  elements  are  to  co-operate  in  the  care  of 
the  sick,  the  nurse  and  the  doctor,  it  is  inevitable  that  every  now 
and  then  there  should  be  a  conflict.  Such  conflict  will  be  the  more 
frequent  exactly  in  proportion  as  the  two  functions  concerned  approach 
equality.  In  other  words,  the  highly  educated  and  experienced  nurse 
will  always  have  views  of  her  own,  which  will  only  by  rare  accident 
coincide  at  all  points  with  those  of  the  doctor.  Familiarity  with 
disease  will  furnish  her,  after  a  while,  with  a  set  of  opinions  as  to 
medical  treatment  and  medical  capacity  which  are  perfectly  legiti- 
mate, and  which  it  will  be  impossible  to  conceal.  She  will  be  quick 
to  detect  mistakes  and  suggest  expedients,  as  well  as  to  form  her  own 
estimate  of  the  daily  progress  and  requirements  of  the  patient.  It 
needs  a  very  large  belief  in  the  proper  subordination  of  women  to 
suppose  that  a  nurse  of  the  kind  I  am  speaking  of  will  remain  in 
the  service  of  the  sick,  accumulating  experience  which  is  of  the  very 
same  kind  and  may  even  exceed  in  amount  that  of  the  doctor,  yet 
continue  blind  and  deaf,  so  far  as  the  purely  medical  aspsct  of  the 


1880.  DOCTORS  AND  NURSES.  1091 

case  is  concerned,  waiting  for  the  word  of  wisdom  and  forbidden  to 
give  any  opinion  of  her  own,  or  even  to  name  the  disease  of  the 
patient,  except  in  popular  and  inexact  terms. 

It  is  notorious  that  disagreement  actually  arises  in  this  way. 
The  comparative  merits  of  doctors  are  freely  discussed ;  by  word  or 
manner,  if  not  by  act,  the  trained  nurse  shows  disapproval,  or  she 
may  even  openly  dispute  the  doctors  decision.  Such  conduct  is  not 
due,  as  has  been  alleged,  to  anything  that  is  peculiar  in  the  feminine 
temperament.  On  the  contrary,  independence  and  assertiveness 
belong  to  men  far  more  than  to  women,  and,  if  the  sex  difference 
were  removed,  I  believe  the  co-operation  of  doctor  and  nurse,  upon 
the  terms  we  are  now  considering,  would  be  simply  impossible.  As 
it  is,  the  contact  of  the  highly  educated  and  skilled  nurse  with  the 
young  and  inexperienced  practitioner  (and  let  it  be  remembered 
that  our  house-surgeons  and  house-physicians  must  of  necessity  be 
young  and  inexperienced)  is  difficult  and  precarious.  The  share  of 
the  two  in  the  common  work  is  no  fair  representation  of  their  relative 
capacity.  However  it  may  be  concealed  by  good  feeling,  there  is  a 
consciousness  of  unequal  partnership  constantly  present  to  the  mind 
and  embarrassing  to  both  doctor  and  nurse. 

A  further  source  of  trouble  arises  from  the  very  enthusiasm  and 
ardour  which  women  bring  to  a  service  which  they  intimately  connect 
with  the  highest  religious  duty.  Miss  Lonsdale  has  spoken  of  the 
nobility  and  self-sacrifice  of  the  medical  profession  in  terms  which, 
taken  together  with  her  specific  charges  of  questionable  practices 
and  natural  coarseness,  must  be  regarded  as  purely  conventional.  The 
dignity  of  the  nurse's  calling  needs  no  similar  qualification.  Hospital 
doctors  can  at  least  judge  so  far.  Think  of  the  daily  routine  of 
hospital  work  with  its  continued  supply  of '  bad  cases,'  who,  so  soon  as 
they  mend  a  little,  pass  out  of  sight  to  be  succeeded  by  others  as 
bad ;  of  the  ingratitude  of  many  patients,  the  actual  violence  of 
some ;  of  the  careful  tending  of  those  who  have  reached  the  very 
bottom  of  social  degradation, -and  whose  wounds  and  diseases  are  the 
direct  result  of  their  depravity.  All  this  the  hospital  nurse  endures 
week  after  week,  with  small  money  remuneration,  limited  prospect 
of  promotion,  scanty  share  in  any  credit  which  may  accrue,  and 
prompted  only  by  a  motive  which,  however  it  may  find  expression, 
is  of  the  highest  and  noblest  kind.  The  dignity  of  such  service 
seems  to  me  quite  unequalled.  I  almost  fear  lest  the  endeavours 
which  have  lately  been  made  to  reward  hospital  nursing  with  badges 
and  high-sounding  names  should  involve  some  lowering  and  cheapen- 
ing of  it. 

It  happens,  however,  unfortunately  that  enthusiasm  and  self- 
negation  too  easily  pass  into  extravagance,  while  the  belief  that  the 
business  of  nursing  is  nothing  less  than  a  form  of  devotion  gives  to 
some  women  that  energy  of  action  which  compels  them  for  conscience' 


1092  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  June 

sake  to  take  their  own  way  in  spite  of  all  obstacles.  I  am  not  speaking 
now  of  the  sentimental  view  of  nursing.  The  romantic  notions  upon 
the  subject  got  out  of  plays  and  novels  are  speedily  dissipated  by 
actual  contact  with  the  real  thing.  I  have  known  a  young  lady 
come  to  London  full  of  ardour  to  nurse  sick  little  children,  and 
return  to  her  parents,  completely  disenchanted,  by  an  early  train  on 
the  following  day.  The  devotional  view  of  nursing  (if  I  may  so  call 
it  without  being  misunderstood)  is  far  more  difficult  to  encounter, 
inasmuch  as  it  prompts  to  acts  which  are  unnecessary  and  inconve- 
nient, and  may  even  be  fatal  to  good  discipline.  Any  one  who  reads 
the  lately  published  Life  of  Sister  Dora  will  admit,  I  think,  with 
whatever  admiration  he  may  regard  her  fearless  temper  and  untiring 
love  of  duty,  that  no  well-regulated  hospital  could  have  existed  under 
such  a  rule.  No  system  could  be  made  to  work  with  a  matron  who 
would  summon  the  doctor  to  her  own  room  for  a  scolding,  interpose 
at  an  operation  by  sucking  the  wound,  take  the  charge  of  a  shattered 
limb  out  of  the  hands  of  the  surgeon,  remove  the  bodies  of  the  dead 
in  her  arms,  and  meet  all  opposition  by  repeated  threats  to  resign. 

These  and  a  hundred  other  difficulties  arise,  as  I  believe,  from  the 
fundamental  error  which  seeks  to  separate  what  is  not  separable  by 
setting  up  nursing  as  an  independent  guild  or  department  of  science 
willing,  upon  certain  terms  of  its  own,  to  lend  its  aid  to  medicine. 
There  is  one  simple  answer  to  all  such  pretensions.  Nursing  is 
doctoring,  the  nurse  is  the  doctor.  If  it  be  true,  as  we  are  told,  that 
the  medical  man  knows  no  difference  between  good  nursing  and  bad, 
it  must  be  also  true  that  he  knows  no  difference  between  good  and 
bad  doctoring.  Any  one  who  will  set  himself  to  define  the  function 
of  the  nurse  as  distinct  from  that  of  the  doctor  will  very  soon  find 
himself  involved  in  absurdity.  The  doctor,  you  say,  orders,  the  nurse 
executes.  But  is  then  the  nurse  to  execute  in  her  own  way  ?  Is  it 
actually  the  fact,  for  instance,  that  the  doctor's  science  enables  him 
to  say  that  a  certain  ointment  or  fomentation  is  to  be  used,  while  the 
nurse's  science  is  to  determine  the  precise  mode  and  duration  of  the 
application? 

It  is  this  very  absurdity  which  is  now  being  promulgated  in 
certain  institutions  for  trained  nurses.  It  is  surely  remarkable  that 
a  claim  of  this  kind  on  behalf  of  nursing  should  be  asserted  just  now, 
at  the  very  time  when,  after  centuries  of  delusion  and  disaster,  we 
have  at  length  reached  the  conclusion  that  the  treatment  of  disease 
is,  for  the  most  part,  no  more  than  waiting  upon  it,  that  drugs  are 
of  very  limited  use,  and  that  the  recovery  of  the  sick  in  nine  cases 
out  of  ten  is  dependent  on  our  success  in  devising  some  simple  plan 
by  means  of  which  the  injured  limb  or  organ  may  best  obtain  rest. 
Yet  it  so  happens  that  while  this  beneficial  discovery  was  still  in 
progress  there  has  been  growing  up  beside  it,  in  obedience  to  that 
spirit  of  the  age  which  demands  the  perpetual  setting  up  of  new 


1880.  DOCTORS  AND   NURSES.  '   1093 

schools  and  new  professorships,  this  modern  system  for  the  more 
complete  and  efficient  supervision  of  the  sick.  The  doctors  having 
at  length  confessed  that  drugs  are  nought,  or  almost  nought,  are 
distinctly  informed  that  the  province  of  nursing,  to  which  they  would 
betake  themselves,  is  already  occupied.  They  are  as  good  as  elimi- 
nated. Doctors  are  no  better  judges  of  nursing,  says  Miss  Lonsdale, 
than  nurses  are  of  drugs. 

I  would  maintain,  then  (in  common,  as  I  believe,  with  the  whole 
medical  profession),  that  there  is  no  rational  method  of  tending  the 
sick  which  can  afford  to  take  cognisance  of  nursing  as  in  any  respect 
whatever  distinct  from  medical  treatment.  Nursing,  as  the  execu- 
tive part  of  the  work,  must  be  in  absolute  subordination  to  a 
director.  With  every  wish  to  yield  precedence,  I  fail  to  see  how  ihis 
director  can  be  any  other  than  the  doctor.  It  is  as  reasonable  to 
say  that  the  captain  shall  guide  the  ship  and  some  separate  depart- 
ment have  charge  of  the  helm,  or  that  the  commanding  officer 
shall  direct  the  movements  of  a  battalion  while  some  one  else  is 
to  determine  the  best  method  for  their  execution,  as  it  is  to 
contend  that  the  authority  of  the  nurse  can  be  in  any  way  separate 
from  that  of  the  doctor.  It  is  easy  to  see  that  no  such  rigid  disci- 
pline can  prevail,  whether  in  the  army  or  the  hospital,  without 
anomalies  and  personal  sacrifice.  The  non-commissioned  officer 
obeys  commands  of  the  subaltern  which  he  sees  to  be  not  over-wise. 
The  regimental  officer,  conscious  that  the  whole  plan  of  a  campaign 
is  a  blunder,  is  not  the  less  prompt  in  carrying  out  its  details.  Such 
mode  of  conduct  applies  precisely  point  by  point  to  the  care  of  the  sick. 

It  may  be  said,  indeed  (and  I  think  with  much  justice),  that  in 
this  system  of  subordination  on  the  part  of  the  nurse  there  is  no 
sufficient  recognition  either  of  her  trained  skill  and  experience  or  of 
her  just  claims  both  to  an  intelligent  concern  in  the  work  from  its 
scientific  point  of  view,  and  a  fair  share  of  praise  in  the  final  result. 
The  recovery  of  a  patient,  which  in  many  instances  is  due  almost 
entirely  to  the  sedulous  care  of  the  nurse,  is  ascribed  very  commonly 
to  the  sagacity  of  the  doctor.  At  the  same  time  any  interest  which 
the  nurse  may  exhibit  beyond  the  mere  routine  of  her  duty,  as  to  the 
nature  of  the  disease,  its  physical  signs  and  morbid  appearances,  is 
apt  to  be  resented  by  professional  men  as  an  impertinence. 

It  is  true  that  in  the  present  day  intelligent  and  educated  women 
have  the  choice  before  them  whether  to  be  nurses  or  doctors.  Any 
woman  who  chooses  to  embark  upon  a  laborious  profession,  where 
there  is  much  more  of  failure  and  blank  disappointment  than  in  the 
nurse's  calling,  is  quite  free  to  do  so.  In  the  meanwhile,  the  relative 
position  of  nurse  to  doctor  is  in  great  measure  justified  by  the  cir- 
cumstances. Yet  I  still  think  that  the  very  strict  line  of  demarca- 
tion which  is  commonly  made — the  very  jealous  guarding  from  all 
but  professional  scrutiny  of  what  is  regarded,  somewhat  loosely,  as 
VOL.  VII.— No.  40.  4  D 


1094   .  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY.  June 

the  scientific  side  of  medicine — is  unfair  and  unnecessaiy.  Nurses, 
being  now  recruited  from  a  superior  class,  are  entitled  to  take 
higher  rank.  For  my  own  part,  I  can  see  no  reason  why  an  educated 
nurse  should  not  make  use  of  her  special  senses  in  the  same  manner 
as  we  do  ourselves  in  order  to  obtain  the  same  information.  The 
ability  to  recognise,  for  example,  the  several  sounds  made  by  the 
heart  and  lungs  is  mere  matter  of  practice ;  and  it  seems  to  me  per- 
fectly legitimate  that  a  nurse  should  educate  her  ear  as  well  as  her 
eyes  to  interpret  the  condition  and  progress  of  the  patient.  The 
boundary  line  which  is  made  to  separate  '  scientific  medicine '  from 
the  rest  of  it,  and  which  nurses  are  forbidden  to  transgress,  is  some- 
times quite  fanciful.  Many  accidental  circumstances  determine  it, 
as  the  minute  size  of  a  thing,  and  the  fact  that  we  need  other  im- 
plements than  our  naked  senses  in  order  to  discern  it.  There  is  the 
imposture — to  call  it  by  so  harsh  a  name — of  concealing  what  is 
really  simple  and  easy  under  hard  names  and  the  pretence  of  mystery, 
which  in  its  way  is  quite  as  bad  as  the  imposture  of  setting  up  nursing 
sisterhoods  as  centres  of  a  privileged  and  subtle  craft.  I  know  of 
nurses  who,  as  I  strongly  suspect,  do  actually  make  use  of  the  stetho- 
scope. I  am  not  going  to  tell  of  them,  but  rather  hope  that  what 
is  now  a  secret  indulgence  may  be  one  day  among  the  recognised 
accomplishments  of  good  nurses. 

Again,  why  should  a  nurse  any  more  than  a  soldier  be  forbidden 
to  take  an  interest  in  the  scientific  part  of  her  profession  ?  Why 
should  it  be  thought  unbecoming  in  her  when,  having  followed  the 
several  steps  of  some  obscure  illness  to  the  fatal  end,  she  expresses 
a  desire  to  learn  or  even  to  discuss  what  the  pathologist  has  dis- 
covered after  death  ?  It  is  true  that  some  of  the  best  nurses  seem 
indifferent  to  such  details ;  but  it  is  difficult  to  say  how  far  these 
are  influenced  by  the  fear  of  appearing  intrusive  or  un  feminine.  It 
is  surely  far  more  fitting  that  enthusiasm  should  spend  itself  in  this 
way  than  that  it  should  take  the  highly  inconvenient  form  of 
sucking  poisoned  wounds  and  disputing  with  surgeons  about  the 
treatment  of  an  injured  limb.  I  would  even  entrust  nurses  with  the 
direct  care  of  patients  suffering  from  diseases  and  surgical  injuries 
as  to  the  treatment  of  which  they  had  had  repeated  experience, 
taking  especial  pains  lest  the  general  superintendence  which  would 
be  needed  on  the  part  of  physician  or  surgeon  should  seem  to 
diminish  something  from  the  actual  credit  of  such  labour.  I  know 
upon  the  best  authority  that  women  make  the  most  tender  and 
dexterous  surgical  '  dressers,'  while  in  regard  to  the  routine  of  medical 
treatment  they  have  that  respect  for  authority  and  easy  acquiescence 
in  the  statements  of  books  which  some  teachers  deem  so  necessary 
for  the  formation  of  sound  practitioners.  The  more  experienced  and 
accomplished  nurses  might  well  occupy  the  position  once  assigned  to 
the  apothecary  of  the  last  century.  It  may  be  said,  indeed,  that  the 


1880.  DOCTORS  AND  NURSES.  1095 

apothecary  knew  a  great  deal  more  of  practical  medicine ;  but  then 
all  that  he  knew,  or  thought  he  knew,  was  wrong. 

And  while  it  seems  but  just  that  the  intelligence  and  experience 
of  nurses,  or,  if  the  term  be  preferred,  their  scientific  knowledge, 
should  be  fully  recognised  and  respected,  it  is  right  too  that,  as  form- 
ing a  separate  community,  they  should  have  their  own  laws  of 
internal  organisation,  subject  only  to  the  necessities  of  the  work  to  be 
done,  of  which  the  doctor  must  be,  if  not  the  sole  judge,  at  least  the 
sole  disposer.  It  is  as  unreasonable  for  the  head  nurse  of  a  ward  to 
be  habitually  absent  during  the  medical  visit  (as  is  contended  for  at 
Guy's)  as  for  the  adjutant  of  a  regiment  to  be  habitually  absent  from 
parade.  But  with  what  possible  reason  or  motive  would  medical  men 
interpose  between  lady-superintendent  and  nurses  out  of  working 
hours?  It  is  everywhere  felt  that  the  domestic  element  in  the* 
modern  system  of  nursing,  binding  together  its  members  as  one  com- 
munity having  common  interests  and  a  common  object,  is  one  of  its 
best  features.  In  the  many  defects  of  the  old  nursing  there  was 
nothing  less  creditable  than  the  manner  in  which  Mrs.  Gamp  and 
Mrs.  Prig  disposed  of  their  leisure  hours. 

There  remain,  it  is  true,  opportunities  enough  for  collision  and 
difference,  necessity  enough  for  mutual  concession  and  confidence. 
In  the  selection  of  suitable  women  and  the  mode  of  their  distribution 
to  the  several  wards,  in  the  occasional  dismissal  of  old  and  trusted 
nurses  for  reasons  which  are  withheld  or  reasons  which  seem  to  be 
frivolous,  in  the  general  bearing,  as  we  are  now  told,  of  the  medical 
officers  towards  the  nurses,  or  even,  by  possibility,  of  the  nurses 
towards  the  medical  officers,  there  are  so  many  occasions  for  dissatis- 
faction on  one  side  or  the  other.  Such  accidents  are  inevitable  in 
every  complicated  system.  They  are  to  be  regarded  in  some  measure 
as  an  index  of  efficiency  and  progress.  \Ve  know  for  certain  that 
these  differences  are  always  capable  of  adjustment,  provided  only  that 
there  be  but  one  centre  of  authority  and  of  appeal.  It  is  not  now 
that  we  have  to  ask,  as  though  it  were  some  new  thing,  whether  the 
co-operation  of  trained  and  intelligent  women  in  the  service  of  the  sick 
is  really  possible.  The  system  has  been  in  operation  for  years  in 
many  hospitals  with  the  happiest  results,  and  where  it  has  seemed  to 
fail  the  fault  has  been  neither  with  the  nursing  staff  nor  the  medical 
officers,  but  because  a  plan  of  dual  government  has  been  insisted  on 
which  makes  failure  a  certainty. 

With  the  matter  thus  clearly  before  them  it  is  for  the  public  to 
judge.  With  the  memory  (if  it  be  altogether  a  memory)  of  the 
cruelty  of  negligent  and  inefficient  nursing — of  its  extreme  cruelty 
during  the  long  cold  watches  of  the  night  when  temptations  to  neglect 
are  the  strongest — will  benevolent  people,  subscribers  to  hospitals, 
which  in  the  absence  of  good  nurses  are  mere  places  of  torture,  decline 
to  take  an  active  share  in  the  settlement  of  a  question  which  is  per- 

4D2 


1096  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  June 

fectly  free  from  technicality,  and  where  they  are  as  competent  to  judge 
as  either  doctors  or  nurses  ?  Nay,  they  are  more  competent  as  being 
unbiassed. 

In  conclusion  I  would  entreat  all  those  who  are  in  any  way  in- 
terested in  the  nursing  of  the  sick  to  believe  that  medical  men  are 
not  really  illiberal  in  this  matter  or  indifferent  to  the  contentment 
and  well-being  of  those  to  whom  they  owe  so  much.  Women  may  be 
either  doctors  or  nurses  ;  they  cannot  alter  the  only  rational  connec- 
tion between  the  two  functions.  The  School  of  Medicine  for  Women 
lately  established  in  London  found  no  difficulty  in  securing  the  help 
of  a  sufficient  number  of  teachers  from  other  medical  schools.  And 
now,  in  a  province  which  is  peculiarly  a  woman's,  and  where  women 
have  already  achieved  so  much,  will  any  one  believe  that  medical 
men,  who  best  know  how  much  of  sacrifice  the  work  demands,  are 
really  hostile  to  the  best  interests  of  the  nursing  profession  ?  I  am 
persuaded,  on  the  contrary,  that  any  suggestions  which  might  be 
made  for  the  improvement  of  the  nursing  system,  or  the  fuller  re- 
cognition of  nursing  as  part  and  parcel  of  scientific  medicine,  would 
be  readily  and  respectfully  considered.  And  I  am  equally  certain 
that  not  only  at  Grtiy's  Hospital,  but  everywhere,  physicians  and 
surgeons  will  decline  to  undertake  the  care  of  the  sick  where  there  is 
divided  rule  and  joint  responsibility. 

OCTAVIUS  STURGE.?. 

(Westminster  Hospital.) 


188C.  DOCTORS  AND  NURSES.  1097 


II. 

THE  nursing  of  the  present  day  is  very  different  from  what  it  has 
been  in  the  past.  To  an  observer  familiar  with  hospitals  the  most 
striking  change  will  seem  to  be  the  substitution  of  young  and  intelli- 
gent women  of  a  better  class  for  those  who  have  been  caricatured  by 
Dickens  and  rather  spitefully  misrepresented  by  a  recent  writer  in 
this  Review.  Instead  of  occupying  positions  of  comparative  isolation 
and  independence  in  hospitals,  the  members  of  a  nursing  body  are 
now  combined  in  a  well-arranged  system,  where  gradations  dependent 
on  merit  and  experience  exist,  and  where  sound  practical  training  is 
more  effectually  insured.  Where  stagnation  once  reigned  supreme, 
all  is  now  life  and  activity.  What  has  given  rise  to  this  change  ? 

If  we  were  to  form  an  opinion  from  what  some  ladies  have  said 
and  written  on  the  subject,  we  could  scarcely  escape  the  conclusion 
that  many  enlightened  members  of  their  sex  have  been  carrying  on  a 
war  with  the  medical  profession  and  endeavouring  to  force  the  latter 
to  make  innovations  to  which  they  show  the  greatest  repugnance. 
Miss  Lonsdale,  for  instance,  writes  thus :  'It  is  not  a  mere  quarrel 
over  the  patients  in  Guy's  Hospital ;  in  point  of  fact  it  is  rather  a 
typical  struggle,  showing  symptoms  of  a  combined  and  resolute  at- 
tempt on  the  part  of  the  medical  profession  generally  to  retain  the 
old  system  of  employing  untrained  women  as  nurses  in  our  hospitals, 
instead  of  making  use  of  the.  trained  labour  which  is  now  at  their 
disposal  in  this  special  branch  of  work.'  Such  a  statement  hardly 
requires  refutation,  and  could  only  be  made  by  a  person  who  declines 
to  use  the  most  ordinary  observation.  The  development,  if  not  the 
origin,  of  the  art  of  nursing  is  mainly  a  result  of  the  progress  of 
medical  knowledge ;  and  so  far  from  trained  nurses  being  repelled 
by  the  medical  profession,  their  presence  in  hospitals  and  private 
houses  is  to  a  large  extent  due  to  the  demands  for  skilled  nursing 
which  are  made  by  doctors.  Without  wishing  to  do  the  least 
injustice  to  the  impulse  given  to  scientific  nursing  by  such  women 
as  Miss  Nightingale,  who  showed  what  results  could  be  obtained 
by  the  skilful  tending  of  the  sick,  and  were  impossible  without 
it,  we  do  not  think  that  any  unbiassed  person  can  deny  the  readiness 
with  which  medical  men  have  acknowledged  these  benefits.  Indeed, 
the  large  influx  of  ladies  and  others  into  the  new  profession  of  nursing 


1098  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  June 

is,  at  the  present  day  at  any  rate,  a  result  of  the  appeal  which  medical 
men  have  made  for  persons  who  are  willing  to  further  their  efforts 
for  the  cure  of  the  sick,  and  to  carry  out  their  orders  with  precision 
and  intelligence.  Ladies  have  shown  great  eagerness  in  responding  to 
this  appeal,  and  now  offer  themselves  in  such  overwhelming  numbers 
that  the  supply  is  far  greater  than  the  demand. 

In  many  quarters,  it  is  true,  objections  have  been  raised  from  time 
to  time  against  admitting  ladies  as  nurses  into  hospitals ;  but  it  is 
manifestly  unfair  to  say  that  this  is  equivalent  to  refusing  skilled 
labour.  It  is  perfectly  easy  to  obtain  the  latter  nowadays  with  the  em- 
ployment of,  at  most,  a  small  number  from  the  upper  classes ;  and  the 
nursing  institutions  of  large  hospitals  depend  mainly  for  the  material 
out  of  which  they  mould  their  skilled  nurses  on  a  class  below  that  of 
ladies  in  the  social  scale.  If  the  latter  feel  a  little  nettled  at  a  lack 
of  enthusiasm  on  the  part  of  the  medical  profession  for  securing  their 
services  in  hospitals,  they  must  at  least  remember  that  it  is  in  no  small 
degree  due  to  experience  of  their  employment  in  such  situations. 

Nursing  is  now  practically  a  part,  and  a  very  important  part, 
of  medical  treatment ;  and  an  ordering  and  arranging  of  its  details 
is  as  much  the  province  of  the  medical  man  as  is  the  prescription 
of  drugs.  Every  one,  whether  in  the  profession  or  not,  has  heard 
of  what  is  called  the  '  expectant  treatment '  of  disease.  Many 
of  the  most  severe  and  fatal  maladies,  especially  the  specific  fevers, 
are  treated  on  this  principle,  which  is  founded  on  the  fact  that 
these  diseases  have  a  natural  period  of  existence,  which  varies  in  its 
length  in  each  type,  terminates  without  the  use  of  drugs,  and  is  but 
little  influenced  in  its  duration  or  severity  by  them.  The  treatment 
of  such  cases  consists  mainly  in  careful  dieting  and  nursing,  and  in 
guarding  against  a  host  of  possible  complications  to  which  the  high 
death-rate  of  these  diseases  is  largely  due.  Observation  and  ex- 
perience have  made  medical  men  familiar  with  the  various  incidents 
in  the  life-history  of  such  diseases  and  with  the  general  order  of  their 
sequence ;  and  the  object  of  treatment  is  to  put  the  patients  in  the 
best  conditions  possible  for  weathering  the  storm,  and  to  ward  off 
complications,  as  they  threaten,  by  means  of  appropriate  dieting, 
nursing,  and,  to  a  small  extent,  by  the  administration  of  drugs.  In 
short,  the  '  expectant  treatment '  of  disease  is  treatment  by  nursing 
— but  nursing  directed  by  those  who  fully  understand  the  history 
and  symptoms  of  disease.  It  must  therefore  be  detrimental  to 
patients  that  control  over  the  nursing  department  should  pass  entirely 
out  of  the  hands  of  doctors.  Yet  this  is  practically  what  some  ladies 
strive  for  in  deed  if  not  in  word,  and  it  is  on  this  point  that  un- 
pleasantnesses still  occasionally  arise  in  those  institutions  where 
modern  nursing  is  most  successfully  performed.  The  general  care 
of  patients  should  no  doubt  be  left  in  the  hands  of  the  nursing 
authorities ;  but  the  medical  man  must  retain  the  right  of  modifying 


1880.  DOCTORS  AND  NURSES.  1099 

its  details  whenever  he  thinks  fit.  He  alone  is  responsible  for  the 
treatment,  of  which  nursing  is  a  part,  and  he  has  definite  ideas  of  the 
object  he  wishes  to  effect  by  certain  means,  which  nurses,  with  their 
superficial  polish  of  medical  knowledge,  can  never  attain  to. 

Until  ladies  see  and  accept  this  position  they  must  not  expect  to 
be  received  with  eagerness  in  public  hospitals.  The  present  difficulty 
at  Guy's  is  not  in  any  way  due  to  the  ignorant  conservatism  of  the 
medical  staff,  as  some  assert ;  but  it  is  a  natural  protest  against  the 
nursing  part  of  the  treatment  of  the  sick  being  roughly  taken  out 
of  the  hands  of  those  who  should  direct  it. 

While  it  is  necessary  to  make  a  firm  stand  against  a  matter  of 
such  vital  importance  as  the  encroachment  of  nursing  bodies  on  what 
must  ever  be  the  business  of  medical  men,  it  would  indeed  be  a 
calamity  to  lose  the  services  of  ladies  altogether  from  general  hospitals. 
It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  nursing  could  never  have  reached  its 
present  pitch  of  excellence  and  refinement  except  by  the  co-operation 
of  women  from  the  higher  and  more  educated  classes  of  society. 
And  if  modern  nursing  is  to  retain  its  position  as  a  refined  art  in 
the  institutions  where  it  has  already  become  firmly  planted,  and  is 
to  gain  a  footing  where  it  has  as  yet  failed  to  do  so,  the  presence  of 
ladies  in  its  ranks  will  be  an  essential  condition  of  success. 

Ladies,  however,  must  not  suppose  that  it  is  necessary  or  even 
desirable  that  the  business  of  nursing  should  become  obsolete  among 
women  in  a  lower  scale  of  social  life.  They  and  the  ladies  both  have 
their  appropriate  duties  and  positions  in  a  hospital.  A  judicious 
mixture  of  the  two  is  what  is  wanted,  and  not  a  one-sided  monopoly. 
In  a  hospital  ward,  which  is  the  nursing  unit,  there  are,  as  a  rule, 
three  grades  of  nurses — the  '  sister,'  the  staff-nurse,  and  several 
under-nurses.  The  '  sister  '  has  the  supreme  authority  there,  both 
over  nurses  and  patients,  and  is  responsible  to  the  hospital  authorities 
for  her  conduct  of  the  ward.  It  is  evident  that  such  a  one  requires 
to  be  not  only  a  person  of  ability  and  tact,  but  also  of  education, 
knowledge  of  the  world,  and  refinement.  Quite  apart  from  the 
respect  which  higher  culture  commands,  her  education  and  ability 
will  be  tried  in  the  shrewdness  with  which  she  takes  from  the  friends 
the  past  medical  history  of  cases  admitted  into  her  ward ;  in  the 
degree  of  care  and  precision  with  which  she  makes  and  reports  to 
the  medical  officers  her  daily  observations  on  the  sick ;  and  in  the 
rapidity  with  which  she  detects  changes  in  the  condition  of  her 
patients,  which  often  call  for  immediate  treatment,  if  they  are  to  be 
met  with  success,  but  which  in  many  cases  are  only  evident  at  their 
onset  to  a  skilled  observer. 

The  sister's  knowledge  of  the  world,  of  the  manners  and  customs 
of  people  in  various  stations,  of  the  endless  whims  and  humours  of 
the  sick  and  even  of  those  in  health,  will  be  taxed  to  the  utmost  in 
her  management  of  the  patients  and  their  friends.  Where  one 


1100  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  June 

woman  will  get  her  way  in  a  dispute  by  quietly  and  kindly  reasoning, 
and  cleverly  adapting  her  arguments  to  the  malcontent  with  whom 
she  has  to  deal,  another,  endowed  with  less  tact,  will  exert  her  au- 
thority in  a  rough  unfriendly  manner,  giving  annoyance  to  the 
patient,  and  provoking  opposition  and  resentment  among  his  friends. 

Eefinement  is  likewise  an  all-important  attribute  of  a  sister.  It 
tells  consciously  or  unconsciously  on  those  both  above  and  below  her,  on 
medical  officers  and  students  no  less  than  on  her  nurses  and  patients. 
Even  the  lowest  rough  drawn  from  the  alleys  of  our  great  metropolis 
is  generally  amenable  to  the  gentle  ways  of  a  lady  in  authority. 
Language  and  habits  to  which  he  has  long  been  addicted  are  set  aside 
from  a  consciousness  of  their  incongruity  in  such  company.  Quarrels 
and  disturbances  are  quelled  with  an  ease  and  rapidity  which  could 
never  be  attained  by  a  person  who  had  nothing  but  her  deputed  au- 
thority to  depend  upon  in  such  emergencies. 

The  lower  nurses  in  the  ward,  who  may  lack  natural  refinement, 
necessarily  become  affected  by  their  intercourse  with  a  lady.  And 
this  tells  again  on  their  treatment  of  the  patients  with  whom  they 
have  to  deal.  The  very  wards  themselves  and  the  surroundings  of 
the  sick  gain  much  by  a  lady's  presence.  Not  only  are  things  kept 
scrupulously  neat  and  clean,  as  they  might  be  by  nurses  of  a  much 
lower  order,  but  there  is  a  taste  displayed  even  in  the  most  simple 
arrangements  and  decorations,  which  is  peculiarly  pleasing  and  at- 
tractive to  patients  and  to  all  who  have  any  connection  with  them. 

Such  being  some  of  the  qualifications  for  a  person  who  has  charge 
of  a  hospital  ward,  it  is  evident  that  we  can  only  expect  to  find  them 
in  the  more  highly  educated  classes.  This  is,  par  excellence,  the 
province  of  ladies.  This  is  the  position  which  every  one  who  has  the 
development  of  nursing,  nay  even  of  medicine,  at  heart  should  try  to 
gain  for  them.  Without  their  presence  not  only  will  hospital  nursing 
be  carried  on  in  a  manner  less  attractive  to  the  patients  and  public, 
but  also  in  a  way  less  effectual  for  the  welfare  of  the  sick,  and  less 
fruitful  for  the  progress  of  medicine  itself. 

The  duties  of  the  ordinary  nurses,  the  rank  and  file  who 
work  under  the  command  and  control  of  the  sisters,  are  of  quite 
a  different  nature.  They  have  but  few  opportunities  for  inde- 
pendent action,  but  have  to  carry  out  with  precision  the  orders 
which  they  receive.  They  attend  to  the  feeding  of  patients  confined 
to  bed,  make  their  beds  tidy  and  comfortable,  keep  clean  and 
fit  for  use  such  apparatus  as  each  ward  contains  for  the  treatment 
and  investigation  of  disease,  and  carry  out  generally  the  details 
of  nursing  and  ward  management.  The  staff-nurse  is  only  one 
of  the  more  experienced  and  older  of  the  under-nurses,  whose  duties 
are  much  the  same  as  theirs,  but  whose  authority  is  greater,  as 
it  is  her  business  to  represent  the  sister  in  her  absence.  There  is 
much  physical  labour  involved  in  such  work,  as  there  is  also  in  that 


1880.  DOCTORS  AND  NUMSES.  1101 

of  the  sister ;  but  the  sagacity  and  education  required  for  its  successful 
accomplishment  are  far  less.  We  do  not  for  a  moment  say  that  the 
life  of  an  ordinary  nurse  in  a  hospital  ward  gives  DO  scope  for  the 
exercise  of  a  refined  and  educated  intelligence,  or  that  the  duties 
attaching  to  the  office  would  not  be  more  satisfactorily  performed  by 
persons  who  combined  mental  with  physical  strength.  What  we  do 
assert  is  that  the  duties  of  a  nurse  demand  as  a  sine  qua  non  physi- 
cal, those  of  a  sister  intellectual  power.  Ladies  are  more  adapted  to 
supply  the  latter  than  the  former,  more  fit  to  be  sisters  than  nurses 
in  a  large  hospital.  Many  women  of  the  upper  classes  undoubtedly 
possess  sufficient  bodily  strength  to  cope  with  the  heaviest  labour 
which  could  fall  to  their  lot  as  nurses ;  but  many  of  the  details  of 
their  work  would  involve  duties  which  are  more  distasteful  to  them 
than  they  are  to  women  a  little  lower  in  the  scale.  During  their 
training  ladies  put  up  with  these  as  part  of  an  education  necessary 
for  the  higher  positions  in  their  profession  ;  but  they  would  scarcely 
care  to  do  so  if  there  were  no  loftier  aspirations  to  be  fulfilled  through 
them.  Such  duties  are  recognised  by  ordinary  nurses  as  their  appro- 
priate work.  For  they  may  become  staff  or  private  nurses  in  receipt 
of  a  better  income  than  they  previously  received ;  but  they  are  neces- 
sarily debarred  from  the  occupations  of  sister  or  lady- superintendent, 
as  they  lack  the  qualifications  which  depend  on  a  liberal  education. 

If  this  be  the  case,  and  if  the  stress  of  nursing  in  large  institu- 
tions should  fall  on  women  lower  than  ladies  in  the  social  scale,  how 
is  it  that  we  find  in  such  hospitals  as  St.  Thomas's  so  large  a  contin- 
gent of  lady  nurses  ?  The  answer  is  that  this  hospital  combines  the 
duties  of  treating  the  sick  with  those  of  training  nurses :  it  is  not 
only  a  hospital,  but  also  a  school  for  nurses,  just  as  it  is  for  medical 
men.  For  the  practical  part  of  a  doctor's  profession  it  is  essential 
that  students  should  attend  a  hospital ;  and  similar  instruction  is  a 
necessary  part  of  a  nurse's  education.  If  it  were  possible,  it  would 
still  be  most  undesirable  and  absurd,  to  refuse  such  training  institu- 
tions admission  into  our  large  hospitals.  Both  the  medical  profes- 
sion, who  depend  so  much  nowadays  on  good  nursing  for  the  successful 
treatment  of  disease,  and  the  public  who  are  their  patients,  would 
suffer  grievously  by  such  an  arrangement.  Hospitals  are  the  natural 
soils  for  rearing  nurses,  as  they  are  for  rearing  medical  men.  But  it 
must  be  remembered  that  the  treatment  of  the  sick  poor  is  the  pri- 
mary object  for  which  hospitals  are  founded,  and  that  anything  which 
interferes  seriously  with  this  cannot  be  permitted  to  exist.  It  only 
requires  tact  and  knowledge  of  the  world  to  carry  on  the  work  of 
training  institutions  without  producing  such  commotions  as  have 
recently  convulsed  Guy's.  And  if  women  devoid  of  these  qualifica- 
tions chance  to  attain  to  the  position  of  lady-superintendent,  their  place 
must  be  supplied  by  others  if  the  hospital  authorities  are  to  allow  a 
school  of  nursing  to  exist  within  their  walls,  and  are  not  rather  to 


1102  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  June 

prefer  to  train  only  that  comparatively  small  number  of  nurses  which 
is  necessary  to  carry  on  the  work  of  their  own  institution. 

When  a  lady  talks  of  a  '  resolute  attempt  on  the  part  of  the 
medical  profession  generally  to  retain  the  old  system  of  employing 
untrained  women  as  nurses  in  our  hospitals,'  she  fails  to  see  the  real 
question  at  issue.  It  is  not  a  dispute  as  regards  the  procuring  of 
first-rate  or  of  inferior  nurses.  The  question  is :  Should  a  hospital 
train  just  so  many  first-rate  nurses  as  it  requires  for  its  own  purposes, 
which  it  can  do  quite  easily  and  satisfactorily  ?  or  should  it  allow  the 
foundation  of  a  nursing  establishment  within  its  walls,  which,  while  it 
supplies  the  nurses  necessary  for  the  hospital  which  fosters  it,  likewise 
educates  numbers  of  others  from  whom  the  hospital  receives  but  little 
benefit  ? 

It  may  be  asked,  if  a  hospital  can  dispense  perfectly  well  with  a 
training  school  for  nurses,  and  yet  be  in  possession  of  a  thoroughly 
skilled  and  educated  nursing  staff,  what  effect  has  such  an  institution 
upon  the  hospital  which  admits  it  ?  Apart  from  the  fact  that  it 
affords  a  larger  choice  of  nurses  to  stock  the  parent  institution  with, 
it  probably  brings  but  little  advantage.  It  is  an  arrangement  which 
is  entered  into  rather  for  the  good  of  the  country  generally  than  for 
that  of  any  individual  hospital.  Indeed,  such  a  training  school  en- 
tails certain  risks  of  deteriorating  the  nursing  of  a  hospital — risks, 
however,  which  are  slight  if  the  management  is  in  the  hands  of  an 
able  and  judicious  lady  superintendent ;  for  it  necessitates  setting- 
aside  to  a  greater  or  less  extent  what  is  called  the  '  ward  system,' 
which  is  the  essential  basis  of  successful  nursing. 
What,  it  may  be  asked,  is  the  '  ward-system '  ? 
The  sisters,  who  are  responsible  for  the  conduct  of  the  affairs  of  the 
wards,  differ  in  many  particulars  from  each  other,  as  any  other 
collection  of  individuals  must  do.  Each  one  has  her  peculiar  ways  of 
managing  other  people,  and  of  being  managed  herself.  One  takes 
special  pride  in  some  subdivision  of  her  work,  which  is  considered  of 
•far  less  importance  by  another,  and  is  consequently  strict  in  the 
execution  of  its  details.  There  are,  too,  many  minor  differences  in 
the  means  by  which  the  same  nursing  objects  are  attained  by  various 
individuals ;  and  though  such  differences  may  appear  to  be  mere 
trifles  to  people  not  practically  acquainted  with  them,  they  affect 
greatly  the  rapidity  and  accuracy  with  which  work  is  done  in  a  room 
containing  some  thirty  sick  people.  The  nurse  should  be  familiar 
with  the  ways  and  peculiarities  of  the  ward  in  which  she  works.  She 
should  also  be  familiar  with  the  class  of  cases  received  into  it.  In 
nearly  all  hospitals  there  are  recognised  departments  for  various 
maladies,  and  it  is  quite  evident  that  the  more  experience  nurses 
have  had  in  the  management  of  such,  the  more  comfort  and  chance 
of  successful  treatment  are  the  patients  likely  to  have.  And  even 
where  no  departments  exist  for  different  diseases,  it  will  yet  be  found 


1880.  DOCTORS  AND  NURSES.  1103 

that  certain  classes  of  ailments  find  their  way  constantly  into  wards, 
which  are  visited  by  doctors  known  to  take  special  interest  in  them. 

It  is  proverbial  that  doctors  differ ;  and  they  do  so  not  only  in 
their  opinions,  but  also  in  their  treatment  of  similar  cases.  And 
it  is  advantageous  both  to  doctors  and  to  patients  to  have  nurses  in 
the  wards  who  are  familiar  with  their  peculiar  methods. 

The  requirements  of  successful  nursing,  then,  demand  in  each 
ward  a  permanent  and  responsible  head  or  sister  and  a  permanent 
staff  of  under-nurses,  who  are  well  acquainted  with  each  other  and 
with  the  peculiarities  of  the  doctors  and  patients  with  whom  they 
have  to  deal,  and  who  are  not  liable  to  removal  from  their  ward  to 
nurse  in  other  parts  of  the  hospital.  This  is  the  '  ward-system.' 

A  nurse,  however,  may  be  called  upon  at  any  time  to  treat  almost 
any  kind  of  disease  or  any  of  its  complications,  and  it  is  necessary 
that,  before  she  is  placed  in  a  fixed  and  permanent  position,  she 
should  have  had  a  general  training  in  her  work.  To  get  this  she 
must  be  sent  from  ward  to  ward.  In  a  hospital  to  which  no  training 
school  is  attached,  but  which  attends  only  to  the  education  of  its  own 
nurses,  the  number  of  these  peripatetics  will  be  comparatively  small. 
They  will  abound,  on  the  contrary,  where  a  training  establishment 
exists.  As  they  are  persons  of  but  little  experience  in  their  profession, 
and  have  scarcely  any  acquaintance  with  the  sisters  under  whom 
they  have  to  work  in  succession,  and  as  they  are  brought  month  after 
month  face  to  face  with  diseases  and  patients,  who  are  strangers  to 
them,  they  must  endanger  the  successful  nursing  of  a  hospital.  In 
fact  the  question  is  forced  upon  us :  Can  hospitals  under  such  circum- 
stances nurse  sick  people  satisfactorily  ?  They  can  and  do.  St. 
Thomas's,  for  instance,  has  an  admirable  training  school,  called  the 
'  Nightingale  Home,'  within  its  walls,  which  is  on  the  whole  exceed- 
ingly well  managed,  and  gives  satisfaction  to  the  medical  staff. 
Success  is  here  insured  by  making  the  basis  of  the  whole  organisation 
the  ward-system,  with  a  sister  and  two  staff-nurses,  who  are  fixtures 
in  their  own  particular  ward,  and  by  limiting  to  a  comparatively 
small  number  the  nurses  who  circulate  through  the  hospital  for 
training  purposes.  A  nursing  school,  in  short,  can  only  be  tolerated 
in  a  general  hospital  if  the  number  of  women  being  trained  is  com- 
paratively small ;  or  perhaps  it  would  he  more  correct  to  say,  if 
only  a  few  of  the  places  which  would  otherwise  be  occupied  by 
trained  nurses  are  held  by  untrained  ones.  For  in  substituting  the 
latter  for  the  former  a  larger  number  are  necessary,  as  it  requires  two 
or  three  untrained  nurses  to  supply  even  moderately  well  the  place 
of  a  trained  one. 

Ladies  who  write  and  think  in  the  tone  which  pervades  Miss 
Lonsdale's  article  are  imbued  with  the  most  warped  and  wrong- 
headed  notion?,  not  only  about  the  duties  and  relations  of  their 
highly  trained  and  educated  nurses  to  the  medical  staff,  but  also 


1104  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY.  June 

about  the  hypothetical  advantages  which  a  training  school  confers 
upon  a  hospital.  She  sneers  at  the  idea  of  the  nurses  '  studying 
the  character  and  special  requirements  and  fancies  of  the  particular 
medical  man  or  surgeon  under  whom  they  were  placed,  with  a  view 
of  gaining  his  approbation  by  every  means  in  their  power.'  But  all 
common-sense  people  will  see  that  this  is  a  most  important  part  of 
good  nursing,  if  they  allow  that  its  object  should  be  to  carry  out  the 
orders  of  the  responsible  medical  officer — orders  which  are  dictated  by 
his  view  of  each  case  and  of  the  treatment  necessary  for  it.  Natu- 
rally, the  more  strictly  the  nursing  staff  adhere  to  the  doctor's  instruc- 
tions, the  more  approbation  will  they  receive,  and  the  more  advantage 
will  accrue  to  the  patients ;  unless  indeed,  as  Miss  Lonsdale  seems 
to  imagine,  nurses  are  placed  in  hospitals  to  correct  the  errors  made 
by  medical  men  in  the  treatment  of  disease. 

However  bad  the  old  system  of  nursing  may  have  been  in  many 
ways,  and  however  uneducated  and  untrained  its  members,  they,  the 
doctors,  and  the  patients  reaped  this  benefit,  that  there  was  no 
vaunted  antagonism,  as  there  now  appears  to  be,  between  medical 
treatment  and  nursing.  They  were  considered  natural  allies,  the 
guidance  and  direction  of  affairs  being  placed  as  a  matter  of  course 
in  the  hands  of  the  doctors. 

So  long  as  hospital  medical  staffs  see  this  misapprehension  as  to 
the  proper  duties  of  nurses,  and  so  long  as  they  have  to  expect  oppo- 
sition instead  of  assistance  in  the  execution  of  the  details  of  treat- 
ment, so  long  will  they  look  with  just  suspicion  and  mistrust  on 
those  who  hold  such  views,  and  they  will  only  be  doing  their  duty 
in  preventing  them  from  gaining  admittance  into  hospitals. 

Not  that  we  think  such  a  course  will  really  be  necessary.  For 
we  do  not  believe  that  Miss  Lonsdale's  views  are  at  all  represen- 
tative even  of  a  small  section  of  lady-nurses,  but  that  they  are 
rather  the  exaggerated  notions  which  seem  to  be  characteristic  of  her 
writings,  and  which  we  have  heard  severely  criticised  by  many  of 
her  own  colleagues.  Let  ladies  who  wish  to  be  doctors  as  well  as 
nurses  train  themselves  in  an  appropriate  medical  school,  and  leave 
the  humbler  but  no  less  honourable  profession  of  nursing  to  those 
who  have  the  common  sense  to  see  that  the  training  of  a  nursing 
institution  can  never  make  them  properly  qualified  medical  prac- 
titioners. 

SEYMOUR  J.  SIIARKEY. 

(St.  Thomas's  Hospital). 


1880.  .      DOCTORS  AND  NURSES.  1105 


III. 

IT  is  difficult  for  those  whose  interest  has  been  keen  upon  a  subject 
for  many  years,  or  for  those  who  have  taken  more  or  less  of  an  active 
part  in  the  furtherance  of  a  cause  which  they  have  deeply  at  heart, 
always  to  measure  their  ideas,  and  the  language  which  clothes  those 
ideas,  as  dispassionately  and  as  temperately  as  is  usually  expected  of 
them  by  onlookers  and  outsiders. 

I  am  not  a  young  and  untrained  learner  of  the  art  of  nursing  ; 
but  I  am  in  the  position  of  such  people  as  I  have  indicated  above, 
and  it  seems  possible  that  on  one  point  mentioned  in  my  article  in  the 
Nineteenth  Century  of  April  last,  I  may  have  given  unnecessary  and 
unintentional  cause  of  offence  to  the  doctors.  For  this  I  feel  bound 
now  to  make  them  honourable  amends.  I  regret  that  I  allowed  my 
strong  feeling  in  the  matter  upon  which  I  wrote  to  cause  me  to  use 
language  which  imputed  unworthy  motives  to  the  medical  men  who 
support  the  old  system  of  nursing  in  opposition  to  the  new. 

A  word  or  two  of  explanation  seems  desirable  on  another  point. 
I  hoped  I  had  made  it  clear  beyond  the  shadow  of  a  doubt  that  a 
doctor  is  in  all  ways,  and  at  all  times  and  seasons,  the  master  and 
controller  of  both  nurse  and  patient.  It  seems,  however,  that  I  did 
not  explain  myself  clearly,  and  that  I  am  universally  credited  with 
having  made  the  monstrous  assertion  that  in  some  ways  the  nurse 
knows  better  than  the  doctor  what  is  good  for  the  patient.  Unless 
the  responsibility  of  life  or  death  be  shifted  from  the  doctor's 
shoulders  to  those  of  the  nurse,  which  cannot  be  for  a  single  moment 
contemplated,  the  doctor  must  remain  absolutely  supreme.  The 
details  of  nursing,  to  which  I  referred,  are  really  such  very  small 
details  that,  except  that  nothing  is  small  where  the  comfort  of  a 
patient  is  concerned,  I  should  forbear  to  mention  them.  Suppose 
a  doctor  came  round  and  said  to  a  nurse,  '  Such  a  patient  is  not  to 
be  moved,'  the  nurse  would  not  answer,  '  How,  then,  am  I  to  change 
his  sheets,  which  constantly  require  changing  ? '  If  she  did,  the  doctor 
might  reasonably  reply,  '  That  is  your  business ;  I  tell  you  simply 
I  will  not  have  the  man  moved.'  In  this,  and  in  a  thousand  other 
little  ways,  small,  no  doubt,  but  of  infinite  importance  to  the  comfort 
and  well-being  of  the  patient,  the  nurse's  and  not  the  doctor's  ingenuity 
is  taxed.  Notably  this  is  the  case  in  the  prevention  of  bedsores, 
a  vexed  question,  into  which  I  will  not  enter,  further  than  to  say 


1106  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  June 

that  doctors  have  to  deal  with  the  cure  of  such  sores,  while  they  leave 
the  prevention  of  them  solely  to  the  nurse. 

The  question  how  much  of  a  doctor  a  nurse  may  be  without 
destroying  her  usefulness  in  her  own  special  capacity  is  a  difficult 
one,  and  there  are  two  opinions  upon  it,  as  there  are  upon  almost 
every  conceivable  subject.  In  these  days,  should  a  woman  desire  a 
special  medical  or  surgical  education,  she  can  get  it,  together  with 
a  qualification  to  practise,  and  we  have  one,  if  not  more  than  one, 
notable  instance  of  a  woman  who  is  thus  qualified,  who  is  able  and 
willing  to  combine,  under  certain  circumstances,  the  duties  of  a  nurse 
with  those  of  a  doctor  for  the  benefit  of  her  patients.  But  there  are 
many  people  whose  opinion  is  worthy  of  consideration,  whose  practical 
experience  leads  them  to  consider  that  in  proportion  as  a  nurse  advances 
in  the  scientific  knowledge  incidental  to  her  calling,  she  declines  in 
efficiency  as  to  the  minor  and  more  drudging  details  of  which,  after 
all,  the  life  of  a  narse  is  greatly  made  up.  Authorities  who  hold  this 
opinion,  and  they  are  not  a  few,  do  not  allow  their  staff  nurses  to 
study  medical  or  surgical  books.  They  do  not  forbid,  but  rather 
encourage,  the  use  of  such  books  by  the  more  highly  educated  lady 
pupil  or  sister  of  a  ward,  on  the  ground  that  while  to  the  partially 
educated  women  a  '  little  knowledge  is  a  dangerous  thing,'  the  better 
taught  have  their  eyes  opened  by  it  to  realise  the  existence  of  the  wide 
field  of  knowledge  which  lies,  and  always  must  lie,  altogether  hidden 
from  the  nurse.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  held  by  the  opposite  party, 
that  the  better  the  sister  or  nurse  understands  the  reason  of  the  doctor's 
treatment  of  her  patients,  the  more  intelligently  she  will  obey  and  fol- 
low out  his  instruction.  To  this  end  they  encourage  their  nurses  to 
'read  up '  their  cases,  and  provide  for  them  elementary  lectures  on  phy- 
*  siology,  anatomy,  &c.  Nothing  is  more  remarkable  than  the  difference 
of  opinion  among  medical  men  in  this  respect.  One  doctor  will  care- 
fully, perhaps  pointedly,  exclude  the  nurse  from  all  entrance  into  the 
causes  of  his  treatment  of  the  patient,  while  another  will  give, 
unasked,  time  and  patience  in  explaining  details  of  surgery  and 
medicine  to  her,  thus  revealing  to  her  many  things  which  she  could 
never  have  learned  from  books,  and  which  only  a  bedside-lecture  could 
efficiently  teach. 

Now  as  to  the  so-called  religious  organisation  which  the  modern 
nurse  is  supposed  to  be  anxious  surreptitiously  to  introduce  into  our  old- 
established  hospitals.1  The  expression  'sisters  in  the  proper  sense  of 
the  term  '  has  been  entirely  mistaken  by  more  than  one  of  the  com- 
mentators upon  my  article.  No  doubt  these  commentators,  like 
myself,  have  heard  this  word  so  applied,  that  they  have  almost  for- 
gotten the  simple  sense  of  its  natural  and  beautiful  meaning.  When 
I  said  '  sisters  in  the  proper  sense  of  the  word,'  I  meant,  that  a  nurse 
should  feel  and  show  the  same  sympathy  and  kindness  to  her  patients 

1  I  may  as  well  say  that  I  have  never  belonged,  nor  have  I  the  least  desire  to 
belong,  to  any  religious  sisterhood. 


1880.  DOCTORS  AND  NURSES.  1107 

that  she  would  feel  and  show  towards  her  own  brothers  and  sisters, 
and  I  deny  that  the  establishment  of  a  more  intelligent  system  of 
nursing  than  such  as  formerly  prevailed  in  our  hospitals  has  any 
necessary  connection  with  a  religious  organisation  for  the  nurses. 
That  it  is  an  advantage  both  for  the  doctor  and  the  patient  when  the 
nurse  is  a  religious  woman,  from  a  professional  point  of  view,  will 
surely  hardly  be  contested,  when  the  doctors  consider  how  constantly 
they  are  forced  to  depend  upon  the  word  of  the  nurse  in  important 
matters  affecting  their  treatment  of  their  patients.  There  is  abso- 
lutely no  guarantee  for  the  trustworthiness  of  the  word  of  a  woman 
who  does  not  tell  the  truth  on  principle,  or  who  is  liable  to  be  tempted 
herself  to  escape  blame  for  forgetfulness  or  negligence  by  telling  the 
doctor  a  lie,  which  he  may  be  wholly  unable  to  detect. 

But  it  is  impossible  to  deny  that  some  of  the  best  and  most 
successful  efforts  in  the  way  of  hospital  reform  have  been  made 
by  nurses  belonging  to  Sisterhoods  of  all  types.  King's  College 
and  Charing  Cross  Hospitals  have  been  already  instanced,  while 
University  College  Hospital2  has  been  distinguished  for  the  ex- 
cellence of  its  nursing  for  many  years  past.  It  is  acknowledged  by 
its  visiting  staff  to  be  thoroughly  well  and  sensibly  nursed  by  the 
members  of  the  All  Saints  Sisterhood,  who  are  well  known  to  be  con- 
nected with  an  extreme  section  of  the  English  Church.  I  believe 
I  am  justified  in  stating  that  no  inconvenience  is  ever  found  by  the 
medical  staff  of  University  College  Hospital  to  arise  from  the  ex- 
treme High  Church  tendencies  of  its  nurses,  who  are  entirely  under 
the  control  of  the  doctors.  The  Sisters  have  entered  into  an 
agreement  with  the  Committee,  which  they  have  faithfully  and  con- 
scientiously kept,  that  they  will  not  allow  their  special  form  of  re- 
ligious organisation  to  enter  into  the  working  of  the  hospital. 

Enough  has  been  said  to  show  that  I  hold  firmly  to  the  main  issue 
of  what  I  have  publicly  stated  on  the  subject  of  the  two  systems  of 
nursing.  No  one  can  wish  to  prolong  a  useless  and  naturally  irri- 
tating controversy. 

But  I  must  remind  those  of  the  public  who  do  not  read  the 
Saturday  Review,  that  no  case  of  disobedience  to  medical  orders  at 
Guy's  Hospital  has  been  proved  to  the  Governors,  who  have  patiently 
heard  both  sides.  Thus,  for  example,  a  lady  pupil  at  Guy's  is  accused, 
in  the  Contemporary  Revieiv  of  May  last,  of  having,  contrary  to  the 
doctor's  orders,  turned  over  a  typhoid-fever  patient  to  wash  him. 
The  lady  in  question,  Miss  Emily  Howard,  had  never  been  told  not 
to  wash  this  patient ;  as  soon  as  she  was  told,  she  left  him,  and  she 
never  moved  him  in  the  least  degree,  much  less  turned  him  over. 
No  doubt  this  story  is  a  mistake.  The  same  doctor  who  relates  this 
has  likewise  been  misinformed  with  regard  to  a  certain  list  of  dis- 

2  I  purposely  avoided  the  mention  of  this  hospital  in  my  former  article,  as  I  feared 
the  charge  of  «  Ritualistic  principles '  might  be  brought  against  me  if  I  did  so.  The 
event  proved  that  my  fears  were  well  founded. 


1108 


THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY. 


missals  from  Gruy's  Hospital,  and 
account  of  them. 

Mistaken  List. 

A.  Sister   of  ward,  displaced 

under  the  new  svstem.     A  lady. 


I  therefore  subjoin  the  correct 


Corrected  List. 

A.  Dismissed    Christmas    1879  for 
extreme  insubordination   and    imperti- 
nence.    The  late  matron  had  ^  often  re- 
commended her  for  dismissal  on  these 
grounds. 

B.  Never  was  a  Sister  at  Guy's  at 
all,  only  a  lady  pupil  put  into  a  ward 
on  the  distinct  understanding  that  she 
was  merely  holding  the  ward  until  the 
new  matron  came  and  could  put  one  of 
her  own  sisters  in  charge  of  it.     She 
was  so   unsatisfactory    in  many  ways, 
that  the  authorities  would  on  no  account 
have  allowed  her  to  remain  in  charge. 

C.  Dismissed  because  she  became  a 
Roman  Catholic,  and  refused  to  read  the 
Church  of  England  prayers  in  the  ward, 
or  to  go  to  the  hospital  chapel.      She 
left  Guy's  some  months  before  Miss  Burt 
ever  thought  of  becoming  Matron  there. 

D.  E,  F.    All  removed  before  the 
present  Treasurer  was   appointed,  and 
therefore  some  years  before  Miss  Burt 
came  to  be  Matron  of  Guy's  Hospital. 


B.  Sister   of  ward,  displaced 

under  the  new  system.  The  sister  of  a 
physician  who  graduated  with  honour 
at  the  London  University.  Herself  a 
lady  of  liberal  education. 


C.  Sister  of ward,  displaced  on 

account  of  her  religion.     Granddaughter 
of  a  baronet ;  daughter  of  a  physician. 
A  lady  of  large  private  fortune,  who 
commanded    the    highest    respect,   not 
only  in  her  ward,  but  throughout  the 
hospital. 

D.  Sister  of  ward,  displaced 

through  an  attempt  to  move  ladies  from 
ward  to  ward.      A   niece  of  the  late 
Bishop  of  Winchester.     A  lady  I  will 
not  attempt  to  praise. 

E.  Sister  of ward.    Daughter 

of  a  colonel  in  the  army,  an  excellent 
Sister.     Displaced  through  the  attempt 
to  move  Sisters  from  ward  to  ward. 

F.  Sister  of ward.     The  last- 
mentioned    lady's    sister.       Also    very 
efficient.     Displaced  through  the  same 
cause. 


I  must  further  distinctly  state,  that  as  to  all  the  other  plain 
matters  of  fact  contained  in  my  article,  I  could,  were  it  desirable, 
prove  them  on  the  best  authority. 

I  have  purposely  avoided  taking  notice  of  any  personal  affronts, 
unfair  representations  of  my  meaning,  or  unworthy  imputations 
which  have  been,  in  the  heat  of  the  moment,  cast  upon  me.  Neither 
the  religious  nor  the  personal  aspect  of  the  matter  is  the  true  one, 
and  that  the  subject  is  one  of  public  and  vital  importance  will 
eventually  be  recognised.  After  all,  nothing  is  so  much  to  be 
deprecated  as  any  breach  between  the  doctor  and  the  nurse,  whose 
hearty  co-operation  is  essential  to  the  comfort,  nay,  it  may  be  to 
the  recovery  itself,  of  the  patient.  Any  concession  that  will  insure 
this  happy  result  of  concord,  short  of  the  concession  of  rightful 
authority  on  the  part  of  the  doctor  over  both  nurse  and  patient, 
should  cheerfully  be  made. 

MARGARET  LONSDALE. 


INDEX    TO    VOL.    VII 


The  titles  of  articles  are  printed  in  italics. 


ABB 

T,  Dr.,  mid  Queen  Elisabeth, 
•-    107-127 
Abraham,  au  American  imitator  of,  834- 

835 

Absenteeism,  Irish,  871-883 
Absenteeism,  Indian,  976 
Academy  exhibitions,  250 
Achaian  and  Semitic  Religion,  710-725 
Actinic  absorption,  529-530 
Action,  least,  principle  of,  512 
Administration,  downfall  of  the,  905 
Advowsous,  sale  of,  80 
Adye    (Lieutenant-General   Sir  John), 

Native  Armies  of  India,  G85-709 
Afghan  Avar,  cost  of  the,  1068-1072, 

1074 

Afghanistan,  the  Situation  in,  197-215 
Afghanistan,  British  interests  in,  675 

—  inevitable  nature  of  the  war  in,  920- 
921 

—  Russia's  designs  concerning,  921-923 
Agnosticism  and  Women,  619-627,  840- 

844 
Agriculture,  the  depression  of,  297-299 

—  general  condition  of,  in  England,  299 
-304 

Alacoque,  Marie,  the  vision  of,  271 
Alexander  the  Second,  reforms  of,  23 
Allen  (,T.  A.)  on  variations  among  wild 

species  of  animals,  98-102 
Alliances,  international,  550-552 
Ameer  Ali,  Some  Indian  Suggestions  for 

India,  9(53-978 

Anglicans,  Ritualists  and,  318-332 
An^lo-Freuch  alliance,  the,  551 
Animals,  mental  powers  of,  508-509 
Antarctic  Sea,  icebergs  of  the,  612-615 
Antoninus,  Pius,  character  of,  742 
Armenia,  state  of,  1031 
Arms  Act,  the  Indian,  977-978 
Arnold  (Arthur),  Free  Land  and  Pea- 
sant Proprietorship,  297-317 

—  (Matthew),  his  definition  of  poetrv, 
253-254 

Art,  the  present  Conditions  of,  235-255 
Art  Collections,  our  National,  and  Pro- 
vincial Art  Museums,  979-994 
Art,  criticism  of,  248,  1054 

VOL.  VIL— No.  40.  4 


BRA 

Asia,  England  and  Russia  in,  917-928 
Asia  Minor,  our  protectorate  of,  665- 

666,  1027 

Atheism  and  the  Rights  of  Man,  756-777 
Atheistic  Methodism,  161-184 
Athens,  condition  of,  1022 
Athletics  in  .Public  Schools,  43-57 
Austea  (Miss),  novels  of,  425 
Austria,  ironclad  navy  of,  399 
—  and  the  Turkish  question,  548-549, 

552 


•DADAKSIIAN,  province  of,  207 
D    Baillee  des  Hoses,  the,  826 
Baker  Pasha,  1032 

Bakunin  (Michael),  Nihilistic  speeches 
of,  quoted,  2-4 

—  sketch  of  his  life,  16-19 

Balfour  (Mr.),  his  investigations  into 
the  anatomical  structure  of  Peripatus, 
534-535 

Balzac,  his  story  of  'Pere  Goriot,'  943 
Beaconsfield   (Lord),  on  peasant    pro- 
prietorship, 313-314 

—  on  the  plan  of  equal  electoral  dis- 
tricts, quoted,  452 

—  the  manifesto  of,  558-559,  628-629 

—  '  Imperial '  policy  of,  728-729 
Beauty,  the  sense  of,  237-239,  1040 
Bee,  geometrical  instinct  of  the,  513 
Belemnites,  an  example  of  the  study  of 

fossils,  935-937 
JBcranyer,  Burns  and,  464-485 
Berlin,  the  treaty  of,  663,  1030,  1035 
Bernhardt  (Mdlle.),  her  representation 

of  Phedre,  77 
Berthollet,  his  view  of  the  constitution 

of  chlorine,  522 
Bishops,  election  of,  323 
Boroughs,  grouping  of,  453-454 
Bourinot    (Mr.)    on    the    relations    of 

Canada  to  the  Imperial  Parliament, 

411-412 
Brady   (II.  B.)   on   the    sea-depth    at 

which  the  Foraminifera  live,  532-534 
Brain,  function    of  phosphorus  in  the, 

509 


E 


1110 


INDEX   TO    VOL.   VII. 


BRI 

British  Interests  in  the  East,  653-676 

British  Museum,  the,  980-984 

Bronte   (Miss),    her    opinion    of    Miss 

Austen's  novels,  425 
Brownlow    (General   Sir    C.)    on    the 

Indian  Irregular  system,  quoted,  696 
—  on  the  improvement  of  the  status 

of  the  native  Indian  officers,  quoted, 

705-706 
Bucharest,  1022 

Bulgaria,  education  in,  1020-1021 
Burns  and  Berangcr,  464-485 


/"1ABUL,  the  rules  for  war  correspon- 
\J    dents  at,  185,  193-194 
— policy  of  evacuating,  924 
Caird  (Mr.),  on  the  general  condition  of 
British  agriculture,  299-304 

—  on  the  distribution  of  land,  307 
Campbell  (Lord  George)  on  deposits  of 

manganese   found  on  the  ocean-bed, 

quoted,  602-603 
Canada,  relations   of,   to   the   Imperial 

Parliament,  411-412 
Canning,     Georqe,    his    Character    and 

Motives,  27-42 
Oapel  (Monsignor),  Reasons  for  Doubt 

in  the  Church  of  Rome,  a  Replv,  361- 

366 

—  Rejoinder  to,  516-520 

Carbonic  acid  gas,  explosion   of,   in  a 

coal-mine,  530-532 
Carlisle  (Bishop  of),   God  and  Nature, 

503-515 
Carpenter  (Dr.  W.  B.),  The  Deep  Sea 

and  its  Contents,  593-618 
Caspian,   Russia's   movements    on    the 

eastern  shore  of  the,  925 
Catholic  Church,  the,  1016 
Chalcedon,  Council  of,  28th  canon  of 

the,  365,  518-520 

'  Challenger'  expedition,  the,  593-595 
Chelmsford,  Lord,  and  the  Zulu    War, 

216-234 

—Reply  to,  434-442 
Chlorine,  whether  a  simple  or  a  com- 
pound body,  521-527 
Christianity,     introduction      of,      into 

France,  259-262 

—  early,  assimilation  of  heathen  rites 
by,  808 

Christians,  condition  of,  in  the  reign  of 

Marcus  Aurelius,  754-755 
Church,  Purchase  in  the,  78-92 
Church  of  England,  parties  in  the,  318- 

320 

—  episcopal  jurisdiction  in  the,  320- 
326 

—the  Reformation  of  the,  326-327 

—  the  Ritual  question  in  the,  330-332 

—  ritual  use  of  flowers  in  the,  811-815 
Church  and  State,  mutual  relations  of, 

258-259 


DIA 

Churches,    City,  the  proper    Vse  of  thef 

486-492 
Clapperton  (Miss  J.  H.),  Agnosticism 

and  Women,  a  Reply,  840-844 
Classics,  study  of  the,  423 
Coal-mine,   explosion  of  carbonic  acid 

gas  in  a,  530-532 
Cobden  (Mr.)  on  the  qualification  for 

the  county  vote,  quoted,  447-448 
Collier  (Sir  R.  P.),  Landscape-painting, 

1040-1056 
Colonies,  representation  of  the,  in  the 

Imperial  Parliament,  412 
Commerce,   Free   Trade,  Railways,  and 

the  Growth  of,  367-379 
Commodus,  treatment  of,  by  his  fathsr 

Marcus  Aurelius,  753 
Commons,  the  Docility  of  an  Imperial 

House  of,  557-566 
Communion,   the   Romish   practice    ofr 

362-363,  516-517 
Conscience,  the  positivist's  conception  of, 

759-7liO 

Conservative  Party,  the,  and  the  late  Elec- 
tion, 1057-1064 
Constantinople,  future  of,  665 
Conway  (Moncure  D.),   The  Pound  of 

Flesh,  828-839 

Corot,  landscape  painting  of,  1052 
Corpus  Christi,  festival  of,  817 
Correspondents,  Newspaper,  in  the  Field, 

434-442 

—  War,  and  the  Aut,horiti?$,  185-196 
Counties,  household  suffrage  in  the,  446- 

447 

Cox,  water-colour  work  of,  1053 
Crime,  definition  of,  145-146 

—  the  common  law  relating  to,  152- 
153 

—  punishment  of,  797-807 
Criminal  Code  (1879),  the,  136-160 
Criticism,  art,  248,  1054 
Cumberland,  statesmen  of,  499 
Cunliffe-Owen  (Fritz),  Russian  Nihilism  r 

1-26 

Cunningham  (Surgeon  D.),  on  the  patho- 
logy of  starvation,  535-537 

Cuvier,  the  fossil  opossum  of,  937-938 


DARBO  Y,  Monseigneur,  at  the  Vatican 
Council,  268 

Darwin  on  the  origin  of  species,  93 
Davy    (Sir  Humphry),   his  researches 

on  chlorine,  523-524 
Delesse  (M.),  on  an  explosion  of  carbonic 

acid  gas  in  a  coal-mine,  530 
Democracy,  267-268 
—  of  classic  times,  731-732 
Denmark,  ironclad  navy  of,  399 
De  Profundis,  737-741 
De'saugiers,  friendship  of,  with  BiSranger,. 

474 
Diamond,  explosion  of  a,  532 


IXDEX  TO    VOL.    VII. 


1111 


DIG 

Dicey  (Edward),    Our  Egyptian   Pro- 
tectorate, 333-352 

Dickens,  the  '  Bleak  House '  of,  945-946 
Dissenters,    political    attitude    of   the, 
631-633 

—  activity  of,  in  the  general  election, 
1059-1060 

Dissolution,  breach  of  decorum  in  the 
announcement  of  the,  558 

—  Lord  Beaconsfield's  declaration  con- 
cerning the,  558-559 

Doctors  and  Nurses,  1089-1108 

Donne,  John,  845-863 

Bubrowin,  the  Nihilist,  letters  found  on, 

5-6 
Duff  (M.  E.  Grant),  British  Interests  in 

the  East,  658-676 
Dulwich,  a  scene  at,  941-942 
Dunraven  (Earl  of),  Days  in  the  Woods, 

639-657 


~J?AST,  British  Interests  in  the,  658- 
&    676 

East,  errors  of  English  policy  in  the, 

918-919 

Easter,  decoration  of  churches  at,  815 
Eastern    Church,  marriage  service    of 

the,  821 

Eclipses,  prediction  of,  934 
Education,  modern,  51 

—  social  influence  of,  772 
Egypt,  British  interests  in,  667 

—  French  influence  in,  352 
Egyptian  Protectorate,  Our,  333-352 
Election,  a  Nonconformist's  View  of  the, 

628-637 

—  the  Conservative  Party  and  the  late, 
1057-1064 

Elections,  a    Conservative    View  of  the, 

905-916 
Elections,  Parliamentary,  compared  with 

School  Board,  458-459 

—  increasing  cost  of,  451,  459-463 
Electoral  districts,  equal,  the  scheme  of, 

445,  452-455 
Elizabeth,  Queen,  Dr.  Abbott  and,  107- 

127 
Ellenborough  ( Lord)  on  the  employment 

of  native   gentlemen   in  the    Indian 

army,  quoted,  706 
Elphinstone   versus   Purchas,  the    case 

of,  813-814 

England  and  Russia  in  Asia,  917-928 
England  as  a  Naval  Power,  389-405 
England,  Russia  and,  538-556 

—  Modern,  Familiar  Conversations  on, 
995-1019 

English-speaking  population,  spread  of, 

730,  733 

Englishmen,  national  pride  of,  252-253 
Essex,  the  declaration  of  treason  against, 

107-127 
Euphrates  Valley  Railway,  667 


GOD 

Euripides,  mental  characteristics  of.  61- 

62 
—  his  '  Hippolytus,'  63-64 


FAGGOT  votes,  447 
Fairbairn  (Mr.)  on  the  origin  of 

religion,  718-720 
Faith,  Catholic  doctrine  concerning  the, 

363-364,  517-518 
Famines,  relief  of,  537 
Faustina,  the  Empress,  744 
Federal  principles,  the  Home  Rulers' 

appeal  to,  567-568,  575-576 
Fiction— Fair  and  Foul,  941-962 
Fielding,  the  '  Tom  Jones '  of,  426 
Fitzgerald  (Peter),  7mA  Land  Agitation, 

493 
Fleck,  the  German  actor,  Tieck's  account 

of,  277-278 

Flesh,  the  Pound  of,  828-839 
Floicers,  the  Ceremonial  Use  of,  808-827 
Foraminifera,  sea-depth  at  which  they 

can  live,  532-534 
Forbes  (Archibald),  War  Correspondents 

and  the  Authorities,  185-196 

—  Lord  Chelmsford  and  the  Zulu   War, 
216-234 

—  Reply  to,  434-442 
Fossils,  study  of,  934-937 

France,  the    drama    under    Louis  the 
Fourteenth  in,  64-66 

—  influence  of,  in  Egypt,  352 

—  navy  of,  397-399,  402 
Franchise,  the,  in  boroughs  and  counties, 

446.  448-451 
Free   Trade,  Railways,  and  the   Growth 

of  Commerce,  367-379 
Frere  (J.  Hookham),  anecdote  of,  41 


p  ANDAMAK,  treaty  of,  200-202 
\JT     Gardening,  Old-fashioned,  128-135 
Geary  (Mr.  Grattan),  on  official  corrup- 
tion in  Persia,  671 
Geikie  (Professor)  on  oceanic  deposits, 

quoted,  603 
Genera  and  Species,  the  Origin   of,  93- 

106 

Germany,  interference  of,  in  Egyptian 
affairs,  339 

—  ironclad  navy  of,  399 

—  alliance  of,  with  Austria,  550 
Ghazni,  208 

Gladstone  (Rt.  Hon.  W.  E.),  Russia  ana 
England,  538-556 

—  Religion,  Achaian  and  Semitic,  710- 
725 

Gleig  (Rev.  Mr.)  on  native  Indian 
armies,  quoted,  686,  688-689 

Globigerina  ooze,  deposited  on  the  ocean- 
bed,  603-604 

Gobel,  the  apostate  bishop,  264 

God  and  Nature,  503-515 

E2 


1112 


INDEX  TO    VOL.    VII. 


GOL 

Golownine,  educational  reforms  of,  12-13 
Greece,  the  drama  of,  60-01 

—  ironclad  navy  of,  399 

—  British  interests  in,  659-661 

—  condition  of,  1022-1023 

Gregory  the  Great,  his  judgment  con- 
cerning the  universal  bishop,  269 

Gulf  Stream,  effect  of,  on  the  climate  of 
Europe,  609-612 

Gull  (Dr.  William  W.),  The  Nursing 
Crisis  at  Guys  Hospital,  884-891 

Guy's  Hospital,  The  Nursing  Crisis  at, 
677-684,  884-904 


HABERSHON     (Dr.     S.    O-V  The 
Nursing  Crisis  at  Guy's  Hospital, 
892-901 

Haeckel  (Ernst),  on  the  origin  of  matter, 
quoted,  505-506 

—  on  the  absence  of  purpose  in  nature, 
quoted,  500 

Hainoir  (M.),  on  French  farming,  315 

Harding,  paintings  of,  1051 

Hartley  (Professor),  researches  of,  on 

actinic  absorption,  529 
Hayes  river,  651 
Hazlitt,  his  criticism  of  the  elder  Kean's 

Hamlet,  292-293 
Henriques   (Alfred    G.),  The    Nursing 

Vi-isis  at  Guy's  Hospital,  902-904 
Herat,  669 

—  future  of,  210-212,  670 
Herzen  (Alexander),  18 
Hillebrand  (Karl),  Familiar  Conversa- 
tions on  Modern  England,  995-1019 

History,  the  proper  study  of,  761-763 

—  conditions  of  writing,  933 
Hogarth,  art  claims  of,  254-255 
Holland,  ironclad  navy  of,  399 

Home  Rule,  the  Common  Sense  of,  406- 
421 

—  A  Reply,  567-582 

—  A  Rejoinder,  583-592 

Homer,  sense  of  natural  beauty  in,  1040 
Homeric  poems,  traces  of  Semitic  tradi- 
tions in,  722-725 
Horse,  palaeontology  of  the,  939 
Hospitals,   nursing  in,   677-684,  884- 

904, 1089-1108 
Hudson's  Straits,  650 
Hunt  (A.  W.)  Modem  English  Land- 
scape-painting, 778-794 

—  (Leigh),  criticism  of,  428 
Huntington  (Professor),  researches  of, 

on  actinic  absorption,  529 
Huxley  (Prof.  T.  H.),  On  the  Method 
ofZadiff,  929-940 

TCEBERGS    of   the    Antarctic    Sea, 
1    612-615 

Immaculate  conception,  doctrine  of  the, 
364,  517 


LAN 

Imperialism  and  Socialism,  720-706 
India,  Native  Armies  of,  685-709 

—  some   Indian   Suggestions  for,  903- 
978 

India,  our  duties  in,  076 

—  the  defence  of,  734-735 

—  the  real  danger  of,  735 

—  condition  of,  908, 1086-1088 
Indian  Finance,  the  Crisis  in,  1065-1077 

—  Budget  Estimates,  the,  1078-1088 
Ireland,  the   old  Parliament  of,  417- 
418,  574-575 

—  discussion  of  measures  relating  to,  in 
the  Imperial  Parliament,  409,  41 4-=- 
416,  572 

—  the  famine  of  1846  in,  498 

—  the  arithmetic   of    absenteeism   in. 
500-501 

Irish  Absenteeism,  871-883 
Irish  Land  Agitation,  493-502 
Irish   Parliament,   the    business   of    a, 
407-409 

—  its  probable   policy,  418-419,  576— 
578,  589 

Iron,  meteoric,  found  on  the  ocean-bed, 

603 
Irons  (Dr.),  on  the  authority  of  bishops, 

quoted,  325 
Isandlwana,  the  responsibility  for,  122- 

123 

Islands,  volcanic  origin  of,  600-601 
Italy,  ironclad  navy  of,  399 


JAPANESE,  De  Mandelso's  notice  of 

d      the,  250 

Jephson  (Henry  L.),  Irish  Absenteeism, 

871-883 

Jersey,  farming  in,  311-312 
Jingoes,  two  kinds  of,  058 


"IT"  ANDAIIAR,  importance  of,  to  Eug- 

JY     land,  208-210,  922,  924 

Kaye  (Sir  John)  on  the  Indian  Sepoy 

army,  quoted,  685-080, 089,  693 
Keau  (Edmund),  acting  of,  291-295 
Kebbel  (T.  E.),  A  Conservative  View  of 

the  Elections,  905-910 
—  the   Conservative  Party  and  the  late 

Election,  a  Sequel,  1057-1004 
Kemble  (Charles),  Tieck's  account   of 

his  acting,  289-290 
RemUe  (John},  an  Eye-witness  of,  270- 

290 
Khedive,  deposition  of  the,  339-341 


LAIXG  (Samuel),  The  Crhisin  Indian 
Finance,  1005-1077 
Lambert  (Miss  Agnes),  The  Ceremonial 

Use  of  Flowers,  808-827 
Land.  Free,  and  Peasant  Proprietorship, 
297-317 


ISDEX   TO    VOL.    VII. 


1113 


LAN 

Land,  property  in,  501 
—  laws  relating  to,  in  India,  97G-977 

—  ratio  of,  to  the  sea,  599 

Land  Act,  provisions  of  the,  relating  to 

Irish  farmers,  495 
Land  tenures  subject  to  a  tribute  of 

flowers,  825-820 
Landscape-Painting,  1 040-1 050 

—  Modern  English,  778-794 
La  Salette,  the  Virgin  of,  270 
Lathbury      (Mrs.),     Agnosticism     and 

Women,  619-627 

—  Reply  to,  840-844 

Lawrence   (Sir  Henry)   on  the  native 

Indian  army,  quoted,  690 
Layard  (Sir  Henry),  his  futile  pressure 

of  reforms  on  the  Turks,  102(5-1027 
Lewes  (Mr.  G.),his  opinion  of  Rachel's 

acting,  quoted,  76-77 
Liberal  party,  unchanged  principles  of 

the,  557 

—  present  condition  of  the,  629-630 

—  causes  of  the  victory  of  the,  1058- 
1061 

Liberalism,  atheistic,  school  of,  758-759 
License  tax,  the  Indian,  964,  1065 
Listen,  Tieck's   opinion  of  his   acting, 

280,  290 
Literature,  Sham  Admiration  in,  422- 

434 
London  Hospital,  system  of  nursing  at 

the,  902-904 
Lonsdale  (Margaret),  The  Present  Crisis 

at  Guy's  Hospital.  077-084, 1 1 05-1 1 08 

—  Replies  to,  884-904,  1089-1104 
Louis  the  Fourteenth,  his  patronage  of 

the  drama,  65 
Lowe  (Rt.  Hon.  Robert),  The  Docility 

of  an   Imperial  House  of  Commons, 

557-566 
Loyson     (Hyacinthe),     Paganism      in 

Paris,  256-275 
Lutetia,  256 
Lyttelton  (Hon.  Edward),  Athletics  in 

"Public  Schools,  43-57 


MO  OARTHY  (Justin),  The  Common 
Sense   of   Home   Rule,   406-421, 
583-592 

Mackay  (Dr.  Charles),  Burns  and  St- 
ranger, 464-485 

Macready,  his  opinion  of  Rachel's  acting, 
quoted,  76 

—  acting  of,  291 

Malcolm  (Sir  John),  on  the  British  con- 
quest of  India,  685 

—  on  the  Indian  native  army,  688 
Mallock  (W.  H.),  Atheistic  Methodism, 

161-184 

—  Atheism  and  the  Rights  of  Man,  756- 
777 

Manganese,  deposits  of,  found   on  the 
ocean-bed,  602-603 


KOU 

Marc-Aurelc,  742-755 

Marsupial  bones,  the  so-called,  of  opos- 
sums, 958 

Martin  (Abbe),  his  view  of  Ritualism, 
331 

Martin  (Theodore),  An  Eye-icitness  of 
John  KemUe,  '276-296 

Melgund  (Viscount),  Newspaper  Corre- 
spondents in  the  Field,  434-442 

Methodism,  influence  of,  on  the  national 
life,  1008 

Meyer  (Professors),  experiments  of,  with 
chlorine,  524-527 

Midlothian,  the  '  faggot '  vote  in,  447 

Mind,  the  inquiry  into  the  origin  of,  353- 
354 

—  its  bearing  on  the  question  of  the 
connection  between  mind  and  matter, 
354-360 

Ministry,  functions  of  the,  560 
Minority  vote,  the,  456-459 
Minto  (William),  John  Donne,  845-863 
Moffussil,  administration   of  justice   in 

the,  976  note 
Montmartre,  the  church  of  the  Sacred 

Heart  at,  270-271 
Moore  (Dr.),  his  judgment  of  Burns, 

quoted,  468  . 
Moose-hunting,  641-657 
Mosely   (Mr.),  his    investigations    into 

the  anatomical  structure  of  Peripatus, 

534 

—  on  the  mode  of  subsistence  of  deep- 
sea  animals,  616 

Munro  (General  Sir  T.),  on  British 
government  in  India,  quoted,  690-691, 
707-708 


"YTATIONAL  Gallery,  the,  984-986 
JLi     Natural  selection,  origin  of  species 

by,  94-106 

Nature,  God  and,  503-515 
Nature,    truth  to,  in   painting,   1047- 

1049 

Naval  Reserve,  the  Royal,  394 
Navy,  British,  personnel  of  the,  391-395 

—  materiel  of  the,  395-401 

—  capabilities  of  the,  401-404 
Nelson  river,  651 

Netchai'eff,  a  Russian  Nihilist,  19-20 

Nihilism,  Russian,  1-26 

Nihilism,  political  significance  of,  553- 

555 
Nonconformist's    View   of  the,  Election, 

628-637 
Non-metals,  possibility  of  decomposing, 

by  means  of  heat,  527-529 
Northcote  (Rev.  A.  F.),  Ritualists  and 

Anglicans,  318-332 

—  («r     Stafford),     address    of,     560, 
563 

Norton   (Lord),  Penal  Servitude,  795- 
807 


1114 


INDEX   TO    VOL.    VII. 


NOR 


Norway,  ironclad  navy  of,  399 
Nubar  Pasha,  345 

Nursing  Crisis  at  Guy's  Hospital,  077- 
684,  884-904 


OCEAN,  deposits  found  on  the  bed  of 
the,  601-605 

—  temperature  of  the,  606-612 
Ocean-basins,  depth  and  configuration  of 

the,  595-599 

O'Neill  (Miss),  acting  of,  290-291 
Opium  revenue,  the,  1073-1074 
Opossum,  the  fossil,   of  Cuvier,   937- 
938 


-pAGANISMin  Paris,  256-275 
-*-       Painting,  Landscape,  1040-1056 

—  Modern  English,  778-794 
Palaeontology,  the  science  of,  934-935 
Parkinson  (John),  his  work  on  English 

horticulture,  129-135 
Parliament,  local  and  private  bill  legis- 
lation in,  409-411 

—  legislative  breakdown  of,  413-414, 
573 

—  discussion  of  Irish  affairs  in,  409,  414 
-416, 572 

—  duties  of,  560-561 

—  degrading  conduct  of  the  late,  562 

—  the  dissolution  of,  558-560 
Parthenon  fragments,  the.  248 
Parties,  political  vicissitudes  of,  908-91 1 
Paul  (Mrs.  M.  A.),  Old-fashioned  Gar- 
dening, 128-135 

—  (C.  Kegan),   The  proper    Use  of  the 
City  Churches,  480-492 

Payn,  James,  Sham  Admiration  in 
Literature,  422-434 

—  The  Pinch  of  Poverty,  864-870 
Pears  (Edwin),   A  Programme  of  Re- 
forms for  Turkey,  1020-1039 

Peasant  Proprietorship,  Free  Land  and, 
297-317 

Pecock  (Bishop)  on  the  celebration  of 
St.  John's  Day,  813 

Penal  Servitude," 795-807 

Pentacrinus,  new  species  of,  from  the 
deep  sea,  617-618 

Pentecost,  floral  customs  connected  with 
the  feast  of,  810-811 

Peripatus,  anatomical  affinities  of.  534 

Persia,  British  interests  in,  609-075 

Personality,  the  attribute  of,  509-511 

Phadra  and  Phedre,  58-77 

Phosphorus,  function  of,  in  the  brain, 
509 

Pictet  (Professor  Raoul),  experiments 
of,  on  the  decomposition  of  non- 
metals  by  means  of  he;it,  527-529 

Pitt,  Canning's  connection  with,  32-33 

Plant?,  tendency  of,  to  seek  the  light, 
514 


EOL' 

Plevna,  Mr.  Forbes's  telegram  from,  191 , 

435 

Poetry,  Elizabethan,  847-848 
Pope," infallibility  of  the,  269,  304,  513 
Portugal,  ironclad  navy  of,  399 
Positive  school,  the,  in  France,  266 
Poverty,  the  Pinch  of,  864-870 
Power  (Mr.  O'Connor),  a  reply  to,  403- 

502 

Poynter  (Mr.)  on  the  popular  apprecia- 
tion of  pictures,  1054  note 
Pre-Raphaelite  movement,  the,  778-779 
Presentations,  next,  sale  of,  80 
Prophecy,  retrospective,  as  a  function  of 

science,  931-940 
Protection,  injurious  effect  of,  on  the 

growth  of  national  wealth,  376-377 
Psychology,  Historical,  353-360 
Puller    (Rev.    F.    W.)    on    canonical 

obedience,  324 

Purchase  in  the  Church,  78-92 
Pyrolusite,  an  ore  of  manganese,  522 


RABELAIS,  the  book  of,  430 
Rachel,  acting  of,  in  the  part  of 
Phedre,  75-77 

Racine,  his  adaptations  of  Greek  tragedy, 
66 

—  comparison  of  his  '  Phedre '  with  the 
'  Ilippolytus  '  of  Euripides,  67-74 

Saffwaytf  Free  Trade,  and  the  Growth 

of  Commerce,  367-379 
Rawlinson  (Sir  II.  C.),  The,  Situation  in 

Afghanistan,  197-215 
Realism,  pictorial,  1049-1050 
Redclitl'e     (Viscount      Stratford      de), 

George    Canning,  his   Character  and 

Motives,  27-42 
Redesdale  (Lord),  Seasons  for  Doubt  in 

the  Church  of  Home,  a  Rejoinder,  516 

-520 

Reform  Rill,  the.  next,  433-463 
Reformation,  the,  in  England,  320-327 
Religion,  Achaian  and  Semitic,  710-725 
Renan  (Ernest),  Marc-Aurele,  742-755 
Representation,  redistribution  of,  445- 

454 
Riaz   Pasha,   his    appointment    as   the 

Khedive's  Prime  Minister,  345-340 
Ritualists  and  Anglicans,  318-332 
Roberts   (General),  recent    movements 

of,  in  Afghanistan,  202 
Robinson  (Sir   Robert   Spencer),   Eng- 
land as  a  Naval  Power,  389-405 

—  (J.  ('.),  Our  National  Art.  Collection* 
and  Provincial  Art  Museums,  979-994 

Rogers  (Rev.  J.  Guinness).  A  Noncon- 
formist's View  of  the  Election,  028- 
'637 

Rome,  paganism  of  ancient,  257-258 

Rom*,  Reasons  for  Doubt  in  the  Church 
of,  361-300,  510-520 

Roumania,  condition  of,  1022 


INDEX   TO    VOL.    VII. 


1115 


KITS 

Ruskin  (John),  Fiction — Fair  and  Foul, 

941-962 
Russia,  character  and  condition  of  the 

people  of,  10-12 

—  incendiarism  in,  22 

—  working  of  the  new  judicial  system 
in,  22-23 

—  interest  of,  in  the   Afghan  frontier 
question,  207-208,  212-213 

—  peasant  landowners  of,  316 

—  ironclad  navy  of,  399 

—  British  interest  in,  667-669 
Russia  and  England,  538-556 
Russia,  England  and,  in  Asia,  917-928 
Russian  Nihilism,  1-26 

Ryot,  the  Indian,  977 


ST.  PETERSBURG,  the  explosion  at, 
553 

Salisbury  (Lord),  on  peasant  proprietor- 
ship, 314-315 

Saskatchewan  rivers,  the,  648 

Sassoulitch  (Vera),  trial  of,  21 

Scheele,  discovery  of  chlorine  by,  521- 
522 

Schools,  Public,  Athletics  in,  43-57 

Science,  Recent,  521-537 

Science  atheous,  not  atheistic,  503-504, 
515 

'Scientific  frontier '  question,  the,  922- 
923 

Scotch,  sense  of  wit  and  humour  among 
the,  467 

Scotch  dialect,  the,  957-962 

Scotland,  Home  Rule  for,  411,  416 

Scott  (Sir  Walter),  character  of  his 
fiction,  946-948,  952-962 

Sea,  the  Deep,  and  its  Contents,  593-61 8 

Seebohm  (F.),  Imperialism  and  Social- 
ism, 726-736 

Shakespeare,  the  Shylock  of,  828-829 

Sharkey  (Dr.  Seymour  J.),  Doctors  and 
Nurses,  1097-1104 

Shaw  (Mr.),  on  the  meaning  of  Home 
Rule,  quoted,  570 

Shir  Ali,  policy  of,  198-200,  920-921 

Siddons  (Mrs.),  acting  of,  282,  286  note. 
_288 

Sidgwick  (Henry),  On  Historical  Psy- 
chology, 353-360 

Simla,  the  annual  migration  to,  973-974 

Simony,  78-80 

Sion  College,  proposed  demolition  of, 
486 

Socialism,  Imperialism  and,  726-736 

Solowjew,  a  Russian  Nihilist,  history 
of,  15-16 

South  Kensington  Museum,  the,  986-993 

Spain,  ironclad  navy  of,  399 

Species  and  Genera,  the  Origin  of,  93- 
106 

Spedding  (James),  Dr.  Ablott  and 
Queen  Elizabeth,  107-127 


ULU 

Spencer  (Herbert),  his  '  Data  of  Ethics,' 

161 

Spenser,  the  '  Faery  Queen '  of,  427-428 
Starvation,  pathology  of,  535-537 
Stephen  (Justice),  The  Criminal  Code. 

(1879),  136-160 
Strachey  (Lieutenant-General  Richard), 

The  Indian  Budget  Estimates,  1078- 

1088 

—  (Sir  John),  erroneous  financial  state- 
ment of,  1069-1072,  1078 
Sturges  (Dr.  O.),  Doctors  and  Nurses, 

1089-1096 
Suez  Canal,  the   purchase  of  shares  in 

the,  667 
Suffrage,  the  question  of  an  extension  of 

the,  445-454 

'  Sunset  law,'  so-called,  of  India,  975 
Superstition,  a  form  of  paganism,  268 
Sweden,  ironclad  navy  of,  399 


rr.ENANTS-AT-WILL,     Irish,    499- 
JL     500 

Tennyson  (Alfred),  De  Profimdis,  737- 
741 

—  (Lionel),   Phesdra  and  Phedre,  58- 
77 

Tetzel,  79 

Tewfik  Pasha,  343-344 

Theatrical  criticism,  58-59 

Thomassinus      on     the    authority     of 

bishops,  quoted,  324 
Tieck,  his  criticism  of  John  Kemble's 

acting,  276-296 
Tolstoy  (Count),  his  administration  of 

the  Russian  educational  department, 

13-15 
Tombs,  the  custom  of  laying  flowers  onr 

822-825 
Toryism,  relation  of,  to  Russian  policy, 

541-542 
Tracheata,  anatomical  structure  of,  534- 

535 
Tschernvschewsky,  his  Nihilistic  novel, 

'  What  is  to  be  done  ?  '  6-10 
Turkestan,  Eastern,  'Russian  policy  in, 

925-926 
Turkey,  a  Programme  of  Reforms  for, 

1020-1039 
Turkey,  ironclad  navy  of,  399 

—  British  interests  in,  661-667 
Turkish  war,  causes  of  the,  539-541 
Turner,  management  of  colour  bv,  791- 

794 

—  faults  of  his  painting,  1047-1050 


TTLTRAMONTANISM,      intellectual 
U     and  moral  aspects  of,  271-273 
Ulundi,  Lord  Chelmsford's  proceedings 
subsequent  to,  231-234 


1111) 


INDEX  TO    VOL.    VII. 


YAM 

T7AMBEKY  (Prof.  A.),  England  and 
V      Russia  in  Asia,  017-928 
Vatican   Council,  conduct    of   French 

bishops  at  the,  268-269 
Vivian  (Mr.),  policy  of,  in  E^ypt,  335- 

336 
Voltaire,  his  story  of '  Zadig,'  929-930 


WALLACE  (Alfred  11.),  The  Origin 
of  Species  and  Genera,  93-1 06 

War  Correspondents  and  the  Authori- 
ties, 185-196 

Water-colour,  the  English  school  of, 
1053 

Watts  (G.  F.),  The  present  Conditions 
of  Art,  235-255 

Wesley,  1002,  1007, 1009 

West,  English-speaking  peoples  of  the, 
730,  733 


"Will,  the  human,  507-508 

Wilson  (E.  D.  J.),  The,   Common-sense 

of  Home  Rule,  a  Reply,  567-582 
Winnipeg,  Lake,  648,  650 
Women,    Agnosticism    and,    619-627, 

840-844 
Woods,  Days  in  the,  639-657 


TJTACUB  Khan,  his  alleged  explana- 
JL      tions  of  his  father's  policy,  198 
—  his  abdication  and  its  consequence?, 

202-203 
Young  (Charles),  acting  of,  289 


,  On  the  Method  of,  929-940 
Zulu   War,  Lord   Che'lmsford  and 
the,  216-234 
—  Reply  to,  434-442 


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